Renters, Unofficial Guests, and Family, Oh My!

Where did the month of September go??? We have been so busy over the last month. It really feels like we blinked and the month was over. Woodford Rest made its first dollar! We are a real business finally!!!! We can finally say that phase one of our business plan is complete. We now have tenants for our apartment and the Big Cottage. Yippee!!! It almost feels surreal that we are considered "landlords" now:)

September started with Matt's parents coming for a visit. It was really nice to spend some time with them and show them all of the progress we have made with the property. They haven't been here since September of last year, and they were really impressed with all of the changes that we had made. They even helped with a few projects which was really nice. When you are surrounded by all of these projects, it can be easy to forget just how much you have accomplished. They were a much needed distraction and forced us to take a little break.

Vanderbilt Mansion

Vanderbilt Gardens

One of the places we visited during their visit was one of my favorite places on the planet, Hyde Park, NY. We took them to the FDR presidential library, and one of the Vanderbilt mansions which is just down the road. Matt and I had not visited the Vanderbilt mansion yet, and it was beautiful. The amount of detail put into each piece of decoration was absolutely amazing. Once we were done in the house, we went to the gardens. We were able to speak with some of the volunteers that had been working on the garden for several years. They had photos of the various phases that the garden had been through over time and the transformation was incredible. I felt a connection with the volunteers since it was clear that they loved bringing the property back to life and restoring its former glory. It's very similar to how I feel about our property and all of the changes we have made in the last year.

Over the summer, we have been working on our siding and repairing some of the damaged portions of the house. Since we live in such a wet climate and paint hasn't been applied appropriately at times, some of our shingles are retaining moisture and need to be replaced. Between us and our new contractors, we have replaced the bottom half of the office, the lower portion of the mother-in-law suite, and the area where the deck used to be on our house. When Matt was doing some of the repair work on the house, he found several nails from the original construction of the house in 1890. It was almost like our house finally felt safe with us, and decided to share with us something that was super personal. I know it's weird, but I always refer to our house as a female:) With all of the love and energy we have been putting into her, she almost seems to glow and emanate our love to others. I really do love our little house:)

Original nails from our house

Front of office and house newly shingled

Back of mother-in-law suite with new shingles

Motel doors and trim freshly painted

The day Matt's parents left, we started advertising our two long term rentals on some community pages around us. When we first decided to buy the motel property, we knew we wanted to offer a few longer term rentals so that we could diversify our income and because there is such a housing shortage in our area. We also wanted to make sure that we priced our rentals at a lower rate than other rentals since the rental prices have gone up exponentially in the last few years. One of my favorite FDR quotes definitely reinforced our decision, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Within 48 hours, we had multiple people interested in both units. We thought they would go fast, but we didn't think it would be that fast! Our apartment tenant viewed the property and fell in love with our property and our desire to create a safe and loving space for everyone. They asked if they could move in immediately and we had it ready within two days. Our other tenant for the Big Cottage is scheduled to move in next week. Both tenants have been absolutely amazing so far and we hit it off right away. It's so exciting to see the community that we are building:)

Fall foliage and the Big Cottage

Leaves changing next to the cottage front door

While we were showing the two units, we had a request from a friend's family member to come stay at Woodford Rest! I told them that our rooms weren't furnished, but we could give them a heavily discounted rate and they could stay in the mother-in-law suite. They stayed two nights and said they loved it. It was such a confidence boost to hear that we were on the right track. They gave us some great suggestions too which we wouldn't have thought about until we had guests experiencing it. I'm finally getting some excitement back about opening the motel and the vision of love and peace we have for our business. All of this has been happening with the leaves changing and it has been absolutely magical at Woodford Rest.

During all of the rental craziness, I've been working on painting doors, installing new door hardware, and doing some touch up paint outside. We are trying to use every last second of good, dry weather that we have. Matt has been working with concrete for the last week which has been a lot of hard work for him. He made the posts for the new fenced garbage pad, the new bulkhead door on the Big Cottage, and fixing our porch by the house's front door. As usual, he is mastering it and it is really making the exteriors look nice. We are hoping to get back to finishing the mother-in-law suite within the next couple weeks and work more on the slate patio. It never ends around here!

After several weeks of nonstop work, I kidnapped Matt for an afternoon and took him to the Hancock Shaker Village. It's a little over an hour drive for us and we couldn't have planned it any better. The fall foliage was in full bloom as we made our way through some beautiful New England towns. By the time we reached the village, we were already relaxing. It was so peaceful and picturesque. We wandered around and had such a great time taking the self guided tour. Matt especially enjoyed it since they are known for their gardens and we were able to look through some of the late blooming flowers. We haven't done a great job of taking care of ourselves over the last month and this day trip really helped to remind us of what we need to do for ourselves. This trip inspired us to book an overnight trip to Boston in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for pictures in the next blog:)

Hancock Shaker Village Barn

Flowers at Hancock Shaker Village

Well, I think that is most of our updates. We continue to work ourselves like crazy and take time when we can to grow our friendships with new Vermont friends and our Pacific Northwest friends over the phone. We are so grateful for all of you that keep in contact with us. We couldn't do it without your support. Take care of yourselves and don't forget to rest:)

Our sweet girl enjoying the Fall weather