Out with the Old and in with the New

So we had the ground floor “guest ready” but we were yet to get to work on the first floor bedrooms. Generally speaking the season doesn’t really start until mid May/June so we had the good part of 3 months to get cracking on turning the run down rooms into the perfect havens of rest and relaxation for our guests.

First up we had to dismantle and throw away all of the old beds, which altogether was 3 metal bunkbeds, 1 metal double bed frame (all given away to be used as scrap metal) and 1 kingsize wooden bed that was beyond repair. We chopped up some of the wooden bed to up-cycle as wide shelves which was a plus and we disposed of all the mattresses. We were left with mostly empty rooms after that which gave us room to give them all a fresh coat of paint.

In our largest room (the kingsize en-suite) we had to have a new ceiling fitted as well as revarnish the wooden floor and the would-be dorm room needed a new bathroom door installed if our future guests were to have their intimate moments in private!

To get to the bedrooms you don’t go through the main house, they are accessed by walking up the outdoor stairs to the first floor balcony. All the bedrooms have their own private entrances and ALL of the doors were in desperate need of replacing, not because they were broken but because they were made from aluminium, a material that stands no chance against the harsh sea breeze. The resulting factor being that in-between the panes of glass in the doors the condensation had got trapped and so had the salt. Thus creating a far from desirable look, but alas we didn’t have the money to have new doors fitted at that point in time so we had to make the best of what we had….they still fulfilled their required purpose after all.

After the main jobs were done we got onto the fun part…furnishing and decorating. It was inevitable that in our first year we would have to buy a lot from ikea to stay within budget. However, we still customised those pieces to try and stay away from that generic look of an ikea catalogue that so many other establishments of our kind have. This meant that we had a mountain of ikea furniture to assemble and we can safely say we now feel we are fully qualified flat pack furniture putter together’ers! With barely any arguments throughout the entire process but perhaps a couple of mistakes along the way due to misread instructions (*cough* Luis).