Pricing & Availability - part 1

We've received several requests for our rental rates and summer availability at the Little Beach House.

If you've been following our blog or reading the updates on facebook, you're probably aware that the renovation is moving a little more slowly that we would like.  There are certain things that MUST be complete  -- like the entire kitchen or closing up walls or installing a toilet -- before we could officially place the the house on the rental market.  I do not know what I would do if someone planned their much-deserved & long-awaited vacation in our home, and then when the time came we could not accommodate them, or the house was not in the condition we promised. I would be a basket case with stress and guilt.

So we are not ready to announce when we'll start taking reservations, or what the exact rental pricing will be, but I can offer some general information.  I'm hoping this will help some of our readers to decide either to watch & wait, or to move on to another home for this season and keep us in mind for next year.  For those who do want to stay in our home, we think it's important for you to know what the Little Beach House might be like when you arrive.

First, we do not think that the outside will be complete for this summer season.  The property needs a full overhaul on the landscaping and we just don't think that we will have the time or money to get to that.  We may not get to re-painting all the decks or trim, either. Our focus right now is on making the inside of the house fabulous.  So curb appeal is not likely to be stunning, but if you are like us, you'll value the proximity to the beach more than the outside appearance of the house.

On the inside, the main living areas WILL be complete.  This includes the entirely new kitchen and the remodeled great room (living & dining.)  We have chosen upscale furnishings and one-of-a kind pieces to fill the space, including an imported hand-carved coffee table and a beautiful natural finish farm table in the dining room.  Those more rustic pieces are balanced with modern touches, like a unique metal drum chandelier. Of course, we also have a huge smart tv, a decent video library and a wii.  There are plenty of non-digital entertainment options, too, with games & books inside and bikes outside.

Having to move the laundry area caused us to bump that bathroom renovation higher on our list than we had originally planned. That will be complete, and as you've seen from earlier photos, has natural travertine tile on the floor and will have new storage, vanity & toilet, too.

We would love to have all of the above work complete by early April. That's an aggressive plan and probably a little too ambitious.  However, as soon as those rooms are ready, we will feel more confident about taking reservations.

That leaves the three bedrooms and the master bathroom.  We have not really touched those rooms yet.  Because we re-configured some of the walls & doors, especially in the master bedroom, we will need to finish with drywall, moving electrical, all painting, new flooring, lighting and finally furnishing the bedrooms.  Our plan for the master bath involves converting the tub into a walk-in shower, tiling the floor, moving the vanity and expanding the space into what used to be a closet.   That is a LOT of work remaining.

However, those rooms do have existing furniture and working plumbing as-is.  So there's a chance that for this summer, the public living areas will be upgraded, but the private areas will not.  If that's the case, we don't know if anyone would be interested in renting a beach house that is fully livable, but only HALF remodeled.  We'll welcome any feedback you have on this!

Bottom line on rental availability:  we will have a better idea sometime in April about whether we will be able to offer the Little Beach House for rent this summer, even if it is not available until August.

Now for pricing. . .  the number one rule of real estate: location! location! location! is absolutely true about the vacation rental market in Corolla.  The closer you are to the beach, the higher the price point.  But if you've read our very first post {size doesn't matter} then you know that rents have also shot up because so many of those rental homes are gigantic and only affordable if you vacation with a large group. That's why we feel our Little Beach House is a perfect solution for single families, couples or small groups of friends. It will ideally sleep 2-8 people.  The price will be reasonable for a small upgraded home on a semi-oceanfront lot in Whalehead Beach. When we set our final price structure, we will look at whatever current comparable properties are out there.

If you do an advanced search on a popular rental company site like www.Twiddy.com, you can select "semi-oceanfront" in Corolla (not the 4x4 area) and when you sort by price, you'll see that there are ONLY 2 homes which rent for less than $3,000 per week and just 7 homes between $3,000-$4,000.  Many more are available for much higher rates, up to $14,000 for one week.  (Yes, I'm doing some free advertising for others here, but it's important to do your research!)

Right now, we are estimating that when our home is fully renovated, it will be at the lowest end of that price range.  We will set the final price for this summer based on how much is complete.

One more important note:  we will be offering variable-length stays! If you have ever vacationed in Corolla, you know how difficult the Saturday traffic can be. We will be offering not just a different day of the week for check-in, but also the ability to stay for longer than exactly one week/seven nights.  For example, you could arrive on a Wednesday and check-out the following Friday -- giving you NINE nights and avoiding all the traffic hassles. If you have limited time, we will also consider visits as short as five nights. Pricing will be based on a nightly rate.

We are doing this for selfish reasons:  when we book our own vacation time, we want to stay for more than just one week (we never want to leave!) so we think others may want to do the same : )

If all of this sounds good to you, then I hope you will keep following along on this blog or our facebook page.  If you want to put your name in to be directly notified when we are ready to start booking, then please send us a private message on facebook with your email address.

I'm sorry that this loooong post does not more directly answer questions about price or availability ~ just trying to be honest and give everyone as much info as we have.  Thanks!

Of mice and men

No, we don't have mice at the Little Beach House!  However, I'm sure we can't be the first people to take on a house renovation and think of that famous line "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."  Where I thought we'd be by now vs. where we actually are in this process are two different places. Remember, we're over six hours away and only get to work on the house a couple of weekends each month.  Nevertheless, I thought it was time for an update.

Sure, it's possible that I might sometimes overestimate what we can get done in our short weekend visits.  I prefer to think of myself as optimistic -- it sounds better than naive or unrealistic.  However, when I started writing this, I took a look back at the last post and laughed out loud when I got to the line about having the kitchen operational by mid-February. Ha! We have made good progress on the kitchen, but here's what it looks like right now:

and here are all the appliances and cabinets, sitting in the dining room a few feet away:

So close, yet so far! 

Also, for weeks we've also been sooo close to having the new laundry area finished. The travertine flooring in the bathroom looks fantastic: 

. . . and the water hookups and electrical lines are ready to go:

but when we placed the dryer on top of the washer and opened the stacking kit brackets made specifically by Whirlpool for the Duet series we had purchased, here's what we found:

Okay, so you see those two holes on the bracket that is hooked onto the dryer? and can you see the two holes below it in the back of the washer (partially covered by the bracket)?  Well, that distance is about a half-inch apart. Grrrr!  We considered drilling our own new holes to match, but after researching further we found that our newer model of the Duet washer & dryer uses straight brackets (these are "z" shaped) and the correct ones will allow the dryer to be better positioned over the washer (and less likely to dance around when in use.)  So we had to order the correct new stacking kit and hopefully we can finish up that part of bathroom project during our next visit . . . and maybe even get the new toilet & vanity installed soon after that. 

We now have a real deadline for these two projects: Spring Break.   By the time we bring all five of the kids for a long weekend, we need to have that second bathroom and the kitchen finished.

I would love to have the great room in shape by then, too. It's really just a lot of little things holding us up there.  For example, the cable line currently comes up through the floor for some reason(?!) and needs to be moved to the wall before we can put down the new flooring. Small project that Steve can definitely handle, but so far has not been a high a priority. Also, when we say we're renovating everything, we mean everything.  Even the light switches are being swapped out with new ones. Why? Because salt air does this:

Ewww! right?

When we are finished with this place, it's going to be good as make that better than new. It's just going to take time (more time than I would like) and hopefully not too many detours along the way. Cross your fingers!