The ECHO has taken a look inside an award-winning Merseyside holiday let which boasts a quirky interior.
Louise Rimmer-Williams, 37, bought what is now The Eden Warehouse in Southport with husband Chris, 38, at the end of 2019.
She admits she's not a tourism expert and a bit of a 'Jack of all trades'; Louise is a former part-time high school teacher and runs a building company with Chris between doing "bits and bobs" including wedding singing.
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She told the ECHO: "We bought a little flat on the prom about four or five years ago with a friend who invested. He bought it and we did it up. We couldn't sell it so we gave it a go as holiday apartments."
The Eden Warehouse was old storage space for department store Broadbents. Louise added: "They were selling it, and because our flat had gone quite well we thought we'd go for it. We invested with the same business partner and also got a business development loan for the company."
After buying the place around Christmas 2019 and work being held up by a resident bat, the couple also ran into another obstacle with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent national lockdowns.
"We thought 'we're done here'," Louise said. "We'd taken out this loan and everyone had downed tools. Luckily construction went back to work relatively quickly."
The Eden Warehouse eventually opened its doors two years later to guests, with a "high-end luxury, eco-friendly" concept.
Gas-free and 'very low carbon', the interior boasts a lot of colour and light, and makes good use of the building's height with tall windows.
When it comes to Eden's design, Louise has architect and builder Chris to thank. She added: "It was literally an empty shell and Chris just went to town on it. He's very much a perfectionist and it was nice having complete control."
The eclectic décor is also down to the couple attempting to maximise the space in the former warehouse. Louise said: "The ceilings were ridiculously high so we put a mezzanine with a games area in. Another quirk that took a lot of thinking is that it was one massive warehouse, but we were told to change it to residential there has to be an outdoor space.
"The buildings are wall to wall; there's about two feet between us and the next building. It couldn't go on the roof, so we sliced an L-shape out of the middle of the building and added an atrium garden.
"When we were researching we looked at a lot of Japanese Airbnbs. That's were the games area with the climbing net came from. I was pushing for a slide too!"
Louise told the ECHO it's been a "good first year" of trading at The Eden Warehouse. "It was our first summer and we had 97% occupancy for August 2022, which was great. I think the staycation trend has helped us."
The venue also scooped the Self-Catering Accommodation of the Year Award at the Liverpool City Region Tourism Awards earlier this month.
Louise said she and Chris are both passionate about Southport and the coming months are "dead exciting" as Merseyside prepares to enter the spotlight at Eurovision host.
Louise added: "It would be great to have some of the acts stay. We don't want to be greedy about Eurovision - the more humble, 'normal' people are going to be the ones who book with us. We've only booked one of the apartments so far but we'll see what happens."
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