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Browsing Tag: diyrenovations

beach house renovation for Airbnb

After we sold our rural cabin, we put the proceeds into a cute-but-tired beach house on the Delaware shore. We found an adorable house in a Key West style (elevated on pilings) and took the plunge! But the house was in terrible shape. It smelled awful, the furniture was unpleasant, and the flowery couch was always mildewy and slightly damp. Yuck!! Here are some of the photos we took on our walk-through. Did you notice that the mirror in the living room is framed using the same material as the couches? Wow. We took possession of the…

DIY

living room reveal

We’ve been dreaming about this living room for years and working on it for about twelve months. You can follow our progress here and here and here. And, now, we’re finally finished! Here’s what the room looked like when we bought the house 6 years ago. There was a LOT of sea green! And the seating was awkward because the chairs were too far from the couch for a comfortable conversation. Plus there weren’t many places to set a drink, and there wasn’t any place to prop up your feet…

lessons we learned as Airbnb hosts, part 1

After we finished the cabin in late 2020, we rented it on Airbnb. It was a good side gig for us for a while, but then the extra work became overwhelming. (We both have full-time jobs, we have four kids, and the cabin was two hours from our home.) If we had set up the business differently from the beginning, I think it would’ve been much easier for us. Now that we’re planning to open a new Airbnb in a few months, I’ve been thinking about the lessons we learned and how we…