Guide for Painting Your Rented Property: Easy Techniques and Tips for a Fresh Look
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Yo, when you're moving into a new crib and gotta cough up a big fat security deposit, you might be maxed out on giving your pad a personal touch without risking that deposit when it's time to bounce. So how can you make your temporary den feel like home? For Life Kit, Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong has some smart tricks to liven up those four walls.
ADWOA GYIMAH-BREMPONG: Big changes to a spot can seem intimidating. But there's one easy classic.
AMANDA POE: When you paint a wall, all you gotta do is slap it with some paint and---voilà! You're done. No sweat!
GYIMAH-BREMPONG: That's Amanda Poe. She runs the home decor Insta page, bohofrisco. After failing to find the vibrant, fun decor she craved, Amanda dove headfirst into DIY projects. Her series, Renter-Friendly Reality Checks, even fact-checks stuff like removable wallpaper or peel-and-stick tiles after years of use. But one of her favorite renter-friendly upgrades is paint. Amanda says, as long as you've got a plan to get your walls back to the color they were before, feel free to go hog wild with the color palette. You can always remind your landlord what those colors were, or just whip out a paint chip to match 'em if they're forgetful.
POE: Yank out more than an inch of a swatch—bigger than a quarter—from the wall. That's gonna help you get the best surface to take to your local hardware store. They have this fancy computer setup to paint-match it. Dang, didn't know that, right? A common spot to score some paint would be behind an outlet cover. Ever spotted a missing paint bit there? You can nab some, smack it up in a store to score that exact shade.
GYIMAH-BREMPONG: Once you got your hassle-free backup plan in place, slow your roll before yanking out that roller. I've been caught off-guard before, seeing a gorgeous color in the paint aisle only to find it lookin' drastically different in my dwelling. Amanda says living with a color for a while—like sleepin' on it, working with it, and hangin' in there with it—is key. It's gonna be your home, after all.
POE: Go big. Grab a poster board, plunk down a buck, paint that bad boy up, and put it on every damn wall. Try it in different lighting situations, too—morning, afternoon, whatever. Don't be that guy who rushes into paint and ends up hatin' it.
GYIMAH-BREMPONG: Cartin' around poster board, pickin' at outlet covers, spendin' all that time up a ladder—some people might think that's a lot of trouble for a temporary space.
POE: To those people, think of it like spendin' cash on a bangin' dinner, catchin' a show, or grabbin' concert tickets. These are all ephemeral things that can improve life in the here and now. And if I only gotta love it for a year, that's still a signifi' amount o' time in my book.
GYIMAH-BREMPONG: Amanda signed a 90-day lease on her last apartment and ended up stayin' there for over 10 years. She says it taught her that time ain't no limitation when it comes to buildin' a crib she loves.
POE: Life is short, and I think to the extent that I can splash some color on a wall and feel happier every time I step into my bedroom, I truly believe there's no better investment.
GYIMAH-BREMPONG: For NPR News, I'm Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong.
DETROW: For more Life Kit, hit up npr.org/lifekit.
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD'S "LOVE PROCEEDING")Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
- News: For NPR News, Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong discusses ways to make temporary homes feel more like living spaces through simple, renter-friendly interior-design hacks, such as using paint to personalize the space without compromising the security deposit.
- Lifestyle: Amanda Poe, the home decor influencer behind bohofrisco, suggests using poster boards to test out paint colors before committing, ensuring that the chosen hue will enhance the lifestyle of the homeowner while residing in the temporary dwelling.
