Interior Design Solution

One of the things that I knew I wanted to change in my rental was the yellow tile surrounding my fireplace. I'll admit that once I moved in, the yellow tiles grew on me. They were more charming than I originally guessed, but I still felt that they weren't in keeping with my overall style and vision for the space. A couple of them were also cracked. (And yes, the ceiling fan is another thing I'd like to change!) The tricky thing is that this is a rental unit, so I have to be realistic about what I can change and what I have to live with. I want to retile my kitchen backsplash eventually, so I'm saving the 'ask the landlord' question for that. Furthermore, I wanted marble and I know that it's not in the budget, and investing a lot of money into a rental doesn't make sense for me. What I really needed was a rental friendly, non-permanent, easy, no-hassle, and inexpensive solution. And that's when it donned on me, what about something...