So you’re finally living off campus. But as it turns out, your apartment was crazy cheap for a reason. “Recently renovated” actually meant no one has touched the place since the late 60s, the walls have cracks, that one sink leaks, there’s an unidentified smell coming from somewhere in the basement, and things keep breaking for no apparent reason. Congratulations, you have a sh*tty apartment. Fortunately, most sh*tty apartments can be transformed with the little cash you have and some elbow grease. In fact, if you do it right, you’ll soon forget that you want to kill all of your friends that were lucky enough to end up in Bouquet.
Get out the Toothbrush
The reason your walls and floors look so disgusting is because they probably are. If it looks like the last tenants didn’t clean once while they lived there, it might be time to pull out a toothbrush and get scrubbing. Murphy’s Oil Soap is great for scrubbing hardwood floors back to their rightful glory, and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are great for making the tiles and walls shiny and white again. If you’re really ambitious, you can pick up some carpet cleaner and scrub deep to get out that Natty Light some drunken freshman spilled back in ’04.
Add a Pop of Color
If your apartment only contains the same 4 shades of white and beige, it’s time to get that bright pink chair you’ve secretly wanted since the 4th grade. Pick bold colors like bright red and royal blue and pair them together in a room. We added some bright chairs to our living room to make the all-white walls look less depressing.
Contact Paper, Contact Paper, Contact Paper
Check out the surfaces in your cupboards and drawers. If you wouldn’t eat off them, why would you put your plates on them? That’s where contact paper comes in. Grab a fun pattern from Walmart or Target and start applying.
We put some down in our bathroom’s medicine cabinet to cover up some questionable stains from the previous owners.
I didn’t get a chance to do this in my apartment, but lining your stairs is another creative use of contact paper/wallpaper. Adding strip LEDs would give you a bada** lighting effect.
Cover Your Walls with Character
If you can safely wield an X-Acto knife, there are tons of cheap ways to fill up your wall space. For under $10 you can get oversized black and white photo prints (up to 36’’ by 48’’) from most office supply chains. These cheap prints, known as engineer prints, are usually used for blueprints or schematics, so the quality isn’t top notch—the paper is very thin and the pictures can be a bit grainy, but for the price and size, you can’t beat the powerful effect they can have in a room.
Here’s a great example of engineer prints at work.
Since these prints are on extremely thin paper, you’ll need some lightweight foam board and glue to use as a backing. Once you have the supplies, cut the foam board to size, glue your print to the board, and hang like normal with command strips. This project is definitely on my to-do.
If you like crafts like this, grab a canvas, black paint, and letter stencils to make an awesome night light. I took a quote from my favorite poem, printed out the letters to make stencils, traced the words, and then painted around the letters. Finally, I ordered some battery powered lights from Amazon for $6 and mounted them with a glue gun on the back of the canvas. All credit to Pinterest and Buzzfeed for the idea.
If you’re inherently scared by the word “crafting,” you can buy vivid tapestries from Amazon for $25-$40 to cover your walls instead. They range anywhere from 40’’ to 100’’ long and can be used as couch covers, bed covers, or wall décor.
I got one featuring a yellow monkey for $25 on Amazon and hung it up behind my desk for a pop of color.
You can even cover your walls for free with paint swatch samples like this:
Repurpose Old Furniture
Pitt’s Free and For Sale group on Facebook is a great place to find used furniture for cheap to fill up those sad empty corners. These pieces aren’t always going to be in the best condition or match what you already have, so be prepared to repurpose or repaint. I took an old, beaten up nightstand from home, sanded it down, and painted it white to match the rest of my furniture. I picked up a new drawer knob as well to update the look.
Living Things that Won’t Piss Off Your Landlord
If your landlord has a strict no-pet policy, you can still add a little life to your apartment with some greenery (and no, mold does not count as greenery). I didn’t want to worry about watering a plant, so I picked up a fake one from IKEA for about $20. Because it can’t die, it’s safe to leave alone over Christmas break unlike that fish you won this summer at the county fair.
Photo credit: 1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11; all other images provided by author