Pier approached us with the idea for Just a Bedroom after his experience of trying to find somewhere to stay at the last minute. He found that, unless you book months in advance, it was not easy to find a cheap hotel room and that they are often in inconvenient locations, like out of town business parks.

After doing some research, he found that a government scheme exists that allows home owners to earn money tax-free from renting out a spare room on an occasional basis, rather than taking in a long-term lodger. And so the idea for Just a Bedroom was born.

Just a Bedroom acts as a marketplace, joining people who want to earn some extra income from renting out their spare room with those who are looking for somewhere to stay for a few nights away from home, whether it’s for business or pleasure, but only need somewhere to sleep.

The site is built using ExpressionEngine and makes use of the membership facilities of the CMS to control access to the different parts of the site. Embedded Google maps show the location of available rooms and it is possible to search for rooms based on town or distance from a location (postcode), a feature implemented using the excellent Low Search add-on for ExpressionEngine. Accurate address and location data are provided by integrating the Postcoder Web service from Allies Computing.