I recently moved into a rental after nearly 20 years of having owned the places I've been living in. We sold our last house – a massive renovation project – but haven't yet found the home we want to call our own, so have slipped into a rental in the meantime.
Despite being a 200 year old home it's had most of the character stripped out. The owners have been running it as a rental for years, painting rooms white or gray, choosing neutral kitchen cabinets and making it as universally appealing and easy to maintain as possible.
And even though we'll be here for at least a year I've chosen not to decorate it, to live with the too-bright whites and the too-lilac grays. Why? Because there were so many other tricks I've been able to do that haven't involved any decorating and have this house feel like home. Here's how you can do it, too.
1. Styling the sofa
On the day we moved in, I was stressing about how much needed to be done. How I had to clean inside the cabinets before I could put our utensils and ingredients away (welcome to renting, folks!). My husband was in the living room, putting our corner sofa in the right place, artfully placing cushions across it. Our cushions. It didn't seem like a priority but styling the couch immediately made a cold room seem warm, made the house start to feel like a home.
'Anything that creates lushness is a good idea,' says the Florida-based designer Lisa Gilmore of Lisa Gilmore Design, who lives in her rental herself. 'As is anything you can take with you, and is inexpensive.' An overload of pillows was the first – and most surprisingly effective – step.
2. Using books as art
I wasn't even going to unpack my books in this home. I'm a Kindle man, myself, and prefer shelves to be home to a few artful objets rather than a home library. I always think they're calmer this way. But actually the books I do have are coffee table beauties, almost works of art in their own right, collected and loved over the years.
'I have an embarrassing amount of coffee table books,' Lisa says. 'And not a lot space for them. And so I started to have an open library [at the edge of my living room], where I pile the ones I'm reading for easy access.'
As you can see above, Lisa has utilized the characterful pillars to become home to her favorite tomes. 'I'm always rearranging them,' she says. By leaving books on display but, crucially, at the edges rather than in the way, they allow your rental to start telling the story of who you are and what you're interested in.
3. Grouping plants in pot colonies
Houseplants are a renter's secret weapon. Why? 'They create different feelings, and allow you to be so experimental,' Lisa says. She is a self-confessed plant mom in her own rental, and enjoys moving them about the space, hanging them, placing them on stools. 'I like them to place one on an antique stool,' she says, adding that, like pillows, they bring a sense of lushness.
For me, our plants were an easier and more effective way of making the rental seem like home than changing the room color. The ferns and the philodendrons, now grouped in a 'pot colony' in various corners around the home, were brought with us from our old house and have been nurtured by us. They are part of our story. Not every plant we've owned has survived and that's part of our story too.
4. Changing (some of) the light fittings
I am going to live with the harsh spotlights that dot the kitchen ceiling, and the wall lights that cast too cold a glow in the sitting room (we just don't turn them on, favoring our table and floor lamps, instead). But simply swapping the shades out for ones I chose myself made a massive difference, and doing this felt like a ligtbulb moment (excuse the pun). It was such an easy fix, and is something I can take with me when I go.
'It's not a big deal to switch out a chandelier and keep the owner's one in a box in the garage or the back of a cupboard,' Lisa says, which is what she has done in her dining room, seen here. As long as you can switch it back before you leave then this little act of personalization goes a long way.
5. Propping up an art collection
'Art is yet another thing you can take anywhere,' Lisa says 'I've focussed on investing in art pieces that spoke to me over the years. Some are original pieces from artists, some are found when I travel, like from the YSL musuem in Morroco. I'll bring back a print and have it framed. That art is part of your story.'
Better yet, Lisa points out that when decorating with art you don't need to nail it to the wall, and will often group artworks on shelves or fireplaces. 'A pro tip is to place the larger painting on the bottom, and then the smaller one just perched on top. It creates a fun vignette and fills the space better, adding a quirkiness,' she says.
Art is personal, something you collect over time, hence why it can make a rental feel more like home. If you are looking to buy some affordable pieces to update your rental space, Wayfair has some great options to suit all styles. The set of three prints is bold but neutral and would be perfect for layering prints as Lisa recommends.
Dotting lights around a rental always makes the place feel like home. Chances of your getting a good 'big light' are slim, so I say just keep those turned of except in emergencies and stick with the soft glow of a table lamp.
Pillows and throws are a must for a rental. You need them to style up a sofa or bed and make the place look more like you. Plus, they work in an instant, no need to put in the work just style them up to make your rental furniture look 100x better.
Having just done these five small things the home doesn't feel like our forever home (it never could, and never will) but it feels like ours. And it was so easy to do. And that's the trick with a rental, focus on the little tricks that make the biggest difference.
