Why did we paint all over the walls?
When we took over The Sheldon the hotel was very… beige.
Perfectly respectable, but not exactly us.
We are much more… colourful.
We thought hard about what direction to take the place. Should it be luxury? Mid-range? Cheap and cheerful? Sleek and design-led?
The more we talked, the more we kept coming back to the same truth: in all our years of travelling— and being guests— the hotels and guesthouses we always remember were nothing like the ones we had seen before.
Before
After
Beyond the Front Door
The places we loved most told you something about the people who ran them. Something about the place you were in. Something about the streets and sites beyond the front door. It never really mattered to us whether all the furniture matched, or whether we would have chosen the same wallpaper at home. We were travelling to learn, to have an adventure, to see the world in a new way.
So we decided: our hotel should tell it’s own story.
At the same time, we didn’t want to lose sight of the passions that shaped so much of our early life together, working and wandering across the world.
The question was how to combine all of that — aid work, travel, art, community, upcycling, storytelling, and a slightly alarming enthusiasm for colour — in a way that made sense to our customers.
We are still figuring that out. 😜
Before
After
The Sheldon has always been an evolving canvas. Such is life!
Instead of a design plan, we just invited friends, family, artists, guests, and kindred spirits to leave their creative mark as they pass through.
That is how we ended up with two Sistine-Chapel like ceilings painted by a Colombian muralist and a Turkish illustrator, mirrors decorated by Brazilian nurse, tables created by a travelling artist from Spain, a tree at reception desiged by a Costa Rican...
and so much more.
Around the building, you will find murals, painted furniture, handmade details, rescued objects, odd antiques, upcycled donations and decorative experiments that all began with one somehwat dangerous sentence:
“What would happen if…”
The Sheldon Today
And that’s how The Sheldon came to be a place that does hospitality differently.
It is not perfect, and that’s the point. We hope that you will never stay anywhere else quite like it.
