If you are planning to buy a rental home, or you're thinking about what to do with one you have just acquired, this is the place for any questions about starting out in the rentals business.
Have only just caught up with your other thread on the house BS - it looks utterly super and am totally jealous: just what I really wanted but unfortunately I also wanted very warm winters for retirement, and something had to give!
Anyway just to say I would definitely leave the shutter colour on the back burner: it is unlikely to make any difference to your bookings with so much else to tempt people in the property.
Regarding the kitchen, I think if you prefer to do without the wall units it wouldn't hurt to remove them. Holidaymakers don't need anything like the cupboard space that you need to live in a property full-time. When we moved to our new house in July we found that we had to buy almost nothing extra to have plenty in the new house AND leave Las Tortugas kitchen really well equipped for up to 10 people! Our cupboards were stuffed with nice but not necessary things accumulated over the years, and also lots of food stuff like spares of basics (flour, sugar, oil, salt etc etc) and 'just in case' tinned stuff. There are now several empty cupboards but the renters hardly use any of the space in them - plenty goes in the fridge of course so the bigger the better and much more fridge space than freezer space required.
For true domestic harmony it is essential that dogs know their place, which is below all cats
Agree! Big time. But isn't it amazing the number of owners who still haven't realised this? We're thinking of escaping for Christmas, and I'm dreading being holed up for seven days without WiFi, LOL.
Broadband definitely, particularly in a large and correspondingly expensive property. It may be a bit sad to say but if I were choosing between somewhere with broadband and somewhere with tv I would take the bband anytime. Had to be without it through the summer when we moved and it didn't take long to start suffering from withdrawal symptoms, not to mention the pain of having to get in the car and go to the internet caf or to friends just to check emails.
For true domestic harmony it is essential that dogs know their place, which is below all cats
If you are doing bathrooms/kitches, my t'uppny worth is:
Get decent shower doors/seals, waterproofing. Ours looks great but leaks like a sieve, nightmare to sort out, water damage to the flat below. Wish we had gone for something more expensive that sealed properly.
taps - we went for some lovely looking modern taps, but because we have hard water and they have squared off edges, they are a nightmare to clean and keep limescale off. I have to scrub them with a toothbrush periodically - again, something I could live without. They also were not top of the range and after a year, I can see that the chrome is not going to stay shiny forever and I wish we'd spend more on better quality.
kitchen - we had wall cupboards all round put in as part of the new kitchen, but only about 50% are used. I guess if we sold the flat, at least it would have a family kitchen but for rentals (lots of ) wall cupboard are not necessary
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
Agree about the taps in hard water areas. As soon as it occurred to us (about halfway through the renovation of Las Tortugas) we changed over to white enamel. They look really smart, were not expensive and best of all are a dream to clean.
For true domestic harmony it is essential that dogs know their place, which is below all cats
To get rid of the limescale on those taps,cut a lemon in half, and press half onto the end of the tap. Leave in place for a while until the limescale dissolves.
Hmm, kitchen cupboards .... not much space is needed for dry goods to be sure. As for how many cupboards for other stuff, I really enjoy having a few more than I need, and we supply quite a lot of cookware as well as two sets of plates, bowls etc for 8 and plastic stuff for kids. So it does all get used, it just means I don't have to stack as religiously as I need to here in the UK. BS, you'll be accommodating 14, is that right?
Two fridge freezers will be mandatory for that number of people Blue Shutters; we only started with one (full sized) but following the feedback from the first year's guests we bought the second. Largely needed for the cold drinks in the height of summer!
I agree, but the ones I got are a bit 'fiddly' ie. the body of the tap has squared contours instead of rounded ones and every hard edge is a trap for limescale.
I don't do the cleaning myself generally and the person have doing it is very good, but it's only us owners that have that degree of nitpickyness when it comes to teeny details. Yeah, my taps look shiny but round the back on on the collars of the taps, there's limescale build up because my cleaner just can't be expected to attack them with a toothbrush on every changeover. If their contours were were smoother and more rounded, a normal wipe would suffice. I just wish I'd got ones that were easier to clean and if I was doing it again, I would get a non limescale trapping style!
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
The kitchen has the most amazing full size cafe drinks fridge in it, almost retro, and two fridge freezers so hopefully we are ok on the cold beer and chiled white wine front.
