Lakelovers Lake District Cottage Review – Brunton Lodge Part 1

Lakelovers Lake District Cottage Review – Brunton Lodge Part 1

Last weekend we enjoyed a trip to the Lake District and a 3-night stay at Brunton Lodge which is one of the hand-picked luxury cottages let by Lakelovers.

I have lots of photos to share and to not make the review too long, I have split it into two posts. This first one will be all about the cottage itself and the second post will be about the garden and the surrounding area.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and found the house easily. There’s a sign on the wall next to the road so you can’t miss it. There’s plenty of parking space outside the house and also a garage if you wish to use it. The house feels very private and although there are neighbours, the houses are far apart and no-one can see in. We picked up the keys in the secure key locker as arranged and went in to get settled.

The house looks quite small from the outside but feels very roomy and spacious from the inside. Everything looked just as nice and clean as on the pictures on the website. Let’s have a look at the different rooms…

This is the master bedroom. It’s large and bright and has a comfortable king sized bed and lots of storage space with the big vanity table and a four door wardrobe. All the bedrooms had plenty of good quality branded towels ready for us guests. There’s a small TV and lots of plug sockets available for charging phones and plugging the baby monitor in etc. The huge window overlooks the garden and there’s a roller blind and curtains to make it dark enough to shield out the morning sun if you want a lie-in.

We brought our own travel cot to the cottage but there was one in the little bedroom that I think you can rent if you wish. There was a highchair available downstairs but we’d brought our own travel one. The one that was available was a Mamas & Papas one which looked quite good but needed cleaning.

There are traditional windows in some areas of the house and they are so cute and beautiful. This is the bathroom window.

The bathroom is gorgeous and very modern and fresh. There’s a towel dryer and a great lit-up mirror and lots of space for toiletries on the deep window sill. The bathtub is lovely and the shower is quite powerful. The shower screen can be pushed to the side to expose the bath more which is great when you want to bathe your children.

This is the second bedroom. It’s a bit smaller than the master bedroom and has a double bed and quite a lot of storage too. It’s also got its own TV. This room has an en-suite shower room which is very nice too!

Above are some details from the house:

• There are lots of beautiful artificial flowers around the house. I especially love this orchid!
• There are instructions for how to use different things like the heating and the TV. The heating is on in the morning and in the evening and it seems like the water is the same. I tried to have a bath one afternoon and couldn’t get enough hot water even when setting the water heating to “Boost” as advised, but there was plenty of hot water every morning and evening.
• The third bedroom is one with a full size bunk bed. It’s a great room for kids and there’s a large wardrobe and lots of toys under the bed.
• As a parent, I’m very happy to see that there are baby safety gates installed on the stairs. They are the pull-out kind so they are not in the way for guests who don’t need them.

This is the very large living room. It’s got two large armchairs and a sofa — all very comfortable. There’s a fireplace and a large TV with a DVD-player and Nintendo Wii. The living room has two very large windows facing two different parts of the garden. It was lovely sitting in there with the curtains open and enjoying the natural light and all the greenery outside.

My favourite bit about the living room was the huge bookshelf full of books, magazines, maps and DVDs. This is perfect for some entertainment while you are away. We even found a Peppa Pig DVD to watch which made our daughter very happy!

The dining room is another large room with a huge wooden table with six comfortable chairs. There’s the wooden cabinet shown above that holds children’s books and extra tableware and also a chest of drawers with a good quality CD-player and speakers. We enjoyed all our meals here. There’s also a huge cupboard filled to the brink with all the board games and jigsaw puzzles you could imagine! Perfect for family fun in the evenings or on a rainy day. This is a great resource, like the bookshelf in the living room.

I love the kitchen! It’s quite small but very functional and looks so lovely. The cabinets have a cute cottage look to them but all the appliances, the tiles and the worktops look very modern. There’s a microwave which is large enough for our sterilser, a small fridge, a radio, a toaster, a kettle (plus a teapot and a cafetiere), a double oven, and a dishwasher.
There are a fire blanket and a fire extinguisher in the kitchen (there’s another one in the living room) which is great. There are fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors in the house, too. The kitchen is well stocked with good quality washing up liquid and handwash. One of my favourite things was this little package in the middle of the photo above. It’s a pack with large bin liners, a dish cloth, a sponge and dishwasher tablets for your stay. I’ve been to so many places where these kinds of things were not supplied so it was lovely to see this. There were lots of handwash in the bathrooms too and nice toilet roll as well.

Outside the kitchen is the conservatory. It’s very cosy and it’s nice to spend time in there whether it’s hot or cold. Just past the conservatory, there’s a small toilet and a utility room where the freezer is and also a washing machine and a dryer.

The house is so well stocked and overall it’s in great condition! The only few things we noticed is that the freezer needs cleaning, the blind in the bathroom could do with replacing and the curtain rail in the smaller bedroom needs securing. The rest of the house is pretty much perfect and we really enjoyed staying at Brunton Lodge. It’s a beautiful and very safe house in a great location.

Check out Part 2 to read about the garden and the surrounding area.

We were invited to stay at Brunton Lodge to review it. As always, all my reviews are 100% honest and all thoughts and opinions are my own.