If you’re renting, you will know all about the struggle to make your house feel like a home. With restrictions on what you can paint, hang, or install it can be difficult to feel fully settled.
It is estimated that 4.5million families – one in five households – live in rented accommodation, with purchasing increasingly rising out of reach for many.
Just because you don’t own your space, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make it feel like your own by adding a splash of your personality to your living quarters.
Think outside (or inside) the box
If your living space allows it, why not add a bookcase a few sizes bigger than you need to house your books.
Those extra spaces could be filled with plants, photo frames, or any other way in which you want to add a splash of you to the room you ought to feel most relaxed in.
Let there be light
An inability to change the fixtures and fittings might mean that you have to put up with a dim glow from the end of a flex of wire sticking out the ceiling – but there are ways you can add to that lonely lightbulb.
Bundle some stringed outdoor lights into a glass vase to brighten up a dark corner of the bedroom, utilise freestanding lamps to give living areas a cosy feel or lean a full-length mirror against a wall to throw natural sunlight across your space.
Bring the outside in
Many more of those who rent are living in apartment blocks as they spring up in towns and cities across the UK.
While that may come with location benefits for your work, it might deny you an outdoor space.
If this is so, utilise house plants throughout your dwelling and bring a bit of greenery to the urban jungle.
Add some accessories
Whether your furniture is yours or your landlord’s, you can give it your own personal twist by adding cushions or throws to suit your taste.
You might be able to change its appearance entirely with a sofa cover, changing the colour and feel of the couch without the need to have an awkward conversation with the homeowner first!
Don’t get down about your floors
If you’ve got sad carpets or bland floorboards, another way to add colour, texture and life is a statement rug.
Whether it’s a deep pile for burying your toes into, or a jazzy pattern to add some zip to the room, looking down might mean things are looking up for you!
