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I just found this incredibly helpful forum and I am in need of some advice for how to arrange the 2nd bedroom of our soon-to-be vacation rental house near the Florida gulf coast. Our main target guest is families with kids.
The house is about 2300 square feet, with 3 bedrooms (one being a loft), 3 bathrooms, a big outdoor kitchen and pool.
Master = King bed + futon
Loft = Queen bed
2nd bedroom = ?
Hopefully the picture worked right to show the following ideas I came up with:
Top Left: 2 Queen beds
Middle Right: Bunk Bed - Full over Queen + Queen bed
Bottom Left: Bunk Bed - Full over Queen + Futon
4th option not shown: Bunk bed - Full over Queen + Full bed
I think we want to target no less than 8, likely 10 guests, no more than 12 guests.
In the layout the door to the top goes to laundry room/hallway;
Door to the left is a redundant door going to outdoor kitchen (there is a main door in the laundry room/hallway that goes there);
The double doors lead to the driveway (front of house) - would want to leave one egress door unblocked for fires.
Concerns:
Want families to be drawn to listing more so than multiple young couples;
do not want too much extra work for housekeeping (namely making heavy bunk bed mattress);
Dining room will seat 8 + 4 barstools at kitchen
Living room would seat 7-8 at once in couches
Outdoor kitchen will easily fit 12-16 people
I’d be very, very concerned about this turning into a party house. But then I am a home-share host and wouldn’t host a whole separate house (especially if it were distant from me).
I’d move the beds away from the walls; have one night stand between the two beds (standard hotel room setup). That will make changing linens easier, provide better access into the bed, and ideally avoid marking up your walls.
if you can afford it, I’d remove the door to outdoor kitchen and fill it in; for aesthetics; that will give you a non disrupted wall that will make the room appear larger.
If you’re trying to limit multiple couples, another option if you haven’t considered is putting a desk somewhere in the home, possibly in this bedroom, in lieu of the 2nd bed. If you really want 2 beds, with a focus on children, a trundle bed that comes from underneath the main bed is better option than bunk beds.
Work From Home (WFH) has become the new norm, and creating a private space to carry out work, should attract a different type of guests.
I personally think any one of those configurations would feel cramped even for 2 people and it will likely show in your reviews. Where would up to 6 people with the queen + full-over-queen setup even put their luggage? Does it really make sense to put half of your 8-12 max occupancy in one bedroom room when you’ve got 3 bedrooms available?
I think the best setup for 2 queen or full beds would be if you take the first layout (top left drawing), and put the nightstands between the bed and the wall on both beds, maybe have a 3rd shared nightstand in the middle. It’s still cramped, but at least it’s convenient for both using the beds and making the beds.
Alternately, consider replacing the bed in the lower left corner with a TwinXL size bed but rotated so the headboard is against the wall left of the “Door-to-driveway”. It would still have the bed-against-the-wall problem, but the room would be much less cramped.
Another alternative is one queen + some convertible bed (futon, sleeper sofa, or murphy bed) that stays folded when not in use, which I think it what the lower left drawing is going for except it has a futon and a full-over-queen bunk bed with a weird layout.
I was going to suggest the same. This room wasn’t designed to be a bedroom (a den, maybe?), and removing that door would help a lot to make it a bedroom. I had to do something similar in my listing. The previous owner had a home office in one of the bedrooms and had installed in a door to allow clients to enter his office without going through the front door of his home. It was fine for an office, but there was no place to put a double bed in the room without blocking a window, door, closet, etc.
I used to host 8 guests and had three queen size beds and two twins. After one year I got rid of the twin beds and now host 6 guests. I personally feel that 8 or more is a party waiting to happen and parties mean big messes, broken items and angry neighbors. It’s a lot of wear and tear on the property.
Thank you for all of the quick informative responses.
The bedroom was also coded to be an office/commercial, but we would t use it like that so I already have a contractor looking at a couple other jobs - will add closing up that door to the potential list.
I like the idea of having a Queen bed in there - would it work to have a twin-sized daybed with twin trundle in that top-left corner? I have seen ones online that have a 12” backing on 3 sides and function like a seat during the day but then would be a twin bed & twin trundle bed at night.
Mattresses don’t have to be heavy. My beds are 4" firm foam with 2" of softer foam on top and mattress pad. They are light and easy to move around. They are quite comfortable and many guests have commented on what good sleeps they had on them.
This is what I meant (pardon my lacking skills with Microsoft Paint). I think the first one is nearly the same as @HH_AZ’s suggestion. It mimics a typical hotel room with a patio/balcony door on the opposite side of the room from the entry door. In the second one, you could have either a twinxl, a twinxl bunk bed, or a twinxl with a trundle. The reason I suggest the twinxl instead of a twin is because they can still sleep tall adults. TwinXL beds are fairly standard in college dorms so they’re not very difficult to find even though most furniture stores don’t stock them.
To sleep 8:
Master king = 2
Master futon = 2
Loft queen =2
BR 3 Queen = 2
You don’t need a second bed. A desk will give you more room and appeal to a WFH guest. Plus that may alleviate need to wall-in the door.
Or put desk in master & futon in the 3rd BR with the Queen.
I’ve had a twin trundle bed in a rental. Trundles only work well if well made (expensive). Adults tend to not like them because you are practically sleeping on the floor.
Best thing I’ve ever done is decrease my max # guests from 6 to 2 & lock off one bedroom & 1 bath. I charge slightly less per night BUT my end of season repairs needed were much less than in prior years. I ended up netting more income with less work.
Also it shut down my entrepreneurial snowbirds who were renting for four but they had a different set of guests each week. They were basically subletting the 2nd bedroom to golf-buddy friends. (Friends shared the rental expenses)
Last time they rented I had to enter the condo to do repairs. Their guests shared how much they enjoyed the condo and contributing toward F&S’s rental expenses was very affordable. F&S collected more than they were paying so it was a money maker for them.
