‘I totally repainted my beige rental, this is what it cost me when I moved out’

When Anna Jacobs decided to decorate her neutral three-bedroom flat, she knew she wanted a technicolor family home.

There was just one potential hitch: she was renting.

But as in interior designer, Anna, 55, felt it was important to showcase to landlords that tenants should be able to add colour to their homes to enhance mental health and wellbeing.

‘I don’t necessarily mean bright colours,’ she says, referencing the flat she was renting in Crystal Palace, South London at the time.

‘While beiges and creams make me feel panicky and stressed, for others, those hues make them happy. What’s important is for people to find the right colours for them and be able to use colour how they want.’

Luckily for Anna and her two children, Zachary, now 17, and Coco Rose, now 15, her landlord was open to her ideas.

‘He said that I could do what
I wanted. Coincidentally, he and his partner were already fans of my design brand, so he knew roughly what to expect,’ says Anna, who had to agree to turn anything he didn’t like to more neutral creams when she left.

The results are stunning, and she won the stamp of approval at the inaugural Ufurnish.com awards last year, where she lifted two awards, including the coveted Judges’ Choice award.

In Crystal Palace, one of the biggest projects Anna tackled was her open-plan kitchen/dining room, which scooped a Ufurnish Best Dining Room award in its own right.

‘When it comes to rentals, it’s probably the most challenging of spaces to decorate as all the inherited décor is fitted in, with unsightly appliances on show,’ says Anna.

She got to work painting the greyish kitchen cupboards in Marine Splash blue paint by Dulux. To hide the unsightly splashback, Anna covered
it in a heatproof and waterproof self-adhesive vinyl wallpaper from vinylwarehouse.co.uk.

Being a big fan of vinyl for non-permanent decorating ideas, Anna also bought a marble-effect vinyl
to cover the worktop and wrapped
the battered silver rental fridge – which stuck out like a sore thumb – with a green vinyl, again both
from vinylwarehouse.co.uk,
with prices starting from £3 for a
1m x 30cm piece.

Being a larger, more awkward shape, covering the fridge proved a little trickier.

‘It was an epic fail, so I called in a pair of professional car wrappers to save the day,’ says Anna.

The walls were painted in Little Greene’s Sage & Onions green, complemented with Ocean Spray by Dulux on the window frame. ‘I wanted to create a more organic, leafy feel with a bit of a New York loft-style edge,’ says Anna. ‘I wanted it to be a delicious space to eat in.’

The rest of the room was completed on a shoestring – from the dining chairs inherited from her sister, which she painted in a blue, and the Ikea baskets on top of the wardrobe, which Anna painted white to half-way up, to the orange-hued pine table that her landlord left behind.

‘He said I could keep it, dump it or give it away,’ says Anna of the table.

Instead, she painstakingly sanded, primed and then painted it in black before adding a marble-effect on top with an Artisan Marble Effect spray paint from Craig & Rose.

She even creatively repurposed a 20-year-old Ikea Pax wardrobe – originally being used in her bedroom – into extra storage.

‘I cut timber panelling from B&Q using a mitre cutting block, painted them using Valspar paint tester pots and then glued them on the front in a zig-zag pattern using no-nail glue,’ she explains.

Running up the staircase is a stunning mural inspired by artist Linnéa Andersson, which Anna hand-painted using Smalt by Little Greene on the walls.

‘I messaged Linnéa on Instagram
to ask permission to use her art as inspiration, and to my delight she said she’d be honoured,’ says Anna. ‘I love the hallway and staircase because it creates an immediate impact and sets the tone for the whole home. It’s like walking into an artwork.’

Anna upgraded the staircase risers using her tried-and-tested peel-and-stick vinyl strategy, opting for an electric blue to match the mural.

‘It’s super affordable and so easy to apply. Plus, it’s easy to peel off if you want to change it or need to remove it when you leave,’ she says.

Other clever DIY hacks include painting a Missoni-inspired zig-zag pattern on her bathroom walls.

‘I questioned my decision after spending around eight hours marking out the pattern with Frog Tape and then days painting it, but I love it.’

Anna also updated the plastic silver rental shower with gold washi tape – a project that cost her just £2.20.

‘It looked great and lasted over three years. Only a little bit peeled away at the top, which I replaced with leftover tape. It was so easy to do,’ she says.

Anna used paint to transform all the bedrooms, giving her children their own creative freedom – with Coco choosing a palette of pinks, greys and white, while Zach opted for green and purple.

For Anna’s sanctuary, which she used as both her bedroom and home office, she saturated the space in botanicals, lush greens, blues and teals – all healing, nourishing colours.

Anna updated aspects of her room throughout her time renting the property, including painting a set of metal desk drawers she’d had for more than 20 years, in an aqua hue.

She wanted to decorate with wallpaper, but knowing how difficult it can be to remove, she decided to build a screen with the help of a carpenter friend, who charged her roughly £95 to build the frame, while Anna covered it in Harlequin Floreana wallpaper.

‘If you’re unable to use wallpaper in your rental home, consider using it on furniture instead,’ she says.

Anna moved out in summer 2024, after her landlord decided to sell.

For speed and ease in putting
the home right, she called in the decorators to repaint most of home, although her landlord asked her to leave some bits untouched, including the green dining room and the staircase mural. And in the end, the buyers loved it.

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