How to customize your rental home (part 2)

Last week we gave 3 great ideas for customizing a home when you’ve moved into a rental. Sometimes a rental is a great financial decision. But it leaves out the fun of customizing the parts of your home that many like to feel more ‘permanent.’ It’s also not always worth your money to put investment into a home that’s not technically yours. But, you can still personalize your rental home with these great, affordable ideas! Here are more tips for projects to take on when you’ve moved into a rental in Vancouver.

More rental friendly decor ideas

4) Fake, removable wood and brick walls

You know that look in some home design magazines, where they show you a super cool lofty apartment that has exposed brick? Or these amazing wood walls that look like a country cabin? And you think ‘where do people FIND these homes to move into?’

Well, you can fake that when you move into a rental.

And there are a few ways to do it. Best of all, they are all temporary solutions. So, when you move out of a rental, you can easily take them down and the landlord won’t be upset!

Printed paper with moulding-made borders

This one is simple, and if you use 3M Command strips (without hooks of course), you can probably do this without holes too. Here is how one person did it. If you use finishing nails on the wood strip borders you’ll have tinier holes to patch on moving day, and they won’t look as obvious.

Faux texture with wall panels

You can buy wall panels at a hardware store that look like ‘real’ brick or wood, and other material. They run roughly $50 each (but check your local prices). You can cut and line them up to fit your accent wall in a rental. Or, if you like to DIY your own stuff, TheSorryGirls on YouTube posted a video about how they made their own faux brick white wall, bypassing the stucco plain walls in a rental suite.

Real wood planks on studs

This one is not as temporary as the other ideas, but also not that difficult to fix up after you move out of a rental. It’s also something the landlord may be ok with you keeping up, because it can look amazing. Here is a video giving you a basic idea of what’s involved in setting up a wood plank wall. Keep in mind, you can do this with pallet wood, which you can often find for free. See our article on how to find, and repurpose old wood pallets.

With a bit of creativity, you can plan to install your own stud points, like this video shows (except you’d want to match up your studs to studs behind the drywall, and use nails, not glue, to better protect the wall finish). By making your own studs, you can reduce the amount of damage you’ll make in the wall. Thereafter, if you do need to remove the real wood planks, you can simply use a wall filler, sandpaper and paint to patch up the holes.

A useful note: most paint stores can sell you a small bucket of about $5 worth of paint. If you tell them the code or name of the colour you painted with originally. Then, you can do touchups even more efficiently. Ask your landlord if they can get you this information. Or, take a sample of your surface to the paint store, and see if they can colour match it.

‘Brick looking’ tiles

This is not temporary at all, but we wanted to mention it, in case you can get away with it with your landlord, and don’t mind the investment. There are tiles that look like faux brick, to give you that brick wall feeling, if you choose to go this route. They also exist in faux wood style too!

5) Con-Tact Paper, wall vinyl stickers and removable, paintable wallpaper

These are a few things we’re bundling into one category for your exciting rental move in (you’re excited to decorate now, right?). These ideas all go on your walls, and they can all be removed.

Of course, test on a patch before you go at this – keeping in mind that if your walls are painted, and if they were painted incorrectly, even masking tape could theoretically remove the paint. For this one you may want to ask your landlord for the replacement paint colour, in case you need to do touch-ups after you move out (see note above).

Con-Tact Paper

This stuff is commonly known for being a shelf liner. Nowadays though, crafty people all over the internet are using it for ‘marbelizing’ their desks, cutting out their own stickers and covering up all sorts of things with amazing, removable designs.  TheSorryGirls did a video showing how they cut out triangles of copper Con-Tact paper to make a great-looking hallway entrance that could be removed or repositioned. You may need to run a blow dryer on old contact paper to remove it efficiently before you move again. Google is your friend in this department!

See how this appliance got a ‘stainless steel’ look with Cont-Tact paper. And, Cont-Tact paper comes in a frosty-window style as well, to give you some privacy. Here is how one person made her windows frosty, but interesting with Con-Tact paper.

Some go all out and use Cont-Tact paper like wallpaper too. Google the subject and you’ll be sure to find tons of inspiration.

Temporary, paintable wallpaper

Yes, this exists. It’s a thing. You can buy wallpaper that is meant to be removed, or meant to be painted over. EngineerYourSpace made a YouTube video showing how this can be done in a rental suite, along with tips for a custom backsplash in a rental.

Vinyl wall stickers

These are not new at all, and you’ve probably seen them pop up with popularity in the last few years. You can buy them inexpensively if you order online, and, you can even buy the material at a craft store to create your own, as this YouTube video explains.

Keep up the decorating even after you’ve moved in!

Of course, decorating and customizing your rental home doesn’t have to happen as soon as you move in. You can take your time to work on it, and to get things matching with your existing furniture. When you’re ready for more ideas, here are some additional articles to get your search underway!

• https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/10-temporary-removable-products-all-renters-should-know-about-206028?crlt.pid=camp.X5oPoht9Rfgo
• https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/5-budget-friendly-rental–upgrades-228252

And, if you’re looking for more information on moving into a rental, or allowing others to move into your own rental suite, check out these articles from our blog!

• Tips before a tenant moves in: BC tenancy, damage & pet deposits
• How-to Legalize Vancouver Suites Before Tenants Move In
• B.C. Residential Tenancy Act Tips: Rent Increases

Need to get started on your move?

Ferguson Moving Company in Vancouver BC is no new-comer when it comes to helping Vancouverites get into their new homes and apartments — we’ve been at it over 100 years, as Vancouver’s oldest running moving company! If you need help your move and for all of your moving and storage needs, call us at 604-922-2212 and we’ll help your move get started on firm footing!