Prepping a guest room for vacationers

I am almost done prepping the guest room downstairs for future paying visitors which I hope to get from www.airbnb.com I also host people for free on www.couchsurfing.com but given the fact that my contract could end any month now I am preparing for some ways to get a little income. I understand that temp agencies (probably the one I work for too) are having trouble placing people these days. I have an advantage due to my languages but even that doesn't guarantee me employment. Summers are always slow in the temp agency world from my experience!

I just replaced the airbed with a second hand beautiful IKEA day bed with a firm foam mattress. I already sold the airbed for $50. It sells for $120 but we bought it on sale for $60 so I'm happy with the $50. It's only about 6 months old so the person who bought it was thrilled with the price knowing how much she'd have to pay in the store for one right now.!Now it looks more like a REAL room :) 

Because I collect coffee contraptions, I put the Melitta One Coffee Pod Machine in there with creamer, packaged sugars I had picked up in Spain and Holland last year, and some packaged cookies I found at the dollar store. I also threw out some old pods that expired in 2007...eeek. I need new ones.

There is an old used tv and dvd player in there but no cable as we are not tv watchers. Both the tvs in our house are really old (late 80's early 90's!!) and at least one needs to be replaced soon. My sweetie wants to purchase a projector for the upstairs lounge where we usually watch movies but since they are about $800 it's not something we want to do right now. I looked online for used Flat Panel LCD tvs (between 15-17") but couldn't find anything. This is ideally what I'd like to get because knowing us we won't buy another tv for years...even the ones we have were free hand-me-downs! We've been together 14 years and have never bought a TV! :) We discussed it and decided that when I get my first paycheck from my new contract, we'll get the lowest price LCD which we saw at Walmart for under $150. He said that we could even use that TV ourselves to watch movies in the living room (which is right next to the guest room). We just got our woodstove installed and said it'd be nice to cuddle up & watch a movie in front of the fire! Still hesitating but I think that's what we'll do. I've been looking for a few weeks for a used one and still no luck.

There is also a recycled computer with wireless internet in this guestroom. I hadn't used it myself since my sweetie fixed it up last summer but went on it not too long ago to see how it runs. BOY was it slow! When you turn it on, it takes at least 15-20 minutes to start up. We had put it together from a mish-mash of old parts (he's a big techie), but it has been used by a lot of travellers since it's updating. This definitely needs to be revisited. Free computers are easy to find. I don't need some lightning speed one, just something a bit more functional, this one isn't at all. Even to surf the web it took ages to load. I felt like it was 1994 again. LOL. So next step is to find free parts to build a new one.

This guestroom has its own bathroom so I made some eco-green body wash, shower spray with tea tree oil, vinegar and water, and some handsoap using Dr. Bronners Castille Soap, water and a foam pump. I had made some green tea facial toner last week and had lots so I threw that in there too. I will make some honey facewash to put in the shower. All the toilet paper is made from recycled paper and will put a hemp hand towel & washcloth in there which i purchased on Etsy for cheap.

I figured, the more appealing this room is, the more I can charge though I do want to keep it reasonable. I have it listed for $20 a night but will revisit that as soon as I make all the upgrades.

I will not rent out the upstairs guestroom to visitors and will keep it for friends and family. It's much bigger but doesn't have its own bathroom and I haven't finished painting it yet. Also, my sweetie smokes (just upstairs) and I don't find that it's very welcoming to guests unless people know us already.

We are lucky to have a big house and just two of us living in it but I didn't want to rent out this room to people for a long time. I discovered airbnb and thought it was perfect! Even if I just rent it out 8 nights a month (say at $35/night with upgrades) that's about $270 a month for income! :) The website takes 3%

I'm excited. Can't wait for my first visitors. If all goes well I'll be ready for April!

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