After owning a home for the past 20 years, I suddenly found myself renting. We decided to simplify and sell the major renovations we had been working on in favor of something smaller and simpler. I haven’t found the right house yet, so I’ll rent it while I wait. And I surprised myself with how much I liked it.
In Western countries, homeownership is considered the be-all and end-all. At the same time, house prices are skyrocketing, wages are stagnant and rents are rising. I understand that for many renters, their landlords are stingy, they live in small communal spaces, and they may be paying too much to live in substandard homes. I’m grateful for the good fortune of having a decent rental agent manage my property, maintain it, and charge me a fair price to live here. So my experience is more rosy than many others.
But I’ve come here for people who might otherwise think it’s a step backwards, working hard and striving to own and being led to believe that it’s the only way to live. To insist on renting to those who are. surprise! Renting is heaven (at least for me) and I really enjoyed being able to feel like it was my home.
(Image credit: Amy Lamb/NativeHouse Photography. Design: Lisa Gilmore Design)
“There’s so much freedom in renting,” says Lisa Gilmore, an interior designer with Florida-based Lisa Gilmore Designs. She admits that she is in the same position as me. I’m lucky to live in a nice apartment upstairs and have decent ownership. And I agree that the mindset that renting gives you, if you’re lucky, is surprisingly appealing. “Try on neighborhood and building styles for size, change if you don’t like them, and explore.”
I live in a part of the city that I would never have considered buying, but was happy to rent because the stakes were low. It’s more crowded than I expected, but having coffee shops and bars within walking distance turned out to be better than I expected (I used to live very peacefully in the countryside).
But it’s more than that. I am learning to relax in my rented home in a way I never could in my owned home. Back then, there was always work to be done, always some renovation costs, and always maintenance that required management and funding. In rental properties here, you can hardly notice cracks in the stucco, but hey, it’s not a problem in the long run.
(Image credit: Amy Lamb/NativeHouse Photography. Design: Lisa Gilmore Design)
That doesn’t mean you can’t use your rental property as if it were your own home. Even if we didn’t unpack all the furniture, plants, and books from our old house and chose the homeowner’s classic gray wall paint, we styled the space to tell our story and painted our favorites. We exhibited things.
And Lisa points out that rentals can grow with you, too. She had a baby five months ago and converted her guest room into this nursery above. “I love wallpaper, but in a rental it’s dangerous,” she says. “So what I did was I had a carpenter make some kind of woodwork and used beads to attach it to the board with French cleat.Then I put wallpaper in the center of the board. You can hang it on the wall. It looks like a panel, but it’s actually a piece of art that you can take with you on the go.”
(Image credit: James Merrell)
Not everything about rentals is a dream come true. Even for those of us lucky enough to have space and a landlord who will answer the phone if something goes wrong.
“I think maintenance could be an issue,” says Lisa. “The exterior of my house clearly lacks curb appeal and is painted a color I hate, but fixing it is not a priority for the owners. As much as possible about some plants. I did that, but if I owned it, I would definitely want to take a proper look at it.”
In my case, the wooden kitchen countertop had started to warp around the kitchen sink and had darkened along the edges from years of water seepage. But this isn’t my home, so I don’t think it’s my problem. And if someday I renovate my kitchen again, be careful not to choose wood counters. As Lisa says, renting means trying it on for size. And if you’re lucky, you might find something you like.
