I thought I would do a small post on the quantity of Crockery, Cutlery and Linen that must be stocked at your holiday home for the benefit of guests.

Firstly here is a list of Crockery and Cutlery:

Eating Crockery:
1. Plates
2. Side Plates
3. Soup bowls
4. Ice Cream Bowls
5. Katoris

Serving Crockery:
1. Butter Container
2. Serving Dishes of multiple sizes
3. Salad Bowl
4. Biryani Dish

Drinking Crockery:
1. Water Glasses
2. Beer Mugs
3. Shot Glasses
4. Wine Glasses
5. Whiskey Glasses
6. Plastic Water Mugs
7. Coffee/ Tea Mugs

Cutlery:
1. Serving Dishes – many different varieties and sizes
2. Dal/ Soup Spoon
3. Ice Cream Scooper
4. Tea Strainer
5. Egg Slicer
6. Tea Spoons
7. Knives
8. Forks
9. Soup Spoons
10. Eating Spoons (Table Spoons)

In general my thumb rule for the amount of crockery to keep is this:
1. Calculate the maximum number of people that your house can accommodate.
2. Assume this maximum number of people are holidaying in your house and outline all the meals they would have during the day, starting with tea when they wake up, followed by breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and a session for drinks either before or after dinner.
3. Look at all the cutlery this requires plus some extra side plates and tea mugs.

This is the amount of cutlery that you need to provide. The reason is simple – sometimes cleaning staff may come in only once a day so offering a substantial amount of cutlery will ease the work for your guests. They can avoid doing the dishes before their next meal. This gives them more free time to relax.

Also when people are on holiday, they tend to eat more and food is the focal point of many vacations. Ensuring there is adequate cutlery and that they never have to do any washing, will go a long way in making sure guests are happy.

Moving to Linen.

Here are some of the linens that you will need to provide:

1. Bed sheets
2. Pillow
3. Pillows Cases
4. Blanket and Bed Spread
5. Hand Towels
6. Bathing towels
7. Bath Mats
8. Dining Room Napkins.

To decide the quantity of linen you need to stock, keep the following in mind:
1. Decide the total number of people who can sleep in your house.
2. Ensure that there is 1 bedsheet, 1 blanket, 2 pillows and 2 pillow cases for each person and these items should be available in the respective bedroom. If you have provision for people to sleep in the common areas using extra matresses, then stock the linen for these people along with the extra mattresses and do not store these items in one of the bedrooms. Remember, guests from one room should never have to go to another room to fetch their linen.
3. For bath linen ensure that there is double the amount of linen as the number of people who will use the bathroom. So if used by one person, then ensure that there are 2 hand towels, 2 bath towels, 2 bath mats etc.

Ensuring that there is adequate cutlery, crockery and linen will go a long way in making your guests welcome.

Concluding tips:

1-Do prepare an inventory list and ensure that your caretaker takes an inventory check before your guests check out

2-I have found it a good idea to create a photo album of all items. It helps in identifying all things and ensures that it is easy to transfer information to a new caretaker.