Living in a rental and not allowed to paint your walls? Stop worrying! We have you covered with our top renter-friendly ideas to decorate your walls without painting or damaging them.
Before we begin, we would like you to give an insight into what inspired us to write this blog. Well, the idea for this blog came knocking when we were covering ways to make your rental feel like home, where we briefly touched the subject of several alternatives available in the market for wall paint.
Now, without further ado, let’s get decorating!
Top Renter-Friendly Ideas to Decorate Your Walls without Damaging Them
If you have ever lived in a rental unit, you will agree that the home décor spectrum is quite limited for tenants. Given the fear of losing security deposit or receiving an eviction notice, renters are not left with much choice. Eventually, they have to compromise and adjust with the way their current property looks.
So, if you or anyone you know is in this situation, share this solution with them. Here’s our compilation of the top renter-friendly ideas to decorate your walls without using a single drop of paint or damaging the walls with nails:
- Lean Objects Instead of Hanging
- Use Peel-off Stickers
- Refresh the Windows
- Use Peel-Off Nail Polish
- Play with Curtains
- Bring Greenery Inside
- Get Creative with Shelves
- Hang Stuff with Ropes
- Bring Back Fairy Lights
Lean Objects Instead of Hanging
One of the most popular ways to decorate the walls of a rental unit without damaging them is to lean objects on them rather than hanging. Bring movable tables and decorate the top of it with your favourite artwork or decorative pieces. You can even pile up colourful books to add some shade to the background. Remember to go for things that complement the background colour rather than suppressing or going against it.
Another great way to add character to your walls is to lean mirrors. Doing so can create an illusion for your rental unit to appear bigger and spacious than it is. You can keep a rug underneath it to prevent it from slipping or breaking. Couple it with a tall plant or a pile of colourful books to add an artsy look. Further, you can also lean canvases of your personal artwork or store-bought ones. It will certainly make your walls appear a little off the usual.
For further guidance, navigate to our compilation of hacks to make your room look bigger with mirror.
Use Peel-off Stickers
The thought of how to decorate an apartment without getting your landlord upset is a struggle only tenants are aware of. It can be difficult to come up with ideas on giving a character to your house when you can’t mess around with paint. What if we told you that you can add colours to your walls without using a single drop of paint?
Well, there’s no shortage of ways to add colour to the walls of your rental unit. The most popular option you will come across is easy to peel wall stickers. Animals, stars, butterflies, or birds; you can bring anything inside and stick it on your walls.
Refresh the Windows
Not allowed to paint the walls? Paint the windows instead!
You will be shocked to know how much character you can add to your house by simply switching the current colour of your window frame – provided that your landlord approves of these ideas. Avoid spilling paint on the walls or floor by covering them.
If your landlord disapproves, another great way to refresh the windows of your unit is to play around with the window glass. You can use easy-to-remove glass paintings to create the design of your choice. You can even buy stencils and just trace the pattern if you are not good at creating a design yourself. Further, there are also readily available window stickers in the market that can be installed and removed without any efforts. These stickers can also restrict the sunlight if you are now allowed to nail a hole for adding curtains to a certain section of your house.
Use Peel-Off Nail Polish
Who knew you could make such good use of easy to peel nail polish?
If you have been using nail-polish only for your nails, then you are missing a great fraction of its potential. Make use of the peel-off nail polish and get creative around your walls. It works the same way as peel-off stickers, the only difference is that it is cheaper and easily available. Just remember to use the one that says ‘peel-off’. Experiment on a little corner before applying it to the entire wall. Make your favourite pattern on a paper and just trace it with the peel-off nail paint.
On a side note, we recommend you to take the property-owner in confidence and let them know in advance to avoid any confusion or penalty.
Play with Curtains
While it doesn’t majorly come off as a part of the wall, you can be playful with the curtains to hide an unattractive area or an ugly patch of chipping paint. Go for a bright colour that catches the attention of visitors first and diverts them from looking at the paint. You can even switch to window blinds. For further guidance, take a look at our debate on window blinds vs curtains.
Bring Greenery Inside
Flower pots and plants breathe instant life into any space, no matter how dim or unattractive it looks. You can cover the dirty patches on a wall by adding flower pots and house plants, as long as you can afford the maintenance. If you ought to forget about watering, you can opt for low-maintenance house plants such as succulents and money plants. Not only will the flowers and plants help you elevate the look of your house, but it will also help you purify the air in your home. Take a look at our compilation of best house-purifying indoor plants for further guidance.
We recommend that you buy plants that can survive indoors and do not require sunlight. However, if you do not have much choice, a great way to remember watering your plants is to set a reminder on your phone.
Get Creative with Shelves
This one goes to all the unattractive and lifeless shelves in your rental apartment. You can easily give them a new life by customising them [if allowed by the landlord]. The easiest way to customise a shelf is to use attractive wallpapers or stickers, if not paint.
You can decorate the backing board of the racks and shelves with gift papers or patterns of your choice. Go for the ones with light colours and small patterns to make the items on the shelf appear bold and visible.
Hang Stuff with Ropes
Decorating the walls in your house using a rope is not an unfamiliar concept in home décor. If you have a corner in your house or a certain zone where you can tie the ropes against the walls – go for it without thinking twice. It can help you splash the colours that you otherwise couldn’t by hanging your favourite pictures from that summer trip, a family portrait, or your favourite art piece. You can even hang beaded artworks or go completely traditional by hanging something like ajrak using wooden pegs. If you are hanging something like ajrak, try to use small pegs so that the effort doesn’t look hideous.
Bring Back Fairy Lights
If you have the option to tie a rope, you can take it to a whole new level by bringing back fairy lights. Not only is it a better alternative for the rope, but it can help you in two ways: it give your house a rather calming look, and you can decorate walls without damaging them.
You can even switch to colourful ones for a better experience. The wire that connects fairy lights is extremely delicate, so do not hang heavy objects on it. A trick for stability is to wrap the fairy lights on the rope and hang anything you want.
This brings us to the end of our post on top renter-friendly ideas to decorate your walls without painting or damaging them. If you have any further questions, you can write to us at blog@zameen.com. Before signing off, we would like to remind you once again that it is best to discuss everything with your landlord in advance, even if it doesn’t seem to harm the property.
For more creative ideas for your rental unit, keep visiting Zameen Blog. We will also tell you how to hang things on your wall without using a nail in the coming weeks, so don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter and have the updates delivered directly to your inbox. Navigate to Zameen’s Facebook Page to find out what’s going on in the property market of Pakistan these days.
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