Rental Renovation: Retro Kitchen Makeover for $350

Is it worthwhile spending money to upgrade a rental?

For two years before we bought our current home, we lived in a cute cottage in Sunnyside Gardens. It was a rental - Ross had been living there 14 years before we met. Our landlady, a lovely woman who lived in the cottage across the path, was born and raised there. Like almost all of the buildings in the neighborhood, it was a 3-family residence - two up and one down, as they say. Generally, owners lived in the two-bedroom units on the ground floor while the one-bedrooms above them provided rental income. The neighborhood was booming, with the cottages increasingly being converted to one-family homes.

Covering Exposed Heating Pipes with Rope

When we gut-renovated the bathroom, one of the first things we demo'd was some ugly crumbling insulation covering the heat pipe. The previous owners had small children, so that insulation was a necessary safety measure. But I was sure that I could find something nicer looking, fit to be seen outside of the walls.

A whole year went by before I got around to it, though. And in the interim, both Ross and I have scalded ourselves while drying off after a shower.  So this year, covering this pipe was top on my list of things to do before cold weather hit and the heat was turned on in our building.

With this weekend turning unseasonably cold for early fall - no time like the present to check this project off my list.