Page House Transformation Project Part I

As soon as we arrived home from San Antonio and the Junior Olympics, we shifted gears. In September, the people that had been renting our house in Page for the last two years informed us that they were buying another house and moving out. After several false starts, the house was finally vacated the first weekend of December. In between the time we found out they were leaving and when they actually left, we made a major decision about the fate of our beloved home. Rather than trying to sell it again, we opted to turn it into a vacation rental!

Page is in the center of what is known as the Grand Circle. If you have never heard that term, you are certainly familiar with all of the things in the near vicinity that you can visit. Just pick a direction, and within a matter of minutes or just a couple of hours you can be at some spectacular places like Bryce or Zion national parks, The Colorado River, Glen Canyon Dam, The Grand Canyon, to name a few. Then of course there is our personal favorite and closest option, Lake Powell!!

We know a couple of people that are getting into the vacation rental business, and it seems to be a pretty great option. The biggest obstacle would be getting the house in tip top shape and then furnishing the whole thing. All four bedrooms, three bathrooms, 2600 sq. feet of it! Wowza!

It actually turned out to be a blessing that we had some lag time between finding out our renters were leaving and when they actually left. It gave us more rent money of course. Very good. But it also gave us time to make plans, shop around and wrap our heads around all of the things we would need to do to get this up and running. Black Friday was a lifesaver as far as cost for a lot of the household goods we needed.

Back to the return from San Antonio.

We got in from our Texas travels at about 9:30 Sunday night. We were beat after all the excitement. Come Monday morning, we kicked into high gear. After sending the kids off to school, I took the morning off of work to help Theo load up all the stuff we had amassed over the previous two months. We even borrowed a trailer from a friend and put a hitch on the Acadia. Theo was off to begin the renovation process.

Yes, that is as crazy loaded as it looks! Inside the car was packed inside to the roof which had a rug strapped on top, and the trailer was piled to the sky with everything from our washer and dryer to our dining room table and chairs (I got a new ones! Yay me!).

 

Theo spent a week in Page working on the house. Unfortunately, it needed more work than we had anticipated. We were so very lucky that many of our friends came and helped! Thanks Moses, Otis, Mac and of course Theo's mom, Lisa! They tore out carpet, hauled trash, took down blinds, patched holes, painted, painted, painted, and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed!

 

 

Also while in town, we had new floors put in the house. Wood in the kitchen and carpet everywhere else. This made such a huge difference!

 

 

With the days flying by, we had to save a lot more of the work for after Christmas. Theo is such a hard worker! He made so much progress. Check in again After Christmas for the second part of this story and all of the "after" pictures.