We made it through our first summer hosting on Airbnb, welcoming 23 different families over the last three months — and the duplex survived, too. The season brought memorable highs, a few stressful moments, and plenty of unexpected lessons. In this update we’re taking you behind the scenes: what we learned about running a vacation rental, the logistics of turnovers, and a few small changes that made life easier. Sherry also wrapped up a long “personal renovation” project, and a simple shift changed how we approach cooking dinner.
You can also find this episode on your favorite podcast app, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.
What’s New
- Sherry’s long Invisalign journey has come up in many episodes. If you want to hear how it started, check out Episode #20 from October 2016 for the backstory.
- We also dug up a throwback GIF from Episode #64 that shows the various orthodontic devices she’s worn. Invisalign can involve more than just clear aligners — for complex cases it can include attachments and elastics that look like little contraptions on your teeth.
Our First Rental Season
- One memorable moment: a giant bulk laundry detergent bottle split open during a Saturday turnover. It was full when it fell and made an enormous mess — large enough to rival our kitchen sink. Lesson learned: secure heavy consumables better or buy smaller sizes.
- We also shared a closer look at the owner’s closet and the items we provide guests in our duplex closet tour, including wallpapered sleeping nooks and practical storage solutions.
- Before guests arrived we filmed a full video tour of both sides of the duplex. That tour shows the marble coasters and a few other breakables we later removed once we realized they weren’t practical for a vacation rental. The tour gives a good sense of how we treated the two identical floor plans with different decor choices.
- We were surprised by how time-consuming turnovers can be, even with cleaning help. Preparing each side of the duplex every Saturday revealed opportunities to streamline — and we’ve already made a significant change to simplify next summer’s routine.
- Over the next few posts and episodes we’ll also share the financial side of running an Airbnb: the recurring costs you might not expect (taxes, insurance, consumables, and other repeat purchases). We learned a lot in the first 90 days and plan to break it all down so others can benefit from our mistakes and solutions.
We’re Digging
- This summer we both read Simple Happy Parenting, which helped us revisit ideas of simplicity and minimalism that we’ve been practicing. It’s been a helpful reminder to pare down and simplify routines.
- Sherry often re-reads Simplicity Parenting — the same book that inspired us a few years ago to significantly reduce the number of toys in our home. That change had a big impact and is worth revisiting if you’re working toward a calmer household.
- For the beach house we bought inexpensive nylon kids’ knives so children can help with meal prep safely. The exact model we ordered had a longer lead time, so we picked a similar, equally affordable alternative for home to keep the kids involved in cooking.
- If you caught the “Deep and not so dump” Easter egg in this week’s intro and wondered what it referenced: it’s a playful nod to an Instagram story mix-up about whether I actually said, “I have to take the dog out.” The full story is worth watching through the end for the context — it made us laugh.
If you’re searching for a past recommendation but can’t remember which episode it came from, we maintain a master list of things we’ve been digging from previous shows, plus a Book Club page where you can see all the books we’ve recommended.
Finally, thanks to Agility Bed for sponsoring this episode. For a limited time they offered listeners a discount and trial, which helped us test different mattress options for the rental and our home.
Thanks for following along and for listening — we appreciated every guest who stayed with us this summer, and we’re excited to share what we learned as we continue improving the rental experience.
*This post contains affiliate links*