"This bathroom is making me sad," were the exact words I said to my partner after attempting to scrub the grout in our grey, miserable bathroom in our London flat for the 100th time.
In the two years we've been lucky to rent in leafy Greenwich in a beautiful, converted Victorian townhouse, we have slowly but surely turned our flat into a place I am proud to call our home.
The one room that has never matched my penchant for light, bright interiors and chic airy spaces, however, is the pokey grey bathroom that is in desperate need of renovation. Think cracked tiles, peeling sealant, a toilet that swerves to the left whenever you sit on it and dark, dirty grout embedded with the grub of London's underground.
We have bleached, scrubbed and descaled the space within an inch of its life on several occasions, but there is only so much a cleaning a tired and tatty rental bathroom can take before you admit defeat.
The problem tenants so often face is the rather scary, legal-binding contract that prohibits renters from making any permanent changes to the property. Worse still, the average cost of a new small bathroom is around £2,000 – £4,500 including fittings and fixtures.
© UnsplashIt didn't seem likely our landlord would accept our pleas for a bathroom renovation, so I took matters into my own hands.
From laying fresh tiles to introducing low-light-loving houseplants into the bathroom and rattan storage drawers, I turned our gloomy grey bathroom into a Moroccan-inspired oasis for less than £50. And the best part? It's entirely reversible and renter-friendly.
How I transformed my rental bathroom in 3 simple steps
1. Peel and stick floor tiles
If you're anything like me, you have a Pinterest board dedicated to impossibly chic interiors. On most of my saved pins, bathrooms are usually decorated with neat checkerboard tiles and eye-popping mosaic designs.
I was swayed by rave reviews online for these peel-and-stick bathroom tiles. They can be laid without the need for special tools, do not require grout, are water-resistant, wipeable and - much to the delight of my landlord - can be removed easily.
We needed two packs to cover our small bathroom, which came to a total of £32.40.
Aside from needing a scalpel to cut round tricky corners, they took no more than a few hours to lay, and have made such a dramatic difference to the look and feel of our bathroom.
TOP TIP: Many reviews suggested that not every tile is the same, making more angular designs like checkerboards or hexagonal tiles harder to line up exactly. This Moroccan-inspired tile was a forgivable choice that still looked great, even when the designs didn't match up perfectly.
2. Optimise your storage space
In our previous bathroom, we used a three-tiered caddy to store all our toiletries. My ever-growing skincare collection, paired with my fiancé's unsightly shaving paraphernalia made for a cluttered corner that never seemed to be organised.
I swapped this out for a five-drawer rattan set of drawers - and it has completely transformed the previously disorganised space.
The exact set of drawers I bought is available for £75 on Amazon - reasonable for rattan furniture - but I struck gold on Facebook Marketplace when a local seller was getting rid of hers for just £15.
I also swapped our wall mirror for a mirrored bathroom cabinet to maximise storage space. In an already small bathroom, having anything 'on show' can feel like an unnecessary mess, so I like to tuck away our toothbrushes and medical supplies in here.
3. Introduce plants
© GettyOur bathroom pre-renovation always felt so dark and dingy that it never came to me to bring plants into such a gloomy space.
Now the floor significantly brightens up the room, I've moved some of my low-light friendly houseplants onto the windowsill - and they are thriving.
Anna and Lotte from LAMP/LDN previously told HELLO!: "Adding plants to your interior literally gives it life. Bringing the natural world inside creates a feeling of calm and connection to nature which feeds the soul."
