Apartments and rentals tend to come as plain and boring as possible to appeal to the masses. We need a way to make the space our own instead of making the space everyone else’s. There are so many ways you can make it your own, but we have a few ideas to get you started on your journey. Whether you’re only renting for a few months or a few years, these ideas will be easy, cheap, and fun. As always, we are only giving you landlord approved designs. Let’s get your apartment ready for the cover of Architectural Digest, shall we?
Paint - If you can’t paint, you will want to accessorize with as much color as possible. Making sure all of your accent colors are on everything listed below instead of relying on a wall color. If you can paint, do it! Don’t go too overboard, though, because you will more than likely have to paint it back to the original color before your lease ends. Pick one wall in each room as an accent wall to give a beautiful pop of color to the room without overwhelming the room. This recommendation goes for owners too. Save yourself the time, effort, and money by painting an accent wall in every room. You can even do this in a bathroom if you want. If you’re working on a tight budget I would recommend Behr or low grade Sherwin Williams paint. If you’re not on a budget, I would recommend high-grade Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore paint.
Since most apartments have few windows for natural lighting, I would recommend lighter colors as opposed to dark colors. Dark colors will make an already small room feel smaller. Your goal is not to make the room feel smaller but instead make it feel bigger. The brighter and lighter the color, the bigger the room will feel. If you want to go for a moody dark color, by all means, go for it, but just remember you run the risk of creating a tiny room. Light and bright always wins.
Contact Paper - This stuff is the best creation since sliced bread. It is so underrated. You can use contact paper on your fridge, dishwasher, cabinets, shelves, tables, counters, and more. It can be used in any room on any smooth flat surface. You can cut the contact paper precisely to size and quickly line up the seams to make the patterns look seamless. They come in plain colors, marble patterns, wood patterns, matte, high gloss, metallic, etc. You can find rolls of contact paper on Amazon for usually less than $30. Contact paper is perfect for covering up those ugly 70’s Formica counters in your kitchen and bathroom. Giving your cheap Walmart or Ikea desk, that gorgeous marble looks for a twelfth the cost. You are refacing your cabinets without spending thousands to do so. The best part is when you want to change them or need to take it off, and they peel right off with no damage to the existing surface. Click here for the Amazon link.
Pillows & Throws - You can never have too many cute pillows for your sofa or bed. They can set the vibe or theme of a room, and of course, they are a great way to add pops of color to accent a room. I always work in groups of three, five, or seven. After seven, you’re getting a little crazy. Lol. Nothing personal, but your bed and sofa will look more like a mess than anything. You can start with three then work your way up over time if you want. Cute pillows are always in production, and I’m sure you will always be able to find some. Bassett Furniture has a fantastic center to create custom pillows in any shape, size, and trim if you’re not worrying about a budget as they can run $60+ per pillow. Homegoods and Target always have low prices and excellent quality pillows too.
Throws are great to add some warmth and comfort to a room. I prefer to get mine at Homegoods because they have ones that are incredibly soft and extremely durable (even against my dogs). Now, I would only recommend to layout on your sofa or bed, one or two throws. You can always store extra in a closet or under the bed. Just like the pillows, it will begin to look a bit too messy if you have too many laid out.
Holiday Tip: The cutest way to redecorate for the holidays is by using pillows and throws. Have a handful of them stored away in a holiday storage box so when that time of year rolls aorund you will not only have a place for your regular decor to hide, but your entire everything will have a holiday overload. You can stick with the color scheme of the room or go big and bold with those crimson reds and pure greens. You can also be trendy with the blacks and plaids. They sound like a strange combination but they are very cute.
Lighting - I can’t stress this enough… you need light! We love light! Humans thrive in rooms with the most natural lighting, and since there is never much of this in an apartment, we have to make our own. Most residences today don’t come with any built-in lighting except in the bathroom, kitchen, or hallway. Your living spaces are the only areas of focus—two sources of light per room minimum. You always want variety with your light fixtures. Some aesthetically pleasing options in a room would be one ceiling light with two table lamps, one floor lamp with one table lamp and one accent light, or one floor lamp with two table lamps. You mainly would need ambient lighting for the majority of your needs, task lighting for your kitchen or work areas, and accent lighting if you want fun lights that aren't useful at illuminating a room.
Mirrors - These are the best illusionists of the design world. They make a room feel larger, and light reflects more. Imagine them as a window. Obviously, a fake window, but a window nonetheless. It is best to put a mirror on a wall that doesn’t have a window already to give even more of an illusion of having a larger room. Mirrors can get pretty pricey, but places like Wayfair and Homegoods tend to have amazing deals on the beautiful full body mirrors.
Framed art - Enough with the tapestry life; you’re not in a frat house. Let’s ramp up our classiness and frame some art. There are wonderfully inexpensive ways to do this. If you have an At Home store, Michael’s Craft Store, or Hobby Lobby, you can find multiple packs of frames for under $50. You can print fun images to match the colors of the room and quotes you love then cut them to fit your frames. Buying art is fun too. Target and Homegoods have great large art pieces that are super cheap. Don’t want to hang each frame? Put up a few shelves and sit your frames on top. Floating shelves allow you to move your art around as you please to find the perfect frame feng shui.
You can even buy plain canvas’ and paint your own art. You can have a get together with friends and have everyone join in painting art for your room. Pick colors that you want to accent your room, pour some wine, put on Mean Girls, and get to painting. Then every time your friends come over, they’ll feel appreciated that their art is proudly displayed in your home. I know it sounds cheesy but it will be cute.
Holiday Tip: Just like with your pillows and throws, you can store holiday art in your storage box. All of the cute song quotes and holiday characters on your wall add more to the festivities and make it look like you went to a lot of effort decorating your house for the holidays. How many people have special art for different holidays? Spooky spiders and witches for Halloween; snowmen and reindeer for Christmas; fireworks and flags for July 4th. All of these are easy to buy or easy to make and will not break the bank by any means.
Plants - These aren’t necessary, but they are always an excellent little additive to any room. You can do real or fake. Perhaps a combo of both depending on how good you are at remembering to water plants or want no maintenance but dusting. Plants and flowers are a great addition because, as humans, we always want to connect with nature, and this is one easy way of bringing nature into a home. Plants real or fake tend to add a nice texture to your room accessories and give a space nice dimension. You no need overdo plants in a room. At some point, you create a jungle if you have too many in a space. One/two plants in a small room or two/three in a large room are plenty. I love myself a delicate white flower to go with any room and any scheme, but if you are not painting your walls, I would suggest doing colored flowers to give that extra pop of color.
Applying each of these ideas to a room or all your rooms will make your bland boring apartment look like it is ready to be on the cover of Architectural Digest. Your friends will be jealous beyond words with how nice your place looks. You will feel like a king or queen living in one of the best-looking spaces in town. I hope these helpful tips serve you all well. Make sure to leave some love below in the comments or send some pictures. I would love to see how you’ve implemented these tips and how amazing your rooms look.
