DIY Apartment Make-over (Rental Decorating Tips)

May 08, 2017


I'm currently renting an apartment in Manila because my house back in QC is so far away from my current school. We had a 2 bedroom apartment with me, my partner, and one of my besties who also studies at the same university. 

The rental was a typical bare apartment, with white walls, tacky doors and fixtures. So I decided to give it a more homey, more personal and lively vibe to it by DIYing

Here's top 6 tips to decorate your rentals

1. Use Washi Tapes, Electric Tapes, Painter's Tape to spice up your boring white walls

Ugh those boring white walls, what can we do to decorate it without painting it or damaging the wall entirely? SIMPLE use tapes that do not leave unwanted residue on the walls







I spiced up my study area/dresser with pinstripes using electric tapes to give it that chic vibe



I even added character to the doors cuz I've always hated how boring they look with an unknown shade of brown and a stained up white bathroom door

2. Use Fabrics to cover up shelves or unsightly stuff

Every apartment has an unsightly sight. whether it's the view from the window, shelves that are not covered, etc. use fabrics to cover it up. No need for sewing here, you just need your handy dandy glue gun to fix the hems of the fabric


our kitchen shelves did not have any covers at all so to hide all the randomly stacked food supplies I added a fabric and played a little bit with strings and yarns


I draped some fabric on my bed to make it look like a canopy bed and inserted christmas lights inside so that I'll feel like I'm in heaven each time I sleep instead of the horrible wood work that's supposedly my view when I sleep

3. Fake Flowers and Candles Go A Long Way

I bought these fake flowers and candle at our local Daiso and Japanese Home for about 88php a bundle. and they were gorgeous.




Mix and match them wisely, just make sure the color scheme of your flowers match the entire environment or else it'll end up tacky and mismatched

4. Follow Youtube DIYers

I spent almost most of my time watching videos on youtube, with DIY youtubers like TheSorryGirls,  Wengie, LaurDIY, and 5-Minutes Craft. you're sure to have a lot of ideas on making room decor on a budget. Though it is quite hard to find the same materials as they use (since most of the stuff are basically inexistent in the Philippines) try your best to look for some alternatives,




you see that gold diamond chimes over at the uper right side, I got the idea from TheSorryGirls, in their vid I believe they used copper tubes (I'm not 100% sure cuz I watched the video like a long long time ago, but I know they're obsessed with copper tubes), which are hard to find and is quite expensive, so I substituted it with straws that I spray painted gold which is way cheaper than the copper tubes sold here in the PH



This is another example of substitution. Pots are a lot expensive here and I really wanted to have a macabre pot hanger in the kitchen so instead of pots I used these old plastic cups and filled it with fake flowers

5. Add character to your old furnitures by using tapes mentioned in tip #1

Whenever I rent condos or apartments I always make it a point to upcycle all my old furnitures to make them look new since buying new furnitures for a rental place would be a complete waste of money.


Here I used the tapes I mentioned in tip #1 to add character to the boring old refrigerator and the two stools. to make them look like they actually belong with the entire aesthetic of the room. Although if you have money to splurge you can buy contact paper at the local hardware store to refurnish your fridge.

6. Don't forget the Bathroom

Bathroom in rentals comes as plain and small as they can be.  to make your bathroom look bigger use a simple shower curtain with large prints and add a little bit of color to your bathroom to make it less dull.


Here I also added those yellow stripes using painter's tape to make it look more bigger.

DIYing is such a fun thing to do, to be able to do away with things that you want for a fraction of the cost to actually buy or remodel stuff. In an apartment, your constructing and hammering and whatnot are very limited, you just need to get crafty to make it look a lot better without drilling holes or whatever. 

Also check out this items from Lazada:












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