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Now we do not even need to buy a magazine: we can mindlessly scroll through apartments that are a bit too expensive on Airbnb, and the look seeps in. Where once we bought a guidebook and phoned a couple of pensions to reserve a room over the phone (which took, perhaps, half an hour), now we surf endlessly through weirdly familiar apartments, unable to decide because they all look so similar. If time is money, we have become ridiculous fools trying to save a few pounds while whiling away invaluable and unretrievable hours.
Those apartments, that style, that distinctive banality seeps into our consciousness and it becomes, paradoxically, aspirational. The irony is that in looking for a trip, a change of scenery, we have found anonymity repackaged as cool and now we aspire at home to the placelessness of a reimported global banality.
Builders and developers now construct for Airbnb. There are whole blocks of generic apartments displacing smaller, quirkier and more interesting buildings in the dense complexity of neighbourhoods, with their social and commercial mix aimed at short-term renters and higher margins for investors.
And even though my beds and nightstands came from Ikea, I agree with him. When I’m looking for an Air stay, I scroll right by all those “chic” perfectly decorated listinga and look for the real ones that look like they belong to real people.
Yes, apartment after guest house after cottage after private room after lakeside mansion after beachfront condo of nothing but durable materials, easy to clean furniture, unoffensive art, spotless corners, neutral colors, easy to make coffee and child safe and liability-free acoutrements. I completely agree. It’s a bit of its own kind of disease.
The writer of that article should stop looking at those types of listings and start looking for the eclectic ones, of which there are plenty.
I have to say that I feel that way about many of the listings I see on the site, as well. Beige is not even slightly appealing to me, nor is generic “art”. I’d much rather see framed children’s drawings on the wall than some print that was chosen because it goes with the decor, rather than has any meaning to the buyer.
One guest told me she really enjoyed her room here because she Airbnbs a lot and most places are “cookie cutter”.
I think the point that the writer is making is that there are so many cookie-cutter AirBnBs out there, that it has become quite difficult to scroll through hundreds of photos to find those AirBnBs that are a bit different. I know this is true for our market where perhaps 5 to 10% of all listings go against the grain and these are usually booked up so in terms of what is available at any one time we could be speaking about the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Yep, had the same. Guests have complimented us on our comfy second hand sofa’s, our real wood second hand dining table and chairs and our original artwork.
In fact, one guest (who we know well) didn’t believe me when I explained that one particular piece was a representation of the artists vagina and I had to get OH to verify it. I do find that particular piece disconcerting, mainly because I know the artist and… I think I’d better stop there
It’s harder to have eclectic with character and durable and easy to clean, especially with Covid, and I decorated before covid . I got lucky that my choices were good, leather furniture, blinds, minimal accesories easy to clean .When I see rentals with shelves filled with cool, eclectic stuff, my first thought is for the cleaning crew. The argument that wood floors are nicer than vinyl floors is undeniable. But drop a hammer on both…
.When I was researching how best to decorate our STR, there were all these recommendations for neutral colors so we wouldn’t offend the eye of our guests. I totally disregarded and used vivid colors.Reds, blacks, teals, turquoise, yellow, grays…I also found some nice pieces a claw foot wood table, an antique buffet, a cherry low boy and we refurbished them ourselves and added indestructable metal chairs and stools with seat pads. But we do have some cookie cutter art off of amazon that I really like and one guest offerred to buy from me! I gave her the amazon link.
Oh yes, absolutely! I’m nostalgic for the days of driving through (usually) France looking for a chambre d’hote that I could actually bear to sleep in. I miss the flowery, not quite full-length flimsy curtains, the creaky bed with its lumpy mattress and inch-thick pillow. I mourn the dribbly shower which either ran scalding hot or freezing cold, the gas stove that almost set fire to my hair when trying to light it … and I’m afraid the words “eclectic” and even worse, “quirky” bring me out in hives … I even don’t mind a bit of beige - as long as it’s the right shade of beige, of course.
Of course, I exaggerate, we stayed in some lovely places, but my, they were difficult to find! I think Airbnb has done travellers a huge service in upgrading the comfort and cleanliness of holiday rentals, at least in Europe. Yes, some of them may look a bit same-y, especially in the big Metros, but travellers are spending a few nights, or at most a few weeks in them, not moving in for life! We’re supposed to be out visiting museums, lying on beaches and climbing mountains, not sniffing at the Ikea furniture! Give me clean, comfortable, with working appliances and a teapot and I’m happy - I’ll even accept the odd faux-Eames chair.
And FWIW, I found the article just as unsurprisingly snobbish and sniping about what ordinary people like as only an “Archtectural Critic” can be.
Oh, eclectic doesn’t mean shelves filled with knicknacks. I hate that sort of thing, myself. Just a bunch of dust collectors, no matter how “cool”. The private room/bathroom I list has almost nothing in it- the bed, two little nesting, carved teak bedside tables, a mosquito net over the bed, a wooden chair I found on the side of the road for the garbage that I rescued and painted up and made a seat cushion for, a built-in concrete counter/desk and a closet. There’s a small basket on the counter for guests to throw their jewelry, phone chargers, or whatever in, some local travel books and maps, a bedside lamp, a small sand-filled pewter container candle-holder (electric does go out here occasionally), simple white cotton curtains, and that’s it. I also use colorful sheets and pillowcases. One small original painting on the wall. What makes it unusual is the shape of the room, the paint job (layered soft green shades on the walls, rust trim on the windows, which matches the terracotta tiles on the floor) , the custom-made iron bars (which I designed and my welder made perfectly) on the windows, and the curved brick ceiling. Essentially, the architecture is the decor.
I agree, but mainly from personal experience of being being skint but determined to go on holiday. As I student I stayed in some pretty grim places in Morocco, France, Italy, Greece, but we went away at least twice a year.
In a later life, skint again courtesy of Mrs Thatcher, Portugal became the love of my life but there were very few comfortable places to stay. Cutesy fishermen’s cottages where the cooker blew up, no hot water, or any water at times, and the door knobs fell off with frightening regularity. We stayed in a huge, dilapidated villa with friends one visit, where we managed to cut two people off from the rest of the house til morning. Yes, booze was involved, but so was a door knob.
But the beach, the bay, good food made all good.
In my now dotage and not skint, I appreciate the sameness of the apartments built a decade ago, where I can always find one for our dates. Comfortable, good locks, safe appliances, hot water, nice showers and pleasant private roof terraces for the now wiser but wider.
The beach is the same, the food still good as is the wine.
We bemoaned Cell Block H as it was being built, but many of us find it a lovely relief.
And I enjoyed every syllable of it. So much of the sniping about Airbnb is so tiring and predictable. I’ve seen loads of wonderful looking Airbnbs, far more than I could ever have the time or money to stay in.
Our listing is filled with strictly one of a kind stuff. It pleases me to have, find or make something no-one else has! Guests go bananas when they realize the specialness of it, which was done for them! We have mid-century china, ( one piece broken in 1.5 years) mid-century silver plate flatware ( all there) , special lamps, artwork, plus lots of custom soft furnishings which for the most part are completely undamaged. I’m a firm believer in no copycatting. Why does everyone think that its ok to look so da-- - homogenous???
Where I live now in Mexico, bright colors are used everywhere. But when I lived in Canada, everything seemed to be painted beige, white or grey. I used a lot of color in my house, and friends would come over and say “Oh I love that turquoise staircase- maybe I’ll do something like that on mine-it needs a paint job.”
But then they’d chicken out and paint it beige or brown. For some reason people seem to be actually afraid to do something different or bold. Sheesh, it’s just paint- you can always paint over it if you don’t like it.
I’m a professional seamstress and I’ve made my own duvet covers, curtains, pillowcases (in cool patterned fabric) and even sheets.
