Hotel Verrin, ninety days after opening.
The first ninety days in numbers
Friday 5 March to Thursday 3 June 2027, written up by Bridie and Hugh at Tindale Quirke Interiors for Marnie Loxton. Occupancy and guest scores come from your booking system and post-stay survey. The snag count is ours, from the shared tracker.
0%
Room nights occupied
842 of 1,080 available nights across the twelve rooms.
0.0 / 5
Guest score for rooms
Average of 263 post-stay surveys. The bar scored 4.2.
0 of 47
Snag items closed
Six are still open. All six are covered further down.
$0
Your share of fixes
Out of $16,980 of proposed work, in AUD and excluding GST.
The lobby is holding up
The honed stone floor shows no wear at the door and the wool lounge chairs have kept their shape through a full autumn of arrivals. The rug had a traffic lane by week five, which we fixed. It gets loud after nine when the bar is full. That one is still open.
The bar is the hardest worn
The busiest room in the building. The banquettes, the brass footrail and the wall lights are fine. The oiled oak bar top is not. It ringed in the first fortnight and has not recovered between services. Your team are oiling it weekly, which was never the plan.
The twelve rooms are the best result
Guests score them 4.7. Housekeeping turns a room in 24 minutes against the 30 we planned for, and the woven wallcovering has cleaned up every time. The desk chairs are scuffing the timber floor, and the supplier is replacing the glides at no cost to you.
What is working, and why
Most of it. The rooms are quiet, quick to clean and well liked, and the decisions we argued hardest for are the ones earning their keep.
The acoustic lining between rooms was the line you nearly cut from the budget. Not one of 263 surveys mentions noise from a neighbour. The modular wardrobe units mean housekeeping can swap a damaged door in ten minutes, and they have, twice.
In the lobby, the smart lighting scenes are doing what Hugh promised. The evening scene uses 31 per cent less power than the day scene, and your team have not touched a switch since week two. Stone over timber at the door was the right call.
What is not working
Six items are still open. Three need a budget or a decision from you. Three are small, booked and free. We would rather you read these from us than hear them from a guest.
The bar top is marking
We specified oiled oak because it is warm to lean on. It cannot take 140 covers a night. Glass rings and citrus have marked the first two metres by the taps, and weekly oiling only hides it for a few days. This is our specification and our mistake.
The lobby is loud after nine
With the bar full, sound carries across the stone floor to reception. We measured 71 decibels at the desk on Saturday 29 May, and your team are raising their voices at check-in. The brief asked for an open room and got one. It needs absorption overhead.
Desk chairs are scuffing floors
The glides on the guest room desk chairs are too hard for an oiled timber floor. Nine of twelve rooms show pale scuffs under the desk. The floor will buff out. The glides are a supply fault, and the maker has agreed to replace all of them.
Three small ones, already booked
Soft-close hinges on the wardrobes in rooms 3 and 8, a lifting skirting in the first floor corridor and a flicker in the back bar shelf light. Dunmore Build are on site on Tuesday 15 June 2027 to close all three under the defects period.
Fixes already made
Forty-one items are closed. These five are the ones a guest would have noticed. None of them cost you anything, and we have said who paid for each.
Lobby rug turned and relaid
Monday 12 April. A traffic lane had formed from the door to the desk. We turned the rug and swapped the underlay for a denser one. The rug maker paid.
Bar stool footrests replated
Tuesday 20 April. The brass plating wore through on eight stools inside six weeks. Corriedale Joinery took them back in two batches and replated in a harder finish under warranty.
Blackout channels in two rooms
Monday 3 May. Rooms 7 and 11 face east and leaked light at the blind edges. Dunmore Build fitted side channels as a defect, in one morning between check-out and check-in.
Corridor lights reprogrammed
Thursday 13 May. The night scene dimmed too far for guests finding their door. That was our commissioning, so Hugh reset the scenes on site and we covered the day.
Banquette seam restitched
Wednesday 26 May. One seam opened on the corner banquette in the bar. Wimmera Upholstery restitched it in place before service, under warranty, with a stronger thread.
Three fixes we propose, and who pays
All figures are in AUD and exclude GST. The work is planned for your quiet week, Monday 19 to Friday 23 July 2027. The bar closes for two nights and no rooms come out of sale.
$0
Bar top in stone
Honed granite in place of the oiled oak, templated and fitted by Moorabool Stone. You pay $8,520. We pay $2,960, which is our redesign and the templating, because the oak was our call.
$0
Lobby acoustic panels
Six fabric-wrapped panels above reception, matched to the plaster. This is new scope, so you pay. We expect 5 to 6 decibels less at the desk.
$0
Chair glides replaced
Felt glides on all twelve desk chairs and a floor buff in nine rooms. The chair maker pays in full.
What we learned
Four things we will do differently on the next hotel. You paid for some of these lessons, so you should see them written down.
Test bar finishes against a real service
We approved the oak from a sample board and a 3D visual. Neither had a wet glass left on it for an hour. From now on every bar and counter finish gets a two-week trial panel in a working venue before we specify it. We would rather lose a fortnight in design than a bar top after opening.
Model sound with the bar full, not empty
Our acoustic model treated the lobby and bar as two rooms. On a Saturday night they are one. We now model the loudest hour of the week, with doors open, and show you the number at the reception desk before the ceiling is closed.
Ask housekeeping before we fix the furniture schedule
The 24 minute room turn is the best number in this report, and it came from an hour with your head housekeeper during developed design. She moved the luggage bench and asked for the open wardrobe base. That hour is now a fixed step in our process, not a favour.
Write wear into the handover, not only care
Our care guide told your team how to clean each surface. It did not say what normal wear looks like at ninety days, so nobody knew whether the rug lane or the stool plating was a fault. The guide now carries a short list of what to expect and when to call us.
The one decision we need from you
Approve the July fix week by Friday 25 June 2027. Stone has a three-week lead time, so Moorabool Stone need to template the bar on Tuesday 29 June to fit it on Tuesday 20 July. If you would rather keep the oak, tell us and we will sand and re-oil it at our cost. It will mark again. Approving below signs this electronically.
Prepared by
Bridie Tindale Founding partner, Tindale Quirke Interiors
Level 1, 14 Camp Lane Ballarat VIC 3350 bridie@tindalequirke.com.au
For approval by
Marnie Loxton Owner, Hotel Verrin, Daylesford
If you would rather talk it through first, Bridie and Hugh are at the hotel on Thursday 17 June 2027 and have kept the morning free.
Approve the July fix week
By approving, you sign for the three fixes above, carried out between Monday 19 and Friday 23 July 2027. Your share is $12,880 AUD plus GST: $8,520 for the stone bar top and $4,360 for the lobby panels. We invoice half on approval and the balance once you have walked the finished work with us.