I recently spent 6 nights at Brunello's loft. He allowed me to check-in early and check-out late (providing no other tenants are booked for those dates) at no extra charge! It was a real saver for me, thank you! Brunello is superb! He is punctual, responsible, polite and professional. I felt I was in good hands right from the start of the communications. The loft is beautiful, clean and comfortable, secure and *perfectly* located in Ipanema, steps from the beach, shops, grocery store, restaurants and more. It is on the first floor, but it has shutters outside the window that cut out the noise. The street noise never bothered me, unless you want to stay home all day with the windows open (which visitor to Rio needs to do that?!), even then, it's a small leafy street, so the "noise" is normal for a city. It's not on a major street with bustling traffic, it was actually quite picturesque. Remember, you are in Rio not some retreat in the mountains. I slept in one day until about 9:30am and was never bothered by anything. The bed is actually very comfortable, more firm than soft, I don't know why people give it a medium rating but it wasn't rock hard or something uncomfortable. I travel a lot and am picky about beds, and I slept well. I did need to come home in the middle of the day 1-2 times and had to do some work-related stuff, nothing really bothered me, internet worked really well. AC was good. It's a machine people! It maybe have a slight sound when it starts (like any machine) but then it stops, never bothered me. Everything else was great, I would definitely recommended staying here, will return myself and will contact Brunello when I do!