Help me make my holiday let awesome!

[Kracken]

Hi all, we welcome our first guests into our holiday let in a week! I will obviously be cleaning and gardening madly all week but I wanted to ask you wise folk what you need from a holiday home to make sure I haven't missed anything!

Kitchen equipment is all new and I've made sure there is plenty of everything and sharp knives as I hate it when all you can find are blunt rubbish ones when on holiday. I am doing a quick guide to all appliances, boiler etc plus info on local area etc. Decor is very neutral. I plan to put flowers in main rooms.

What has 'made' a self catering holiday for you? What would drive you mad if it wasn't there? What would you expect to have in your welcome groceries, am planning milk, tea, coffee, sugar, bread and some dishwasher and laundry tabs, couple of loo rolls and one kitchen roll. Debating leaving wine and should I bake something?!

Any thoughts really welcome, thank you. I am starting to panic!

It's beautiful.

What would add that amazing, 'this place has a character' feel would be a lovely small bookcase or two, filled with old beaten up Penguin Classics (with their lovely orange spines) and a mish mash of other books - some classics, some modern novels, some random stuff. I once spent half of a holiday engrossed in a chicken-keeping bible in a very similar looking place to yours...

Going along the local shop bought goods, what about maids of honour being left? Just thinking local famous goods.
I stayed in a barn once that had really old housewife guides, it was great reading!

Oh it's lovely

oh oh oh oh we are off next week to a holiday house let. I wonder if it is you! .

I have started packing but you have helped me as I hadn't thought of kitchen roll and loo roll yet.

dishcloths
bin liners
more than 1 tiny bin
washing up liquid

I would want more stuff like that than food stuffs tbh.

It looks like a really fantastic place to stay, your guests will be happy I am sure.

Re the pics though, the sitting room one is very dark as it is taken facing the window, and doesn't do the room justice - I would add another one from a different angle. And I'd lose the one of the unmade bed - not needed imo. I know you didn't ask for photo feedback though, so feel free to ignore!

It looks just beautiful, I would absolutely love to stay in your house! I will bear you in mind!!!! You can tell you've put your heart in it. Well done, I hope you do very well!

An inventory of kitchen equipment would be useful and also other equipment such as a hair dryer. We're currently staying in a holiday let and had no idea what was provided before we arrived. Also hand wash or soap and dishwasher tabs & washing up liquid, don't be mean with loo roll & black bin liners. Proper cloths (not j cloths) and pan scourer's. Two frying pans. The ultimate luxury is a nespresso machine & complimentary capsules.

Thanks so much again everyone! Sorry I didn't reply last night, I was cleaning. Cleaning the house for holiday guests is a bit different to cleaning it for my family (we used to live there), I have to confess I have been scrubbing bits of the house which haven't been scrubbed for a while!

There are some fairly empty shelves in one of the bedrooms so I am going to put lots of books on there and will pop to the charity shops on my day off tomorrow to hopefully get some Penguin books/interesting books (old housekeeping guides sound amazing!) to supplement my Mum's slightly less classic ones!

It's great to have feedback on the listing too, I am going to re-do all of the photos on Friday when it is all ready to go with portrait instead of landscape shots to avoid the odd grey bits either side of the images. I am hoping it will be a sunny day so the rooms are better lit and the beds will all be made up then so it will look nicer. My husband is in the process of replacing the kitchen (not that we've left that until the last minute, oh no...) so I can take some photos of our nice new cabinets!

I have extended the inventory list to include all the food basics we will provide plus soap, cleaning stuff, toilet roll, hairdryer etc etc and I will email this to guests in advance so they know what to bring.

My task for this lunchtime is to write an idiot's guide for the TV, cable and DVD player which I have a horrible feeling will be rather time consuming!!

Wow, I guess at least once this is all done I won't have to do it again! Apart from the cleaning obviously, I will carry on doing that!

Not sure if I was imagining seeing the following, but are there cords on the window blinds in the bedrooms? If so, please consider cutting them and tying them off to lesser worry fom permits about accidental strangulation etc, especially in the room with bunk beds.
If I did imagine it, feel free to ignore haha.
Looks great btw! I'd stay in a flash.

Oh, is there instructions on how to use the fire too? Is it wood burning etc? Do you have a spare supply of wood/coal and fire cleaning bits and pieces?

The very best of luck to you!

Oops sorry, forgot to say, love the addition of a spice rack! A place we stayed in, in Italy didn't been have salt and pepper so really grated on me we had to buy a full one for just 6 nights.
Also is there enough sockets around the beds? Hotels always seem to miss this one vital point. Most of us now use mobiles as alarm clocks and inevitably charge them next to our beds at night, we've had to run extension cords to one side to get the same effect, but it's a small thing which people often miss, that would be so helpful.

We did shorten the blind cords when we lived there and we have windy things to keep them out of the way so I will make sure they are secure.

The fire is just for show unfortunately! It was blocked up by the previous owners and we haven't reinstated it but we may do so in the future.

Looks lovely! The ad doesn't say if it has wifi, which I would take to mean it doesn't.

One thing that might be helpful in your instructions would be info on how/where to get/top up Oyster cards for those not familiar with the system.

I'd be thinking of putting something pretty in there (at some point!) so people don't try and use it and so it looks nice.

I do think these things sort of naturally grow, between left stuff, and you picking bits up 'oh that would be nice /handy'.

The thing I see immediately is those blind cords. Are they looped or two separate ends? I'd be really worried about those so close to a bunk bed. There was a thread recently where a poster found her DD had been trying to play superman and leapt with them, luckily she'd been able to shout for help and the OP could get to her but terrifying. And not something you want to be worrying about on holiday (or worse - overlooking it and a tragedy happening).

The cleaning is indeed different from doing your own. Remember hairs in the shower trap, dust the light bulbs, clean the back of the loo and (in France anyway) hoover the outside window sills.
Such fun!

It looks lovely. What about a 'guest comments' book so you are aware of any extras you have not thought of, though you do seem to have thought of everything? Good luck!

We have just come back from the best cottage we have ever stayed in and the best thing was the pine martins that came every night for their peanuts and marmalade sandwiches, although that might be quite hard to organise.

The one BIG thing that spoils holiday lets for me and I can't get round so spent ages looking at pictures trying to work out, is a decent mattress on the bed, I want to come home refreshed not feeling like I have slept on a bag of spanners (sometimes you see a lovely house and the cheapest of mattress, you know you could feel the springs from day 1) also and this is one of my (probably weird I know) things but I do like decent mattress and pillow protectors. Also maybe an age thing but I get warm at night so like sleeping under a single sheet and never leave those horrible spare woolly blankets (had them in the wardrobe in Spain this year and they looked like they would have suited a horse) they make my teeth itch. I can be a bit mad though so feel free to ignore my ramblings

We return as often as poss to a holiday let with a fully functioning larder. There is pretty much every dry good you can think of in it as the owners also use the house at times. It works on a replace what you finish but leave something you brought for the next person. I love rummaging through it as you never know what foodie goodie is going to be in there.

Curious now as to why window sills need special attention in France!

Just a quick update, sorry I've not been back for a few days but it's been busy! I am waiting for our guests to arrive and am a mixture of excited and nervous!

I took loads of the advice people gave on this thread, thanks so much. I am sure you have helped me make the house much nicer for guests!

This is what our welcome pack ended up being (milk and soft drinks in fridge)

Yy to tea making stuff on arrival.

If letting to young families, then toddler plates, bowls, cutlery, loo seat and potty would be amazing!

I'd agree about the feather duvets - not because I get allergies, but because as a guest I'd imagine that the synthetic ones would get washed more frequently.

Speaking of which: no bedspreads or mounds of cushions on the bed. Everyone knows they are never cleaned, so nobody wants to use them, so the first thing you have to do on arrival is dump them all on one of the chairs.

You can get really good duvets that feel like feather but aren't . Expensive but people always tell me they love them.

Changeover tips:

Go into cottage start with the oven. Spray and leave. Then tackle bathroom and beds. These things take the longest.

As above make sure you remove any trace of hairs in bathroom. Lie on the floor after cleaning it so you see what it looks like from all angles. Clean the extractor fan.

Don't forget the top of the inside of the microwave and the back of the tv.

Pull out sofas and beds and Hoover them.

Warning: those guests who say 'don't worry I've done a thorough clean'. Brace yourself. It will be awful. Cleaning a holiday let is very different from cleaning at home!