The question in Sernabatim is what happens to a papered wall while nobody is there. A holiday flat closed between lets has no air conditioning running and no windows open, and humid sea air sits against the walls for weeks. Paper-backed and fabric wallpapers fail in those conditions. A tough vinyl paper hung over a fungicidal primer, on a wall inside the flat, comes through, and if a caretaker can air the flat now and then, so much the better. Choose a calm design that suits any guest and will still look right in some years, and keep it to the bed wall, out of passages where suitcases scrape. Sea-facing walls with salt marks should have PVC panels, not paper.
- Bedrooms of let flats: a neutral vinyl paper behind the headboard, where that is not an outer wall, and a spare roll stored in the flat.
- Outer walls of ground-floor flats near the fields: checked for salt and damp first, and panelled in PVC where either shows.
- Villa living rooms: a larger pattern or mural on a dry, air-conditioned inner wall, where there is space to see it.
Sernabatim is the stretch of coast between Colva and Benaulim, a small ward with its own quiet beach. It is mostly holiday apartments, guest houses and a few villas, set among fields a short walk from the sand.
Most properties here are holiday flats in low-rise complexes, let to visitors for part of the year and used by their owners for the rest. Furnishing has to be durable, easy to wash, and neutral enough to suit any guest.
Sernabatim is close to the sea throughout, so salt and humidity affect every home. Flats that stand closed between lets need fabrics that do not turn musty.
Sea-facing homes
Sea-facing walls take in salt and moisture, and paper lifts at the seams if the wall is not sealed. Use vinyl-coated wallpaper on an anti-fungal primer, and keep it to inner walls or walls that do not face the weather. Check for salt bloom on the plaster first.
Holiday lets and guest houses
For a let property, choose a hard-wearing vinyl in a design that will not date, and use it where luggage and furniture will not scrape it: behind the bed, not in the corridor. A spare roll kept back makes later repairs possible.
