What a nice thing to say!

From the moment they step through the door your bookings become guests, and their experiences determine whether they ever come back.
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Normandie
Posts: 1670
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:18 pm
Location: France - southern Manche (50)

Post by Normandie »

AngloDutch wrote:The group that left last week also had left something wet on the pine dresser in our downstairs bedroom. This had left behind two thick highly-visible white rings.
I feel your pain. We have, from OH's family, a set of Henri II heavy, dark oak dining room furniture. The table is in the guests' sitting room which has a dining area if guests want to picnic. The very first year it was damaged by guests putting wet glasses down on the wood (despite me providing vast quantities of coasters) and they also spilt something fairly solid which left a long, irregular mark where it took the polish off.

I can only assume that some people only have heavily varnished or plastic surfaces in their own homes and polished wood and its care is out of their experience. As the bare table wasn't working, I have a transparent plastic cover over it now which shows the wood but prevents further damage. Not a practical solution for a dresser, though.
AngloDutch wrote:Before our current guests arrived last Friday, we painted the wall in the kitchen for the 4th time this year.
I have that exact problem in my own kitchen. I should have tiled this particular wall area but didn't see the need at the time. I can't tile it now as I don't have spare tiles.

In this instance, it's not sauce splashes, it's coffee splashes - the coffee machines are there and they occasionally splash coffee up the wall. As it is a chalky paint finish, I cannot remove the splotches without removing the paint so as I don't want to keep repainting the whole wall (guests have breakfast in the kitchen and they can see this area) I've decided that a plain (ie transparent) glass panel fixed over pristine paintwork behind the coffee machines is the way to go. It's a nuisance (of my own making - it's not guests using the machines, it's us :-)) but it's a problem I need to solve and a wipe clean panel will do it.
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AngloDutch
Posts: 727
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:25 pm
Location: Netherlands

Post by AngloDutch »

Thanks, Normandie - that sounds like an expensive piece of furniture!

We have also been thinking of putting transparent covers on furniture. We actually protect the pine dining room table with a plastic tablecloth. Our neighbour says it looks awful (the same neighbour who also commented that the grey paint we once used in the sitting room was the same colour as the German trucks during WWII.....) but we do replace the tablecloths at frequent intervals. If we didn't, then the surface of the table would soon be ruined.

Same here with the coasters. We used to put coasters in the drawer at the side of the coffee table in the lounge. Guests were not finding them obviously and a multitude of rings were appearing all over the table.

We then started placing coasters onto the table itself only to find them full of teethmarks/parts bitten off as they were accessible to small children who decided to nibble on them. At first, we used the flimsy cardboard ones that you get from bars, so we replaced those with hard, board coasters. This unfortunately did not deter the munching and only recently have had to throw half of them away because they are unusable.
The amount of rings on the table does seem to have decreased though.. :wink:

About white walls - for us an ongoing nightmare. I know what you mean about coffee machines near a white wall. We recently added a Senseo machine and as I was admiring all our hard work decorating, I imagined a guest flipping the lid on the Senseo with a used pad inside and coffee splashing all over the wall. So, the coffee machines were pushed into a corner on the worktop but surrounded by the tiling which we have under the cupboards.

We still intend to renovate our kitchen as this has not been done in ten years, so will probably think very long and hard before we decide on the best approach. The most important thing is that we have to make it 'guestproof'! :lol:
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