Decorating tips and DIY hacks: how to transform a rental home on a budget

This is all about creating “a feeling of permanence and warmth”, says Katherine Ormerod, the author of Your Not Forever Home: Affordable, Elevated, Temporary Decor for Renters. Achieving this begins by changing the acoustic environment. “There is nothing more depressing than a square box so empty you can hear a pin drop,” she says.
The most affordable solution is decorating with fabric. Cushions, rugs, throws, curtains and upholstered furniture all help absorb the sound in a room and add comfort and colour at the same time. Most crucially, these items are portable and can be taken when you move – something important to bear in mind throughout the whole process.
Rugs, in particular, are great for hiding (and protecting) unattractive floors.
Kate Watson-Smyth, an interiors journalist and the author of Home: The Way We Live Now, suggests buying the biggest rug you can afford and ideally one designed for use outside.
“Outdoor rugs have low pile and are weather resistant, which means they are more forgiving of spills and stains, ideal for preserving floors and retaining your deposit,” she says.
On the high street, these start at about £50: Ikea sells a double-sided flat-woven rug for £35.
After acoustics, lighting makes the biggest difference to the feel of a home. Luckily, some small and affordable changes can go a long way. “Make sure bulbs are warm and low energy,” Watson-Smyth says. Plus, purposely choosing to not light every corner can actually be beneficial.
“An area receding into darkness can make a room look bigger as you can’t see the edges,” she says. Table and floor lamps often create a more intimate effect than overhead fixtures, and can be moved easily between rental properties.
If you’ve been dealt some poorly placed plug points, there are other options. “These days, we’re so blessed with innovations in portable, chargeable lighting, and they are a boon for renters.
“You can buy some super cheaply on Amazon, but they only last a single evening without being charged. My favourites are from Pooky, and start at about £65,” Ormerod says.
Lampshades can be bought relatively cheaply, and easily upgraded at home. “Buy plain ones and paint your own designs to create something that is more in keeping with your personal style – any acrylic paint will work,” Watson-Smyth says.
While many rental landlords won’t allow you to paint walls, colour and personality can be added with some other easy DIY tricks.
The interior stylist and founder of the DIY and decorating shop Our Curated Abode, Emma Jane Palin, suggests adding MDF radiator covers – many of which you can paint in your chosen shade.
“They are a temporary way to add colour, as well as provide a shelving area for displaying personal objects,” she says. Starting at about £30, you can buy them in a range of shapes and sizes.
In every home she has rented, she has created a corkboard wall using self-adhesive cork tiles. “It’s such an easy way to bring interest into a space, and you can regularly change what you’ve got pinned. To remove the tiles, simply use a hairdryer to ease them off,” she says.
Switching up the hardware (for example, knobs or handles) on furniture, built-in cabinets and doors, can also make a big difference to the overall look and feel. Secondhand hardware can be picked up cheaply online or at markets.
Kitchens and bathrooms are one of the hardest areas to change in a rental home, but temporary vinyl makes a big impact on a small budget. These sheets, or stickers, printed with patterns, have peelable sticky backs and can be used to cover any surface and then removed at the end of your contract.
Ormerod recommends B&Q and Vinyl Depot UK for cheap and cheerful options – prices start at about £4 a metre.
“Countertop vinyl ‘marble’ is great for kitchen surfaces, while I’ve also wrapped my white goods in coloured vinyl, and I changed up my downstairs bathroom by applying 420 sticker tiles,” she says. For walls, peel-and-stick wallpaper provides a similar solution on a budget.
“I love museum shops. I have a framed David Shrigley tea towel and a Grayson Perry silk scarf, both cost a fraction of what their prints and sculptures do,” Watson-Smyth says. “You can also buy sets of postcards and frame them to create a mini gallery wall, or make a personal gallery wall by framing old cinema tickets or menus from favourite places alongside photos and posters.”
At flea markets or resale sites, a vintage sketch book can be a goldmine. “There will be multiple pages of sketches at various stages. Frame each of them and hang them on the wall,” the interior designer and founder of furniture makers Bespoke and Found, Anna Standish, says. Vintage coffee table books can be used in the same way.
When it comes to hanging art, if the landlord won’t allow holes in the walls, use Command Strips (£9 gets you enough to put up five pictures) for lighter pieces, or simply lean bigger pieces against the wall or on pieces of furniture.
Using a piece of fabric on the wall is also a much cheaper way to decorate a big blank space than a piece of art. “I make large-scale tapestries from woven blankets stretched across frames, which I knock up for about £20 with wood from B&Q,” Ormerod says.
Shopping for secondhand pieces often means cheaper prices and creates a more distinctive look.
It takes patience to find affordable items you like. “I’m a charity shop stalker and walk in and out of at least three most days,” Ormerod says.
When bargaining at flea markets or car boot sales, keep a few things in mind. Standish says: “Bundle purchases with one seller, and see if they’ll do a deal for multiple items. Alternatively, offer cash, and sometimes you’ll get up to 10 % off.”
When looking online, via resale sites such as eBay or Facebook Marketplace, it’s all about being precise with search terms. “If you want six chairs, say so, otherwise you will have to scroll past sets of four, eight and 10. Tick the ‘used’ filter, or you will be inundated with pages of new stuff in ‘vintage style’,” Watson-Smyth says.