Decorating an apartment is an art form.
Think about it. An apartment is essentially a blank canvas just waiting to be adorned with your personal decorative touch.
As exciting as decorating an apartment is, the whole process can be a bit taxing—especially if you’re worried about damaging your apartment.
Improperly hanging pictures, shelves and other accessories can not only damage your apartment walls, it can also result in the forfeiture of your security deposit if the damage is excessive.
Rather than refraining from decorating your apartment, we’re here to help you do things the damage-free way.
Here are three tips on how to decorate your apartment without losing a security deposit!
Stick With The Traditional Hooks and Hangers
One of the biggest mistakes many people make when decorating their apartment is to purchase adhesive hooks and hangers.
These adhesive-backed plastic picture hangers and apparel hooks claim to be the hassle-free way to decorate your place without damaging walls.
Although they don’t require nails and screws, these substitutes can actually cause more damage than traditional hooks and hangers.
While the manufacturers claim that the products can be easily removed, that’s often not the case. If not removed ever so gingerly, the adhesive backing can peel the paint off of the wall. They can also tear some of the paper from the drywall and expose the crumbly material beneath.
Additionally, the adhesive can lose its sticky properties over time. This results in the hooks and hangers pulling away from the wall. When this happens, it can break the picture frame, wreck the photo or artwork and damage the walls.
Instead of taking a chance on these adhesive products, play it safe with traditional hooks and picture hangers.
Sure, each nail or screw puts a hole in the wall, but they’re tiny and easily filled with spackling paste or putty when it comes time to move. But more importantly, your pictures, art and accessories will be more stable and secure – and you won’t cause excessive damage to your walls.
Purchase These Helpful Tools and Accessories
Although traditional hooks and picture hangers are the preferred choice for apartment decorating, they also need to be installed properly to prevent damage.
Simply hammering a hanger into a random area of the drywall is not recommended. Drywall is very crumbly. It’s not strong enough to support a lot of weight. After a while, the nail will come loose and the hanger and object will fall to the floor – along with a chunk of the drywall.
To avoid this scenario, we recommend investing in a stud finder. Available at hardware stores, department stores and online, this easy-to-use tool helps you local the wall studs (wooden boards used to support the drywall) so you can drive nails and screw into them for greater support.
When the nails or screws are driven into the wood studs, they allow the hanger, fastener or bracket to properly support the weight of the photo, artwork or shelving unit.
Sometimes the perfect place for that print or shelf is in a section of the wall that’s between the wood studs. That’s ok. If you purchase some screw anchors, you’ll be able to safely and securely hang your decorations or shelves.
Simply drill a small hole in the wall. Then insert the plastic or metal anchor. Once inserted into the drywall, the sides of the anchor expand to grip the wall. This provides the support the hanging or bracket needs to accommodate the picture or shelf.
Invest In A TV Stand
Large TV screens are great!
They allow you to enjoy theater-quality pictures and sound that makes every movie, sporting event or streaming show way more entertaining and enjoyable!
To save floor space, many apartment residents opt to mount their widescreen TVs on their living room wall.
Unfortunately, these TV and the wall brackets are way too heavy for the drywall to support. If they’re not properly installed, they can cause quite a bit of damage if the brackets break away from the wall. Plus, you wind up with a broken TV. Even worse, a falling TV can injure you or your pet.
Play it safe and invest in a TV stand.
While this option does require sacrificing floor space, it won’t damage your apartment, ruin your TV or cause injury.
Best of all, most modern TV stands offer plenty of shelves and drawers for extra storage space. So, you may be able to free up other areas of your apartment by storing some of your stuff in the stand.
Your New Apartment Is Waiting For You!
Feel better about decorating your apartment?
We hope so!
And we hope that your new place will be a luxury apartment at 363 Bond Street!
Our apartment community is just waiting to welcome you!
Contact us today to learn more about life at 363 Bond Street apartments!