DIY CHEAP APARTMENT FIXES

So for those of you who are in my shoes and are still enjoying the perks of apartment living ;)
You’re probably experiencing similar dilemmas. You want to have a nice looking place to live BUT don’t want to spend the money since you aren’t getting the return value. So throughout the years I have learned a few tricks to save on $$$ BUT also add some class and a little spark to your new place. I’ll share with you some tricks to plump up your place!

To start… I LOVE the charm of older buildings: larger windows, wood floors, molding… But it also comes with the not so loveable traits such as unevenness (try hanging a picture and it actually looking straight!), outdated looks, remnants of other DIY projects gone wrong, and a laundry list of other things!

A fresh coat of paint can liven up any room up, with of course the OK from your landlord. Many places don’t allow tenants to paint on their own. I won’t move to a place where this occurs because I LOVE COLOR! Places that don’t allow painting are usually some version of WHITE in EVERY room! So with that said and your landlord’s permission get out the paintbrushes folks!

Now in many older buildings the baseboards look something like this…

 

The problems I have run into time and time again no matter how straight of a line you can paint, it NEVER looks good. The baseboard is chipped, uneven and over time pulled away from the wall. So I decided to give this issue my full attention since I have this issue in EVERY room. Good news.. easy fix! You are going to paint a straight line on the wall, it kind of connects the baseboard and the wall and leaves a smooth line. So,  After you have painted your walls and let them dry decide on the thickness you would like the line to be and tape it off like so…

 

 

For the areas where the baseboard has pulled away from the wall I tried a few different things from rolled up tracing paper to Spackle, depending on the size of the gap being filled. I painted two coats of pure white on my baseboards and the after effect…

 

Simple! It now looks clean and modern. You would never know how ugly it really used to be!! It does take time to go around and do this to every room so have patience. Choose a different room each weekend until you have conquered them all! It really is worth it in the end.