In the exploding vacation home rental market, many investors or second home owners are looking to cash in on the lucrative rates these properties can command especially compared to the unfurnished long-term rental market. A booking during Christmas alone can equal the amount brought in for an entire month for the same property unfurnished. In some areas of the country, such as Palm Springs California, the abundance of mid-century constructed homes, typically between the early 1950's and early 1960's,is driving a stampede of investors to renovate and furnish these homes in the period and post the listings on websites such as HomeAway or Flipkey. Here are some tips from a homeowner who just went through the renovation and outfitting process of a mid-century home as we found what works well and what we would do differently for the next property.
Pick your color theme and stick with it
The mid-century color scheme is largely soft muted tones. As that can become a bit dull, the mid-century modern design interpretation is often to incorporate an accent color that stands out such as burnt orange or a seafoam green. Our choice was burnt orange and we utilize it in some of the home finishes like the kitchen subway tile backsplash, the pool accent tile, and the front door as well as discretely incorporate it throughout the house's furnishings to maintain a feeling of continuity. Complicate your color palette and you jar the flow of the home. This design style is about clean lines and harmony.
Balance mid-century beauty with modern comfort
The biggest mistake I see in the pictures and descriptions of competing properties to ours is the owner's furnishing choices turned the home into a museum and not into a desirable vacation rental. Utilizing period furnishing such as vintage Danish wood frame day bed sofas often elicits the reaction: "Mid-century ouch!" as in not particularly comfortable. Recognizing this stigma many owners elect to utilize a modern comfortable sofa with clean lines and compliment it with a vintage piece such as an Isamu Noguchi coffee table. We chose to furnish with a modern white leather modular sectional along with a low birch coffee table and a vintage Arc lamp. We had several bookings where the guest noted he chose our home for the perceived comfort level versus any of the other mid-century homes. One guest recognized the sectional as the same one she had in her home but just in a different color.
Utilize mid-century knockoffs and the used market but be careful with IKEA
We quickly determined if we tried to outfit our homes with all Design Within Reach furnishing... we'd blow through the budget we set to furnish our 3 bedroom 2 bathrooms home. Compromises were needed. We discovered that Over stock, the large online discount company, was a great source for mid-century reproductions. Iconic pieces such as the Eileen Gray end table, the tubular steel Wassily chair, Panton Ess chairs, and the modern Louis Ghost Armchair can be found here with surprisingly good levels of quality and at a fraction of the cost of the real McCoy. Plus the .99 shipping can't be beat. On EBay we found some chrome bar chairs with a walnut finish that perfectly matched our kitchen cabinets for each including shipping. We think these, however, will be the first items to wear out and we will probably go in a different direction when it is time to replace.
And don't rule out buying used. While the economy still tries to recover, consumers are unloading luxury goods at a fraction of what they paid for them for many different reasons. We picked several large furniture items in the Palm Springs area via Craigslist postings. The leather sectional, as an example, came from another mid-century home and was only 3 months old. The reason the other homeowner was selling it? The wife was only 5 feet 2 inches tall and they didn't realize how deep the seats were - she couldn't bend her legs. We purchased this for 1/3 the retail price plus no state tax. Our U-Haul truck provided delivery. The best find we secured was a King-sized dark wood platform bed with Italian orange glass as the headboard. The original cost of the plush mattress itself was more than double our budget. The family had used the home as a second home and was moving across the country. They didn't want to deal with moving the piece. We picked up the bed, mattress, and side tables for less than the cost of an IKEA set. We also picked up from them some large modern original art for less than 1/5 what they paid.
Probably our only regret was buying IKEA bedroom sets for the second and third bedrooms. While functional and attractive, guests' reaction can be: "Oh, IKEA furniture." One guest even called our home in a review "The beautiful IKEA house." While the bedroom sets were the only furniture we purchased from the big Swedish retailer, the furniture presence might lead some guests to assume we bought a majority of furniture there and that isn't the message we want to convey. If you do want to utilize IKEA, and you're in a community that heavily utilizes Craigslist, I recommend looking at the end of the month. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where we live, I can pick up IKEA furniture for twenty cents on the dollar as the transient population (college students, renters, relocated technology employees) want to quickly sell their furnishings. Often people are looking to sell the entire contents of an apartment that was furnished less than a year before. For the next property, I'll look to find some great buys from retailers such as West Elm and Room & Board using this end of month purchase strategy.
We are in the process of closing on our second property and we already put a deposit down on a gorgeous white sectional we've purchased off Craigslist. The lovely couple selling the piece is holding it and other furniture for us while we wait to close. They just relocated to the desert and found the furniture didn't fit the style of their new home. They are happy to hold as their interior designer must order new furniture with a six-week lead-time. While purchasing furniture this way can take more work, we know it pays off in lowering our acquisition costs and putting together a mid-century modern environment that a prospective vacation renter will see and immediately picturing herself in for her ultimate Palm Springs Vacation experience.
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