Keeping your vacation rental kitchen clean and organized is key to your guest having a smooth & pleasant stay.
We learned how important it was a few years ago, when we stayed in a vacation rental in the Outer Banks.
It was one of the best family vacations we ever had.
One evening, we made a large fish dinner and used almost every single kitchen dish, pot & utensil available.
After dinner, we washed all of the dishes and pots & pans, etc.
When we started to put everything away, we realized that we had absolutely no clue where anything went.
Picture 4 adults in the kitchen just staring blankly at empty kitchen cabinets, trying to figure out where everything should go.
We did our best to put things in the right place, but we’re pretty sure everything in the kitchen was completely rearranged.
The lesson we learned from that experience is that guests may have the best of intentions, but if you don’t tell guests where things go… they probably won’t remember.
Your goal is to organize your kitchen so that every guest will easily know where everything goes.
That way, all your guests will have a consistent experience when staying at your vacation rental.
For example, if a guest asks you, “do you have an electric can opener?”, your response will be:
“Yes we do, it is on the bottom cabinet to the right of the stove” instead of “Yes, there should be one somewhere…?”.
Here are the top 3 tips for keeping your vacation rental kitchen organized.
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1. Use Storage Shelf Racks
Use storage shelf racks to organize the dishes in your kitchen cabinet.
They look pretty and they maximize the space in your cabinets.
It also makes it convenient for your guests to put everything away.
Without the racks you end up with things piled up one on top of the other, making it hard to get any of the stuff that’s at the bottom.
2. Buy A Label Maker
As we’ve mentioned in a previous post, a label maker is a vacation rental owner’s best friend.
The label maker will definitely come in handy in the kitchen.
Once you’ve finished setting-up all of the dishes, plates, glasses, etc., label their location in the kitchen cabinets.
For instance, if you have “Blue Cups”, print the label and place it where you’d like to have blue cups placed.
The same applies to everything else you have in the kitchen cabinets.
It’s simple and we found that guiding our guests with happy little labels helps keep the kitchen organized and provides a consistent experience for everyone that stays in the house.
It will also help the cleaners know where to put things away.
3. Provide Dishwasher Pods, Kitchen Trash Bags, and Cleaning Supplies
Place dishwasher pods, kitchen trash bags, and cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink for your guests to use.
In vacation rentals, guests clean & put away all the kitchen pots & pans, dishes & utensils after they use them.
At check-out, they also empty the kitchen cabinets & refrigerator of any items they brought in with them and do a cursory clean of the kitchen counters and refrigerator.
If you provide guests with the proper cleaning supplies, it makes it easier for the guests to properly clean the dishes, utensils, etc. particularly before they check-out.
You wouldn’t want your guests to run the dishwasher without detergent and then place those dirty dishes back in the kitchen cabinets, right? Yuck! Most of us would cringe at the thought.
Having cleaning supplies available at your vacation rental leads to cleaner dishes and a happier experience for everyone.
We recommend providing pods instead of the liquid dishwasher detergent for your guests.
That’ll remove the guess-work on how much to use and ensures your dishes will be clean correctly.
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