EEEEK! Don’t mind me, I’m just over here squealing like a teenager over our latest project! This post is the kickoff to a new series entitled Mood Board Monday. But this isn’t just any mood board, I’m sharing a board that we’ve put together for our first ever Airbnb!
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking – do the Miller’s really have time for another project? Your skepticism is not unwarranted, people. I have some doubts about this recent project myself, but it’s kind of a must-do for us at this point.
Here’s a little back story. We have a small rental property by Simonton Lake in Elkhart, Indiana. It’s two bedrooms, one bathroom, on a nice big lot, across the street from the lake. Unfortunately, it’s just too small to be a feasible long-term rental property for anyone other than a single person – a conclusion we’ve arrived at from some frustrating trial and error. So. Much. Error. *GROAN* This place has had an ongoing pattern of lack of profitability for far too long and it’s time to break the cycle. Something about the definition of insanity is coming to mind here … (Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results = insanity). I like to think we are NOT insane, so we are turning a page and trying something different – enter, Airbnb.
We have rented so many Airbnbs throughout our world travels. Most of them are as small or smaller than our lake cottage rental and we have totally adored our time at those properties. So we have some great thoughts/ideas after being on the consumer side of Airbnb, as well as experience with vacation rental management from our condo in Florida. All things considered, we decided to jump right into this Airbnb concept for the lake cottage.
Here are the details on the mood board.
Being so close to Notre Dame, we are totally inspired by all things Blue and Gold. We’ve even got a “punny” name for our Airbnb that riffs off of our love of the Fighting Irish. Details on that in the future. It’s my first Airbnb baby and I’m guarding the name as such!
Kitchen Remodel
To start, we will be painting the cabinets and countertops with these two kits. If you’d like to follow that process, we will be sharing it! These kits come in lots of different colors and options and are definitely an easier way to update a space you don’t want to spend a ton of money on. The countertop kit will be big enough to do another property we own as well. Then of course comes the hardware. We will be using some combination of this hardware below.
From there we move on to wall painting and decor. We plan to do a crisp white on most of the walls, and do accent walls in the bedrooms with a darker paint color and in one room, some wallpaper. We are going with removable wallpaper for ease of removal if we ever want to change it up.
Update & Add Lighting
A seriously unfortunate flaw of the property is the lack of overhead lighting. But, Amazon has a solution for that! Short of hiring an electrician, there’s an easy way to bring lighting into a space – plug-in wall sconces. We have seen these in a few other places we’ve stayed and they look great!
Decor
From lighting we get into the fun stuff like furniture and decor. Below are a few favorite rugs and furnishings. The vintage sports theme will be fun to add here and there throughout the property.
That’s about it for now. What do you think of the blue and gold decor scheme with the vintage sports accents? We think it’s perfect for our first Airbnb and can’t wait to get started this week. Leave a comment below and let us know if you’re doing any re-decorating or remodeling.
Cheers! Happy Monday, my friends.
-Stacey
Sounds amazing!!
It was a great experience!