In the booming vacation home rental market, many investors or second home owners are looking to take advantage of the lucrative rates these properties can offer, especially when compared to the unfurnished long-term rental market. A reservation only during Christmas can be equal to the amount entered during an entire month for the same unfurnished property. In some areas of the country, such as Palm Springs, California, the abundance of mid-century homes, typically between the early 1950s and early 1960s, is prompting a stampede of investors to renovate and furnish these homes. homes in the period and publish the listings. on websites like HomeAway or Flipkey. Here are some tips from a homeowner who just went through the process of renovating and outfitting a mid-century home as we find what works well and what we’d do differently for the next property.

Choose your color theme and stick with it

The mid-century color scheme is largely muted, soft tones. Since that can get a bit boring, the mid-century modern interpretation of design often incorporates an accent color that stands out, such as burnt orange or seafoam green. Our choice was burnt orange and we used it on some of the home’s finishes, such as the kitchen subway tile backsplash, pool accent tile, and front door, and unobtrusively incorporated it throughout the home furnishings to maintain a sense of continuity. Complicate your color palette and you will shake up the flow of the house. This design style is all about clean lines and harmony.

Balance mid-century beauty with modern convenience

The biggest mistake I see in the photos and descriptions of properties that compete with ours is that the owner’s furnishing choices turned the house into a museum and not a desirable vacation rental. The use of period furniture, such as vintage Danish wood-frame daybeds, often elicits the reaction, “Alas, mid-century!” as in not particularly comfortable. Recognizing this stigma, many homeowners choose to use a comfortable modern sofa with clean lines and complement it with a vintage piece like an Isamu Noguchi coffee table. We chose to furnish with a modern white leather sectional paired with a low birch coffee table and a vintage Arc lamp. We had multiple reservations where the guest noted that he chose our home because of the perceived level of comfort compared to any of the other mid-century homes. One guest recognized the sectional as the same one she had at her house but in a different color.

Use mid-century knockoffs and the used market, but beware of IKEA

We quickly determined that if we tried to outfit our homes with all of Design Within Reach furniture…we would spend the budget we set to furnish our 3 bed, 2 bath home. Compromises were needed. We found that Overstock, the big online discount company, was an excellent source for mid-century reproductions. Iconic pieces like the Eileen Gray side table, tubular steel Wassily chair, Panton Ess chairs, and modern Louis Ghost armchair can be found here at surprisingly good levels of quality, and at a fraction of the cost of the real McCoy. Plus, the $2.99 ​​shipping can’t be beat. On EBay we found some chrome bar stools with a walnut finish that matched our kitchen cabinets perfectly for $99 each including shipping. We think these, however, will be the first items to wear out and we’ll probably go in a different direction when it’s time to replace them.

And don’t rule out buying used. While the economy is still trying to recover, consumers are downloading luxury items at a fraction of what they paid for them for many different reasons. We picked out several large furniture items in the Palm Springs area through Craigslist postings. The leather sectional, as an example, came from another mid-century house and was only 3 months old. The reason the other owner was selling it? The wife was only 5 feet 2 inches tall and they didn’t realize how deep her seats were: she couldn’t bend her legs. We purchased this for 1/3 of the retail price plus no state tax. Our U-Haul truck made the delivery. The best find we got was a King size 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 house as a second home and was moving across the country. They did not want to deal with moving the piece. We picked up the bed, mattress, and end tables for less than the cost of an IKEA set. We also picked up some great modern original artwork from them for less than 1/5 of what they paid.

Probably our only regret was buying IKEA bedroom sets for the second and third bedrooms. While functional and attractive, the reaction from guests may be, “Oh, IKEA furniture.” One guest even called our house in a review “The beautiful IKEA house.” While the bedroom sets were the only furniture we bought from the large Swedish retailer, the presence of furniture might lead some guests to assume that we bought most of the furniture there and that’s not the message we want to convey. If you want to use IKEA and are in a community that uses Craigslist a lot, I recommend looking at the end of the month. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where we live, I can buy IKEA furniture for twenty cents on the dollar, since the transient population (college students, renters, relocated tech employees) want to sell their furniture fast. Often people are looking to sell the entire contents of an apartment that was furnished less than a year ago. For the next property, I’ll be looking for some great buys from retailers like West Elm and Room & Board using this end-of-month shopping strategy.

We are in the process of closing on our second property and have already put down a deposit on a beautiful white sectional we purchased on Craigslist. The lovely couple selling the piece hold it along with other furniture for us while we wait to close. They simply moved to the desert and found that the furniture did not fit the style of their new home. They are happy to keep as their interior designer must order new furniture with a six week lead time. While purchasing furniture this way may require more work, we know it’s worth it to lower our acquisition costs and create a Mid-Century Modern setting that a prospective vacation renter will see and immediately imagine themselves at their best living experience. Palm Springs vacation.