Making Small Changes
I’m a renter. I’ve always been a renter, first rooms when I was at university, then flats and houses with my now-husband. Like an increasing number of professionals in their thirties, home ownership feels like a distant dream, a ship that sailed, where I might one day be able to paint or knock down walls at will. However, I am a very lucky renter; I have a wonderful landlord who understands that whilst we don’t own it, this house is our home, and lets us live as such. I’ve certainly had landlords in the past who seemingly would have preferred we paid our rent but lived elsewhere, lest we sully their shabby carpets or ancient textured wallpaper.
Now because we’re very lucky with our landlord, we are able to tweak the house to suit us. I say us, I mean me. My husband is a willing helper and tends to let me get on with whatever new fixation has gripped me. So if you are also a lucky renter, but struggling to find some less obstrusive, impermanent ways to make your mark, this may give you some ideas.
My first piece of advice is talk to your landlord. It’s a very long story, and sounds like something from Cinderella, but after leaving one of her rented houses for a badly planned move and then desperately trying to get back, our landlord expanded her portfolio for us and bought this house for us to live in. Before we moved in she let me choose the shade of paint (I panicked and went for a neutral grey, which is fine but not as warm as I would like now, but still 1000% better than the aging magnolia of previous places), and I tentatively asked if we could possibly put some shelving in the large, empty living-room alcoves. Because she’s wonderful, she agreed and even put her carpenter to work, so now I live by the mantra, don’t ask don’t get. This shelving has given us much needed storage in a small two-bed mid-terrace, but has also added height and warmth to the room.
There haven’t been any other changes on the same scale as the shelving, but I have asked if I can put up shelves in the kitchen and paint the kitchen cabinets - all very kitchen focused so far, I’m now twitching to make the bathroom a bit cosier. I collaborated with the lovely Neighbour Utility and their carpentry brand Folkhaus to put up a large shelf instead of wall cabinets, and picked up a small antique dresser top in a junk shop which I (my husband) wall-mounted opposite. I’m not a fan of wall cabinets, especially in a small kitchen - they make the space feel smaller and cramped, but I also don’t like to waste any vertical space when we have so little, so open shelves for your prettier things are a nice compromise. The holes you need to make to put shelves up are also very easily filled and repainted when you move out.
On a smaller scale still, we’ve put many pictures up, changed out the one lampshade in the house, added a cafe curtain to the dining room and a cupboard curtain to the kitchen, and changed the cupboard doorknobs. We also added plug-in wall lights in our bedroom, which is a nice alternative to wired in lighting. Again, these are small but impactful changes which are very easy to reverse when you move on. When I first rented, I felt as though I had to hover, that this was a temporary arrangement and so I shouldn’t plant my feet too firmly into the carpet. This seems to be something fairy unique to the UK in Europe - on the continent it is very normal to rent until later in life, and very normal to make quite large changes to your rented home. As I’ve gotten older and grown my family, the importance of our home feeling like ours has grown. I want our pictures on the wall, our favourite colours on the cabinets, our stuff around us. Also many years of renting has taught me that almost all marks on walls can be filled and repaired, and that if you’ve got That sort of landlord, you won’t get your deposit back anyway.
All this to say, even if you don’t have a fairy godmother for your landlord, you may be surprised by what they’re happy for you to change, especially if you’re a long-term tenant and have an established trusting relationship. Of course if you don’t, there’s another saying I like to use - ask for forgiveness, not permission.
