President-elect Donald Trump has a lot of key positions to fill in the coming weeks that will shape his next four years in office.

While rumors have been flying around about who he will appoint (some of which we've included here), Trump has so far made 16 official Cabinet-level hires.

We'll update this list as he announces more senior leadership positions, but here's what we know so far:

SEE ALSO: Trump's choice for CIA director once said US Muslims who don't reject terrorism are 'complicit' in it

DON'T MISS: Trump's new national security adviser is under fire for his views on Russia, his business ties to Turkey — and his tweets

Homeland Security Secretary: Gen. John Kelly (pending Senate confirmation)

Obama administration counterparts: Janet Napolitano, Rand Beers, Jeh Johnson (current)

Duties:secure borders against illegal immigration, protect the president, respond to natural disasters, coordinate intelligence, counter terror threats. President George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.

Kelly's former job: commander of US Southern Command

Bio:Kelly, 66, joined the Marines in 1970, and graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1976. He worked his way up the ranks, serving at home, at sea, and abroad. Kelly taught at Basic School in Quantico, Virginia for three years after he was promoted to Major in 1987. He then attended the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, the School for Advanced Warfare, and the National War College. He became a Colonel in 1995, and was selected to serve as the Commandant's Liaison Officer to the US House of Representatives. Among other posts, Kelly became a Brigadier General in 2002, commanded Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North from 2009 to 2011, and headed the United States Southern Command from 2012 until he retired in January 2016. Kelly and his wife, Karen, have three children — two of which joined the Marines, as well. His youngest son, Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2010.

Reactions: As the third retired general Trump has selected for a top leadership role, Kelly's choice has sparked fears among some experts that the incoming administration could have an imbalance between civilian and military relations. Those who oppose Trump's campaign promises likely won't agree with Kelly's support of the plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico or to keep the US military prison open in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator: Scott Pruitt (pending Senate confirmation)

Obama administration counterparts: Lisa P. Jackson, Gina McCarthy (current)

Duties: enforce US environmental laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts

Pruitt's former jobs: Oklahoma Attorney General

Bio: Pruitt, 48, graduated from Kentucky's Georgetown College in 1990, and got his law degree at the University of Tulsa in 1993. He was in private practice before being elected to the Oklahoma Senate in 1998, where he served until 2001, when he unsuccessfully ran for Oklahoma's First Congressional District in the House. He was also narrowly defeated for the lieutenant governorship in 2006 before being elected Oklahoma's attorney general in 2010. He was reelected in 2014, running unopposed. Pruitt and his wife, Marlyn, have two children.

Reactions: Environmental groups and Democratic leaders skewered the choice, citing Pruitt's climate change denial and his pending lawsuits against the EPA. Pruitt has described himself as a "leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda," leading opponents of Trump's pick worried that he could dismantle the agency — and President Obama's environmental legacy in the process.

Small Business Administration Administrator: Linda McMahon (pending Senate confirmation)

Obama administration counterparts: Karen Mills, Maria Contreras-Sweet (current)

Duties: lead the Small Business Administration, which helps Americans start, grow and manage small businesses through policy initiatives, assistance, and loans

McMahon's former job: co-founder and CEO of WWE

Bio:McMahon, 68, graduated from East Carolina University in 1969. She worked as a paralegal before she and her her husband, Vince, founded professional wrestling company Titan Sports, Inc. in 1980. They grew it into the multi-billion dollar WWE that exists today. McMahon stepped down as CEO in 2009 to run for US Senate in Connecticut, losing the 2010 and 2012 elections. She serves on several non-profit boards. The McMahons have two children and six grandchildren.

Reactions: Since McMahon built her and her husband's own small business into a massive empire, many are optimistic she will understand the needs of American small business owners.

A job at Google.

It's career heaven, right? How could a gig at the biggest, most ambitious tech company on the planet possibly be bad?

Well, take a look at this Quora thread, which is being constantly updated by current and former Google employees to dish the dirt on working for the search giant.

Turns out that working at Google isn't all free food and bike rides around campus.

Take their complaints with a grain of salt. These are the complainers, after all. But we've heard many of these same things from our own sources. ↓↓↓

SEE ALSO: How to see all the companies tracking you on Facebook — and block them

"You are given everything you could ever want, but it costs you the only things that actually matter in the end."

Joe Cannella, former senior account manager:"Basically, you end up spending the majority of your life eating Google food, with Google coworkers, wearing Google gear, talking in Google acronyms, sending Google emails on Google phones, and you eventually start to lose sight of what it's like to be independent of the big G, and every corner of your life is set up to reinforce the idea that you would be absolutely insane to want to be anywhere else."

"To which the majority of folks will say 'boo-hoo, poor spoiled Googler'. But that's sort of the point. You are given everything you could ever want, but it costs you the only things that actually matter in the end."

It's hard to be honest with your colleagues.

Vlad Patryshev, former software engineer:"It is really hard to discuss any issue unless it is your friend you are talking to ... Objective discussions are pretty rare, since everybody's territorial, and not interested in opinions of other people unless those people are Important Gods."

No one believes you if you say it isn't awesome.

Katy Levinson, Former software engineer, Infrastructure:"People feel justified asking you why you left or if you still work there, and insist that everything must be perfect. They don't want to hear anything less than total enthusiasm for your luck getting into Google, and how much you want to stay. If you left or have anything other than rainbows and ponies to talk about, nearly everybody from my mother to my cab driver pretty much demands you explain why you'd be anything less than thrilled to work at Google."

We all use idioms. 

Has someone pulled the wool over your eyes? Was your annual review a bitter pill to swallow? Or was it an ace in the hole?

These quirks of speech aren't limited to English speakers. Everyone has their own idioms that make sense in their native language — or maybe only in the moment — but wouldn't make much sense to those of us who are less than fluent.

After asking their international colleagues to weigh in, Viking, a part of Office Depot that spans 11 countries, worked with British artist Paul Blow to visualize some of the less-translatable phrases people use around the world every day.

See his interpretations, shared with permission from Viking, below:

SEE ALSO: 25 buzzwords that can make smart people sound stupid at work

More than 100 new emojis are included in the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, which is available to download now.

iOS 10.2, which also comes with a new TV app and numerous smaller tweaks that are detailed by 9to5Mac, includes 104 new emojis, plus many redesigned ones.

Additions include: shark, gorilla, whiskey glass, facepalm, selfie, mechanic, water polo, fingers crossed, duck, butterfly, paella, scooter, clown, judge, astronaut, pilot, avocado, shrug, fox, and sick face.

Apple didn't create all these emojis on its own. The characters are designed by The Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organisation that sets universal standards to make sure they work across all platforms. But it is up to companies like Apple and Google to implement the new emoji looks. Apple is typically more proactive, meaning new emojis generally appear on iOS and Macs before they do on Android and other platforms.

Emojipedia, a website dedicated to all things emoji, has done a complete breakdown of the new update.

Below are some of the best new emojis:

Sharks, owls, and butterflies are among the new animals added.

And it's now easier than ever to indicate when someone is telling fibs, with the Pinocchio nose.

The often-demanded avocado emoji is finally here, while the salacious peach has had a redesign.

Schroders has published its annual "Global Cities Index," which ranks cities according to their economic growth and future prospects.

The index is compiled using a range of factors, including the projected growth of the economy, projected disposable incomes over the next decade, and the size of the working population.

While North American cities continue to dominate the list — taking nine of the top 19 places — is China's growing ever-expanding "mega-cities" which occupy some of the very top spots, as their working population and economic prospects continue to grow rapidly.

Take a look at the cities which made the top of the list.

19. Philadelphia, USA — the fifth most populous city in the United States has evolved into an economic and educational hub, with an annual gross domestic product (GDP) of £306 billion ($388 billion.)

18. Toronto, Canada — with a population of over 2,500,000, Toronto is the fifth largest in the whole of North America. It is Canada's commercial hub, and is home to the Toronto Stock Exchange, and the headquarters of Canada's five largest banks.

17. Miami, USA — Miami is an economically diverse city with strengths in finance, media, and commerce. It was classified as an 'Alpha World City' in the annual Cities Study Group's inventory, which means it plays an important role in international trade.

Cristiano Ronaldo beat Barcelona F.C. forward Lionel Messi to win the 2016 Ballon D'Or award for a fourth time on Monday.

The prize, now separated from Fifa and backed by France Football magazine, is awarded to the best football player of the year, determined by the votes of nearly 200 journalists around the world.

Ronaldo won the title after leading Real Madrid and Portugal to the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Euro 2016 Championship titles respectively.

The mercurial forward has been playing football since the age of eight, and has since become one of the highest-paid athletes in sporting history.

This is the story of how Ronaldo went from child prodigy to one of the most famous faces in football.

Real Madrid player Cristiano Ronaldo beat Barcelona F.C. forward Lionel Messi to win the 2016 Ballon D'Or prize for a fourth time this week.

The winner was revealed on Monday night.

Ronaldo is currently the world's highest-paid athlete across all sports, earning an estimated £43 million from Real Madrid. Including his sponsorship deals and other earnings, he is thought to have a net worth of between £210 million and £230 million.

Source: Business Insider , The Sun

So how did Ronaldo become the biggest name in football?

It's holiday season, which not only means parties and nights out, but also the inevitable takeaway. 

However, it's not the typical curries and Chinese dishes that most Brits are ordering in.

We teamed up with British online food delivery company Deliveroo to find out the most-ordered dishes in the 20 most active cities in the UK on the service. 

From squid to the "Prince Charles is Overrated" burger, here are the most popular takeaway orders on Deliveroo across the UK, ranked by price, from cheapest to most splurge-worthy.

Birmingham: Chilli Squid from Yakinori, £4.99

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Belfast: Burrito Bowl from Boojum, £5.10

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Edinburgh: Steamed Chicken Gyoza from Wagamama, £5.95

We don't have to tell you that the television world is cutthroat. And with as many as 450 scripted shows projected to air this year, that's truer than ever before. After all, they can't all be winners.

It's about that time in the season when TV networks are deciding which shows have to go and which shows get another round.

The decisions aren't always simple. With today's shrinking live viewership, it takes more than just ratings for a TV show to survive to see another season.

Networks are now looking at online, on-demand, and streaming viewership; awards appeal; social-media audiences; and international sales, among many other factors.

Among the shows that are in danger of being canceled are last year's hits "Quantico" and "Blindspot," the Golden Globe-winning "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," and even the Ryan Murphy-produced show "Scream Queens."

Here are Business Insider's predictions for the shows that will probably get the ax:

SEE ALSO: The 11 most successful new shows on TV, ranked

DON'T MISS: The 20 best new TV shows ranked, according to critics

"The Odd Couple" (CBS)

CBS just decided not to order more than 13 episodes of the comedy starring Matthew Perry for the third season in a row. This time around, though, the show is CBS's lowest-rated comedy. It's not looking good for "The Odd Couple."

"Conviction" (ABC)

Hayley Atwell can't catch a break. Last season, "Agent Carter" was canceled, and now ABC has said it won't order additional episodes of her new show, "Conviction." No network says "canceled" anymore, and that's the case here, but any jury would put this show away for life and throw away the key for its low ratings.

"Notorious" (ABC)

Sorry to break it to you, but this show is already on the outs at ABC. The network cut its episode order to 10 episodes from 13. The network insisted that the show hadn't been canceled, but getting episodes cut is never a good sign.

There's no denying it: motorcycles are cool.

And for a few days, usually around this time year, that coolness pulls into the Javits Centre on the West Side of Manhattan for the New York Motorcycle Show.

We haven't attended the show in past years, but for the 2016 installment, we decided it was time an made our way over to Javits to see if two wheels really are better (sometimes) than four.

We also took in some awesome riding gear at the show, which runs through Tuesday, Dec. 13.

Have a look:

SEE ALSO: Here are the 5 runners-up for Business Insider's 2016 Car of the Year

Our first stop was right outside the exhibition hall. In the most recent "Resident Evil" movie, Milla Jovovich saddles up on a BMW S 1000 XR.

Progressive Insurance sponsors the show, so right away, we got into the, um ... Flo!

Indian has come on strong recent years as a challenger for Harley-Davidson.

On Monday, Wards Automotive released the latest edition of its annual list of best engines in the world. This is the 23rd time the publication has conducted the competition to find the best engine in the world. Eight of the 10 are new to the list for 2017, with two being holdovers from last year.

For 2017, the 10 winners offer a glimpse at the changing trends of modern automotive powertrains. There are four- and six-cylinder engines, along with several types of hybrid drive systems. Six of the 10 engines are turbocharged while another one is both turbocharged and supercharged. First the first time in the history of the competition, no eight-cylinder engines made the list.

"Automakers see downsizing, turbocharging, and electrification as key strategies for delivering no-compromise powertrains that also are fuel efficient, and this year’s list clearly affirms that strategy," WardsAuto Senior Content Director Drew Winter said in the publication's post announcing the winners.

A total of 40 candidates were evaluated by the publication's editors in real-life, on-road driving conditions in October and November. Wards scored each engine based on horsepower, torque, comparative specs, noise attenuation, fuel economy, and application of new technology.

According to Wards, only new or significantly reengineered engines or electric propulsion systems that are available for sale in the US and are installed in cars having a base price of less than $62,000 are eligible for the top 10. In addition, the winners from the previous year are also eligible to defend their crowns. Last year, Wards banned VW Group products from consideration, as a result of the company's emissions scandal. This year, VW Group engines returned to the competition with the 2.0 liter powerplant from the Audi A4 and the new four-cylinder from Porsche's 718 sports car.

Here are Wards 10 best engines in alphabetical order:

SEE ALSO: Here are the 5 runners-up for Business Insider's 2016 Car of the Year

1. The BMW M240i one is of the most exciting sport coupes to emerge from Bavaria in recent memory. At the heart of this beast is a 335 horsepower, 3.0 liter, turbocharged, inline-6 cylinder engine.

The judges at Wards found the BMW B58 engine to be "slippery fast and incredibly smooth, while consuming less fuel than some" smaller four-cylinder engines. It is one of just two winning engines to retain its spot from last year's list.

2. The second returning winner is the Chevrolet Volt's 1.5 liter inline-4 cylinder engine and hybrid drive system.

Pinterest is the platform we use when we want to fantasize about our dream lives, and easily one of the site's most useful features is being able to design your dream house.

There are hundreds of thousands of boards dedicated to the perfect yard, living room, garage, and more.

We asked Pinterest to send us the most popular pictures of rooms, from the attic to the basement, and the result is basically like Barbie’s Dream House — but for grown ups.

Keep scrolling to see what everyone on Pinterest wants their house to look like.

Welcome to the Pinterest house of your dreams! This navy house is where many Pinterest users envision themselves.

Source: Pinterest

But let's go inside. The dream Pinterest living room has tall ceilings, gray walls, and an open floor plan. The window into the backyard and deck is also a lovely touch.

Source: Pinterest

This was the other most popular living room on Pinterest, but it has the same details — tall ceilings, gray walls, and an open floor plan. This one even has a double staircase, which is pretty fancy.

Source: Pinterest

The New York City subway system is one of the most fascinating curiosities in a city full of mysteries. Miles of underground track shrouded in darkness, littered with abandoned stations and secret passageways — it's a common object of desire for the urban explorers among us.

And, occasionally, New York City acknowledges the delightful mystery surrounding its 24-hour transportation system. The annual "Shopper's Special" train line is a perfect example of this:

The train line, consisting of eight vintage New York subway cars from several different eras, runs for a few weekends each year — from the Sunday after Thanksgiving to the end of the year, only on Sundays.

So what'd we do this past weekend? We got on the train and took a ride!

SEE ALSO: The New York subway system runs on 100-year-old technology

I got on at the Second Avenue stop in Manhattan — the train runs between the Second Avenue stop in Manhattan and the Queens Plaza stop in Queens.

As you can see, the train runs all day starting at 10 a.m. and concluding at about 5 p.m.

Even though we arrived at 12:30, there were already a bunch of people waiting — some were clearly tourists; others were clearly New Yorkers.

Saint-Barthélemy (also known as St. Barts or St. Barths) is a French-speaking Caribbean island that's popular among the rich and the famous. 

Its array of stunning beaches, luxury yachts, designer boutiques, and delicious restaurants have helped it become a travel hot spot. 

From the best places to party to restaurants with incredible views, here are 17 photos that show why St. Barts remains a celebrity favorite. 

Talia Avakian contributed reporting to a previous version of this article.

SEE ALSO: The next big thing in luxury travel is this company that will build you a custom temporary hotel wherever you want

DON'T FORGET: Follow Business Insider's lifestyle page on Facebook!

A popular destination for celebrities, St. Barts has a variety of designer boutiques and fine-dining restaurants.

Yachts are a common form of travel here, and celebrities can often be seen mooring their personal ships on the island.

Click here to learn more about yachting on St. Barts »

But if you don't already have your own, you can rent a yacht or jet skis to take in the view of the green hills and glistening bays.

Click here to learn more about St. Barts »

It's become a dreaded ritual in the business world: scheduling tag.

You've finally gotten that hard-to-reach prospect to agree to a meeting.

Now begins the tedious back and forth of figuring out a time that works for everyone’s schedule.

That's where scheduling apps come in. No longer do you have to spend hours trying to coordinate everyone's schedules, while still risking no-shows.

Spend your time helping your clients, not trying to reach them.

So here's a rundown of some of the best scheduling apps available:

SEE ALSO: A management professor shares the top 5 habits influential people share

1. Calendly

With clear drop-down menus and easy-to-understand prompts, this straight-forward scheduling app is ideal for anyone working with clients or prospects of varying technical skill.

Need some time to research or prepare for your meetings? You can prevent invitees from booking appointments too close to your available times (i.e. they can't schedule an appointment only 2 hours in advance).

BTW, the members of Team Mindful are big Calendly fans. A Calendly integration is in the works for our MVP for beta users.

Web-based? Yep

Mobile App? Not yet. (Hint, hint, Calendly team …)

2. Setmore

If you're a small business owner in a service profession like consulting, massage therapy, or beauty services, Setmore makes it super-simple for clients to book appointments. You can share your availability and services available.

For certain people, an appointment just doesn’t feel real unless they receive a reminder. Setmore offers both email and SMS reminders. Clients can also schedule appointments using the iOS and Android apps. Want to make it even easier for your regular clients to book time? The contact information storage is a favorite feature among Setmore users.

Web-based? Yes

Mobile app? Yes

3. Doodle

This app is recommended for those who tend to schedule appointments involving several different people or groups. Every user’s schedule is displayed when an event is being planned, encouraging collaboration between groups.

Doodle is a classic for a reason. With new options to schedule multi-day events, the app has come a long way since the days where you could click only one box at a time.

Web-based? Yes

Mobile app? Yes

Most people know three things about Bill Gates:

1. He's the richest man in the world
2. He cofounded one of the most successful tech companies of all time in Microsoft
3. He's an extremely generous philanthropist through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But despite his philanthropic efforts and online presence, there are a lot of things about Gates that many are unaware of.

Here are 17 facts you probably didn't know about Bill Gates.

1. As a teen at Lakeside Prep School, Gates wrote his first computer program on a General Electric computer. It was a version of tic-tac-toe where you could play against the machine.

Source: Science Museum

2. Once his school discovered Gates' coding abilities, they let him write the school's computer program for scheduling students in classes. Gates slyly altered the code so he was placed in classes with a "disproportionate number of interesting girls."

Source: Science Museum

3. Gates also read the entire "World Book Encyclopedia" series during his teenage years.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The Australian Standards Bureau (ASB) has released a list of the most complained-about ads of 2016. 

The most complained about ad, criticized for discriminating against vegans, received more than 700 complaints. 

In total, the ASB received more than 5,000 complaints about ads in 2016, over a third of which were for advertisements in the below ranking. (We usually publish the ASB's top 10 most complained-about ads, but three of the top 10 reference the same ad but for different mediums — TV, internet, and social — so there are eight ads in total, not 10).

Check out the eight most offensive ads from Australia in 2016. 

SEE ALSO: These were the 10 most offensive ads from Australia in 2015

8. A window display of a poster advertisement for lingerie brand Honey Birdette May — 59 complaints. Complainants said the ad was only appropriate for a sex or adult shop and the ASB upheld the complaints.

7. Medibank Health Insurance — 66 complaints. This ad featured many different types of families in different settings, including homosexual couples and a mother breast feeding. Viewers complained about the ad showing homosexual couples kissing and that it depicted breastfeeding. The ASB dismissed the complaints.

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6. "The Conjuring 2," Roadshow Films — 82 complaints. Viewers complained the graphic horror content was too extreme for children and generally distressing for adults too. The board upheld the complaints.

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One of the interesting side effects of the cloud computing revolution: We now have all kinds of new ways to discover which apps people are using for work.

That's why Zapier was able to create this list of the fastest-growing apps in 2016, according to its network.

Zapier is like an IFTTT for business apps. It lets people connect their work apps together to tasks and automatically move data between them. It boasts 1.5 million registered users who have hooked up over 750 business apps.

By looking at which apps are used the most all day on its network, Zapier determined which apps were rising in popularity.

It divided its analysis into two parts: the fastest-growing established apps and the fastest-growing new apps, which doesn't necessarily mean new-to-market apps, but those that are new the Zapier network.

SEE ALSO: 38 enterprise startups that will boom in 2017, according to VC investors

No. 10 overall: Airtable is an easy-to-use online database that bills itself as a cross between a spreadsheet and a database.

No. 9 overall: Acuity Scheduling is a service that lets clients check the business' calendar and schedule appointments themselves.

No. 8 overall: HubSpot CRM is a free "customer relationship management" tool that salespeople use to manage their interactions with customers and prospects.

The woolly mammoth, an extinct species that disappeared from Earth between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago, is making a comeback.

As conservation groups and governments boost efforts to crack down on the illegal elephant ivory trade, there's been an increase in demand for mammoth tusks, or"ethical ivory." These fossils, harvested illegally from Russia's Artic North, can fetch thousands of dollars. 

The people who excavate the tusks, called "tuskers" or "mammoth pirates," spend months at a time in the Siberian wilderness in the hopes of striking it rich.

Photographer Amos Chapple of Radio Free Europe gained exclusive access to an illicit excavation site. He shared some of his photos with us. You can read the full story here.

SEE ALSO: Being a truck driver on Siberia's 'ice highway' is one of the most dangerous jobs in Russia

Summertime brings tuskers to Russia's Arctic North, where mammoth skeletons have been perfectly preserved under frozen ground, or permafrost, for millennia.

In its heyday, the mammoth weathered the cold with a dense undercoat and long, curving tusks, which may have been used for foraging for food beneath the snow.

Source: National Geographic

Today, ivory tusks are intricately carved and sold for more than $1 million each. Chapple says their high prices actually drive increased demand in "status-mad" China.

Source: Radio Free Europe

Home to 48 countries, Asia is the world's largest (and most populous) continent.

Clearly there's no shortage of things to do and see, which is why we narrowed it down to create the ultimate 2017 bucket list of must-visit Asian destinations. (Click here for our full 2017 travel bucket list.)

From the world’s highest and longest glass bridge in China to the newly-discovered ancient cities around Angkor Wat, here are 16 trips everyone should take in Asia next year.

Nepal

Earthquakes and fuel strikes, as well as concerns of safety and overcrowding on Mount Everest, made Nepal take a big hit tourism-wise. However, the country is rebounding, and its extraordinary mountains and welcoming people still make it the best choice for budget conscious adventure travelers.

The best part? The income you bring locals will go a long way in rebuilding infrastructure and communities.

Palawan Island, Philippines

It's no wonder Palawan Island is all over Instagram; this island in the Philippines boasts some of the most beautiful white-sand beaches in the world. 

Chengdu, China

After Osaka, Chengdu was the second-fastest growing city in terms of visitors this past year, according to the 2016 MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index.

There's plenty of history, culture, and delicious food to be found within the walls of the city's three parallel, ancient alleys known as Kuan, Zhai, and Jing Xiangzi.

Whether it's due to an uptight landlord, a small budget, or a lack of inspiration, making a small space beautiful – or even comfortable – can be a challenge.

As we get ready to host families and friends this help, or look ahead to a January clearout and fresh start, we asked three highly-rated Airbnb hosts — Tiree, Jonathan, and Alexis— how they make modest rooms look spacious. 

Through their experiences hosting a home in Cartmel, the oddly-shaped "Jack Sparrow House" in Cornwall, and an apartment in Edinburgh respectively, the hosts have learned a lot about decorating to please.

Here are their top tips for making your petite place look like a palace. Their surnames are not given on Airbnb for privacy reasons.

1. Keep clutter to a minimum.

“If you have anything on display, then make sure it really does add value and fits in with the look and feel of your whole scheme,” said Tiree, who hosts a home the Lake District town of Cartmel.

He recommends choosing decorative items that also have a functional value, such as bright vintage coat pegs, a framed map of the local area, or coloured books.

“Plants also give a room life and make the space feel more open and welcoming,” Alexis in Edinburgh said.

A textured item like a shaggy wool rug or a snuggly throw can serve the same purpose. She added that choosing bigger pieces is better than filling your space with smaller accessories.

"It’s much better to draw the eye to one lovely, big vase on a shelf than a row of little vases that confuse the eye and create no real focal point," Alexis added.

"Don’t think that because your space is small that you have to fill it with small furniture,” Alexis said.

"Often one big statement piece of furniture can trick the eye into thinking the space is bigger than it is (just make sure it will fit through the doors!)." She also suggests pulling furniture away from the walls to give the illusion of space.