10 Lighting Tips to Create an Enchanting Vacation Rental Home
As the homeowner of a vacation or rental home, your goal is to create a getaway that is as warm and welcoming as possible, and flexible to accommodate any guest or trip itinerary—from check-in to check-out. Your rental property could attract all different types of people through vrbo taking family vacations, business trips, students, or honeymooners. Your potential income is limited only by how wonderful the space can be made for your guests or renters.
A beautiful space, inspiring decoration, and a luxurious experience are all it takes to stay fully booked and profitable. When preparing your guest house for occupancy, lighting is key. It's not just the furniture and art that make guests gasp in delight when they step through the door: It's the lighting. Natural light is great, but can be enhanced by soft glowing sconces and glittering pendants. If you want to design an enchanting Airbnb for getaways follow these ten lighting tips:
1) Flood the Kitchen with Warm Light
Nothing says home away from home like a fully equipped kitchen. For family vacations, a kitchen can help mitigate food costs, and the kitchen should be warm, inviting, and a joy to cook in. For this, you need a flood of warm light, and at all the right angles. Use a wide, diffuse central light fixture and seek to minimize shadows from the upper cabinets.
Line the lower edge of upper cabinets with light strips to illuminate your countertops below. Add an extra pendant light or spotlight above the sink, stove, and island to provide extra illumination for the chef without dazzling other guests. If there is not a separate game room, a dining nook/or kitchen with a bright pendant is great place for family board game playing while on vacation.
2) A Statement Light Fixture Over the Dining Table (and Island)
The two best places for your eye-catching statement light fixture are the dining table and the island - depending on the home's layout. If your island is the focal center of an open-plan home, that's where the statement light fixture should go.
However, if there is a formal dining room or formalized nook, consider further defining this space with an artful statement chandelier or sculptural piece. A statement light fixture is not just beautiful, it pulls the room's design together and often is used to indicate where people should gather.
3) Dim the Living Room Lights
Living room activities are often more enjoyable with the lights dimmed. While full lighting is necessary to make the room welcoming during the day, your guests will delight in finding the dimmer switch when it comes time to watch movies, play games, or relax into sleepy evening conversation. You can even leave your guests with a smart home setup that will dim the lights through voice commands, as well.
If you have reclining chairs, don't forget to choose diffuse light fixtures that won't dazzle the eyes with exposed bulbs.
4) An Artful Ceiling Fan for Every Bedroom
A savvy host knows that many guests turn off the air conditioning at night, but want a ceiling fan to sleep comfortably, and it's smart to choose a lit ceiling fan to combine essential features. But each fan is also an opportunity to create beautifully themed and decorated rooms - and to place a piece of sculpture on every ceiling. Choose artful and statement ceiling fans - a unique fan for every bedroom - to give your rooms personality and provide something beautiful on the ceiling for guests to see as they fall asleep and wake up each morning. In kids, rooms think bunk beds paired with playful fans and lighting. In the master bedroom, to create ambiance add luxury linens to the bed, and a beautiful fan above it .
5) Warm the Hallways with Sconces
Long hallways are sometimes hard to light. However, these too are lighting opportunities. Softly glowing sconces, nearly flush with the wall, are the perfect way to turn a hallway from a shadowy tunnel into a beckoning corridor.
Build your strategy after the way movie theaters and fine hotels light hallways. Choose a sconce design that diffuses light so it is gentle to pass close-buy, but also projects a larger light shape on the wall around the sconce. This will make each illumination seem warmer without flooding the hallway - often outside bedrooms - with brilliant light creating ambiance, even in your hallways.
6) Illuminate a Cozy Reading Corner
Choose at least one place in the vacation home to place a comfy chair, or small couch, and a special reading light that provides a welcoming pool of illumination for the reader and the book (or phone). Place a slender bookcase next to the chair. Use a spotlight pendant, a long-necked floor lamp, or even a lamp clipped to the side of the bookcase, as long as it casts just the right pool. Don’t forget some guests may prefer to read on their Ipads and other reading devices. Leaving a small sign with the property’s wifi password is an appreciated touch.
7) Flexible Light and Dark Office
Every modern vacation rental home should have a home office space. This should be a comfortable desk, chair, and a few open electric outlets. Your rental may have a more elaborate office space to appeal to digital nomads, but don't forget that everyone works differently. Some are night owls who will appreciate a soft, dimmable home office lighting design. Some must still do real paperwork, and will need a traditional desk lamp to see clearly. Some need a sunny office or enough light to feel sunny in order to stay energetic at work.
Consider flexibility when designing the lighting of your vacation rental office space.
8) Diffuse Lighting in the Bathrooms
One excellent hospitality design trick is to place light diffusers in the bathroom. Hide your lights behind fixtures of frosted glass or cloudy plastic panels. This makes bathrooms glow with a modern luminescence, can dim to a gentle night light, and will never blind your guests in the early mornings or at just the wrong angle in the mirror.
9) Create an inviting outdoor living space
Many travelers are looking to spend time in the great outdoors. Outdoor fans help keep guests cool in hot climates, while patio sting lights add whimsy and romance to all outdoor seating areas. Whether the temperature is warm and sunny at your beach house or cold and snowy at your mountain retreat, you can accommodate your guest and take their experience at your rental property up a notch with your landscaping. Add a firepit with cozy outdoor couches for a nice seating area in both summer and winter vacations. Hot tubs and private pools, as well as kayaks, are also top searches on Airbnb for many travelers. Make sure to make it clear if your property is pet-friendly , and - if it is- create an outdoor area for pets too!
10) Layered Lighting with Personal Lamps
For your final touch in your vacation/rental property, you can create a sense of layered lighting with a few personal lamps. Tabletop, side-table, and standing lamps add style and personality to a space and also give your guests the ability to take control of the environment of light around them.
Get creative and support your decoration theme using personal lights, as these items are more flexible than your ceiling light installations. While you may want your chandeliers and ceiling fans to be timeless, you can truly explore each vacation home's potential for niche detail with smaller lamps. From twinkling fairy lights to towering floor lights, each room can be defined by unique illumination and lighting effects to make a getaway house complete.
Urban Ambiance can help you find and install the best light fixtures for every vacation rental design. Explore our wide selection from statement light fixtures to elegant sconces and everything in between. Contact us today to perfect the lighting plan for your vacation rental home or homes.
