Decorating your mountain home

Co-founder Hannah Allen explains how her one-stop furnishing service, Chalet Shop, creates interiors with a timeless sense of Alpine style.

For many buyers in the Alpine Property market, customising their interiors is a daunting but crucial part of the purchasing process. Chalet Shop makes that job a whole lot easier.

Launched in 2013, we’re a top-to-bottom furnishing service for the Alps. We aim to make your new mountain home both beautiful and practical, with the minimum of fuss – and we have years of experience doing just that. Back in 2006, I was appointed manager of Sir Richard Branson’s luxury chalet, The Lodge – overseeing its transition from a 33-bed hotel to one of the most sumptuous private rental properties in the Alps. On my return to the UK, I founded Chalet Shop with Sally Ingham, a lawyer, and we later completed our triumvirate of Directors with Vikki Ginks, a former Global Marketing and Partnerships VP at Amex. A combination of friendship, complementary skillsets, grit and determination has seen Chalet Shop’s steady expansion ever since.

Our service starts with a conversation

We need to understand your vision, tastes and requirements – and to get the ball rolling, we’ve designed several off-the-shelf furnishing packages. They contain everything from cutlery to artwork and are fully customisable. As you’ll see from our website, chalet-shop.com, we have access to a dazzling variety of beautiful products. We can also source one-off items such as handcrafted furniture, and are no strangers to unusual requests. Drum kits, vegan-friendly accessories, motorised beds: we’ve found them all.

We’ll also guide customers through the different needs of a property that will be rented out, as opposed to one that’s a full-time second home. Then comes the all-important delivery. We know from experience how frustrating and time-consuming it is to receive deliveries in dribs and drabs, never mind the added complications of mountains and snow. So we deliver everything in one go and synchronise this with the arrival of trusted local tradesmen. If you’ve picked our premium service, we’ll not only unpack, we’ll also dress the property ready for use. All you have to do is turn up, ready to enjoy the skiing.

All this comes without the price tag of traditional interior designers. The result is a property that oozes contemporary Alpine charm – as well as sky-high levels of customer satisfaction. “Hannah, Sally and Vikki were absolutely amazing when it came to furnishing our chalet,” is typical of the feedback you’ll find at chalet-shop.com.

Tricks of the trade

• Never scrimp on bed linen and towels. Thin sheets and scratchy towels really cheapen a property. Everybody loves to dive in to a soft cosy bed after a day on the slopes.
• Make the most of your views when deciding your furniture layout.
• Lay off the high-fashion furniture. Classic styles won’t date. You can add a contemporary edge with cushions, lanterns, and the right choice of throws instead.
• Renting out your property? Keep the details durable and practical. Ties at the bottom of duvet covers last longer than buttons, for example. Meanwhile, white crockery is available almost everywhere – so you won’t spend hours sourcing new plates whenever one gets broken.

For details of Chalet Shop’s furnishing service as well as our packages and products, visit chalet-shop.com or call +44 161 883 1992.