A note on the name
"Remy" is a pen name. The renting behind these notes is real — eight places across a handful of cities, a lease I'd rather forget and a couple I was sad to leave — but I write under a pen name so I can be honest about landlords, deposits and the things I got wrong without it following me into my next tenancy. Everything on this site comes from places I actually lived in and handed back, not from a brand brief.
Where this site came from
My renting CV goes roughly like this: a room in a shared house (where I donated my very first chunk of a withheld deposit), a tiny studio in a thirty-year-old block, a couple of stretches of flat-sharing, and a few moves in between. Eight moves in, friends started joking I should publish a renters' map of every trap in town.
Somewhere around the fourth move it clicked: I'd stopped pinning "living well" on the building itself. The place is rented, the walls can't take a nail, the paint isn't mine — but the light, the fabric, the furniture, that one corner that's properly mine, those are. From then on, every move, I packed my "home" up and unrolled it again at the new address — and each time it went faster.
These methods lived in my budget spreadsheet, my camera roll and my message threads with landlords for years. In the spring of 2026 I finally pulled them into this notebook, because every renting friend I had was stepping on the exact traps I'd already paid for — and most home-decor media is written as if you own the wall.
What the notes here look like
Three things you won't always find elsewhere:
- Every fix carries a "reversibility" and a "deposit risk" stamp. Anyone can post an inspiration photo, but "how much work is this to undo at the end, and could it cost me money" is a renter's real cost. The definitions live on the risk-stamps page and run across the whole site.
- Real price ranges and product types, no vague shopping. Prices are dated (for example "checked June 2026"), and figures are flagged with their source and year. If I can't find a reliable source for a number, I'd rather leave it out.
- The mistakes are written down too. Every diary note has a post-mortem, because paying for a lesson and not passing it on is a waste — at least let it save you the same money.
A few honest disclosures
About the photos: some of the room shots here are by photographers on Unsplash (used under their licence), to show a style or a method. They're not all my own rooms — my rooms aren't that photogenic, and my flatmates would rather not be in shot.
About the sponsor: some of the running costs (hosting, the domain) are covered by an OKX invite link. It sits in a fixed spot at the end of articles and in the footer, clearly labelled "sponsor". Whether there's any discount, reward or regional limit is shown on OKX's own page. The sponsor has no say in the notes and doesn't shape them — this site is about renting, and crypto trading is a separate thing that carries its own risk.
About the legal bits: the deposit and handover notes are written around general principles that hold across English-speaking rental markets — security deposits and bonds, condition reports, "normal wear and tear versus damage". The exact rules, caps and bond-lodgement bodies vary by country and state, and individual cases differ, so for a real dispute go by the current law where you live, your own agreement, and your local tenancy authority or tribunal. These notes are shared experience, not legal advice.
Say hello
Spotted an error (especially in the figures or the legal bits), got a topic you'd like covered, or want to share your own makeover? Drop me a line. I fix mistakes as fast as I can and note the correction at the foot of the article; good ideas go on the list.
Here's to feeling at home in a place you don't own.
— Remy