I love interior design, and have always taken a lot of pride making the space I live in gorgeous. Unfortunately, I am always renting and am at mercy of the rental rules. Especially where I’ve been living, you have to leave the place like you got it.

A lot of the rental friendly DIY ideas I’ve seen on pinterest are not actually lease friendly. They involve painting, new fixtures, and they’re expensive! My lease allows for at the most a hole in the wall, and even that isn’t well loved. So when my boyfriend and I moved in together, I had to get creative.

For the kitchen, I knew I wanted to hide some of the practical items while trying to modernize the space. We had this great above the stove shelf that was filled with ziplocs, detergent, and other paper products, so I hid them with wicker baskets!

Since that kind of set the tone for the space, I then found a brown, wooden sponge holder alongside a brown wood cookbook stand and paper towel holder. Since the backsplash and counter were the same, we ust found an affordable marble contact paper to make the backsplash stand out. I finished with some nicer bottles to hold our soaps, and a little cricut DIY sign above the sink.

For the kitchen, my biggest tips that should apply to most houses include

• Contact Paper Backsplash
• Hide Your Uglies- Baskets and Soap Dispensers REALLY elevate the space
• Stay Practical- Our kitchen is our most used space, so instead of hiding things away, we found practical items that matched the theme.

For the bathroom, I really wanted to go with a black and white theme. This all started with some cricut vinyls that I made and put on black square canvases. I also customized a soap dispenser that was black and white. So I started by ordering amazing wallpaper on amazon (the kind you can stick then peel off), then purchased some black towels and mats. We finished by changing out the handles on ur vanity, as well as adding black vinyl to the vanity doors and lightswitch plate. This transformation only cost $60!

For the bathroom, my biggest tips that should apply to most houses include…

• Peel and stick wallpaper is a must have to change the whole feel of the room
• If you change up your towels, it really transforms the space
• You may not be able to change faucet hardware, but using vinyl on the vanity and light switch still makes it feel customized.

So, will you try any of this in your rental? What do you think of the final product? We’re moving in a couple months, but I still love how these quick DIY projects turned out.

All thoughts and opinions are my own.