Summary

• When you think luxury, don’t think like a homeowner but as a guest.
• Improving the luxury of your space doesn’t require as much cost as you might think.
• We talk about specific actions to take to improve the luxury of your space.

What makes a home luxurious? From a homeowners point of view you may think in terms of the quality of materials (tile, appliances) in the kitchen and bathrooms. Or it could be unique furnishings in the living spaces that are high quality, handmade, rare, or works of art.

When I was a kid, we used to go to the New Jersey Shore during the summer. After renting rooms for a couple of years, the family rented a full apartment that had its own parking space. That was luxury for us and today in many densely populated areas a parking spot is a rare benefit.

If you are renting vacation properties you can adjust some of these features or not, often at a high cost. However, in most cases, you probably don’t need to do that unless the property is due for an upgrade. The reality is that your guests come for a specific purpose for a short amount of time.

After reviewing all the features of your space, they have already set their expectations appropriately about the level of accommodations. This should be true if you have made all the effort to communicate this information through proper marketing (the best method obviously is through pictures).

Also, with the modern booking systems, prior guests will provide a lot of information about the property without your intervention (let’s hope it’s all good, though!).

So, your guests should have a good idea about what they are getting, but of course they don’t have all the information. They don’t know all the details about the condition and type of some amenities because realistically, photos can only do so much. This is your opportunity to tip this unknown in your favor that will enable you to delight your guests very easily and exceed their expectations.

Focus on what can be called Touch and Feel. If the guest touches it/feels it/comes in contact with their body, you want that to be a good experience. In this article we give you some specific ideas on how to focus on this area. Most of these ideas can be applied to almost any vacation rental, since it focuses on the interior furnishings which are completely in your control.

The easiest way to talk about this is to go room by room in the house. Let’s start with the bathroom.

Bathroom

The bathroom is a frequent place for guests to visit. You could argue that guests likely visit this room the most, though, the actual time spent is relatively short. In a busy rental season bathrooms get a lot of use. If you have a shower curtain/liner in your bathroom, replace it before it shows signs of mildew or mold. We keep many extras on hand to easily replace them.

When a guest steps out of the shower, the shower mat should be cozy and plush. A good option is a thick double sided cotton bathmat that does not have a no-slip backing. The rug listed below is also reversible.

The bath towels you provide (which also includes the wash towels) should also be thick and plush.

Bedroom

In the bedroom, you want the bed to look cozy as well as actually be cozy and comfortable. A standard that you can apply, is to provide 2 pillows and 1 sham for each guest. When you buy typical bedroom sets, you will only get 1 pillow case per sleeper. You will need to buy additional pillow cases, this is an opportunity to dress up bed with contrasting color pillow cases that work with the bedspread and pillow shams. In the bedroom set shown here, there are extra pillows that gives you an idea.

When it comes to sheets, buy good quality cotton sheets with at least a 300 thread count, such as these below.

Lastly buy pillows that are hypoallergenic and with a quality cotton cover.

Another good feature is to have spare pillows on hand that are different types of firmness. Pillows really are a personal item that people have different needs as to what make them comfortable. The level of firmness is the major feature that can be adjusted easily, if the guest knows how. If the pillows themselves are not marked, you can use a black marker to indicate on the pillow tag that the pillow is firm, soft, etc. This will enable each guest  to select the exact pillows they want to sleep with.

We also keep extra pillows on hand to swap out easily if one gets dirty.

Living Areas

In your living areas, you want to make sure that your seating furniture is well maintained and clean. Furniture can be dressed up with throw pillows, and these can be replaced or sometimes laundered to keep them looking clean. In our experience, furniture lasts only so long before it needs to be replaced.

Focus on practicality. We put sleeper sofas in the living areas that are made with durable fabrics. We love the wrinkly, cushy cotton sofas as much as anyone, but these just don’t make a lot of sense for vacation rental properties.

Another wear item is carpeting. Carpeting lasts 6-10 years, depending on how much use your rental property gets. When your carpet needs to be replaced consider going to flooring, a good solution is laminate flooring that is engineered to look like virtually any material, including wood, tile, stone, etc.  Carpet is not in favor now, so new flooring will freshen up your space.

You will want to put throw rugs on your flooring in the high traffic areas. Keep an eye on these and replace them as necessary when they start to look worn.

A Final Shopping Tip

When you are looking to buy the items we talked about in this article, we have found that you can save a lot of time and effort by seeking these items at Costco. The links provided in this article go to Amazon, though, this is just a reference point to get ideas. We suggest that you visit a Costco in person. The Costco website doesn’t mirror the store offerings very well we have found.

Costco will save you lots of time because they are very focused on limited options, but high quality options. For example, you can pretty much find all the linens we talked about here at Costco. They will all be good quality and they are always offered at a fair price.