Get the app

Rental Decorating: 9 Changes That Come Back Out

Everything here leaves with you, or paints back in an afternoon. The tile stays where the landlord left it.

The problem with renting is not that you cannot change anything. It is that the changes worth making are the ones you cannot take with you, so people do nothing and live in beige for four years. These nine are picked the other way round: each is a real version of a real room from elsewhere on this site, chosen because the thing doing the work is furniture, textiles, light or paint — the four things that either leave with you or go back to white for the price of a tin.

  1. Natural boho bathroom with white tile, a cream fluted vanity, a carved wood arched mirror, brass sconces, terracotta pots and hanging plants

    01

    Leave the tile completely alone

    The white tile in this render is close to the tile the real bathroom already had, and that is the entire point of including it. Everything doing the work sits in front of the tile: a fluted vanity, an arched mirror, brass sconces, terracotta pots, linen at the window. A rented bathroom usually has tile you privately hate, and the instinct is to fight it. Dressing in front of it is cheaper, faster and completely reversible.

    Boho bathroom →
  2. Kitchen with pale oak lower doors and long black bar handles, cream flat upper cabinets, an oak worktop, an off-white hand-glazed square tile splashback, a rattan bell pendant, two terracotta vases holding a leafy branch, a black tap, a white sink and a sage green runner on the floor.

    02

    Doors and handles, carcasses untouched

    Its own page calls this the most rental-plausible version if you keep the tile, and that is the honest read. Pale oak doors, long black handles and a timber worktop are a weekend and a delivery, and the units they hang on never move. If your landlord will not have new doors, the same trick works one step down: handles alone change a kitchen more than their price suggests, and the originals go back in a drawer.

    Organic kitchen →

  3. See any of this on your own room

    Every picture on this page is a real kitchen, redesigned from one photo. Point Inty at yours and it keeps your layout — your window, your door, your radiator where they are.

    Download on the App Store

    Free to try. iPhone.

  4. Bedroom at night washed in pink and cyan neon, with a tufted wingback headboard, a neon squiggle sign on the wall, a quilted blue duvet and pink throw, a Marilyn pop-art diptych propped on a dresser, a comic-panel canvas leaning against the wall, and a city skyline through the window.

    03

    Light is the cheapest thing you own

    Pink and cyan wash this whole bedroom, and the caption on its own page is blunt about what that means: switch the LEDs off and it is a beige room with a tufted bed again. That is the rental case for lighting in one sentence. Nothing is fixed, nothing is painted, and the entire mood unplugs. If you rent and you have money for exactly one thing, spend it on light rather than furniture.

    Eclectic bedroom →
  5. Warm neutral bedroom with a rounded grey boucle headboard, layered cream bedding, a forest-green throw, walnut nightstands, a dresser and a jute rug

    04

    The bed does the work, not the walls

    Greige walls, layered cream and oatmeal bedding, a forest-green knit at the foot, boucle pillows, a rounded headboard. Nothing here touches the structure of the room. A bedroom is the easiest room in a rental to change, because the thing you look at most is a rectangle of textile you already own and can replace in stages. Start with the throw and the pillows before the headboard: it is the cheapest half of the effect.

    Transitional bedroom →
  6. Pop art bathroom with white subway tile, pink and lilac striped wall, an orange pedestal basin and comic-style prints

    05

    Paint and towels, priced like paint and towels

    Stripes above the tile, comic prints, checkerboard towels on a ladder, one orange basin. Take the basin out of the equation, which is the only real job in the picture, and its own page is right that the rest is cheaper than it looks. A rented bathroom with a stripe of colour above the tile line reads as a decision rather than neglect, and a coat of white puts it back on the last weekend of the lease.

    Eclectic bathroom →
  7. The same room in warm evening light, a burnt-orange velvet sofa with navy and ikat-pattern cushions, a walnut sideboard on the left with framed colourful abstract prints and a brass sculptural lamp, a rattan tub chair with a navy cushion in front of the tall right-hand window, a glass and chrome two-tier coffee table stacked with books, and a blue Persian rug.

    06

    Replace the one piece you cannot look at

    A rust sofa, a walnut sideboard, and a rattan chair standing exactly where the old brown recliner sat by the window. That substitution is the move worth stealing: in most rented living rooms one inherited item is doing all the damage, and swapping it alone changes the room more than redecorating around it ever will. The blue rug against the orange sofa is the part that makes it, and rugs like that turn up second-hand constantly.

    Mid-Century Modern living room →
  8. Bedroom with plaster walls in strong late sunlight, a pale oak slab headboard, rust linen bedding with a forest green velvet blanket and a chunky cream cable throw, a deep cream flokati rug, hanging pothos in the corner, a rubber plant, a large framed print leaning on the floor and an upholstered bench with a sheepskin

    07

    Lean the art instead of hanging it

    Rust linen, a forest green velvet blanket, a cream cable throw, a pale oak headboard, a tree stump for a side table, and one print left leaning on the floor rather than hung. That last detail is the rental trick worth copying: leaning art is the difference between a room that looks finished and a deposit conversation about filler. The flokati in this render is the honest catch — its own page says it looks like that for roughly three weeks.

    Boho bedroom →
  9. Cream-walled living room at sunset with a rust velvet corner sofa, a rounded blond wood coffee table holding lit candles and pale vases, a chunky mustard and cream wool rug, a monstera in a stone pot, mushroom table lamps, fairy lights draped along the ceiling and window, and the tall window showing an orange sky.

    08

    Soft furnishings can carry the whole room

    Its page puts it plainly: this one leans almost entirely on soft furnishings. A rust velvet sectional and a round table are the delivery; the wool rug, the lamps and the fairy lights are ordered and placed in an afternoon. Not one item is attached to the flat. The same page is blunt about the downsides too — velvet marks with every spill, and the candles clustered on books are a soot and fire risk, so use LED pillars in a room that gets used.

    Boho living room →
  10. Soft scandi living room with a low greige sofa against the left wall under a single-line abstract print, dressed in green, taupe and brown cushions and a knit throw, a pale-oak curved coffee table on a jute rug, a linen-shade arc floor lamp, a fiddle-leaf fig in a terracotta pot, and on the right a cane-fronted wood sideboard, a snake plant and dried pampas by the tall window with a radiator.

    09

    Soft shapes instead of a repaint

    A low greige sofa, a curved pale-oak table, a jute rug, an arc lamp leaning over it, one line-drawing print. Every item is delivered, placed and eventually carried out again. This is what a rented living room looks like when you stop trying to fix the walls and start fixing the silhouette of everything standing in front of them — and it is the version that survives a landlord inspection without a single hole in the plaster.

    Scandi living room →

Questions

What actually changes a rented room the most?
Light, then textiles, then one piece of furniture. Two lamps instead of a ceiling fitting will change a room after dark more than a new sofa does, and neither is attached to the building. Paint comes fourth, because it is the only item on the list you have to undo.
Is painting a rental worth it?
Usually yes for one wall, rarely for a whole room, and never for a ceiling. A single colour behind the bed or the sofa is a weekend to apply and a weekend to reverse. A dark room repainted white again needs two coats and often three, which is the cost nobody budgets for.
How do I know a look will suit my actual room before buying anything?
That is the reason Inty exists. Point it at your room, and it reads the layout from a single photo and rebuilds it in a style, keeping your window, your door and your radiator where they are. Treat the result as a visualization rather than a guarantee — but it answers the question a mood board cannot.
Which of these is the cheapest?
The lighting one, by a wide margin, and it is also the only one that is reversible in the literal sense of a switch. The most expensive are the two living rooms, because a sofa is a sofa. The kitchen sits in between and depends entirely on whether your landlord will let doors change.
Can I do any of this without permission?
Furniture, rugs, lamps, textiles and anything freestanding, yes. Paint, doors, handles and fittings are a conversation, and a surprising number of landlords say yes to doors and handles when you offer to keep the originals. Anything involving tile, plumbing or wiring is not a rental project.

Your room, before you spend anything

One photo in, your actual room out — in this style or any of 200+ others. Cheaper than discovering you hate terracotta after two tins and a weekend.

Download on the App Store

Free to try. iPhone.