10 Quick & Easy Upgrades (Rental Friendly!)

[Music] Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So, I wanted to make a video today going over just some ideas of ways you can make a rental space feel like your own. ways you can add some cozy charm to any space, whether it's yours just temporarily or permanently. I moved into a rental back in October, and I only signed a one-year lease, so you know, I should be out of here in October. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, but I only have a few months left here. And in the time I've been here, there's a few of these things that I'll be sharing with you um that I've done to make my space feel like my own. There's a few that I really wanted to do that I didn't get to and now I kind of feel like it's pointless because I really only have like a couple months left here. But if I were to be here for a longer period of time, if I knew I was going to be here a few years, cuz I know that that's a lot of us, right? A lot of us are signing multiple year contracts. So, some of these ideas will be really beneficial if you're just trying to make your space feel like your own. The first tip I want to share is I do feel like a lot of the time when we are renting, when we know a space is not our own, we use that as an excuse to not make it our own. And a very simple way to make it feel like your own space is to decorate it. I have a friend that, you know, she was like, "If I was renting a place, I would not have decorated it like you did." Like, I think I would have just left everything in my bins. And she's like, "But it really does feel like your old home. like all of your stuff here, it kind of has the same vibe. Like it still feels like that cozy feel. And really, it's just because I decorated it. So, I know that might sound like a really dumb tip to start with, but make it your own by filling it with your furniture and your decorations. Adding pictures on walls. There are ways you can do this without damaging the walls. You know, the command hooks or command strips, those work really well when it comes to decorating your space. adding some shelves or hutches with decor, coffee tables, rugs, pillows on your sofa. I mean, again, there's a million ways you can add cozy touches to your home without hurting any walls, without painting anything, without doing any cosmetic work. It's just adding decorations to your space. All right, this next one, I was so determined to do this, you guys, and it didn't work out, but that is to add a faux fireplace to your space. So, I have this enormous wall, this big wall that's right here behind the camera. And when I moved in, I was like, "This is what I'm doing." I got the idea from Pretty is I think her YouTube and her Instagram is Pretty in the Pines. And she did the most beautiful faux fireplace. So, you just get a fireplace around. She went on like Facebook Marketplace, I believe, and just had a little fireplace around sitting here. And that this was my idea when I first moved in here is that's what I was going to do for Christmas. I wanted to have a big fireplace, somewhere to hang all my stockings. I even went as far as I found one on Facebook Marketplace. I had it delivered here because I didn't have a car big enough to go and get it. And okay, well, one day after I had it delivered here, I asked one of my kids to go out and grab something from my car and he was not paying attention and he knocked it over and it broke and it's been laying down in my garage broken ever since. So, I never got to do this project. I wanted to and now again I feel like it's a little bit too late to even do this. But what I love about this idea is when you do move, you can just take this with you. So anything that I'm sharing, have that mindset like whatever I'm talking about, it's not temporary in this space, so you can take it with you when you move. I will have her YouTube video linked below on the tutorial of how she did this fireplace. I just loved the idea and I thought it would add such a beautiful touch on this wall, but again, never got around to it. So, we're still dealing with a broken fireplace in my garage right now. The third idea is to do temporary flooring. So, you can do this really anywhere. I probably most likely would be in bathrooms or in the kitchen. And I wanted to show you guys an example. I actually bought some just to show you this because the next place I live, I am doing this floor and it's I'm going to make it permanent, but it is temporary. It's pill and stick vinyls. Now, another thing that you can do is you can actually do pill and stick over contact paper. And I saw this idea. So, it's not doing any damage to the floor. That's the only thing people have said like some pill and stick flooring will still damage the floor. So, you don't want to be dealing with that. You don't want to be messing up anything in your rental. But, I will show a tutorial below that I watch where people add contact paper down and then they do the flooring and then it doesn't do any damage to the current floor. And again, you can take this with you when you move. And so that's another benefit. So this is the flooring. This is the Chris loves Julia. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with this floor tile. So it looks like actual marble flooring. And there's a variety of colors. So this one is the gray. What's this one? The gray and white. It looks like actual marble, you guys. I'm blown away. But the color that I wanted to show you, they just were out of stock. Um was this green and white marble flooring. I'm telling you, if I was still living in my other home, this would be in my bathroom or in my pantry, my butler's pantry. I'm going to show you a picture right here. We ended up doing the same wood floor in the pantry in the butler's pantry, but I think, you know, once I saw this, the green and the white marble, I would have laid this down in there for sure. I will, of course, have this flooring linked below for you guys. This is just off of Amazon, and it's beautiful. But again, if I knew I was going to be, let's say, in this home for a long period of time, that is something that I would do. Speaking of temporary pill and stick, let's also talk about temporary wallpaper. So, pill and stick wallpaper, I've never had it damage my walls, and I've used it in many rooms in my homes previously. That is a very easy way to make a room your own. And there is a million different varieties of pilling stick. I always first check out Amazon. I will have a couple of my favorite linked below, but that is another easy way and affordable way. Now, the only thing is once you pull it off, you cannot restick this. I've never had luck with it anyway. Once you pull it off, it's done. So, this would just be a temporary thing when you end up moving out. You would just remove and then your walls are as good as new. But the wallpaper will most likely be going in the trash. Adding some curtains is another way you can really add some charm to any of your spaces. That was the first thing that I did when I moved into this home. Um, here in the living room, there were no curtains and I knew, you know, adding some curtains up to the ceiling was going to make a big difference. And it did. After I had settled in and I got the curtains up, I remember the first like group of people that I had over, they were like, "It feels so different in here. It feels just like so cozy." And I knew that's because I added the curtains. My tip with curtains is to run the rod up as high as you can on the wall, like touching the ceiling, and have the curtains going all the way down to the floor. And that little trick alone will add a huge difference. Another idea that I had, and I got this from Pretty in the Pines as well, was to add some molding with some command strips. So, something else I wanted to do on this wall when I moved here was I wanted to find out the paint color, and I was going to get some molding and just add some decorative molding on this wall. Just again, because it's just a big plain wall, I thought adding the molding with some command strips and then doing the faux fireplace, it would have made the biggest difference on this wall. And I really regret that I didn't just knock this out when I first moved in. But again, we're coming up on May and I won't be here very much longer. So, this is not something that I'm looking to do now. But, if I knew I was going to be here a year or longer, that is something that I would have done. And I love the idea of just using command strips because you can just remove that and then when you get into a more permanent place, you can take all of this with you. I just think it's really cool the way people have found you can just do anything temporary. In fact, this was another idea. I watched a tutorial of someone doing an entire shiplap wall with command strips. I'm like, this is wild. But again, if I knew I was going to be somewhere for a long time, this is something that I would do. Command strips are just your best friend when it comes to having a rental. The next one is similar to this. Using some command strips, but adding molding around the mirrors in your bathroom, that can completely transform the space. The next three I would say I probably would do only again if I knew I was going to be here for a long period of time and that is to swap out the light switches. Now we all think of just the little white plastic light switches, right? But there are some beautiful those bronze gold light switches that add so much charm to your space. So this would be something that I would definitely consider swapping out my light switches as well as your light fixtures. So, I would just be taking down any of the light fixtures that I didn't love, placing them somewhere where they'll just be safe and replacing them with light fixtures that would go better in my space. Remember, as you are collecting these things, whether it's the light switches or the light fixtures or the trim or anything you are adding to this space, you are taking it with you when you leave. So, none of this is going to waste because you are going to take this when you leave. And the last one is to be swapping out hardware on your cabinets. This can completely again transform your space. I'm going to show you the cabinets that I have right now. I have loved having these dark cabinets. For me personally, I would be swapping these out to something more of like a bronzy gold knob versus these silver knobs. The hardware that you have on your cabinets is the first giveaway of an outdated kitchen. So, just swapping that out alone, whether you're living in a home that you own or you're living in a rental, swapping out the hardware on your cabinets can make the biggest difference. All right. Well, those were the 10 tips that I had for making your rental feel like your own place, adding some charm to your rental. And again, all of these tips can apply to if you have your own space, if you're not renting, but using materials like pill and stick flooring or the pill and stick wallpaper that are not permanent can really benefit you if you are living in a rental. So, that's it for today's video. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will link everything that I showed across the screen in the description below. So, be sure to check that out. If you haven't yet, hit that red subscribe button. Make sure you do that and I will see you guys in the next video. [Music]