Putting your stamp on a rented home can be tricky. It’s hard to add personality and character to someone else’s home. With 4+ pages of strict conditions now the standard for any rental agreement, and short-term contracts becoming more popular, it can be difficult to stick to the rules and give your home that creative touch. We’re here to tell you that it can be done!
Art is a great way to offer your home some style without a radical paint job or dramatic overhaul. From salon-style hangs to large scale wall art, here are some ideas to revolutionise your rental accommodation and display your elegant sense of style.
Choose A Selection of Prints To Adorn Your Walls
Boring coloured walls in your rental flat? If you’re desperate to paint the wall cobalt blue or sea green but aren’t able to, why not choose a selection of prints to fill the space and add a splash of colour. Our Blue Landscape Gallery Wall Set includes six vivid art prints. These beautifully framed prints come in a range of sizes - 4x 30x40cm framed prints, and 2x 50x70cm prints. You can choose to hang them in any orientation you like - the bright blues, soothing white, and vibrant green tones of this set lend any dull room heaps of personality.
You can select grey, black, white or oak frames for your prints, so this set is perfect for any space - living room, bedroom, or guest bedroom. We hand-make every art print right here in the UK, and print on high-quality matte fine art paper, rendering tones and colours beautifully. Our FSC certified frames have real glass fronts - we’re 100% plastic-free, with a focus on sustainability.
This colourful set allows you to create a ‘salon-style’ hang with just one purchase. A salon hang has a prestigious history: it derives from the beginning of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture’s annual salon in Paris, all the way back in 1667. Traditionally, paintings were hung from floor to ceiling, at an event where men and women would meet for intellectual discourse. It was also a place to showcase affordable art - when art was becoming something middle class people could buy, rather than just the wealthy.
A salon hang is perfect if space is at a premium.
Blue Landscape Gallery Wall Set
Choosing Art You Love
Take some time to discover the kind of artwork you love. Visit the big-hitter art galleries to browse the modern greats, or research smaller galleries that showcase emerging artists. Discover the art you can sit in front of for hours, the kind of artwork that moves you, and the styles that really speak to you. Do you love sleek cityscapes? Or do you fall in love with figurative line drawings? Just because you’re in rented accommodation, it doesn’t mean your art collection has to be temporary.
Art Doesn’t Have to be on Walls
If you’re one of those unlucky renters with a super strict landlord who forbids anything on the walls, we have the solution! Art doesn’t have to stay on the walls - it can be propped on a shelf, leant against the top of a chest of drawers, or displayed in a bookcase or shelving unit.
White frames on a white shelf creates a classic contemporary look. Why not decorate with matching accessories, sculptures, or plants. These tropical bird prints come in a range of sizes and are already framed, with a choice of frame colours to suit any interior.
Birds Pop Art Print - Set of 2
Three Dimensional Sculptures To Make Your Room Pop
The Forever Blooms collection takes the ephemeral beauty of nature and preserves it. We take dried helichrysum and delphinium flowers and turn them into a delicate sculpture - perfect to bring nature inside in a flat without a garden, or brighten up a windowless room.
Houseplants are lovely, but they can be a nightmare to look after - especially if you go on holiday! These beautiful sculptures require no looking after, and create a stunning focal point for any rented accommodation, without the hassle of buying large plants you might just have to remove in a year’s time. Our Amber Flower Block makes an exceptional table centrepiece for a dinner party, adding personality and firmly proclaiming your credentials as a nature lover!
The flowers appear as though they are floating, creating a visual illusion that's sure to delight and amaze your guests. Find the collection on Giftseeker.co.uk
Travel Around the World Without Leaving Your Apartment
An avid traveller? Showcase your travels around the world with our collection of Vintage Travel Prints. These uber-cool prints give your apartment a unique, vintage look without much effort - create a gallery wall along your hallway, or hang a set in your kitchen to remind you of past adventures. Travel is slowly starting to come back, but it will still be a while before we can all travel as freely as we did before the pandemic. Travelling through art is an inexpensive way to see the world! Our prints highlight famous landmarks in world cities, like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro or Paris’s Eiffel Tower.
We utilise the latest in printing technology to showcase our vintage colour palette - our 12-colour pigment water based inks produce the highest quality.
Discover cityscape prints.
Choose Art on a Larger Scale
We’ve curated a selection of large-scale wall art printed on canvas - printing on canvas offers more extra dimensionality and texture. We hand-stretch each artwork here in the UK, and they arrive ready to hang on your wall! These larger scale pieces are perfect when you can’t build up a huge art collection due to insecure rental accommodation, but you’re looking for a show-stopping artwork to fill the room with colour.
These artworks look particularly stunning in a bedroom setting, adding instant style and personality to a room that can be hard to decorate. We offer a choice of white, black or neutral colured floating frames - with a maximum size of 90x120cm, it’s sure to add personality to your interiors. Our large canvases are also perfect for hiding any imperfections, marks, or stains that may have been left by the last tenants.
Art with a View - Fine Art Photography
Fine art photography is a brilliant and affordable way to grow your art collection and imbue a drab interior with heaps of character. Our curated selection of fine art prints offers something for everyone, from oh-so-contemporary botanical beauties to evocative coastal scenes.
Transport yourself to a scenic landscape without leaving the house, or adorn your living room with the grand painted ceilings of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Arriving ready to hang, our fine art photography is printed on canvas and presented in a floating frame. We love these prints as an inexpensive way to brighten up your home.
Try an Easel
We love the idea of making your London rental flat look like a Paris attic with a free-standing easel. These can be picked up cheaply from craft shops - or scour local charity shops and car boot sales to see if you can pick up a pre-loved bargain. A statement piece on a free-standing easel elevates the space without any hassle - as easels fold down, they’re easy to transport up and down stairs, and between different rental accommodations.
A bold, vibrant figurative work looks stunning propped on a light wood easel, or an atmospheric cityscape.
The best part? Your living room now looks like a high-profile gallery. Art on an easel is a surefire way to start a conversation and get guests talking at any dinner party.
Hang Your Art Without Nails
If your landlord has a stringent no nails policy - or you don’t want to be bothered with filling holes in after your tenancy ends - try Command Strips instead. No drill needed, and no risk of hammering through a pipe or the neighbour’s flat! Simply attach two halves of the same adhesive strip to the frame of the artwork, and then to the wall you wish to hang it on.
Make sure to double check on the packaging if you’re hanging a very heavy artwork, as you might need to use more strips. If you’re unsure, 4 per frame should work well.
Our guide for hanging a gallery wall without nails goes into more detail.
Renting doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your style, or look at plain walls all day. The space might not be yours forever, but it’s yours for as long as your contract runs. Don’t be afraid to use original artwork, fine art photography, and canvas prints to give your rented home its own unique character!
