I've been waiting for this post for months and months, and at times, wondered if it'd ever come. The Sugar Shack is DONE!!!! I am absolutely elated and so relieved and ready to just enjoy my life again. We had to scoot our deadline out a few times due to extenuating circumstances, but overall, we busted our butts and it looks great!
Work is really starting to pick up and we are both just swamped from sunrise to sunset. I'm also ready to start walking home from work everyday again, something that I took for granted when I did it. We live exactly 1 mile away from work on a road that goes straight up a hill. When the weather cooperates, I walk home and it takes me exactly 20 minutes and I absolutely love it...it's a good way to burn off any stress that I've accumulated throughout the day (besides having to dodge traffic on a super narrow street without sidewalks) and get my blood pumping and clear my head. In the warmer months, I can watch the sun set as I go and get home right around 6:30. The last couple of months, I've had to rush home after work to take advantage of the last few minutes of daylight to finish up a project on the trailer. Days off are becoming few and far between, so it was important that I tie up the loose ends before all hell breaks loose. Since my last post, I managed to stain the deck and fence, put out some potted plants, finish painting cabinet doors (I had to spray a primer on them that was for plastic and then ran out of the grey paint I needed and miraculously got a different brand color matched and it worked out perfectly) and install them, decorate, and deep clean the whole thing.
Many of you saw on Facebook that, several weeks ago, I scored a couple of grey, weathered wood Adirondack chairs for $10. Well, I was perusing Craigslist a few days ago and found a redwood set with a little table for $60, so I immediately made arrangements to go pick them up. In the meantime, I figured that I'd post the old ones for $100 and see if I couldn't make a few bucks and it totally worked! I also dropped by the nursery and got some cute flowers to put around and help it feel more welcoming...including some Jasmine and Honeysuckle that will grow up the steel supports of the roof over the trailer and camouflage a little it. I got the little patio all set up and raked the rocks and pulled weeds around the front to make it look really neat and clean.
I made the bed, put ivy in the pot that conceals all of the electrical for the lights under the counter, hung the bathroom mirror and some framed postcards I'd ordered, and gave everything a thorough wiping down. The dollar store in Cottonwood and thrift stores worked nicely for utensils and garbage cans and ice cube trays and all of the little things that are necessary to rent it out. I also had to make sure I had bottled water stocked in the fridge, plenty of cleaning products, dish and hand soap, and single-ply toilet paper. Then, I took the leap and posted it on Airbnb.
The next morning, I awoke to 3 requests to rent, and over the past couple of days, it's been blowing up...a week here, 5 days there, a few days here, a night there! After answering the 7th email, I started getting major anxiety, even waking up in the dead of night worrying about them not having boundaries and being too needy or demanding ridiculous things during their stay and what I'm going to do if they complain about the water not being hot enough or the fan being too loud or the towels not being soft enough or the tub falling through the floor as soon as they fill it up or the septic backing up or the whole thing exploding because the pilot light on the stove went out. I began to think that this is going to be tough to manage and organize and clean and stock while simultaneously working 60 hour weeks for the next month and a half and also just trying to enjoy life a little bit. The whole point was to make life easier so what's the point if it's just going to stress me out? I decided to grab some French Toast, take a lovely hike along Thunder Mountain, and try to figure out how to make this work.
Brian hooked me up with a lady that cleans houses and she said (I think) that she'd be up for it, but she speaks no English, so we'll see...I've got my fingers crossed. I'll basically send her a text a couple of times a week with the days I'll need her to flip the trailer and she can do it anytime between 10-3 (it'll honestly only take her like 20 minutes but it will help me out so much) and then I'll pay her the cleaning fee I get from Airbnb. I've got a few sets of sheets and towels so she can just switch them out and I'll take care of washing them and folding them and having them ready for the next time she comes. Obviously, Brian's going to get a cut of every reservation and will be around to help out if I'm not, so I think between the 3 of us, it won't be so bad. It's just scary. It's scary to host strangers in your little personal space...especially when you're as anti-social as I am.
Anyway, thanks for following along on this crazy journey with me! Hopefully all of the hard work we put into it will pay off. From now on, I'll try to just get back to posting pictures from trips I go on and FUN adventures ;)