How To Style a Holiday Home

Whether it is a rental property or your own romantic place where you like to escape from the noise of the city, when decorating a holiday home, design is of key importance: you want to achieve that it is a place that invites, soothes and nurtures all the senses, a place that calls to rest and socializing. There are several imperatives that should be taken into account when decorating a holiday home, namely comfort, harmony and functionality. Accordingly, your focus will be to choose colors, lighting and furniture that reflect them.
Last year we had the opportunity to decorate a beautiful vacation villa in Svetvinčent, and is there a better time to remember those romantic, warm scenes than on these rainy spring days, while we eagerly await summer, sun, and a well-deserved vacation?

The villa in Svetvinčent is a newer building with rustic elements that fit perfectly into the rural Istrian landscape. There are two things that we immediately noticed when we first came there- the wonderful blue sky that towers over the property and a swimming pool in the same tones as the sky as one of the main assets of the house, and we immediately knew that the house should be decorated to reflect that dreamy blueness. We decided to transfer the symmetry of that blueness to the interior itself, making sure that it does not dominate. When choosing color palettes, we focused on more neutral tones, since we wanted to achieve a calm, harmonious atmosphere, but we added a whole new dimension to the interior with details in shades of blue. We also transferred the rustic moment to the interior by playing with the texture on the walls.

A good starting point in decorating a holiday home is to choose a theme and general feeling that you want to convey to guests, and in the case of the house in Svetvinčent, we focused on emphasizing the existing assets of the house and its location: the rustic, romantic sentiment of the Istrian countryside and the mirror blue of the sky and water. By choosing colors, textures and materials, we transferred that sentiment from the exterior to the interior and thus connected the whole story into a meaningful whole.
A very important element in the service of achieving a certain general mood is the selection of lighting fixtures. If you want to arrange an interior that invites people to rest, opt for shades and lamps of warmer shades, dimmers, candles and lanterns, which also serve as decorative elements. We like to choose interesting pieces of lighting because, in addition to contributing to the atmosphere, they can serve as statement details, like the chandelier we chose for the living room.

When it comes to choosing decorations for a holiday home, less is indeed more. It is important not to overdo it because a room full of decorations can create a feeling of restlessness, which is not desirable in a space with a primary goal of relaxation. Rather, opt for a few interesting pieces that will not stand out too much from the rest of the interior, but will complement it , such as in this case the already mentioned chandelier, decoration above the fireplace and pictures in the same color palette as the rest of the apartment.

And last but not least: if it is a rental property, make sure that the presentation of it is adequate, but also realistic. It’s always a good idea to hire a professional photographer who will be able to capture all of these items that you’ve been thinking about while decorating your house. It is very important that the presentation is realistic and that no tricks are used that will make the space appear different than what it is. The guests should know what to expect. “What you see is what you get“ truly is the case with our villa in Svetvinčent, and this turned out to be one of its greatest assets. A little bird whispered to us that every other guest that comes to the villa comments that it is even more beautiful in person than in the pictures 🙂