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Decorating a home that you own can be a real joy. So can decorating the space that you rent but there are also some challenges caused by the rules instituted by your lease. The number one complaint by renters is the inability to paint the walls. Almost all rental apartments have white (or near white) walls that cannot be painted. How do you add some style to rental white?

Enjoy White Space

One way I’ve dealt with this issue is to incorporate the color white into my decorating scheme. Because my apartment is very small, white works well for me. A trip to Ikea netted me some white Billy bookcasese with glass doors (incidentally, white is the cheapest color available in these bookshelves - bonus!), a couple of Lack floating shelves and a white dresser. By using these items in my main space, I was able to give the visual illusion of built in units that blend into the walls instead of standing out.

By using the shelves over the dresser in a nook, I created a built in sideboard unit with hutch - perfect for my small dining area. By placing a grouping of my favorite items on the shelves, I’ve created a space to showcase my treasures while storing them and added visual impact to the wall.

The beauty of “going with white” is that your seconadary and accent colors can change over time while the big items remain constant resulting in the ability to create a multitude of looks by making changes to the smaller objects in the space.

Add Color, Texture and Pattern With Fabric

Use fabric to add a big splash of color and/or pattern to your walls. This can be done in a multitude of ways. Have an heirloom quilt? Hang it up! Even a lovely fabric sample can be made into a wall hanging by finishing the edges and hanging by a rod or even using velcro strips to fasten it on the wall directly.

A dining nook with a backdrop of a beautiful set of drapes covering one wall is very sophisicated..and who says there has to be a window behind them? Hang curtain rods along a narrow wall and hang up the drapes from ceiling to floor. Voila! You’ve also added the illusion of height to the room!

If you have a lot of fabric, you can cover entire walls with it by using wood strapping which can be purchased very inexpensively at your local lumber yard. Using a staple gun, affix the fabric to the strapping, fold over once to hide the edge and affix to the wall at the ceiling. Use strapping to affix the bottom of the fabric to the base of the wall, turning it over once as you did with the top. This is bigger project which will require a few hands to get the job done. Make a party of it!

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