How to make a rental property lovely as well as robust

[greeningthedesert]

We are about to rent out a two bedroom house. It'll be through a university agency so the tenants will probably be visiting academics and graduate students. We want to create a nice space for the tenants but also want things to be reasonably robust. Before we furnish and paint it I wondered what made a house work well for you as landlord or tenant? Should we stick to neutral? Ikea? Second hand furniture? John Lewis? Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

Definitely no carpet! I'm a tenant and I hate that my LL has carpet throughout. I'm so paranoid....also it feels a bit yukky even though it's been cleaned as as there were other tenants before us.

Ikea is not robust. I would buy attractive, vintage plain pieces from second hand stores and Ebay....they're more robust. I've had lovely 1940s chests of drawers and wardrobes for a song and they're so solid.

Thanks, I'll look into it. There are quite a few second hand furniture places here. Unfortunately there is already a new ish fitted carpet which we have arranged to steam clean etc. We can't take it up yet as it will cost a lot to sand the boards underneath or fit boards over and we need to save up. We thought we'd buy a few new rugs.

Any other suggestions or recommendations please?

I rent a two bed flat to students, and have tried to make it nicer than the usual student flat as it is also used as a holiday let in the summer.

We made sure that it was functional but a bit quirky where possible - e.g. rather than getting a standard wall clock, we got a huge pale green one from IKEA to add interest to a rather dull wall.

We had wooden floors throughout, bench seating round a table as well as chairs, neutral walls and ceilings (easy to repaint) and quirky prints..

If you're renting to visitors then get the local ordnance survey map framed and stick that on the wall, and try to get other local/national landmarks involved where possible. Try to see it from the viewpoint of an academic visiting from a different country. Make sure the wifi code is available and stuck on the noticeboard, and add a town map too.

OhMrDarcy what lovely thoughtful ideas. Thank you.

We rent our old flat & our stuff is all IKEA. It's not very imaginative but the sofa, bed, drawers, table have all lasted 10 years & because IKEA still sell the stuff it doesn't look dated & it's still in great condition. If anything breaks we know it's quick & easy to replace. In 10 years all we have replaced is a mattress & scatter cushions. We rent to professionals & they they have all been 30+.

The IKEA sofa is actually better than our £3000 Marks & Spencer sofa that needs replaced after 3 years.

Great suggestion. Thank you.

Pay attention to the moving stuff (kitchen drawers, doors, taps, shower screen etc) and spend on quality fixtures there to last and look good

Let longer term tenants put up pictures