Negotiate before you decorate your rental retreat

Many of Ireland’s 600,000 renters want to make their property feel more like a home. Meet three whose hard work and vision transformed basic properties into stylish abodes

Peter MacCann & Caroline Quinn

FURNITURE DESIGNER Peter MacCann lives in a rented flat in Dublin 6. He shares the space with his partner, Caroline Quinn, co-owner of vintage emporium, Dirty Fabulous. Just because they don’t own their home doesn’t mean they don’t want to call the space their own.

When the couple viewed the flat a year ago it hadn’t been decorated in a decade, but they saw its potential. “The place had great high ceilings and a big sense of space,” Peter explains. They negotiated a month’s free rent in exchange for making over the flat. They had the existing furniture removed. The landlord paid for the materials and Peter did the hard work, building shelves in the living room and ripping up the carpets and dark staining the floors.

They painted everything white and asked that the rest of the flat be recarpeted.

It was really easy, says Peter, who lived in the flat through the renovations. Caroline chose to live out for the period. “For people like us, who are older and renting and already have our own stuff and style, to rent an unfurnished space is a much more attractive option,” he says. “The fact that we could personalise it from the get-go helped make the flat feel like a real home. It also gives us a greater sense of security of tenure.”

The most impressive part of the flat is their dining-cum-livingroom to the front of the house, which overlooks a park.

Two large sash windows let in plenty of light. I-Beam candlesticks, a prototype of Peter’s, adorn the period mantelpiece. A pair of modular TV glacier units sit against one wall. These are just some of the many pieces designed by Peter.

petermaccann.com/ dirtyfabulous.com

Melissa Curry

Renter and accessories designer Melissa Curry was willing to trade decoration skills in return for a lower rent. She also wanted to live in Dublin’s Sandymount. She knocked on office doors and private houses in the area to see whether anyone might be interested in the offer, even placing small ads in newspapers in order to tempt landlords. But nothing concrete materialised.

It took five months of scouring websites before the mother-of-one found her holy grail – a three-bedroom semi near the village. After viewing it through an agent she found out who the landlord was and approached him directly.

The house had a 1980s feel to it, she explains. “It was dated, so I asked the landlord if I could take it on and add modern touches.” She informed him that she was keen to stay put for several years and as part of her charm offensive furnished the landlord with “great references”. In return for doing the work she negotiated a rent reduction of 35 per cent.

The Edwardian property had great period features – high ceilings, big windows and feature fireplaces. She removed ugly built-in storage units and covered the doors, skirting and walls in Colortrend’s Blank Canvas, a warm white. She also asked the landlord to remove his furniture and brought in her own. Melissa believes she made the property far more attractive to the next tenant and says the landlord is delighted.

Melissa saw potential where others could not. But even if you have the eye to see beyond dodgy decor, she admits “you still have to find the right landlord who can see the long-term potential of such a deal”.

The negative side to renting is that you never know where you stand, she says. Leases are invariably only one year long. “You have to hope the landlord remains solvent and is willing to negotiate a longer-term lease after the first year.”

[ Melissacurrydesign.com ]

Amanda Wilcher

American photographer Amanda Wilcher divides her time between the US and Dublin. She found her contemporary, light-filled and unfurnished duplex in Dublin 4 through agent Eoin Reilly. But the walls were a “drab brown and had been roughed up by the pitter patter of tiny feet”. The whole place needed repainting.

Through her agent she negotiated that the landlord would pay for half the paint to recolour the walls. She was happy with that deal. “We’d have had to paint it anyway and I wanted to use specific colours,” she explains. She used degraded shades of grey in the bedroom, the hall is a pale dove grey and the dining room is a rich Prussian blue.

In the kitchen there is a feature wall covered with blackboard paint. “Home established 2010” is chalked onto it. “I’ll paint over it when I leave,” she laughs.

She believes having your own things around you makes a rented property feel more like home. In the sitting room she has installed a sizeable mid-century modern sofa. It had to be hoisted up into the apartment over the balcony. A black and white abstract eye rug by Andy Warhol covers the rich cherry flooring.

It takes time to get the place looking the way you want it. Amanda thought the work would take a fortnight to complete. It has taken twice that, and is still not finished.

She still plans to hang her pictures using adhesive hooks so she won’t have to drill holes in the walls. Would she have taken the property if she hadn’t been able to customise it? “Yes. I’d probably have painted it anyway and painted it back before we moved out.”

[ Amandawilcher.com ]

Decorating a rental: dos and don'ts

Margaret McCormick, information officer at the Irish Property Owners' Association ( www.ipoa.ie), quotes the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 with regard to painting and redecorating as follows:

“Whilst the landlord owns the property and it is the tenant’s home, a tenant cannot alter or improve the property without the written consent of the landlord. A landlord cannot unreasonably withhold this consent if the tenant is seeking to repair, paint or decorate the property.

“If the landlord consents to a request by the tenant to paint or decorate, the landlord is under no obligation to pay for it and in fact the tenant may be liable for any cost reasonably incurred by the landlord in deciding upon a request.

“The Act expressly states that a tenant cannot change the locks or alter the building.

“Landlords have statutory obligations to carry out repairs under minimum standards and maintain the property interior and fittings in at least the condition first let in.

“A tenant should notify the landlord or agent of any repair issues and allow access for the work to be carried out.

“If the landlord is not addressing a repair issue a tenant should not withhold the rent, as this puts the tenancy at risk.

"If the minimum standards are not being addressed, a tenant should contact their local authority to arrange an inspection of the property by an environmental health officer and/or refer a dispute to the Private Residential Tenancies Board ( www.prtb.ie)."