Hi Kagome I'd suggest using a console table behind the sofa with a pair of lamps and say a flower arrangement to divide the space rather than a full height bookcase as this will block light into the room and make the lounge half quite dark. With regards to colours I'd suggest either of the following: Elephant's Breath Skimming Stone I certainly wouldn't choose anything too dark as it will absorb too much light in the room. Hope that helps PB

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HI Nancy, May I ask whereabouts is this property located? Reason being is that you'd want to keep the interiors in keeping with the location of the property. This post has been posted on the UK Houzz forum and this property doesn't look like it's in the UK! A few pointers also comes from the type of customers you receive in your property. You mentioned tourist attraction for beaches, hiking and wine tours. So there's a few things you could do. Create a beach/theme by adding softer white, sandy tones. Think painting the kitchen units white would definitely modernise it and make it look more fresh. I would also suggest if you are open to it changing the kitchen flooring, to something more modern (this could be a long term plan). The kitchen area with the mircowave could be improved, either by extending the existing units or replacing it with a wider one as it looks a bit empty. You could do with adding some soft furnishings like rugs and cushions, I would advise a lighter coloured rug as you have a lot of dark furniture at the moment. Window treatments could also do with a change and ones that fit. I think you would be better off with a roman blind in some of the rooms and allow the light to flood in. If that's not an option I would checkout shutters and have some curtains in keeping with your colour scheme. In terms of colour, I would actually steer away from beige! As you already have quite a lot of brown tones in the furniture. I would advise an off white colour to brighten and make it look fresh. Beige can feel quite dated and draining so I would be weary of using it in a rental property. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any questions. Rukmini Patel Interior Design

Don’t worry too much about the cost of plasterboard it’s about £7 a sheet and standard size is 2.4m tall and 1.2m wide so you can work out the cost to renew the whole room or just the bad bits (I bet you don’t need to do it all) plus they’d either use battens to fix to the wall, again cheap just lengths of timber screwed into your existing brick walls or dot and dab where they use big blobs of adhesive to stick the plasterboard to the wall. Get a few local well rated plasterers in to give you a price and you will know exactly where you are with it. Better still get a recommendation from a friend. Also the tearing out of the room may save you a bit of cost so ask for a price to do it with them doing the demolition or you doing it yourself it’s really easy to do and might save a few pounds. I’ve popped a pic on of some of my old house I stripped completely, it’s easy if a bit messy!