Holiday Cottage Refurbishment

With the summer now well and truly over, as is demonstrated by the blustering winds, frequent rain and tsunamis of leaves all around the farm, the time is drawing ever nearer to when I shall temporarily close the holiday cottage for a few weeks to do some much needed redecoration and renovation. As from the beginning of November I shall be 'project managing' the installation of a new kitchen, the painting of all rooms, new carpet in one bedroom, new beds and general sprucing up of a little house that has worked very hard over several busy seasons of happy holiday-makers. The Farmer, in his capacity of furniture-maker, is busy already with the new kitchen having sorted out wood from his amazing store of timber grown on the farm to construct the new cupboards and a beautiful oak work-top. He will also make new beds. We have decided to replace the standard double bed in the master bedroom with a king-size and the small single beds in the twin room with a small double. Whilst realising this may not make the cottage so appealing to families with two children it will still be able to sleep two couples and will ease the laundry burden on me! I am enjoying planning new colour schemes, sourcing new tiles for the splashback in the kitchen and bedroom curtains and possibly wallpaper for a completely new look. The cottage will still be fairly traditional in its decor and unpretentious in its overall look. By staying with a traditional look it does not get to look dated too quickly and after all, it is a small country cottage not a sophisticated new-build or urban apartment. We have had a lot of visitors this year and have enjoyed meeting many people who are very appreciative of what we offer here. Most guests leave the cottage in a very good state though there are the inevitable few who do not...one does wonder what their own homes are like! I like to think that people wish to leave a place looking as though they had never been there apart from a bag of rubbish (as do the Farmer & I whenever we take a holiday let) but this sadly is not always the case. That said, most guests are considerate and thoughtful of the work involved in getting the cottage ready for other guests. It was wonderful to find the comment below in the Visitor's Book a week or so ago...it makes the all work and effort worth while when people write something like this.