A new book gathers 36 creatives who decorate their rentals boldly, proving any room can be made entirely yours, whatever the lease.
Home is felt as much as it is seen. Beyond furniture or decoration, it is a full sensory experience — the light that fills a room, the feeling of its fabrics and textiles, its particular sounds, and the scents in the air — that lends a space its atmosphere. To live in borrowed spaces is to develop a kind of creativity that thrives on adaptation and sensitivity. It is using atmosphere to transcend architecture and treating each move as an opportunity for renewal.
In an age of impermanence, perhaps this is the truest form of belonging: the ability to make a home anywhere, again and again.
At its most essential, the idea of home begins with security. From this security comes a sort of comfort. It grows with the familiar rhythms of daily life — opening the curtains to let in morning light, brewing coffee, wrapping up in a cosy blanket — gestures repeated so frequently that they become a part of us.
The softness of belonging
Textiles are the touch that turn any structure into shelter. Whether curtains that filter light, throws draped over a sofa, or rugs that absorb sound and define a space, these pieces are often the first to make a place feel like home. In temporary dwellings, they are the quickest tools of transformation — easy to carry in, spread out, and fold away again when it’s time to move on. The most democratic design tool, they don’t require renovation or the permission of a landlord.
A curtain rail can be fitted and removed in minutes; a rug can conceal an undesirable floor or define a seating area; a duvet cover or blanket can change the mood of a bedroom as easily as changing an outfit.
In the company of print
There are few things that warm a space like print. Books, magazines, photographs and other printed matter just have a way of making a space feel like home. Print travels lightly yet carries the weight of meaning and memory. Even the smallest stack of books on a bedside table can help us feel at home somewhere new. Perhaps this is why print is so sacred to renters: it is personal, portable, and needs nothing more than a surface to rest on. A rented space might be temporary, but the books and artworks within it form a continuous thread, one that ties each home to the next.
The weight of small things
The spaces we inhabit may change, but the objects we bring with us — whether chosen, gifted, inherited, or found — provide continuity. Some are practical, like a chair towed from one apartment to the next or the table that has hosted meals and conversations. Others are smaller but equally significant: a photograph tucked in the corner of a mirror, a favourite book with its corners folded, a bowl picked up on a trip abroad. A chipped mug is as meaningful as any designer object, reminding of a person, a moment, or a chapter of life. In rented homes, objects are what transform the impersonal into the personal. They add character to blank walls, usher personality into plain rooms, and bring warmth to spaces that might otherwise feel stark.
Light-touch interventions
Many rentals don’t allow for renovation, but most can accommodate reinvention. Small, reversible changes — those that require nothing more than a paintbrush, a screwdriver or bare instinct — are often the easiest way to transform a room without leaving a permanent mark. While you may not be able to move walls, you can always swap out a few door handles. Simple interventions lend personality to even the most temporary of homes, becoming essential tools of self-expression and style.
Living in rented homes is about possibility, not perfection. Sometimes all a space needs is a reshuffling of furniture, a new tone on the trim, or some updated handles to feel perfect for now.
Scent as home
Some homes are remembered for their cosiness, others for a quirky feature. But often, it’s a home’s scent that lingers longest. Flowers perfuming a hallway, a fire in the chimney at night, the clean smell of laundry drying indoors — these scents remain the most direct line to memory long after prints have been taken down and furniture replaced. In rented homes, scent becomes an avenue to ownership. Requiring no renovation, no permission and no resources beyond a spent match, there is something democratic about scent. When we leave a place behind, what we take with us is rarely just furniture — often, it is feelings and memories we can unpack again and again.
Edited extract from Home For Now by Niko Dafkos and Paul Firmin, (Gestalten).
Words Niko Dafkos & Paul Firmin
Photography Sarah Victoria Bates
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