Lay My Hat

We are thinking of buying a cottage for holiday letting. Is there a book/magazine etc that lists what we would need ie bedding/crockery/electrical goods/smoke alarms and all the kit and caboodle that goes with it? Thanks Karen

Hi KarenP

I am not sure of a book, most of the OTA like TripAdvisor, Owners direct have some good sections like this to help owners. and i am sure you will get lots of advice here.

I think the initial answer will be way more than you think! That is particularly for bed linen, we found we needed at least 3 complete sets of bed linen and towels and they need to be replaced way more often than you expect.

We took a decision to over cater with crockery, all bought from IKEA and at least twice the number of items for guests that are staying so that they dont have to run the dishwasher after every meal.

Good luck with your new venture it can be rewarding but is much harder work than many expect and very hard work to keep marketing in a market that has little consistency (at least for our location).

Regards
ian

Maybe you're already an experienced guest in holiday let cottages. If not, I highly recommend doing some research and staying in a few places. There's nothing like staying somewhere for telling you what you do and don't need to do and to have in your own place.

SPJ wrote:Maybe you're already an experienced guest in holiday let cottages. If not, I highly recommend doing some research and staying in a few places. There's nothing like staying somewhere for telling you what you do and don't need to do and to have in your own place.

Seconded. We learnt a lot of useful stuff this way (good and bad).

Have a look at the Visit England website. They list what is needed as a minimum to obtain each of the different star ratings (3*, 4* etc) for self catering properties and give you helpful information about what level of quality to go for (very useful when you start out as the money just melts away).

It also helps with the amount of things you need eg for my 4* sleeps 4, I provide 10 of all the dishes, cutlery etc to allow for stuff being in the dishwasher, but people still need a drink or a meal.

Agreed with above. We set out to create what we wanted when on holiday but it's also useful to talk to friends. I had no idea that a make-up mirror and full-length mirror were so essential. When choosing things you need to think about what would happen if: a cup and saucer were broken out of a set; a towel or pillowcase was ruined and so on because they will be. Also essential is to constantly ask yourself how easy things are to clean and design anything such as bathrooms to make them as easy as possible - large tiles, minimal grout!

At the moment I am looking at apartments to rent for our big trip to Mexico. So many are dismissed over simple things like uncomfortable sofas (ones with no arms) or lack of a decent coffee machine or a double bed pressed up against a wall and the dreaded (for us anyway) overly feminine bedroom.

Agree about the style of furniture, knick-knacks etc and ease of cleaning. Our cottage has "character" because we've collected secondhand stuff which I then shabby chic. However, as it's old furniture it tends to have curlycues and fancy bits - a pain to dust! All plain flat edges can look too much like a cheap airport hotel, unless very well styled - so worth thinking about how functional you want your place to be versus how tasteful.