If you're renting, you've probably noticed something odd about the way art is sold in this country: almost every guide out there assumes you own a drill, a mortgage and a wall you can put a hole in. But nearly a third of Australians rent, and every one of you has walls that deserve better than a bare beige stare. We've been sending framed art, decals and removable wallpaper to rented homes from our West Gosford facilities for over ten years now, and this is the guide we wish existed sooner: what actually hangs safely without a bond dispute, what survives the move to the next place, and why renting is a very good reason to buy better art, not worse.
Let's start with something worth saying out loud: your rental is your home. The average tenancy in Australia stretches over years, your walls are the biggest surface in that home, and the difference between a bare rental and a decorated one is the difference between an address on a letter and a place you actually live. Every method we're about to walk you through is exit-inspection safe, and every product we make is built to still be yours in the house after this one, and the one after that.
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Your Bond-Safe Hanging Toolkit
There are really only three methods you need, and together they cover just about every rental situation you'll come across. We'll go from lightest touch to slightly braver, so you can mix and match based on the wall in front of you.
The first is the modern adhesive hook system. The rated ones (look for the 4 to 8 kg versions) will hold our small and mid-sized framed prints on sound paint, and they come off cleanly when you follow the instructions on the packet. They do have their limits, and they're worth respecting. Cure time is real, so fit the hook and then wait an hour before you hang the art, not the other way around. Weight matters too, so pop the piece on the kitchen scales rather than guessing. And textured walls or freshly painted walls will let you down, so it's worth testing one hook for 48 hours before you trust it with anything behind glass.
The second is the negotiated picture hook. One small nail hole, filled with a dab of filler on exit day, is accepted by most agents and landlords when you ask in writing first. It unlocks every size we print, and honestly, the yes rate surprises people. It's worth asking.
The third method is the one nobody talks about enough: no contact at all. Leaning large pieces on sideboards, credenzas and mantels looks considered rather than compromised, and floor-leaning a 100 x 130 cm statement against your bedroom wall is a working stylist's trick, not a fallback. Our hanging guide has the hardware and weight ratings for all three methods if you want the specifics.
Renting is an argument for better art, not worse. The piece on the wall is the one part of the room you keep.
Own the Art, Not the Walls
The maths of buying art as a renter is genuinely different from buying as a homeowner, and it's worth thinking through. A homeowner spreads the cost of a piece across a decade in one room. You spread the cost of yours across every future address you'll live in, which means durability is the whole game. Those thin poster-and-plastic-frame purchases don't survive the second move: corners get crushed, the plastic splits, the print fades, and you find yourself buying again at the next place. It adds up faster than most people realise.
Our framed prints are built for the moving life you're actually living. Solid oak, black or white timber frames, 230gsm archival paper, pigment inks that hold their colour through years of varied light, packed flat, and re-hung in about ten minutes at your next address. The gallery-quality framed range is the long game for renters: buy a piece properly at twenty-five and you'll still be hanging it at forty, four addresses later. That's the honest answer when someone asks you whether it's worth investing while you're renting. The renter who buys properly ends up owning a growing collection. The renter who keeps buying posters ends up owning a stack of landfill receipts.
Room by Room in Your Rental
- Living room: one anchor piece above the sofa on a negotiated hook, or leaning on top of the media unit. Aim for 60 to 75 percent of the sofa width, just as you would if you owned the place, because visually you do. The living room collection scales beautifully to rental proportions.
- Bedroom: classic adhesive hook territory. A mid-size, calm piece above the bed from the bedroom range, or a leaning piece on the dresser if the wall behind the bed is off limits.
- Entry and hallway: the highest-return upgrade you can make in a rental. One or two prints transform the daily walk through the door, and hallway pieces are almost always small enough to hang with adhesive hooks.
- Kitchen and dining: one portrait piece near the table, hung on an adhesive hook. Rentals rarely give you much wall to play with here, and one really good piece beats three contested ones every time.
- The work-from-home corner: your Zoom wall is yours even in a rental. One well-chosen piece behind your chair, and the camera has no idea a lease is involved.
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Beyond Frames: Decals and Removable Wallpaper
Framed art is only half of what's available to you as a renter. The removable side is the other half, and it's the one that changes rooms most dramatically. Our wall decals are printed and contour-cut at wallpaper grade, go on without any tools, and peel away cleanly from sound paint when you leave. You get colour and shape on the wall for a fraction of what a papered wall would cost, and the full how-to lives in our decals guide.
Removable wallpaper takes things further. A peel and stick feature wall behind your bed will transform a rental bedroom completely, and it comes down before your final inspection with your bond happily intact. The honest step-by-step is in our renter's wallpaper guide. When you put it all together, the full renter's stack looks like this: one papered or decal feature wall, one or two framed pieces hung with the methods above, and everything else leaning. That's enough to decorate a two-bedroom rental completely and reversibly, and you can do it in one weekend.
The Bond-Safe Buying Sequence
Buying art for a rental rewards a verify-first habit even more than owning does, because exit day audits every choice you made along the way. Here's the sequence we'd suggest.
Start by photographing the wall you're decorating and sending it through with the measurements and a shortlist of pieces you like. Our free mockup service will send back your options at true scale on your actual rental wall, usually within a business day. It means you get to see the piece in the room the lease covers before you commit to buying it. If you want to check the print quality in your hand first, our A5 and A4 prints from $9.95 come off the same archival stock as the statement sizes, so they're a lovely low-cost way to see what you're getting.
Once you order, standard framed sizes dispatch within 24 hours from our Central Coast facilities. They arrive in rigid packaging that survives apartment stairwells, and standard sizes come with a 30-day exchange policy if the room disagrees with your choice once it's on the wall. Test your hanging method for 48 hours before the art goes up, keep the packaging flat under the bed for moving day, and the whole scheme is exit-inspection proof from the moment you hang it.
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Why Renters Buy From the Maker
Just about every part of how we work happens to suit the moving life. Solid timber frames that survive removalists, archival materials that outlast tenancies, standard sizes that pack flat and re-hang anywhere, custom sizes for that one odd alcove your rental has, decals and removable wallpaper printed on the same floor in matching palettes, free mockups so you can check pieces against walls you can't alter, 24-hour dispatch so decorating fits into your tenancy rather than being a someday thing, and a 30-day exchange net underneath the lot. More than 350,000 homes since 2015, and quite a lot of them rented.
The rest of the industry is built for homeowners and sells renters disposable decor. We'd much rather sell you the collection you move out with.
If you want more on sizing, the complete sizing guide has the formulas. The apartment art guide covers small-space specifics, and the removable wallpaper buying guide is your friend for the full-wall reversible options.
Decorating a Share House by Treaty
Share houses add a layer of diplomacy to the renter's brief, and the working formula from a decade of these orders is delightfully simple: decorate common rooms by consensus, and bedrooms by sovereignty. In the living room, neutral and coastal pieces are the reliable treaties: art nobody voted against, sized properly, hung with one of the methods above, with the cost split the way you split the lease. Bedrooms are where your personal collection begins. One properly framed piece each, chosen on your own, owned outright, and carried out individually at lease's end with no negotiation required.
The practical tip that saves you from the classic share-house muddle: keep your receipts and label your packaging. Three years later nobody will remember whose oak-framed eucalyptus that is on the hallway wall, and a box with your name on it settles the whole thing in seconds.
Rental Walls You Shouldn't Fight
Part of renting well is knowing which walls to leave alone. Tiled walls, rendered feature walls and any wallpaper that came with the lease: no adhesive hook or written request is going to make these safe territory, and the leaning and furniture-top methods exist precisely for walls like these. Textured render in older apartment blocks will defeat adhesive hooks reliably, so promise yourself the 48-hour test before you trust any of them with a real piece. South-facing bedroom walls in brick buildings can run damp enough in winter to weaken adhesives that held all summer, so keep that in mind if a hook starts feeling loose in July.
None of this narrows your options as much as it sounds. Every rental has at least two generous, sound, painted walls, and two properly dressed walls with everything else leaning or removable is a fully decorated home by any honest measure. The skill is choosing the right two walls: spend them on the rooms you actually live in most.
Exit Day: the Reverse Checklist
Decorating a rental well means undecorating it well too, so here's the exit sequence that keeps both your bond and your collection safe. Adhesive hooks come off using their removal tab, pulled slowly down and parallel to the wall rather than outward, on a warm day if you can time it (cold adhesive turns brittle). Negotiated nail holes get a smear of pre-mixed filler and a touch of the wall paint most rentals leave sitting in the laundry cupboard: five minutes per hole. Decals and peel and stick wallpaper release slowly back on themselves, and if you store them on backing paper they'll often survive to the next address perfectly happily.
Your framed pieces slide back into the flat packaging that's been waiting under your bed since delivery, and the collection walks out the door the way it arrived: intact, yours, and already sized for walls you haven't met yet. Done in the right order, it's about an hour's work. The inspection reads spotless, and every dollar of both your bond and your art comes with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I hang art in a rental without losing my bond?
Three exit-safe methods cover you. Rated adhesive hooks (4 to 8 kg) work for small and mid-size framed prints on sound paint. One negotiated picture hook, asked for in writing and filled at exit, opens up larger pieces. And leaning large works on furniture is the go-to where any wall contact is off the table. Test adhesive hooks for 48 hours before trusting them with anything behind glass.
Is it worth buying good art while I'm still renting?
Even more than it is for homeowners, honestly. You're spreading the cost of a piece across every future address you'll live in, so durability is the whole question. Archival framed pieces move house intact and become your permanent collection. Poster-grade pieces get rebought every tenancy. The maths tips in favour of quality within your first two moves.
What kind of art suits rental walls?
The same art that suits owned walls, sized by the same rules. One properly scaled anchor piece per room will always beat a scatter of small frames. Add decals or a removable wallpaper feature wall for colour the lease can't object to, and lean any oversized pieces where hooks aren't welcome.
Can I see the art on my rental wall before buying?
Yes, and it's genuinely useful. Photograph the wall, send us the measurements and a shortlist, and our free mockup will come back within about a business day showing your options at true scale on your actual wall. For renters, it doubles as a compatibility check for walls you can't repaint.
Do adhesive hooks really hold framed art?
Within their ratings, on sound paint, fitted per the packet with the cure hour respected: yes, they hold reliably for small and mid-size framed prints. Weigh your piece, match the rating with a bit of margin, avoid fresh or textured paint, and run a 48-hour test before hanging anything behind glass.
What about decals and removable wallpaper in rentals?
Both are designed to come off sound paint cleanly. Decals peel away without a mark, and peel and stick wallpaper releases before your exit inspection. Test a small piece discreetly first, as you would with any adhesive product, because paint that wasn't well applied to begin with can lift under anything.
How quickly does art arrive when I need it for a rental?
Standard framed sizes dispatch within 24 hours from our NSW Central Coast facilities, so decorating fits into your tenancy's first fortnight rather than dragging on until its final year. We deliver Australia-wide and ship internationally to over 40 countries.
What happens to the art when I move?
It moves with you. Solid timber frames and rigid flat packing survive removalists, and standard pieces re-hang at your next address in minutes. Keep the original packaging flat under a bed and moving day becomes a complete non-event for your collection.
Start building your movable collection from the art prints range, add a reversible feature wall from our removable wallpaper, and send us a photo of your wall whenever you're ready: bond-safe is a brief we know by heart.
