“The cottage was average - not the usual standard of luxury we know from Sykes.”
There are a number of things that could easily be done to elevate it to luxury. It feels unloved, like a property that has been purposefully done up to let to the holiday market, but by someone who hasn't ever stayed in it to see what works and what doesn't work and possibly by someone who has never stayed much in holiday cottages themselves, so don't know the small things that make a big difference. For example, no shelves in the bathroom, so absolutley nowhere to put toiletries - that kind of thing just makes life tricky when you should be relaxing and not having to think about a problem to overcome - I appreciate it's a first world problem not being able to put your lotions and potions anywhere, but it felt like a battle. Another example of lack of thought was the freezer which is inside a kitchen cupboard, but not fully integrated. That in itself isn't a problem, but the door of the freezer opens in the opposite direction to the door of the cupboard it sits in. Coupled with the placing of the dining table and chairs, it was a battle every time we wanted to just get some ice out of the freezer as the cupbaord door had to be fully open to be able to open the freezer door and the dining table is in the way of the cupbaord door so that had to be shifted. It shouldn't feel like a battle to do stuff - real life has enough problems to overcome and holidays are an escape from real-life. The freezer door can bu hung easily from the other side making it much easier to get into.
Other nice touches that would enhance the property - lighting. The living room/kitchen has two extremes of lighting - nothing or a runway of really bright spotlights, so sitting watching TV at night, reading or eating dinner at the table would be much cosier and ambient with a couple of lamps to provide an inbetween option. The sheet on the bed wasn't quite the right size for the mattress and it kept popping off and was really hard to put back on - all these things sound trivial even as I write them, but when you get a property where these things are right, you don't notice them, all you notice is how much of a good time you're having and how lovely the property is. When they're wrong, they focus your thoughts on the annoyances and there were a number of those that could be easily fixed if someone with an eye for detail took a practical look around. There were no details of how to recycle in the Property Information Booklet and there didn't appear to be different bins anywhere, just large black refuse bins - I found this surprising in this day and age. We took our recycling home with us.
The description suggests a walk to Baycliff for a drink or food in the Inn, but I don't belive this should be included in the description - it's a 3.5 mile round trip on a very busy road - we love walking so the distance wouldn't necessarily put me off, but I don't think walking on such a busy and pavementless road, especially at night, would be very sensible - there may well be a public footpath across the fileds, but that wasn't obvious even with the maps we took - if there is a path then the proprty infomation booklet would benefit from this addition, otherwise remove the walk to Baycliff from the description or make it more accurate about what type of walk a trip to the pub would be. We really nejoyed the holiday, it was a good location for exploring the Lakes, but we would stay in Coniston or Grasmere next time - much prettier and definitely walking distance to a pub.
