[Part 1] It’s the little things: clever ideas on how to make your rental apartment stand out among all the rest.
After lots of funny looks and “why didn’t I think about that?” statements from fellow building owners and landlords/ladies, I’ve decided to write a series of stories dedicated to the clever things we do at Buffalove to make our spaces unique and help keep a smile on our tenants faces. From murals to stencils and everything in between, all the things we do are DIY friendly, simple and affordable. Here are a few of my favorites but don’t think I’m done — we have dozens of things we’ve done that I will share throughout this series!
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (Yes, that is a real sentence!) We Buffalonians are a proud people. Why not extend it into your living space? This simple little Buffalo located at the top corner of the room on a weird knee wall makes people smile and only cost $12 bucks for a reusable plastic stencil and $5 for the spray paint of your choice. We have lips, funny phrases, our logo and so much more stenciled. They go up on the walls, in closet corners, on the stair risers, interior and exterior doors and so much more. I nabbed this idea from Michael at Room Buffalo when we worked on the American Rehab Buffalo tv series for DIY Network and ran with it.
A cup of coffee? Everyone loves coffee! This is one of my favorites but I have only done it once. A local coffee shop called Remedy House opened in the neigborhood where I own many rental properties so I asked them if I could pay in advance for all my residents to have a cup of coffee. They looked at me like I was a little crazy and said… uh, sure! I texted all my residents that there was a coffee waiting for them at the counter and they were all super happy. Many bought something else which helped bring business in and several even instagramed their experience which is pretty neat! Seeing them happy made me happy. Worth it.
What’s behind door number 2? Do you ever want to do something fun but don’t want it to leave the apartment hard to rent? I LOVE to install funny things on the inside of the medicine cabinet. Gets. them. every. time. Last week we installed removable fancy lipstick wallpaper by our friends at Chasing Paper onto the inside of the original medicine cabinet from 1929. It didn’t harm the historic integrety and was only $40 for the roll!
That is it… for now! Stay tuned!
