How To Make Your Rental House Feel Like Home

With renting becoming more common for young people these days, rental properties can often lack the warmth and cosiness of a permanent lived-in space.

Luckily, you can do a few simple things to make any rental property feel more like home. Most of the following suggestions are relatively inexpensive and can be simple, quick fixes to make your mark and breathe a bit of your personality into the space.

Warm-up cold rooms with fabrics

If you are renting an unfurnished house, it can often feel like a cold, empty shell to start with. You can really warm up your rooms by injecting a bit of bright colour and softness by adding layers of fabrics.

Look at laying down deep, sumptuous rugs on the floor and adding richly coloured curtains to add more character to empty rooms. You can make your sofas and armchairs look cosier and inviting by draping them with soft throws and blankets to snuggle under in the winter.

Adding some bright cushions can also add a bit of extra comfort and soften the room's hard edges.

Hide unattractive features

If your rental home has ugly radiators on display, you won't be allowed to remove them. However, you can take the focus off them by positioning your furniture in front of them. It would be best if you left a decent gap between the back of a sofa and the radiator to allow heat to circulate.

If the radiators are under the windows in your property, then consider using long curtains that you can drape over them in the summer. Make sure they can be easily pushed to either side of the radiators to allow heat to circulate in the winter.

Adding artwork

Many landlords don't want their tenants to drill holes in the wall of their property to hang pictures and artwork, but it is worth asking them if this is OK to do. Some will be fine with you adding a few pictures or some art as long as you fill any holes if you decide to move out.

You can still hang up artwork and some treasured family photos to help make the place feel more homely by using nail-free solutions such as No More Nails by UniBond. These are strips of removable grab adhesives that can fix picture frames to walls without needing nails and don't damage the wall surface in any way.

Spruce up the kitchen

Sometimes a rental property kitchen can be very basic and may not offer you enough storage space to work with. In this case, you won't be allowed to add any more kitchen cupboards, but you can still make the most of any available unused wall space by adding shelves.

A useful tool here would be to add a mesh board to hang your large cooking utensils. A magnetic knife strip is ideal for keeping your sharp knives safe and within easy reach. These are a practical and safe idea if you only have one utensil draw in the kitchen, and you risk cutting your fingers on sharp knives if they are kept in the same draw.

If you have very little cupboard space available, then a free-standing pot rack can come in handy. Plus, you can take it with you when you decide to move.

Add some mood lighting

Your rental property may come with a single pendant light in each room. Nothing is stopping you from changing the light shade to something more your style. Add standard and table lamps to brighten up dark corners and add a warm glow to your home.

If you have a dining room, why not switch out the central light shade with a chandelier-style light shade to add a bit of class and sophistication to the room. You can instantly change a room's mood with some subtle lighting features, and you can easily take these things with you when you move.

We hope these tips will help your rental feel like home! 

If you are looking to rent a property in the Staines or Ashford area, you can view our current listings here.