Rented Home? You Can Still Make It Your Own

Your home is more than just a space in which you eat and sleep. It’s your refuge. Your armor against the world and all its woes and stressors. It’s the space within which you should be able to kick off your shoes, let your hair down and be yourself. Now more than ever, in the face of a world that has just become a lot more dangerous and forbidding, we need a space where we can let go of our stress. Because when we carry it around with us, all day every day, it can lead to some pretty ruinous health outcomes. 

However, a relaxing and intimately personal living space can be hard to achieve when you’re living in a rented home. Your landlord will likely already have supplied the property with furniture and will have placed restrictions on what you can and cannot do with the space. They will (quite understandably) expect to find the space in much the same condition as it was when they left it. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make the space your own…

Talk to your landlord

If you’re thinking of painting your walls or laying down new flooring, don’t assume that your landlord will forbid such changes out of hand. At the same time, however, don’t just go ahead and make big changes without consulting them. Talk to them, and see if they’re amenable to making changes. If it adds to the property’s value or marketability, they may be okay with it. Just be wary of decorating in any way that’s too esoteric. Landlords want their properties to have a broad appeal and as such may rail against bold colors etc. 

Consider investing in a storage unit

If you want to buy your own furniture, but your home comes pre-furnished, you might want to consider renting out a local storage unit for the length of your tenancy. This will give you somewhere safe and secure in which you can store your landlord’s furniture and allow you more freedom to make the space your own. 

Wear your personality on your walls

Most landlords will be permissive of allowing tenants to hang their own photos, art and other decorative items on their walls so long as they don’t require permanent modifications. So use your walls as an opportunity to express yourself and let your personality shine. Invest in a wall canvas that reflects your taste in art. Hang framed photos of your friends and family. You may even want to use a wall throw to decorate large vertical spaces.

Consider non-permanent solutions to personalize your space

Finally, if your landlord won’t allow you to drill holes into the walls, that doesn’t mean that you can’t put up display shelves for your books and other goodies. There are lots of double sided adhesive tapes which use nano gel to create a super strong bond with the wall that will be more than capable of supporting load bearing shelves. Best of all, the tape peels right off when not in use without damage to the wall. 

There are all kinds of non-permanent ways like this in which you can make your space your own.