One of the opportunities that knocked when Farmer Bob and I moved to the country was the potential to have a guest house. In the city, we didn’t have a guest room and anyone who stayed was either couch surfing or staying in a local hotel. But now, we have sheds… lots and lots of sheds. One of them – The Studio – had the potential to be made into a self contained cottage… with a little work that is.
In its previous life, The Studio was an artist’s studio for the previous owner. She was a textile artist and used the space to do prints and display her work. Before that it was likely a shearing shed or a barn. When Farmer Bob and I moved in, it was a shell. A tidy shell with electricity but without plumbing. Not a problem, we said. We can fix that.
First things first – Water. There was a large tank nearby so ‘all’ we had to do was get it from there into the studio. Easy right? Branson the tractor was a great help and we (when I say we, I mean Farmer Bob) dug a trench, laid the pipe… and then called a plumber to help up finish the job. We (of course) hit an unseen underground pipe and it was (of course) the pipe to the septic’s leach field. Mmmmm stinky!
Enter Jim the Plumber. Jim helped us install the instantaneous hot water service, taps for the shower, bathroom basin, composting toilet and kitchen sink. Then came the bathroom wall, vanity, bathroom doors, reverse cycle heating and cooling and kitchen sink. Oddly, getting the internet into The Studio proved to be the hardest part. The insulation was so good in the building that we (and again, when I say we….) had to install a fandangled doovalackie to get it to work. It’s lucky Farmer Bob moonlights as an IT guy!
While we were working to finish it I put it online just to get the name out there. I had only a few pictures and an outlandish per night price. To our surprise… someone booked a weekend. All of a sudden we had our open date! After a couple of late nights and ‘holy crap’ moments it was ready!
We are happy with it and people seem to enjoy it. It was a lot more work than we anticipated but it paid off.