Saturday, 1 April 2023 | 8.9°C Dublin

Subscribe
- My Account
- Log Out

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

Menu Sections

Independentie

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

Menu Sections

Why holiday home owners need to up their design game as the staycation summer beckons

Last year holiday-makers took what they could get, but ‘staycationers’ will have higher expectations this summer

Natasha Rocca Devine of the Interiors NRD Studio

Bedroom theme from Styling by John Lewis

Interior at the Burrow Holiday Park in Rosslare

Lockers from Finders Keepers

Natasha Rocca Devine of the Interiors NRD Studio

Bedlinen by Kip and Co from Antipodream

DFS Grand Designs sofa

Bespoke beds from Duggan Shopfitters

Harvey Norman Dakota bunk bed

Chatto furniture from Neptune

Bedroom theme from Styling by John Lewis

Dining room theme from John Lewis

Interior at the Burrow Holiday Park in Rosslare

Diningroom theme from Homesense

Lockers from Finders Keepers

Eleanor Flegg

May 28 2021 02:30 AM

The summer of 2021 is going to be the season of holiday rentals, with a difference. Last year, Irish holiday-makers were desperate. Unable to travel outside the country, people took whatever they could get and paid whatever the owners were asking.

Some of the properties were well appointed, carefully decorated, and reasonably priced. Others were not. This year, staycationers will be more discerning and quicker to complain if their holiday home isn’t up to scratch. For those who plan to rent their property this summer, the pressure is on.

Diningroom theme from Homesense

“Expectations are high,” says Natasha Rocca Devine of the Interiors NRD Studio. “We’ve all been living restricted lives for a year and a half and we really need a break. You know that feeling when you go away? You take a deep breath and relax because you know you’re on holiday? That’s what we’re after.”

She’s just finished decorating four apartments at the Burrow Holiday Park in Rosslare Strand, each of which has a different theme and is named accordingly: Belle Mare, Sunset Beach, Palm Beach and Whitehaven Beach.

Interior at the Burrow Holiday Park in Rosslare

The décor is designed to transport you to each of these exotic destinations, while the Wexford rain streams down the window pane. Far-fetched as it seems, theming a holiday rental is not a bad plan, simply because it differentiates one property from another.

When scrolling though potential holiday destinations online, while consulting with family members, it’s incredibly helpful to be able to say that you like the one with an orange headboard and fish wallpaper in the master bedroom.

Or that you prefer the one with a blue headboard and giraffe wallpaper. When all the interiors look the same, it’s hard to choose between them.

Decorative themes work best when they suit the architecture. A thatched cottage, which has a lot of character already, needs very little in the way of theming but a new build like the Burrow project is a blank canvas.

Rocca Devine used bespoke beds from Duggan Shopfitters with bedding from Murray’s Textiles (a jacquard bedspread for a double bed costs €75); wallpaper from Cole & Son (from around €120 per roll); and prints from Wallart.

Bespoke beds from Duggan Shopfitters

None of this is cheap, but she recommends investing in the core theme and in the core furniture for rentals. “I worked with DFS on choosing a different sofa for each of the units and they really stole the show.”

All the couches come from the DFS Grand Designs range (a four-seater Farnham sofa costs €2,209). Once again, bold colours help to make a room look memorable online.

DFS Grand Designs sofa

After this, it was practicality all the way. “Our priority was to fit in as many people as possible,” Rocca Devine says frankly. “It was all down to sizing and space.”

To this end, she used bunk beds from Littlewoods Ireland where the Novara Trio Bunk Bed Frame (a single over a small double) costs €365. A pull-out trundle in the same range costs €185.

For property owners this is money well spent — you can charge more for a house that sleeps eight than a house that sleeps four — but bunk beds are not for everyone.

Harvey Norman Dakota bunk bed

From the other point of view, she recommends that property owners also take a clearsighted look at the type of guests that they want to attract, and equip the house accordingly. If you put in bunk beds there’s going to be ice cream on the upholstery.

Lockers from Finders Keepers

“A holiday rental should be like your own home, only better,” says Mary Conway of Janus Estates. She spent three years as an Airbnb superhost (that’s an experienced host with consistently high ratings).

“All people really want is somewhere that they can be comfortable, relax, and get a good night’s sleep.” To this end, she recommends really good mattresses, with zip-up mattress protectors. “It would be terribly embarrassing if somebody got bedbugs.”

Aside from this you need decent pillows, and lots of them, and good quality bedlinen. “Penneys can be surprisingly good, but I’ve also picked up some bargains in Arnotts,” she says. Conway is not a fan of Ikea’s bedlinen. The prints are alluring but the fabric doesn’t stand up to multiple washes.

“I prefer white towels and bedlinen, because you can see at a glance that they’re clean. I can’t overstate the importance of cleanliness!” She also recommends that the host checks the property themselves before the guests arrive.

Bedlinen by Kip and Co from Antipodream

“Your cleaner may not notice a stain on a throw, but your guests certainly will, and if one thing in the house is dirty they will think that everything else is too. It needs to be spotless.” Towels should be large and fluffy. “There is nothing worse than stepping out of the shower and finding that you’ve been left a hand-towel.”

Actually there are plenty of things worse than that. We once rented a holiday home in West Cork where the only neighbour was a lonely sheep farmer who used to come into the house, unannounced, and stand there looking at us while we had our breakfast.

He wasn’t used to people. “How much do you weigh?” he asked my husband, out of the blue. It was a memorable holiday.

For people who have a second home that they also use for holiday rentals, Conway suggests depersonalising the décor. “Take the personal stuff out. People can feel uncomfortable in someone else’s home and they don’t like to have other people’s family photos staring down at them from the wall.”

Dining room theme from John Lewis

Then, make the place unique. “If I’m choosing a holiday rental I’ll go for the one that has some quirky little thing that makes it stand out. So if you buy an Ikea sofa-bed— the same one that everyone has — decorate it with cushions from somewhere else. It will look like you’ve made an effort and people appreciate that. One small unique piece will give the place a lot of oomph.”

Where possible, she suggests using art that’s relevant to the locality. For her own holiday rental, in Dublin’s Capel Street, she bought and framed a historic map of Capel Street in 1758.

Conway also emphasises the importance of a well-stocked kitchen. “When people chose a rental cottage over a hotel, it’s often because they have children or they want to cook at home to save money.”

The kitchen units can be basic and functional, but equip the kitchen with good quality appliances and don’t skimp on the tools — the grater, the garlic press, the vegetable peeler, the lemon squeezer and the knives. “And wine glasses,” she says. “They don’t have to be expensive but they need to be nice to drink from.”

See theinteriorsnrd.com, dfs.ie, burrowpark.com, janusestates.ie