10 Decorating Essentials For A Rental Home on a Budget

Hesitating to decorate your home and make it more alive because you think you don’t have the right to do so?

Many of us have to rent our homes or apartments. But with the strict rules regarding what tenants can and can’t do in a rental, it sometimes feels like we are stuck with the dated decor and wall colours that the landlord wants.

Here are 10 easy ways to decorate your rental, with items that you own and can take with you when you leave. They will brighten your spaces, add colour and texture, and most importantly, make the rental home feel like it is yours!

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1. Add A Feature Coffee Table

First on this list is a coffee table that will be the focal point of your space. Coffee tables are a great addition to your rental home because first of all, your landlady won’t have a problem so it’s convenient and you can take it with you if you move.

They are aesthetically pleasing to the eye, too. If you are fond of changing things up every few months, then a plain coffee table is perfect. This is also a great tip if you want to add personality to your home and make it look and feel like you. Add a rug underneath, a chandelier on the ceiling directly above it or put some plants as a centrepiece. It’s all up to how you dress it up!

In addition, your coffee table will most likely be utilised as it is where you will mostly put your stuff – phones, purses, keys, food or drinks so make sure your coffee table is made of high-quality material. Depending on the size of your home and your lifestyle, they have a number of uses.

For the shape of your coffee table, round or oval is great if you will need to walk around or through it often. It’s also great to balance out the area if the rest of your furniture has a square or rectangular shape.

Natural and Minimalism is quite the trend these days, and the wood detail and Scandinavian design of this coffee table will blend well with both themes. However, the simplicity of this coffee table makes it versatile enough to fit in whatever your decor style is!

2. Add Some Indoor Plants (Real or Fake)

It’s great to have plants in your home because aside from them being a good decoration to enhance the look of your interior, they also help in filtering the air that you breathe in. Adding some indoor plants is a surefire method to make your rental home look homely. You can opt to do the planting and grow the plant yourself, or you can also buy a plant on the market or buy fake plants if you don’t want to worry about watering them.

Regardless, plants won’t really disappoint because they freshen up the surroundings. You can either put them in every corner of your home or on tables!

If you are going real plants, the best varieties that do well indoors include:

• Zanzibar Gem
• Peace Lily
• Mother-in-Law’s Tongue
• Rubber Plant
• Swiss Cheese Plant
• Bamboo Palm

These don’t take a whole lot of work – and most only need to be watered once per week.

Best places to buy indoor plants:

• Temple & Webster
• Catch
• Zanui

3. Add Additional Lighting with Table Lamps and Bedside Lamps

If you’re really fond of lamps, add some more! You can have bright ones to light your home, or dimmer ones just to provide some mood lighting. So you can put one in every area of your home where you usually do your work, like in the living room or your bedroom. There are a lot of designs and styles of lamps available in the market so you have a wide variety of options to choose from.

Coco Table Lamp in the shape of a Pineapple is simply adorable!  Stockist: Temple & Webster

Oak Band Nalada Ceramic Table Lamp – timeless and will suit multiple home decors.  Grab one from Temple & Webster

4. Add Large Artwork to Bare Walls

Your landlord might not want you to paint the walls but you can still sometimes add something onto it to make it more appealing. Paintings, artworks, and creative portraits are some of the things that you can put on it to enhance its look and to make the whole interior cozy and classy. You can opt to buy a huge artwork then place it on the most ideal position or buy a bunch of small ones then create a large artwork out of them.

Just make sure you have the landlord’s permission before you go nailing hooks into walls!!

A similar idea is to get a large canvas featuring your family or pet.  They actually work out very cost-effective and you have a beautiful family memory to take with you forever.

Try the following retailers for Canvases and Art Work:

• Direct Art Australia

5. Add Beautiful Rugs to Your Living Areas

The living room is the most occupied room in the house because that’s where people spend most of their time, so you really should pay more attention to it. Rugs, especially on tiled or wood floors, can uplift the area as well as provide warmth and comfort. There are several beautiful rugs that you can buy on the market, so next time you shop for home supplies, don’t hesitate to grab one.

Best of all, rugs can protect the carpet at a rental property – so they SAVE you money!

Great place to shop for affordable rugs include:

• Miss Amara
• Catch
• Aura Home
• Living Styles

6. Have a Brightly-Coloured Statement Piece of Furniture

A statement piece of furniture is that certain furniture in every house just stands out. It could be an armchair, a chair, a table or a bed. Having statement furniture is helping to emphasise a certain area in or to give a personal ambience to your home. Even if you only have one piece of statement furniture, it can give that wow factor to your whole interior, especially if it’s a bit out there. You can place it anywhere you want to.

Notting Hill Velvet Chesterfield Armchair from Brosa Furniture

7. Throw Rugs and Cushions to Add Colour and Texture

To add vibrancy to your home, you can let the others be and just focus on your throw pillows. Throw rugs and cushions are a good way to give life to your interior. It’s small and quite inexpensive so you can buy a lot. Cover each of them with different colours, styles, patterns, and textures and your living room is not as boring anymore!

As well as cushions, pillows are also a very easy cost-effective way to transform a bedroom. To add more patterns through your pillow selection, look for shapes already existing in the design space. For example, if a rug has a striped pattern, then select pillowcases with vertical lines will help blend the designs together. You can use a selection of pillows with stripes with different thicknesses of lines to create more visual interest.

8. Have Some Baskets for Storage

Every household has a basket and its uses include: a hamper, as a waste container, to organise cosmetics, and so on. Basically, you can put anything in a basket, and that’s why you should have some for storage purposes. Organisation is one of the keys to a perfect home. But if you want to beautify your interior, you should put your things into something that can also pass as a decoration. So why not use those that are made from a leaf fibre instead of plastics? Like this Abaca Basket.

More Reading:  36 of the Best Furniture and Home Decor Online Stores in Australia

9. Hang Mirrors on the Wall

Mirrors are a stylish addition to any house. You can opt to buy a stylish mirror instead of a plain one for it to be a decoration as well. Mirrors give balance and can make a room look bigger and more spacious.  You can also add a table below it and put figurines, picture frames, a vase, or whatever on the table to make the mirror more elegant.

Again, make sure you have the landlord’s permission to put wall hooks up!

10. Hang Your Own Beautiful Shower Curtain

Of course, you should decorate your bathroom too. Even though it’s not a place where people stay to talk or watch TV, you should still make it more appealing. You can just hang a beautiful shower curtain – try the one with colourful patterns or the simple one that blends to the colour of the flooring.

What else could you do to decorate a rental home on a budget?