It is that time of the year again when many holiday homeowners are sprucing up and possibly renovating their properties. Let’s face it, particularly as a landlord you don’t want guests to arrive at a drab, not particularly welcoming holiday home as it only reduces what you can fetch for its rental each season.
These therefore are a few interesting painting and renovation tips to rejuvenate your holiday home. We hope you find them useful and they brighten up and add value to your holiday home investment.
Beach house painting trends
As we are in the Western Cape, let’s talk primarily about beach houses as these are the favoured rental properties. One home improvement and décor publication ‘the Spruce’ sums it up pretty aptly with this description ‘’When choosing an exterior paint colour for your beach house, you can’t go wrong with a calming nature-inspired colour like pale blue or green that will echo the sea and the sky. Purists should feel free to stick with shades of white, cream, or pale grey.’’
These are the pretty typical beach house colours and you can never go wrong with them, but you may have a holiday home in an area where the houses generally go for very bright, joyful colours and in that case, we would recommend that you go for something sunny, natural and warm like a sunshine yellow or natural green. Talk to us, we have a wide range of colours to choose from for both interior and exterior choices.
One word of advice. Don’t skimp on exterior paint, particularly at the beach, which is subject to the harshest weather conditions. Rather get an expert painting job done using the correct preparation and the right paints as it will definitely save you money in the long run. Rental owners in particular know that this is always the best option.
Rental owner's renovation tips
Just a few tips for rental owners, or those who may be planning to buy a holiday home to rent, that you might find useful are as follows:
Go up to extend the view
If you can and you’re zoned for it, build up so that you can maximise any sea view that your property might have. An upstairs sun deck is a popular idea and some people are extending the downstairs braai up to the roof too and making an upstairs braai that uses the same chimney.
Add some storage space
It’s pretty frustrating for guests to find that there is nowhere to store wetsuits, boards etc. and have all these just dumped outside where they can get stolen or damaged. Why not build on a small storage room or do a garage conversion to give the home a storage/laundry room?
Go all seasons
Why only rent out your holiday home in summer when we have all-year-round tourism in the Cape? You can do some fairly simple renovations like adding a winter sunroom or an indoor braai that doubles as a fireplace in the entertainment room to give the holiday home a cosy winter feeling.
Use hardwearing materials
Just as we suggested that you use long-lasting paint for the exterior, it is also essential that with all your fittings and finishings you think long-term and use hard-wearing, hard-to-damage options.
Use tiled floors or at least a hardwearing option like Vinyl rather than carpets or an easy to damage wood for example. Shutters and blinds are better options than curtains and aluminium windows and doors won’t warp or damage as easily as wood.
Outdoors, opt for easy-to-maintain options like composite decking and artificial grass to save on garden management and damage. Think long-term and talk to your painter/renovator about the best options.
Talk to the experts
Reliable and accountable, with over 40 years of combined solid construction and painting experience, Swirl Painting create the perfect finish to any construction project. Talk to us today about more painting and renovation tips to rejuvenate your holiday home or about any other projects that you have in mind. We are, after all, the painting and renovation company for all seasons!