Costco Connection - July 2010

home
for your

MEDIA BAKERY

Guest-room guidance

Bed-and-breakfast owners share their tips

By Lynne Meredith Schreiber

WHETHER THE MESSAGE—“We’re coming in two weeks. Can hardly wait to see you. Planning to stay at your place”—comes by phone or e-mail, panic can set in. You love having guests, but how to accommodate them?

Even if you relegate guests to your child’s room, it can be a wonderful place to stay if you do it right. The guiding wisdom for creating a comfortable guest room in any space, according to bed-and-breakfast (B&B) owners, is to think about what you like when you’re on vacation and do your best to reproduce that experience in your home.

“Create a refuge and pay attention to the details,” advises Brad Cunningham, Costco member and owner, with David Godfrey, of the 1908 Edwardian-style Dundee Manor ( www.dundeemanor.com) in Dundee, Oregon.

From the bed down to the bottled water, every detail in a guest room matters if you want to ensure visitors’ comfort, ease and supreme relaxation. High-thread-count (600 or more) sheets. A place to stow luggage. Several varieties of pillows.

Guests bring good luck with them.

—Turkish proverb

“There’s nothing worse than having a pillow that’s too high for your head or one that’s too low,” says Costco member David Knowles, owner of Shasta MountInn ( www.shasta mountinn.com) in Mount Shasta, California.

While inn owners create rooms to dazzle paying guests, it’s not hard for the average homeowner who hosts family and friends from time to time to carve out private space for visitors.

If you don’t have the luxury of an extra guest room, clean out a couple of drawers and make room in the closet so guests have somewhere to unpack their clothes. If that’s not possible, affix a rack to the door for hangers

BRAD CUNNINGHAM

Dundee Manor features themed rooms such as The Asian, (left) that also have cozy sitting areas.

and offer a foldaway luggage rack for easy suitcase access. Remove any clutter that might make your guests feel shoved in a corner, such as toys, breakables or collector’s items.

“I furnished [my] rooms simply, clean,
without tchotchkes,” says Knowles of his 1904
mountain-view B&B. “I wanted it to be the
kind of place that evoked the air of visiting a
cousin or an aunt—a homey feeling.”
Cunningham and Knowles suggest creat-
ing a cozy seating area if there’s space. A cou-
ple of pleasant chairs and a small table are
enough to provide an area other than the bed
for lingering. “Make them feel that if they
want to sit and read a book, they have a cozy
place to do so,” says Cunningham.

And while you’re at it, offer some reading material—current magazines or well-loved paperbacks (short stories are better than novels, so guests can finish a tale or two during their visit).

Little things make all the difference: plush robes, hair dryers, a night light so no one bangs a knee, enough toilet paper to avoid meek requests for a new roll, toiletries in case they forget something.

And snacks. Allow guests to satisfy between-meals hunger without badgering you. Arrange packaged snacks, bottled water and, in the morning, coffee and tea from a

FOR TIPS ON SELECTING FURNITURE FOR YOUR GUEST ROOM, SEE PAGE 46.

The Costco Connection Costco and Costco.com offer many items to help put together a guest room, including beds, lamps, chairs, bottled water, sheets, flowers and snacks.