Washington - Three years ago, newlywed Kerra Michele Huerta packed her wedding dress and her two dogs and drove to Washington DC to join her husband in a one-bedroom rented flat.
The designer had no clients and no design network in the American capital. Her budget for decorating her own flat was small. But she threw herself into space planning, flea market shopping, furniture repurposing, organising and DIY projects, creating a personal, warm place.
Friends were amazed (and, yes, envious) at what she’d done: lined a stairway with several dozen framed photos, maps and artworks; painted the kitchen in black chalkboard paint; turned a walk-in cupboard into a dressing room. Soon she was giving out advice.
Eventually, she needed a bigger outlet for her creative energy and launched a blog, Apartment Envy, to chronicle her frustrations and successes in trying to personalise a soulless urban rental space.
“I figured that lots of people in their 20s and 30s are renting rather than buying. They need budget-minded advice,” Huerta says. “They want their place to look good now. But they also want to be able to take the stuff with them and use it wherever they go.”
Huerta, 30, says being a longtime renter has forced her to be creative and has led her to discover lots of design sources. Her online community chimes in with more ideas, as well as yeas and nays on colour choices and furniture placement.
Today, she and husband David Reidmiller, a climate scientist, live in a 52m2 one-bedroom rented flat with a king-size bed and a homely refrigerator camouflaged under a layer of cool patterned contact paper.
Huerta has filled her home with finds from the internet, flea markets and and a bit of dumpster-diving. She hunts for used furniture on online sites for second-hand stuff.
From the reaction, it was clear that Huerta’s ideas are useful for almost anyone looking to create a happy space on a budget. Here are some of them.
1. Dump the mini-blinds. Nothing says temporary rental like clacking blinds. Huerta removed them and put them away in a cupboard. Most flats and townhouses have standard size windows, so it’s easy to find ready-made fabric or woven shades, or even curtains. If you can’t use them in your next home, you can often sell them to the next tenant because they probably don’t want those mini-blinds, either.
2. Add depth to a narrow galley kitchen. Remove cabinet doors to create a custom look and add personality. Not only will it make your kitchen feel larger, but the space will feel cozy and inviting. Huerta removed the doors on one wall of cabinets, painted the back of the cabinets mint and artfully arranged her tableware, glassware and Mason jars of staples inside. (Other cabinets still have doors to hide less display-worthy items.)
3. Maximise empty spaces. Every inch counts in a rental, so that awkward space between the top of your kitchen cabinets and the ceiling can be put to good use. Huerta arranged a row of chunky rectangular baskets on top of her cabinets to store household supplies such as paper towels and coffee filters.
4. Upgrade light fixtures. Rental spaces are notorious for having cheap, unattractive light fixtures. Check with your landlord first, explaining that you want to change them and that you will put back the original ones when you leave. Replace builder-grade ceiling lights with something more modern, such as the pendant with a black barrel shade which Huerta used in her dining area. She chose a blingy chandelier for the raspberry dressing room she created out of a walk-in cupboard.
5. Don’t be afraid to paint. Understanding landlords will let you paint in your own colour scheme if you agree to repaint back to the original colour, usually builder white. Huerta says you could also make a deal that if the new tenant likes your colour scheme, you don’t have to repaint.
To deal with the nine doors and three windows in her bedroom (there are lots of cupboards), she painted all the walls, doors and trim in a taupe. Now the room looks like a cozy cocoon.
6. Camouflage the unflattering. Is there something in your space that you can’t stand yet can’t change? Adhesive paper can be your new best friend. It’s inexpensive and easy to apply, plus it peels off when you’re ready to move. Huerta covered the old and dented fridge with a grey-and-white geometric print to disguise a hulking eyesore.
7. Treat the bathroom like a real room. You can’t renovate it or change the tile, but you can add some interest to your bathroom. Huerta bought a vintage wooden grape crate online and hung it on the wall for extra storage. Using a tiny Oriental rug instead of a pastel cotton bath rug classes up the place.
8. Create the illusion of architectural interest. Because there were no built-in shelves in her living room, Huerta bought a pair of glass-fronted bookcases to put on either side of her fireplace. To personalise these very basic bookcases, she covered the back of the shelves with wrapping paper.
9. Speak up. Want to make changes to your rental space? Don’t be afraid to ask, whether it’s changing a doorknob or painting a room. The worst thing that could happen is your landlord says no. If you do get rebuffed, negotiate. You can offer to share the cost of an upgrade or pay a bit more in rent. Huerta split the cost of a new stove and microwave with her landlord because the old ones were dated and in poor condition. – The Washington Post