Bed and Breakfast Diary Part 2

I’ve been pretty much confined to a bed for almost 10 days now with COVID. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, we know how we got it (husband came into contact with someone and brought it home.) Yeah, it was literally right after we got the first round of the Pfizer vaccine so the whole situation is super dumb. I got hit harder than my other half did, coughing up my lungs, dizziness, fever, nausea, intense smell and taste and then losing that, and basically being weak-sauce. I don’t think I had super healthy lungs to begin with (having been hospitalized 4 times as a child for pneumonia), but doing nothing and not knowing exactly when my situation might improve has been basically torture. I’m not someone who can stay still, doing nothing, even recuperating so this has taken a bit of a toll on my mood.

But this did give me some time to work on what I can control, namely, the bed and breakfast. I spent most of my time calculating costs and figuring out what the bare minimum break even price point is, which is admittedly a lot more math than I have ever really enjoyed doing, but that’s an important part of any business plan. I also have to periodically check the local prices, to understand how it changes seasonally, as well as to get a feel of the market competition.

More than that, this period of recovering gave me a lot of time to think about the value added services that I could provide, which I jot down in a document that has been opened and closed more times that I could count. What exactly would be my “draw”, what activities would be available through the seasons, what would those activities need from me, etc.

I am still in the process of figuring out how I want to theme each unit into one cohesive idea which will then be what I use to guide the interior design. Should I do it based on Hogwart Houses, Howl’s Moving Castle (4 Locations—Market Chipping, the Castle, Kingsbury, Porthaven), Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter, Ocean/Forest/Mountain/Sky, Color coded (Red/Yellow/Blue/Green), major countries (US, South America, Europe, East Asia), Ghibli (Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Ponyo), Architectural era (Victorian, Gothic, Modern), or fantasy genre (Steampunk, Fairy Tale, Tolkien, Horror), etc. I still have no idea and my thoughts keep going round and round with this. Some of these may have issues with copyright so I’d have to examine it more closely. Anyway, it’s a bit difficult to really decide until I sit down and look at what’s feasible and the amount of work that will be put into it.

As far as activities go, seasonally, I have this:

• January – New Years and Lunar New Years
• February – Valentines 
• March – Spring
• April – Planting
• May – Planting
• June – Pick your own harvest
• July – Crabbing and the Beach
• August – Crabbing
• September – Mid Autumn Festival
• October – Murder Mystery or Spooky House
• November – Thanksgiving Dinners
• December – Santa and the Reindeers

I’ll be filling this post out with more details as my understanding of what will be involved improves but here is a little bit of the kinds of things I have been preparing and considering.