How to Dress Up a Rented Flat

I'm a real homebody. Even as a little girl, my idea of fun was making cushions with my mum, choosing new wallpaper for my bedroom or poring over the pages of my mum's Your Home magazines. And now, I have a pile of my own home-interiors mags, a pile of things to make for the house, and a Pinterest board filled with ideas for my future dream house. But until we finally put down the deposit on our first home, which is a long, long way off yet, there's not an awful lot of decorating that can be done in a rented flat. However, I think I've succeeded in making our flat feel like a home, without any need for a wallpaper table or a paintbrush!

I know we're pretty lucky with our flat; the landlord lived here previously and spent a lot of time decorating, so we've avoided the magnolia minefield that is the norm for rented flats. Our flat is in a Victorian tenement building, and we have enormous high ceilings, beautiful cornicing and even the most ornate ceiling rose. The front room has sanded natural wooden floorboards, and huge windows with gorgeous long drapes. The walls are a warm toffee colour, with an inlaid corner painted duck-egg blue. The base, therefore, was already pretty homely. But there are things that can be done to tie the whole thing together and make it look your own, even without most of the decorating done.

The key? Accessories.

The first thing to do is pick a colour scheme. In our previous flat, everything was white, but we had a bright red rug, so we bought red cushions, kitchenware and ornaments to perk everything up. In this flat, we decided that the accent colour of duck-egg blue would be the perfect place to start. Having a colour scheme really ties everything together and creates a 'look', like everything has a purpose and a place, rather than it just being there.

The basics are a throw and cushions. We have an unfurnished flat, so all the stuff is our own, but on a practical basis, a throw is really good for a furnished flat where you need to keep the sofas clean! We chose a thick and fluffy chocolate brown throw to keep it cosy, which was a gift from my boyfriend's mum. For cushions, I bought two rectangle ones from Primark, which are covered with stripes in colours from chocolate to toffee to pale blue, so they tie all the colours in really well. I also chose some more luxe duck-egg blue satin cushion covers from Wilkinson's, which I put over the cushions from our previous flat to save money.

Next step, ornaments. I am a big collector of 'stuff', and the flat is currently full of china teacups and cake stands, vintage glass, ornaments and photos. This can be difficult to display in a flat with no shelving, and most landlords wouldn't allow you to start drilling into the walls willy-nilly either. Luckily, there was a built-in shelving unit by the window for me to display my bits and pieces.

 On the top shelf, we have a wobbly-headed china pug (my boyfriend's, I had no say in this...) a silver elephant, as they're my favourite animals, a china guardian angel and a lovely white china sparrow ornament.

On the second shelf, my china collection comes out to play. I have two vintage Tuscan china cups and saucers, and a white vintage china cake stand that reminds me of wedding cake. I have a beautiful 'tea for one' set that my boyfriend bought me a few birthdays ago (that's a miniature teapot and a cup, just in case), a mini milk jug and an enamel cake slicer. We are big fans of afternoon tea in this house!

One down from that is the cocktail shelf. Ignore the electronic photo frame, the focus on this shelf is a leopard-print martini glass, a vintage Chambord bottle and a 1930s French cocktail shaker (I found this in a charity shop for £1.50, best bargain buy ever!). We do use all the food and drink related things on this shelf, it's just that they're all too pretty to keep in kitchen cupboards! We also have some blue and silver printed candles on that shelf - the other two are either side of the TV, in white china candlesticks. The candles were a bargainous 4 for £1 at a local boutique, and the candlesticks were £1.75 from B&Q. They are far too pretty to burn though...

The bottom shelf is the soppy shelf. A glass heart jar from my mum in the middle, and behind that is a heart-shaped card holder, with this year's Valentines' card from my boy in it. On the left of that is my Valentines' gift that Lewis made (for the not so keen-eyed, it has a quote on it that he wrote himself, reading 'Your love is an everlasting melody, one which I shall never tire of hearing' - aww). And on the other side, a photo of us at my 21st birthday party last year, standing in front of the very same shelf!

If you don't have shelves, charity shops are great for picking up little units or cabinets to display things on. You never know, your landlord may let you put a few shelves up, providing you do them well or pay someone to do them yourself! I know a lot of people like the minimalistic look, but personally, I think having lots of stuff is a great way to make a place look homely and show off the personalities of the people who live there.

We put accessories and ornaments anywhere we can - on our TV unit there is photo of my best friend and I at my 21st birthday and a homemade photo cube with a few funny pictures in it, which isn't quite in the photo, grrr. We also have a silver French bulldog here too; a present from my mother-in-law to tide us over until we can afford a real one! To keep the brown and blue theme running, I bought a clear glass vase for about £1.50 from Ikea and filled it with large pot pourri balls from Asda.

Naked walls are the easiest way to make a place look temporary. Putting artwork or pictures up is an incredibly cheap and simple way to inject some personality and some interest into the room.  Most flats will have some holes in the walls already from previous tenants putting pictures up, so double check with your landlord but more than likely, it will be ok for you to put some frames up too. These two pictures are very cheap and cheerful copies of vintage posters for burlesque shows in Paris. We bought them on our first trip to Paris, brought them home and got them in some very cheap statement black frames. The bottom one is actually the same as a glass picture my nan had in her house when I was a little girl, so it's a lovely little memory having it hanging on our wall now. We also have another Paris themed print on the other wall, which I forgot to photograph... Oops.

All in all, these posters probably cost about £3.50 each, as we bought them from a very tacky tourist shop, and the frames were from a pound shop. The other print was about £7 from B&M Bargains, and was a lovely early Christmas present for me!

It honestly doesn't matter what kind of income you have, it is so easy to make your house look like a home. Almost everything in our front room was a bit of a bargain, with it all coming from either Ikea, Primark, Asda or charity shops and vintage fairs. Some bits are from BHS, Homebase and local boutiques, but all were in some kind of sale. I would say that one of the most important things would be to get a few cheap vases, and just fill the place with flowers! I have a mission to have flowers in the flat at least once a month, and currently there are three separate bouquets on the windowsills, thanks to my lovely and romantic boyfriend. Flowers are just the perfect way to add colour and let other people feel that you really do care about your home.

And the final thing? Love it! Do what you like, decorate how you want and scatter around anything you fancy. If you love it, that's the most important step to creating a home!