10 ways to redecorate your rental for under £50 at John Lewis
EVERYONE wants to live in a place they're proud of, but when you’re renting you don’t want to spend too much time and money (or risk upsetting your landlord) making permanent, expensive changes to your living space when you’re going to be moving on in a couple of years.
So you’ll need to get creative with your changes - and John Lewis is here to help with its ANYDAY range.
The ANYDAY range is full of stylish homeware staples that are budget-friendly and help shoppers turn a house into a home in an affordable way.
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But how affordable is the range, really? In order to test out how much bang for your buck it really offers, we decided to see if we could find ways to decorate 10 areas of the home, using just £50 for each space.
1. Update your bathroom
Bathrooms tend to show the signs of cleaning-averse former tenants more than any other areas of the home, meaning they’re often in need of a little TLC in the form of new decor.
A bland bathroom can be helped massively by some bright accessories and John Lewis has a range of affordable options to liven up a drab bathroom.
With just a couple of new towels, a fresh bath mat and some matching sink storage, your bathroom will be taken from blah to beautiful.
We love:
- - £20
- - £10
- - £10
- - £10
Total cost: £50
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2. Revamp your kitchen
Whether you consider yourself an amateur chef or are a regular on Deliveroo, kitchens are often the most used areas of the house, especially if you’re someone who likes to entertain.
When you’re having people over for dinner, you want to make sure your kitchen looks inviting and organised, and the ANYDAY range has plenty of options to help you achieve this.
The bright colour palette of the coffee, sugar and tea jars (which match well with these cute Cook & Bake teatowels and cookbook stand) and the smart-looking wooden salad bowl and salt and pepper crate will ensure your kitchen interiors flow together nicely.
We love:
- - £6
- - £12
- - £12
- - £6
- - £10
Total cost: £46
3. Make the most of your hallways
Hallways are often forgotten about when decorating a rental, which is fair enough: they aren’t used nearly as often as the kitchen, living room, or bedrooms, making them a fairly low priority when devising a redecoration budget.
Just because these spaces aren’t used to hang out in like the other living areas, it doesn’t mean having them nicely decorated wouldn't make an impact. Quite the opposite, actually.
Especially if your hallway is positioned next to your front door, it’s often the first thing visitors see when they come into your home and, as everyone knows, first impressions are everything.
You can pick up a smart runner rug and a chic antique brass wall light from the ANYDAY range to give your hallway a budget-friendly facelift.
We love:
- g, £40
- , £9
Total cost: £49
4. Decorate your dining room table
Having a nicely decorated dining room table is the best way to elevate your dinner parties and make an evening in your rental feel ultra-luxurious.
The ANYDAY range has affordability front of mind, which is made extra-clear when you look through the dinnnerware. Being able to get a 12-piece dinnerware set with stylish napkins and matching coasters for under £50 might sound too good to be true, but we can assure you it isn’t.
We love:
- - £30
- - £8
- - £5
Total cost: £50
5. Switch up your lighting
When your landlord was getting your place ready, making sure the lighting was chic and fabulous was probably not their top priority, so you’ll need to take charge.
Switching old, stained ceiling shades for a modern update is an easy way to overhaul the entire look of a room. If all of your furniture is perfectly styled but your lighting is drab, it can make the whole space look worse for wear.
Once you’ve upgraded the ceiling lights, you can complement them with some well-placed side lamps so the interiors flow together nicely (and look far more expensive than they actually are).
We love:
- - £10
- - £30
Total cost: £40
6. Beautify your bedroom
If you’ve spent any time researching how to be more productive throughout the day, you’re probably no stranger to the concept of making your bed first thing in the morning.
Experts say making your bed as soon as you wake up means you’ve already ticked something off your to-do list, giving you a small sense of achievement that sets the tone for the day. But if your bedroom isn’t nicely decorated, spending time neatening it up probably isn't your priority.
The ANYDAY range has a wide array of bedding sets, throw pillows, vases and other bedroom accessories that can help you make your bedroom a place you actually want to be; no painting or investing in expensive furniture required.
We love:
- - £25
- - £12
- - £5
Total cost: £42
7. Themed throw pillows
You don’t get much of a say about your sofa when renting, and often you have to make the most of what you’ve got.
If you’ve been lumped with a decidedly unstylish sofa and are looking for a way to make it look more sophisticated, the ANYDAY range has a large array of both brightly coloured and neutral throw pillows that you can mix and match together for a more polished sofa set up.
We love:
- - £20
- - £20
- - £5
Total cost: £45
8. Invest in stylish storage
Having everything in its proper place helps your home look more organised and can give the impression that you really have your life together (even if that may not always be the case!).
You can buy storage for every room in the house from the ANYDAY range, including a stylish wine rack, under-bed shoe storage and chic fabric storage cubes you can match to your decor.
We love:
- - £14
- - £15
- - £18
Total cost: £47
9. Upgrade your appliances
When the decor of the kitchen in your rental is already lacklustre, having old, banged up appliances brings it down even more.
Investing in a sleek new kettle and toaster set from the ANYDAY range in matching brushed metal silver will help give the overall area a much-needed style boost.
We love:
- - £25
- - £25
Total cost: £50
10. Uniform utensils and cutlery
We’ve all been to a rental that has a hodgepodge cutlery and utensil collection made up of years of different housemates adding a thing or two, and it absolutely screams ‘student house share’.
Possibly the easiest way to make your kitchen and dining areas look more cohesive is by making sure your cutlery and utensils match (or least follow a theme) and the ANYDAY range has some of the most budget-friendly items out there. In fact, you can get a dinnerware set, a set of glasses and seven must-have utensils for just under £50 which is an incredible price.
We love:
- - £20
- - £5
- - £3
- - £3
- - £3
- - £3
- - £3
- - £3
- - £3
Total cost: £46
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