What’s the best home decorating decision you’ve ever made?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

What’s the best home decorating decision you’ve ever made?

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Hello everyone,

 

When you move into a house, often one of the first things you do is plan out in your head what you would like it to look like and where your belongings will go. What colour you will paint each room, the furnishings, the flooring and then there are the decorative touches. For me, I think it is often the little decorative touches that make a place unique and feel like home.

 

Speaking with you here in the CC, I know you put a great deal of effort into creating a welcoming environment for your guests and this got me thinking about the favourite things you have done in decorating your home.

 

Perhaps you decided to remove a wall enabling light to flood in, perhaps it was your bold use of wallpaper in your living room, perhaps it is the amazing table you built for the kitchen, perhaps it is your colourful use of tiles in the bathroom, which your guests alway comment on!

 

Please share what your favourite decorating decisions are and feel free to share any photos.

 

Thanks,

 

Lizzie


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58 Replies 58
Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

The best decorating idea for our ABB units was to paint the walls with washable latex paint 🙂

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Aw this sounds like some handy paint @Branka-and-Silvia0, I imagine the positive of having this paint allows you to swipe off stains pretty quickly? 🙂

 

Did you use this everywhere?

 

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

@Lizzie of course... it's a great thing, don't have to repaint just wash . It is handy when you live in the city, have dogs, kids , smoke... or all of that 🙂 

It is not common here, none of my friends use it.

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

I bet this saves you a lot of work @Branka-and-Silvia0.

 

Do you find it comes in a large variety of colours so you can still keep the colour of paint in-keeping with the style and decor of your home? 

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

@Lizzie I think Dulux has over 1000 colors and it is very water/scrubing resistant  https://www.dulux.com.au/colour/all-colours

Caparol has less color tones and it is maybe a bit less resistant but I prefer it anyway bc light colors doesnt become yellowish after some time like Dulux does and it is more matte.

 

Is washable latex paint common in UK homes?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

It is amazing what they can do with paint these days. 

 

This is a useful tip @Branka-and-Silvia0 and something to look out for when choosing paint. When lots of guests are coming to stay the last thing you want to have to think about is having to repaint the walls very often. 

 

I don't have washable latex paint in my home, but I feel like I have seen it schools and rooms in people's houses where there might be more mess or dirt (such as in the entrance hall, with muddy shoes). I'm sure it is more common than I think! 🙂 It is quite a new product in your home or have you been using it for some time?

 

I suppose it would be useful in bathrooms, to prevent discolouring or damp due to the water? What do you think?

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

@Lizzie I have it for  more than 5 years .  It is great for ABB rentals bc I can wash with a sponge and detergent all those black stains from suitcases, dirty hands, shoes etc... After a year and half of hosting my walls are still clean and white 🙂

 

Dayna7
Level 2
Clearwater, FL

I’m interested in knowing how to decorate in a way to discourage theft.  The home I manage is upscale and initially we had some decor, but due to theft, have removed most items.  Now getting suggestions that it looks sparse, but I stay in hotels for work weekly & notice that they don’t decorate w things that  get taken...

@Dayna7 home made diy decorations ? 🙂 Craigs list? Yard sales? Picture frames from Ikea with your own photographes... or pictures from a calendar... or with printable graphic from internet? You can find great ideas on Pinterest.com

 

Or you can  use security fittings to hang pictures, they are very cheap.  and I mean very very inexpensive.

99.9% of your guests won't have the special tool to get the pictures unlocked from the wall.  (My day job is picture framing, we do a lot for hotels)

Or for pennies simply screwing them to the walls with mirror plates is enough of a deterrent for the casual thief.

The problem you can have with Ikea frames is the thin plastic on the front, only 1mm thick on most which is prone to scratching when cleaning, and discolours rapidly under UV light, and often MDF backs which attract mould, many of the frames themselves are MDF with a paper wrap, so for many areas (eg coastal like ours)  they can look good for a year or two, then you have mouldy walls and smells.  But you get what you pay for.

Other big-box stores are available 😉

Calendar prints can be great, but calendars are not printed with light fast inks, which is made worse in ikea frames as there is little UV protection in the plastic "glazing" so they fade away. Great idea if you want to change out your pictures regularly though.  

Regular 2mm float glass used as a baseline in the picture framing trade has 50 to 60 percent UV protection, low iron "super clear" glass has less, about 30%, other more expensive coated options have 98 to 99% UV protection. 

Ikea frames are not too bad in the smaller sizes, but the mats are awful, and thin, and not conservation spec.

We supply Ikea head office in the Netherlands with mats for their office pictures by the way, so read into that what you will 😉

 

 

Dayna, 

 

While I lived on the east coast of FL from August of 2015 until October 2016, and didn't run my airbnb then, and since my Airbnb's have always been in the home I live in, I've never had a single item stolen, but I imagine that in FL, more than perhaps almost anywhere in the US, the likelihood of items being stolen is there.  FL invites transients, and tourists who may like to pocket "souveniers."  I would suggest decorating with garage sale, or estate, or consignment items that are meaningless to you and that will not cost you much, in the event that they go missing.  Save your valuables for your own home.  There are so many people dying in FL (sorry for the blatant honesty of that, but it's a retirement haven- this happens), that there are loads of cheap but beachy chachkies to be had at any of hundreds of consignment stores and garage sales year round.  I'm sorry to hear that your guests have robbed you!  What a shame, and I hope it never shall happen again, but that would be my suggestion, and using the tips on HGTV's  Design on a Dime, or within Pinterest, you can outfit your space quite handsomely without spending a fortune. 

 

You might even put a note in your Additional notes section of your listing that you've lost items during prior stays, and would appreciate your guests of integrity kindly treating your place with the same level of respect they would expect from guests, in their own home.  

I have been going back on forth on this issue and quite frankly I don’t know what to do.    I have an Airbnb that I spent countless hours perfecting.  It’s called the Zen Den.    So, I have Buddha’s and Zen stuff everywhere but people love to steal them.   I’m to the point if not doing it anymore but I can’t have a Zen den without the Zen stuff.    Not sure what I’m going to do yet.   

Do you file claims for reimbursement when items are missing?  I'm new to being a host and renting out my place in 2 weeks for the 1st time.  I don't have too much decorative stuff, kept it real simple.  But I did buy nice bath towels, sheets, comforters, kitchen stuff etc.  I am going to keep an inventory checklist to confirm none of this goes missing, but just wondering how you handle it when something does go wrong?  I do have a $500 security deposit listed in my listing, from what I understand I can pull from that amount if damage or items go missing?  Do you have insight you can provide?

I’ve used our security deposit and gotten Airbnb involved when people steal things. 

 

Arranging smaller items in a pattern or design can help identify when something looks off; otherwise I try to stick to larger items that are obvious if missing - and yes, also that I would be ok replacing from the deposit (ie not leaving  sentimental value or irreplaceable items)