#146: What It Was Truly Like Renting Out The Duplex

We survived our first summer as Airbnb hosts to 23 distinct families over the course of the last three months – and, more importantly, so did the duplex itself! But our first rental season was not without hiccups, high anxiety moments, and surprisingly frequent learning opportunities. So this week we are taking you behind the scenes of a jam-packed few months of learning the hospitality ropes while juggling guests and (more literally) a quite full jug of laundry detergent. Sherry also celebrates the end of a long “personal renovation” and we share how something plain led us to rethink our approach to cooking dinner.

You can also find this episode on your go-to podcast listening app, like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.

What is New

• I know Sherry’s enduring Invisalign saga has been the topic of many episodes at this point (and even more “surely you are done by now” follow up questions), but you can hear the beginning of it waaaay back in October 2016 in Episode #20.
• And I feel like this deserves a throwback to one of our go-to GIFs (from Episode #64) showing off her various mouth contraptions. Invisalign is not simply clear retainers – it is a series of things glued to your teeth to hold elastics, at least for complicated mouths like these.

Our First Rental Season

• Here is the infamous bulk laundry detergent bottle that split open all over the floor during one of our Saturday turnovers. Did I mention it was FULLY FULL when I dropped it?? It looks small in this picture because there is not much scale, but please note that it is nearly as big as our whole kitchen sink.

• You can also see more about our owner’s closet and what we provide our guests in this tour of the duplex closets (and wallpapered sleeping nooks!)

• Sherry also mentioned the video tour we made of the wrapped up duplexes before our renters began arriving this summer (you will see those marble coasters she mentioned, and a few more breakables that we swiftly took out when we realized what we mentioned in the podcast). You can watch it below or read a bit more in the post where we first shared it.

Note: If you are reading this in a feed reader, you may need to click through to see the video. You can also watch it here on YouTube.

• On Wednesday we will also be sharing more about the process of running an Airbnb & getting each side of duplex ready for new guests every Saturday. Even with cleaning helpers we were extremely surprised about this part of the process – and have already made a big change to make next summer easier & faster.

• We are also planning to share a post about the financial side of running an Airbnb including a breakdown of the sometimes surprising costs of renting (taxes, insurance, consumables you buy repeatedly, etc). In short: we learned a lot over the last 90 days, so we have a lot to tell you across a few posts & podcasts!

We are Digging

• Here is where you can snag the Plain Glad Parenting book we both read this summer, which was a strong way to re-engage with some of the simplicity and minimalism ideas we have been trying to practice lately.

• Also shown above is Simplicity Parenting, the book Sherry frequently re-reads (you may remember it as the book that motivated us to get rid of half of the toys in our house a few years ago – more on that game changing moment here).
• Here are the $5 nylon kids’ knives we purchased for the beach house. They’ve got a long order time now for some reason, so we snagged these similar $7 knives to have here at home so we can keep up our kids’ involvement in dinner prep!

• Oh, and if you did not get the “Deep and not so dump” easter egg in the intro this week, it was a reference to this IG story mix up about whether or not I truly said, “I have to take the dog out.” Simply watch through the end to get the whole story. :)

If you are looking for something we have dug in a past episode, but do not remember which show notes to click into, here is a master list of everything we have been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we have recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Agility Bed for sponsoring this episode. To celebrate our first episode back, they are giving you 15% off your WHOLE ORDER this month with the code WELCOMEBACK at AgilityBed.com (as well as free shipping and a no-risk 100 night trial). And after Sept 30th, you can still use the code YHL to get $200 off a hybrid mattress of any size.

Thanks for listening, folks!

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