Back when we shared the final duplex kitchens last May (and a full budget breakdown in October), I promised some more details on the DIY floating shelves and – in particular – how we drilled through the tile backsplash to hang them securely. It took me way too long to share the shelf-building-tile-drilling details, but I’m finally laying it all out. Was it a little scary? Yes. But is it totally doable? Also yes. Let’s talk about it.

wood cabinets | white cabinets | tile | counters | fridge | range | pendant | faucet | hardware | tall cutting board | walls: SW Spare White | trim: SW Extra White

Let me first confess our mistake. Ideally, we would’ve hung our shelf supports before tiling.

Continue reading Drilling Into Your Tile Backsplash To Hang DIY Shelves (GASP!) at Young House Love.

We’ve gotten hundreds of questions about the financial side of running an Airbnb or other short term vacation rental. Specifically: “can you detail the expenses and fees that take a bite out of the profit? Are there hidden costs? How exactly do rental taxes work? Insurance?! ACK!“

Whether the person asking us was considering doing one themselves, or just plain curious (talking about money = interested face emoji), we’re laying it all out in the hope that it demystifies it a little bit, and is helpful to anyone who might be on the fence about whether or not this is a viable side hustle. We actually really enjoyed learning the ins & outs of this stuff – so it’s fun to share what we learned.

Obviously there are expenses like actually purchasing, renovating, and furnishing a home that you’ll be using as a vacation rental.

Continue reading The Costs Of Running A Vacation Rental (With Real Numbers) at Young House Love.

As our bathroom reno continues (current status: more demo happened, our vanity, tub, & toilet arrived, and we have our plumber & electrician scheduled to rough things in and then we can prep & tile) we thought it would be fun to share a duplex kitchen budget breakdown. *Also, for anyone who has inquired about renting the duplex this fall, there’s an announcement about that later in the post*

wood cabinets | tile | counters | pendant | faucet | hardware | tall cutting board |walls: SW Spare White | trim: SW Extra White

Obviously, there are LOTS of factors that affect how expensive a kitchen renovation will be, so let this post just be a reference point for you – not a prescription for how much a kitchen reno should cost.

Continue reading How Much Did The Duplex Kitchens Cost? at Young House Love.

We talked on this week’s podcast about how our first rental season at the duplex wasn’t perfect, but it went pretty darn smoothly, all things considered (you can hear a bunch of specific stories, nerve-wracking moments, and things we learned in that episode). Over the course of this past summer, we hosted 23 families thanks to it being a duplex. Two bookings were always happening simultaneously, and the house was fully occupied with guests every night from mid-June to Labor Day. We joke that going from managing zero Airbnbs to two was kind of like going from having zero kids to having twins – it literally felt like we were plunging ourselves into the deep end of vacation rental management – but we learned SO MUCH. So we wanted to share 5 big lessons with you guys now that we’re on the other side of it all.

Continue reading 5 Lessons From Our First Summer As Airbnb Hosts at Young House Love.

This all started because we wanted one of those cool “Historic District” plaques on our beach house. Spoiler, we got it…and one for the duplex too! But the process turned us into amateur sleuths, history-buffs-in-training, and (more predictably) people who paint their front door a new color while they’re at it. So here’s the story, along with a mini porch update, and some concrete tips & advice for uncovering the history of your home too.

Ever since we bought our beach house three years ago (yes, three!) we’ve been jealous of admired the official “Cape Charles Historic District” plaque on our neighbor’s house (the blue one between the duplex and the pink house in the photo below). We originally presumed that it was a designation that was only awarded to certain homes that met strict historic restoration qualifications (like having all of the original wood windows – which neither of our houses came with when we bought them).

Continue reading Hunting Down The Real History Of The Pink House (There’s A Twist!) at Young House Love.

Many moons ago we promised to share the DIY play by play for this wall treatment, because it’s ridiculously easy and GLORIOUSLY BUDGET CONSCIOUS. As in, it cost less than two boxes of my favorite light bulbs. Or dinner at Chipotle. Yes, those are my units of measure.

I mentioned in our backsplash post a while back that we opted for a different treatment on the stove wall in each of the duplex kitchens because it felt too chaotic to continue our patterned tile on two walls, so we chose something subtle yet wipeable AND easy to maintain (you can see the both duplex kitchen reveals here). Also cheap & easy to do. Because at this point in the duplex reno we were TIRED (did I mention we had tiled 8 rooms at that point along with installing 2 Ikea kitchens and hanging 2 wall murals?

Continue reading Installing A $31 Paneled Wall Treatment (Beginners Can Do This!) at Young House Love.

When we shared the duplex backyard makeovers last month, I promised more details about how we made the decorative oars that hang on each shed. So today I’ve got a detailed tutorial for you (including how NOT to screw up your attempts to make them outdoor friendly) along with a few other “hacks” you guys asked about.

The oars actually were not part of our original plans. But after the sheds were built we nixed our plans to run electricity to them (for cost reasons – and because they really don’t need it). But the empty space where we’d planned to hang a light above the door needed… something.

That something became oars after a trip to HomeGoods where we stumbled upon a decorative surfboard. Cape Charles isn’t really a surfing town, but there is plenty of kayaking and paddle boarding, so oars felt a bit more applicable for our little beach town.

Continue reading How To Make Decorative Oars (And How To Not Almost Ruin Them Like I Did) at Young House Love.

Finally… we have a full video tour of both sides of the duplex! A ton of people have asked for this (or asked if they missed it) and, well, today is the day. If nothing else, I recommend watching it to see the ecstatic relief on my face at the end that WE. ARE. DONE!

Also I talk through a bunch of our changes and choices throughout the reno, and share some of our favorite decisions that upgraded the house in the biggest ways.

The video is also just good for seeing how each room flows together, checking out what’s different from side to side, and basically “walking through” the entire project with us. Just click play to watch it below:

Note: If you’re reading this in a feed reader, you may need to click through to see the video. You can also watch it here on YouTube.

Continue reading A Video Tour Of The Duplex at Young House Love.