By Callum Langham, Founder & Master Craft Creator at Gypsy Handmade
Most small apartment decorating guides assume you own the place. They tell you to knock down a wall, paint an accent wall terracotta, or install floating shelves with a drill. Then you’re left wondering what to do when your lease says no nails and your landlord does inspection photos.
This guide is different. Every single piece of diy room decor for small apartments in this list is renter-safe, handmade, and removable. No drills. No paint and no landlord permission slips. Just craft supplies, a bit of time on a weekend afternoon, and a finished space that finally feels like yours.
Quick Answer: DIY Room Decor for Small Apartments
The best DIY room decor for small apartments works around two constraints at once: limited space and renter restrictions. Top handmade options include macrame wall hangings mounted on adhesive hooks, fabric tapestries hung with tension rods, gallery walls using removable adhesive strips, woven basket storage on open shelving, rope plant hangers from ceiling hooks with peel-off bases, dried botanical arrangements on floating ledges, fabric-wrapped storage boxes, and painted terracotta pot clusters. The most space-efficient DIY pieces serve two purposes: they add texture and visual warmth while also handling storage or organisation. All the ideas in this guide use either removable adhesive products (3M Command strips, peel-and-stick hooks) or freestanding items that require no wall interference. Budget per project typically runs $5 to $25 in craft supplies.
1. Macrame Wall Hanging on a Tension Rod
A macrame wall hanging is the single highest-impact piece you can add to a small apartment without touching a wall. The trick is using a tension rod instead of nails to hang it.
Place a tension rod inside a doorframe or a recessed window frame. Hang the macrame piece from the rod using the loop at the top. The rod holds the weight through outward pressure against the frame, not through the wall itself. No damage. No residue.
For a small apartment, keep the hanging under 60cm wide so it doesn’t overwhelm the doorway or compete with the natural light. Our beginner macrame wall hanging guide walks through the full process using just square knots and lark’s head knots. The supplies cost around $8 to $12 in cotton cord.
Common mistake: choosing cord that’s too thin for the hanging’s scale. For anything over 40cm wide, use at least 3mm single-strand cotton cord. Thinner cord produces a finer look but won’t hold its shape at larger sizes.
2. Fabric Tapestry with a Bamboo Rod
A large fabric tapestry changes the proportion of a small room. It gives one wall a focal point without any permanent fixing.
Thread a bamboo rod through the top hem of the tapestry (or tie the fabric corners to the rod using short loops of jute twine). Mount the rod on two adhesive Command hooks rated for the weight. Use hooks that grip the flat wall surface rather than the textured baseboard — they hold better and remove cleanly.
Choose tapestry fabrics in earthy tones: block-print linen, vintage-style cotton in terracotta and sage, or even a large piece of hand-dyed muslin. The scale matters more than the pattern. A 90cm wide tapestry in a muted earth tone quiets a busy room immediately.
3. Rope Macrame Plant Hanger
Hanging plants solve one of the trickiest small apartment problems: you want greenery, but you have no floor space for pots.
A macrame plant hanger suspends a small terracotta pot at eye level or slightly above, using a ceiling hook with a peel-and-remove adhesive base. Pair it with a pothos or a spider plant — both trail naturally and grow well in indirect light, which most small apartments offer in abundance.
The hanger itself takes about 45 minutes to make from 4mm braided cotton rope. Our macrame plant hanger guide covers five different knotting styles suited to different pot sizes. A single hanger uses about 8 metres of rope, costing roughly $4 to $6 in materials.
4. Woven Basket Wall Gallery
A cluster of three to five woven baskets in different sizes, mounted on a single wall, creates a textural statement that reads like art rather than storage.
Use adhesive 3M Command strips rated for picture frames to mount each basket. Arrange odd numbers in an asymmetric cluster — two at the top, one in the middle, two lower down with varying heights. Mix natural seagrass, rattan, and cotton weave baskets for textural contrast.
Leave a few baskets empty as pure decor. Place a small dried grass bundle or a trailing air plant inside one or two others. The whole installation costs $15 to $30 depending on basket sizes, and it removes cleanly with zero wall damage when you move out.
5. DIY Gallery Wall with Removable Strips
A gallery wall in a small apartment makes a single wall do the visual work of an entire room. Done well, it gives the impression of a thoughtfully curated space rather than a compact one.
Use 3M Command picture-hanging strips, sized to the weight of each frame. Lay the full arrangement on the floor first. Photograph it from above. Then recreate it on the wall using the photo as your reference grid. This saves the usual frustration of moving frames five times to get the spacing right.
Mix frame sizes. Use three or four different sizes, not a matching set. Include one frame with pressed botanical prints, one with a hand-lettered quote in simple black ink on watercolour paper, and one or two with photographs. The mix prevents the wall from reading as a furniture catalogue display.
6. Painted Terracotta Pot Cluster
A cluster of terracotta pots on a windowsill or open shelf is one of the quickest and cheapest small apartment decor upgrades.
Paint four to six small terracotta pots in a palette of two or three tones: warm white, dusty sage green, and muted terracotta. Use chalk paint or acrylic — both work on terracotta and don’t need sealing for indoor use. Let them dry for 24 hours before planting. Fill with trailing pothos, small succulents, or air plants.
Cluster them at varying heights by placing smaller pots on upturned terracotta saucers or small wooden blocks. The height variation creates the layered look that a single row of matching pots never achieves. Total cost for supplies: about $10 to $15 including paint.
7. Pressed Flower Wall Art
Pressed flowers in simple wooden frames make some of the most quietly striking wall art in a small apartment. They’re personal, they cost almost nothing, and they take two weeks of patience rather than two hours of skill.
Press flowers between parchment paper inside heavy books for 10 to 14 days. Pansies, Queen Anne’s lace, ferns, and small daisies all press well. Arrange the dried specimens on watercolour paper or cream card, seal with a thin layer of matte Mod Podge, and frame behind glass.
For a small apartment, a set of three A5 frames in a vertical row above a side table or desk creates a strong visual column without taking up floor space. The frames mount with Command Strips. Swap the pressed botanical prints seasonally — it gives the room an entirely different feel without any new furniture.
8. Fabric Storage Ottoman (No-Sew)
A small apartment almost always needs more seating and more storage at the same time. A fabric-covered storage ottoman handles both without requiring floor space you don’t have.
Buy a plain cardboard or foam storage cube from a discount store. Cut a piece of medium-weight fabric 15cm larger than the cube on all sides. Fold the fabric over the edges and secure it on the underside with a hot glue gun. Add a flat pillow on top as a lid — glue a strip of ribbon around the pillow’s edge to give it a finished look.
The result doubles as a footrest, extra seating, and a hidden storage unit. The fabric covering is fully removable and replaceable when you change your colour scheme.
9. Macrame Rainbow Wall Hanging
A macrame rainbow is one of the most space-efficient wall pieces you can make — it occupies vertical wall space without projecting into the room, and it reads as a complete statement piece without needing anything around it.
Make the curved frame from a thin wooden dowel bent into a semicircle and tied at the ends with cord, or buy a premade semicircular wooden frame from a craft store. Layer five to six rows of knotted macrame cord in graduating earth tones, from warm white at the outside through dusty peach, terracotta, sage, and caramel toward the centre.
Our macrame rainbow wall hanging guide covers all seven steps with exact measurements and colour order. Mount the finished piece on a single adhesive hook. Total materials cost runs about $10 to $15.
10. Jute Rope Bookshelf Styling
Open shelves in a small apartment look cluttered within a week if you don’t style them intentionally. Jute rope adds a handmade element that gives the shelf visual rhythm without adding bulk.
Wrap a few small jars or vases in natural jute twine, secured with craft glue. Use them to hold dried grasses, small succulents, or pencils and scissors on a work shelf. Alternate between wrapped jars, small plants, a few books stacked horizontally, and one or two ceramic pieces.
The consistent texture of jute rope across multiple vessels makes the shelf feel curated rather than crowded.
11. DIY Macrame Feather Cluster
A cluster of three to five handmade macrame feathers on a bedroom or living room wall takes up almost no space and adds a depth of texture that framed prints rarely match.
Make each feather from 2mm cotton macrame cord knotted around a small loop and brushed out with a stiff bristle brush to create the frond effect. Vary the sizes from 12cm to 25cm long. Pin the cluster to the wall using a single adhesive hook at the top.
Five feather styles with full step-by-step instructions are in our macrame feathers tutorial. Each feather takes about 20 minutes and costs under $2 in cord.
12. Curtain Rod Bookshelf (No Drilling)
A tension rod curtain pole in a recessed alcove, window nook, or between two walls creates an instant display shelf without a single screw.
Place a strong tension rod at the desired height. Hang S-hooks along the rod. From each S-hook, hang a small basket, a mason jar with a hook-loop of jute twine, or a small macrame pouch for plants or storage. Keep the items light — tension rods hold less weight than screwed rods, so aim for items under 500g per hook.
13. Woven Doorstop Basket
A large woven seagrass or rattan basket in the corner of a small apartment serves as a storage solution, a plant holder, and a texture anchor all at once.
Use a 40cm to 60cm diameter basket with a flat base. Fill it with rolled blankets, a potted plant, dried pampas grass, or a mix of all three. Position the basket in a corner where it fills dead space. A room corner with nothing in it reads as unused space in a small apartment. A large basket with texture and height turns the same corner into an intentional vignette. Cost: $15 to $35 for a quality seagrass basket.
14. Dried Botanical Wreath (No Nails)
A dried botanical wreath on a door or wall adds a layer of organic warmth that no candle or throw pillow quite achieves.
Build the base from a grapevine or wire wreath frame. Wire or hot-glue dried lavender, pampas grass, dried orange slices, seed pods, and eucalyptus in overlapping layers around the frame. Work in one direction to give the botanicals a natural sweep rather than a stuffed look.
Hang the wreath from an adhesive Command hook on the inside of your front door or on the wall above a console table. The dried materials last 12 to 18 months with no watering, no soil, and no maintenance beyond an occasional gentle shake.
15. Fairy Light Canopy (Renter-Safe)
A fairy light canopy above a bed or sofa completely changes the atmosphere of a small apartment at night, and it installs in under 30 minutes with adhesive hooks and no exposed wiring.
Run two or three strings of warm white LED fairy lights horizontally across the ceiling above the bed using adhesive ceiling hooks, spacing the hooks 40cm to 60cm apart. Let the lights drape in slight swoops rather than pulled tight — the drape creates the canopy effect. Run the power cable along the wall using adhesive cable clips.
For a layered look, thread the lights through a length of cream linen pinned lightly to the ceiling hooks. The fabric diffuses the light and creates a soft glow rather than a good point-source effect. Total cost: $12 to $20 for LED string lights plus $3 to $5 for adhesive hooks.
What to Avoid in a Small Apartment
Too many patterns compete for attention in a small space. Pick one patterned piece and keep everything around it in solid earthy tones.
Avoid placing large items against every wall. One or two walls should stay mostly clear. Empty wall space in a small room reads as breathing room, not as emptiness. The room feels bigger when you resist filling every surface.
Furniture that sits directly on the floor makes a room feel heavier. Pieces with visible legs let light travel under the furniture, which visually expands the floor area.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I decorate a small apartment on a tight budget?
Start with handmade textural pieces: a macrame wall hanging, a cluster of painted terracotta pots, and a basket with dried grasses. These three elements together cost under $30 in supplies and completely change the room’s character. Add a set of warm white LED fairy lights for under $15 and you have a full room transformation without touching any permanent fixtures.
What DIY room decor works for renters who can’t use nails?
3M Command Strips and adhesive hooks handle almost everything a nail would. They hold picture frames, macrame hangings, small baskets, curtain rods, and cable management clips. Tension rods work for doorways and recessed window frames. Freestanding baskets, floor plants, and furniture-based decor require no wall contact at all.
How do I make a small apartment feel bigger with DIY decor?
Use vertical space rather than floor space. A tall macrame wall hanging draws the eye upward and makes ceilings feel higher. A rope plant hanger uses ceiling space that would otherwise go to waste. Keep the lower two-thirds of each wall relatively clear. Use a consistent earthy palette across handmade pieces to reduce visual clutter.
What are the easiest DIY decor projects for a small apartment?
Painted terracotta pots (30 minutes, under $10), jute rope jar wrapping (15 minutes per jar, under $3 each), a pressed flower frame (two weeks pressing time, 30 minutes assembly, under $8), and a fabric tapestry on a bamboo rod (one hour, $15 to $25 depending on fabric) are all quick entry points. None require craft experience beyond basic patience.
Can I hang macrame in a rented apartment?
Yes. Use a tension rod in a doorframe or window recess to hang the macrame from, rather than a wall hook. Alternatively, 3M Command strips rated for the weight of the piece work on most painted walls and remove without damage when you leave. Always check the weight rating on the Command product before use.
What natural materials work best for small apartment DIY decor?
Cotton macrame cord, jute twine, dried pampas grass, seagrass baskets, terracotta pots, dried lavender, bamboo rods, and rattan are the highest-impact natural materials for a small apartment. They share a consistent earthy palette that unifies the room without effort.
Start with One Wall and Build From There
The most common mistake in decorating a small apartment is trying to do everything at once. One wall, done well, transforms the whole room. Start with the wall you see when you walk through the front door.
Pick one project from this list that matches the time and supplies you have right now. Our beginner macrame wall hanging tutorial is a natural first project if you’ve never worked with cord before. If you’d rather start with something even faster, the painted terracotta pot cluster takes one afternoon and costs less than a takeaway dinner.
For more handmade home ideas that work in small spaces, the macrame curtains guide covers a renter-safe curtain approach that adds privacy and texture without touching the existing curtain hardware.
Save this article to your Pinterest craft boards so you can work through these ideas one at a time. Tag your finished pieces @gypsyhandmade. There is nothing quite like seeing a small apartment come into its own through things made by hand.
