5 Easy Things You Can Do Right Now to Upgrade Your Apartment

5 Easy Things You Can Do Right Now to Upgrade Your Apartment

Shannon Hanrahan

Shannon HanrahanAug 17, 20184 min read

While owning a home might be your end goal, sometimes you just have to stick it out a little longer than you’d prefer in your apartment. But don’t think that means you have to settle. There are tons of little things you can do to upgrade your humble abode and make it the temporary place of your dreams. Before you make any changes, make sure that it is okay with your landlord renovate your apartment. You don’t want to go through all the work, only to be fined in the end. From decorating like an interior designer to doing minor renovations, we’ve got you covered with 5 easy things that you can do right now to upgrade your apartment.

white office wall

Paint Your Walls

A fresh coat of paint can transform an entire room and take it from old to new in a manner of a few hours. Whether you want to crisp up white walls or go for a totally new color, it just takes a little time to make this big change happen. Before you paint your walls, clean them up and do a good job cleaning by your baseboards and hidden areas. Cleaning goes hand in hand with fresh clean paint and can really invigorate your space. Plus, moving stuff around might even inspire a totally different layout that you hadn’t considered before. If painting is too daunting, give temporary wallpaper a try. You can choose whatever color and style you want, and then just remove it when you move.

living room

Accent Pieces

Replacing all of your furniture adds up really quickly, so instead of getting all new large pieces, go for accent items. Whether it’s a new vibrant rug or pops of colors with pillows, these small changes can breathe life into an old room. You can also use blankets, coffee table books, and frames to add newness to any room in your house. Don’t be afraid to update your storage situation. Many times we like to leave the clutter alone because it seems too daunting but purging and then replacing poor storage with cute baskets, ottomans, and shelving can make you love your space again.

hanging lights

Upgrade Your Lighting

This is where it can start to get a little more technical, but still very easy to do. Go through your apartment and take a good look at the lighting situation. A bright apartment makes the space look bigger and more inviting, so work with both the natural light coming in and any overhead lighting you may have. Upgrading your chandelier or adding pendant lights to a room is an easy fix. Build.com has an amazing selection of lighting that you can choose from at an even better cost. Right now, they have up to 70% off during their Kitchen and Bathroom sale! Once you’ve upgraded your lighting, add mirrors to the room to keep the light bouncing around. This is especially useful when you want to add more natural light to an apartment and will make any small room look bigger!

old doorknob

Hardware Update

If you aren’t planning to stay at your apartment for a long time, then doing a full gut isn’t really financially savvy, but you can make updates to out of date hardware to give your cabinets, doors, and appliances a new look. Replace old knobs with something that is more your style but be sure to keep the original ones on hand, unless you want to donate them to the apartment after you leave. This is an easy way to make your apartment look updated when really no hard work was done. You can also replace your shower heads and faucets to match your needs better. You make not have a 5-star bathroom but adding a waterfall shower head can make it feel like you’re at a spa every time you step into the shower. And faucets just make your bathroom and kitchen look better overall; these easily get rusted and cracked, so a small investment makes a big difference.

3 plants

Add Plants and Flowers

Adding green plants to your apartment is incredibly easy, inexpensive, and beneficial. There are so many different plants that you can get from hanging plants to succulents to palm plants, so you can easily get the types that will benefit the most in your environment and that fit your lifestyle best. Adding plants to multiple rooms in the house is a great way to add color, purify the air, and fill void spaces. You can find easy to care for houseplants and then slowly graduate to trickier plants as you get more confident in your green thumb. Plus, it’s a great way to get ready to own a home and be responsible for keeping things maintained!

We all have to live in an apartment at one point or another, but that doesn’t mean it has to be painful. Just making a few small changes can transform your space and make it truly feel like your home. Don’t forget to get out Build.com for any upgrading needs. They have just what you need to make needed changes at a good price.