November 03, 2026

#209 Airbnb Design Lessons From April Williams’ Blue Ridge Treehouse Cabin

April Williams and her husband questioned every dollar of the custom treehouse they built at The Ridgeline, their cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Now roughly 90% of the families who book mention it before they ever arrive, and that one decision says a lot about how smart Airbnb design actually works.

April designs cheerleading uniforms for a living. She and her husband started with a drawing on paper, and it became a modern mountain getaway built around one question: who’s actually coming to stay here?

That’s the heart of this episode of the STR Sisterhood Podcast.

How April’s Family Made Their First Short-Term Rental Attainable

April and her husband weren’t setting out to build a massive portfolio. They wanted a place their boys, Bryson and Barrett, could unplug, get outside, and make memories.

They also knew renting it to guests would make that dream financially attainable. “We can’t just go buy this million dollar mountain home,” April said. So they saved, spotted land for sale on a roadside billboard, and called the number.

Blue Ridge wasn’t a random pick. They’d scouted it for years, and the town has a real year-round draw. As April put it, you can’t have a short-term rental where nobody wants to visit.

April’s budget didn’t limit her strategy. It forced one. When you can only afford one property, every decision has to earn its place.

Hospitality That Turns Guest Stays Into Shared Memories

Hospitality always brought April joy. What surprised her was how much guest feedback would matter. One family tagged the cabin in a reel of their two little girls playing there.

“Their memories are becoming our memories,” she said.

That’s not sentiment. It’s a signal. When reviews say “you can tell they care,” your guest experience is doing real work in your listing.

Airbnb Design Starts With the Floor Plan

Most hosts start with finishes. April started with people.

Because she and her husband designed the floor plan themselves, they walked through every scenario before a wall went up. What if a family brings this many kids? What if the grandparents come? What if someone can’t use the stairs? What if they’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner, or it’s a girls weekend?

That’s Airbnb design as a business decision, not a decorating one.

Designing for Families, Couples, Grandparents, and Groups

Design for everyone, and you’ve designed for no one. April named her guests and built around how each would actually use the space.

Ask yourself: could you describe your top three guest types and what each needs from your layout? If not, that’s where your next Airbnb design improvement starts.

Durable, Beautiful, and Replaceable Furnishings

April’s a self-described clean freak. She chose leather sofas that wipe down at every turnover.

But in Airbnb design, durability isn’t the only filter. Replaceability matters just as much.

“I’m not going to go cry over, you know, a Restoration Hardware coffee table,” she said. If a guest damages something, she wants to be able to say it’s not a big deal.

Where April Sourced Her Airbnb Design Pieces

Most of the cabin came from Wayfair, Amazon, Walmart, and Target, with extended warranties wherever she could get them.

Then she built what she could: the cabinets, the barn doors, even a wooden bathroom sink. The reclaimed-wood banisters came from Facebook Marketplace. That kept one thoughtful build inside a real family’s budget.

The Custom Treehouse That Became the Biggest Booking Draw

The treehouse was modeled to look like the cabin itself. It cost around four or five thousand dollars, and the couple wondered if they were seriously spending that much on it.

“I would say ninety percent of the people that book are commenting,” April said. The kids can’t wait to play on it.

Placement made it work. It sits within fifteen feet of the house, so parents can watch from the deck or the fire pit. They skipped the zip line, though. It wasn’t worth the extra insurance.

That’s the difference between a gimmick and a strategic amenity. One gets photographed. The other gets booked.

Airbnb Design That Makes the Property the Destination

“We wanted to include as many amenities as possible to where… they didn’t have to leave to go find entertainment,” April shared.

Think Pac-Man, shuffleboard, axe throwing, a fire pit, surround sound for game days, and the non-negotiable hot tub. April’s own family sometimes stays four or five days without leaving.

This is where Airbnb design becomes positioning. When the weather turns, April’s guests aren’t scrambling for plans. The property is the plan.

What A&E’s Million Dollar Mountain Homes Did for Bookings

The moment April knew they’d built something special? A&E called. An unedited 9 p.m. interview video landed her family on Million Dollar Mountain Homes.

The week their episode aired, The Ridgeline got seven bookings. That usually takes a month.

April didn’t treat the exposure as a finish line. She treated it as feedback. She added better photos and floor plans, hired help with social media, and started building The Ridgeline as a brand.

Visibility only works if your listing is ready to catch it.

Balancing Aesthetics With Functionality and Guest Experience

April thinks about her own kids when she thinks about function. Anything three feet and below can get broken.

The Airbnb Design Rule: Fewer Tchotchkes, Bigger Statements

So she skipped fragile décor and went big instead. There’s a twelve-by-six-foot mural downstairs. Black-and-gold Sasquatch wallpaper wraps the bar. The bunk room has a triple-high bunk bed, secured to the wall, with a painted mountain mural behind it.

Personality doesn’t have to mean breakable. Strong Airbnb design puts character into pieces that survive real stays.

The Systems Behind the Amenities

Here’s what April didn’t see coming. Every amenity needs instructions: the record player, the hot tub, the surround sound, even the blinds.

Now there are QR codes to how-to videos, a digital guidebook, laminated labels, and a printed welcome book. The result? “We don’t get any more of those questions.”

Buying an amenity is the easy part. The real work is building the system that lets guests use it without you.

Why the Right Team Matters When Hosting Is One Part of Your Life

The best advice April’s ever received: “You can’t do it all yourself. You have to have a good team.”

She’s type A with a full-time job. So she’s learned to let the best people do their part, even when finding them takes time.

If every turnover question still comes back to you, the issue isn’t effort. It’s structure.

Your Next Step

April once hung fortieth-birthday balloons for a group that never asked for them. That’s the mindset: we thought about you before you got here.

You don’t need the biggest property or the largest budget. Great Airbnb design starts with understanding who you’re serving and building an experience they’ll remember.

Look at your listing. Which guest did you design it for? And what would give them a reason not to want to leave?

To work through decisions like these with women who get it, join the STR Sisterhood. When you’re ready for deeper strategy and support, explore my STR offerings.

Click here now to listen to the full podcast.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY POINTS:

Golden Nuggets:

• “Their memories are becoming our memories.”
• “We wanted to include as many amenities as possible to where… they didn’t have to leave to go find entertainment.”
• “You can’t do it all yourself. You have to have a good team.”

Connect With Our Guest:

Instagram :  instagram.com/theridgelinega/ Facebook :  https://www.facebook.com/theridgelineretreat/

 

Full Episode Transcript:

So today we are joined by April Williams. And before we jump in, April, I just want to say thank you so much for being with us. Oh, thank you for having me. This is going to be so fun. I’m really excited to dive into your story. Before we jump in, though, let’s have you share a little bit with our audience about who you are and what you do. Very good. I’m just your all-American girl, I guess. You know, this is one of our side quests. My family and I, we just had a really simple life growing up. My husband grew up in the country. I grew up in the country. He’s from Oregon. I’m from Texas. We currently live in Georgia. We have two little boys, Bryson and Barrett. They’re eight and ten years.

We live in Metro Atlanta, kind of in the suburbs, but enough of an area that we really were looking for a place that we could get away, wasn’t too far away.

And we chose Blue Ridge, Georgia for our first short-term rental. We use it a good bit just because we feel that kids are at the age where we have to remove them from technology and put them in a space where they can go outside and use their imagination. So my husband works in public affairs. I design cheerleading uniforms. I know, totally random. That was so random.

But I have a design background and that’s where the house idea came from. So we started with a drawing and, now have a real house with walls and plans and renters.

That is so interesting. I know, obviously we’re going to talk about short-term rentals, but I have to talk about cheerleading outfits for a hot minute because I was a cheerleader growing up and like, it was the biggest deal when we got new uniforms and all that kind of fun stuff. So, that’s so random. Like, how did you get into that?

So moving from Texas with my husband’s job, it took us to Virginia and rural Virginia. And there was not a lot of interior design job opportunities. So this was back in the days of Craigslist, whenever you looked for jobs on Craigslist and there was a job with Varsity Fashion. So I applied and, you know, she said, I can tell you have a great design eye and you sound fun. So, you know, let’s give this a try. And fifteen years later, here I am designing cheer uniforms for youth groups up through college. So it’s a really fun job. That is really cool. OK, so I promise we will get back to short term rentals.

So you have this idea for this house, but not many people have an idea for a house and actually execute. So tell us a little bit about what initially drew you to the short-term rental space to begin with.

Probably budget. You know, we’re average people. We don’t bring in half a million dollars a year. You know, they’re There were opportunities where, you know, we could save money here or there. I’m in a sales job. And so whenever we live off of my draw and then whatever I bring in for commission, you know, we put away and save. And so for us it was just about what was actually attainable, what we could really afford. We can’t just go buy this million dollar mountain home. We can’t just go buy the beach house. You know, it’s, it’s what we put aside and what we saved for. We, we saw the billboard on the side of the road that had land for sale. And so we took the chance, called the guy and made the purchase on a piece of property. And, We had scouted out the Blue Ridge area for a long time. And that was really, it was a quaint town, someplace we enjoyed going, someplace that we knew was on the map for people to want to go visit. You can’t have a short-term rental in an area that nobody wants to visit anyway. So this was already a desirable place. And it’s a place that kind of has a year-round draw.

Everywhere that you look, Does not always bring people in a year round. And we still don’t. We do have a slow time. But, you know, there’s a reason to go there in the summer. There’s a reason to go there in the winter. So we knew financially we were going to need to rent the space in order to help us keep it.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you called the guy, you bought the land, before you ever broke ground, what vision did you have for the experience you wanted your guests to have? Oh man. growing up, I was always the kid that had five jobs in the summer. You know, I didn’t like to sit around and, you know, just waste my day with TV or anything like that. I had babysitting jobs. I had waitressing jobs. I was a cocktail waitress.

I worked for a catering company. So hospitality was always kind of something that brought me joy.

Whenever I think about like love languages, it’s always like acts of service and words of affirmation. And so one thing that was so unexpected with renting was how much I loved people’s feedback and just their, their reviews and responses of them saying, you know, I really can tell you care about your place. I can tell that you guys care about what you do. And so I really think that has, it’s brought us a lot of joy and it’s brought us a lot of, just good feels for what we’re doing. And, and even if we I don’t know if it sounds bright, but a lot of people have said, oh, I can’t imagine renting my place to strangers and knowing someone else is sleeping in my bed. And it’s never felt like that for us. Yeah. Yeah. No, for me either. I think, you know, when I got into short-term rentals, I was doing it as a real estate investment primarily.

And I really actually fell in love with the, the people, like the hospitality aspect of things, the fact that I could be a small part of someone’s memory for, you know, it feels good. Right. It feels good. So, it’s, it’s really cool. And, and to be able, like you said, to, have a place where your family can enjoy together, where you can take your kids. It’s like this double-edged bundle of joy. You get to help other people make memories, but you can make memories with your family at the same time. Right. And even just messaging them and, you know, them showing us pictures of their times with us or with us at our cabin. Somebody tagged us in a reel the other day and they had two little girls with them. And we have two little boys. And so it was really sweet to like see what the girls did in their eyes. And, you know, so it’s just their memories are becoming our memories of remember when these people stayed. And it’s been really rewarding. We love it. That’s really cool. So obviously you weren’t trying to build some massive portfolio. You were looking to build one incredible place, right? How did that mindset influence the decisions you made with design? Because I know you’re very creative, passionate about having intentional design. So the fact that you wanted to build a place that would become a legacy for your family, again, how did that mindset influence your decisions in the building and design process? I guess whenever, because we designed the floor plan and we tried to put ourselves in every person’s position. Okay. What if this family comes with this many kids, where would they sleep? What if their grandparents came? What if you had somebody that couldn’t use the stairs?

You know, what if they’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner? You know, what if there was a girls weekend? Where would people want to be? So we tried to think of every possible scenario of the people that we wanted to host and what would be most beneficial, what would be the easiest, most comfortable, even down to the finishes.

You know, most durable, but still beautiful, leather sofas so that people didn’t have to worry about, you know, fur or hair and, you know, easiest to clean. I’m a clean freak. I think COVID kind of made me that way. So, making sure that it’s stuff that would stay looking clean and, was just big, big, yeah. Yeah. kicker for me, you know, I just had to had to make sure that stayed that way. You know, I, I personally love leather furniture. And you know, everyone has their own, you know, preferences, but I really feel like it’s so easy to keep it clean, because you can literally wipe it down with every turnover. Whereas sometimes with a couch, I mean, you can vacuum the couch, but You know, I just feel like it’s so much easier to keep leather looking nice. The other thing that I love to do is decorate with furniture that looks weathered. So the more wear and tear it has, the more it looks like it belongs, right? So I love that as well. Yeah. I mean, even in my own home, we have the Pottery Barn.

Oh, now I’m drawing a blank with the… the furniture that you can pour liquid on it. Oh, we have the Pottery Barn, Sunbrella couches at our house. And at first it was like, you’re putting Sunbrella in your, in your house. Yeah. Because we have white couches and we have kids. but you know, it’s, it’s durable. So that’s what we’ve, we’ve had for the last ten years. There you, and you have it on the inside. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s comfortable. Yeah. It’s, I can’t tell you how many pieces of outdoor furniture we looked at before I decided on the sectional that we have outside. You wanted something that was durable, something that could withstand the heat and the people and everything else. So having the durable pieces and making them cost effective is really important. But I also didn’t want to break the bank because if somebody messes something up, I want to be able to say it’s not a big deal. You know, we can replace it. I’m not going to go cry over, you know, a Restoration Hardware coffee table. Right. Right. So I’m curious, what are some of the places that you love to shop from where you’re looking for durability and quality that doesn’t break the bank? What are some of your favorite? I mean, Wayfair.

I love being able to purchase extended warranties on things. So Wayfair offers that a lot. We do have quite a bit of Amazon.

Walmart has up their game with some of our home decor items, especially in the kitchen department.

I, gosh, I’m trying to think where else we bought from, Target.

You know, just try to really keep trendy, on brand pieces, decor. I decorated with a lot of color. I just really love color and, you know, made a lot of our pieces as well. I made all of our cabinets. I made our barn doors. I made our, yeah, I made our wooden sink in our bathroom. Yeah. It’s so, like, literally you’re out with a hammer and you’re making… wow. Yeah. Okay, I would be so bad at that. I would be really, really bad at that. So that’s amazing. Yeah, that’s amazing. Helped save on our bill too. Oh my goodness, that’s incredible. Incredible. Are there any features that you invested in that maybe people scratch their head on? I wonder why they’re doing that. Or are there any features that you feel like, wow, I wasn’t sure about this, but it’s worth every penny we put into it? Oh, I would say a hundred percent our treehouse and the landscaping.

But I’ll start with the treehouse. The treehouse was something that we modeled to look like our house and that bad boy ended up costing us probably around four or five grand. And we’re going, are we seriously spending this much money on a treehouse? But I would say ninety percent of the people that book are look are commenting. Our kids cannot wait to play on the treehouse.

Yeah. And it’s like, And we positioned it perfectly. I mean, the parents can sit on the upper deck and watch the kids on the treehouse. I mean, it’s within fifteen feet of the house. The parents can sit on the fire pit, watch the kids on the treehouse. There’s nothing that they’re going to get hurt on the treehouse. So that’s something that we’re going, oh my gosh, we’re spending lots of money on this to make it look a certain way. But by far, that’s a thing that everybody mentions when booking. And that’s so unique. That is so unique. You can’t usually book a short-term rental that has a treehouse. And so I can’t imagine where that is something that would stand out to the kids and the parents. I’m curious, when you talk about a treehouse, my ding, ding, ding, like liability light goes woo, woo, woo, right? So did you have to take out any… By the way, I don’t know that I have ever talked about a liability light. What was that? Anyway, you know, did you have to take out any additional insurance or any additional liability policy because of the treehouse? My husband’s our financial guy, our insurance guy. I don’t think so. As long as everything was, you know, fit into the construction grade, what am I trying to say here? As long as our railings were to code and whatnot, you know, thirty inches high, because that was something that went on with the build at the same time as the house. And I remember our contractor going, all right, we’re calling this a deer stand right now because you don’t have any railings up there yet. And we’re like, okay, railings, we’ll get up there. So I don’t think any additional insurance policies were taken out for that. I think it was all covered. There you go. But that is a reason we didn’t put a zip line up there because we didn’t want that additional insurance policy. There you go. I can only imagine what that would be.

All right. Looking back, is there anything that you intentionally chose not to include when you were building the house because it maybe didn’t align with the experience you were looking to create? I don’t think so. I’m trying to think back now. I don’t think so.

Our goal was to make sure that we had a place that people didn’t have to leave to enjoy themselves. We wanted to include as many amenities as possible to where if they wanted to go grab a bite downtown, fine, but they didn’t have to leave to go find entertainment. We have the Pac-Man machine, the shuffleboard, a card table, the fire pit, the treehouse, axe throwing. They can go hiking around the neighborhood.

There are times that we go visit the property that we don’t leave for four or five days because you don’t have to. There’s enough to do that, even when football games are on, we’ve got our surround sound and TV, you know, up there and fireplace. And so it’s, you know, that was just, we got everything on our must have list. Hot tub, that was number one. You can’t really have without a hot tub, so. Amen to that. You really were focused on making your property a destination for your guests. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we’ve got the views. People go to the mountains for the views. We got it right off the porch.

We’re very happy with what we’ve accomplished. Amazing. Amazing. So I’m sure your guests are consistently saying things like, oh my gosh, they’ve thought of everything.

Was there ever like one specific moment when you’re like, okay, we’ve arrived. We did something really special here.

When A&E called us.

Right. Tell us about that. Oh, that was, that was exciting. So A&E started doing a, A&E was shooting a pilot for a show called Million Dollar Mountain Home. And they reached out on the local Facebook page and they said, are there families here that are looking for a mountain home, want to share your mountain home? So I answered their email and I said, hey, just an average family here. We don’t have a million dollar home by any means, but here’s our family. here’s our Airbnb profile and take a look and, you know, see what you, see what you can here. See if you, if we have what you like. And they reached out, of course, you know, they need something the next day. So I was out of town and I got back into town and they said, we want a video of you and your husband unedited.

And we want y’all to sit there and answer all of these questions. So it is nine o’clock at night. We’re exhausted.

Put the boys to bed and we’re like, you know what? Let’s pour ourselves a drink and let’s answer these questions unedited. So that’s what we did.

Unedited. So we had fun with it. We told them our story. And a couple of days later, they were like, all right, let’s. Let’s put you guys on the calendar. We filmed in February and it was kind of a house hunters type situation.

So, you know, it’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors, but it was a great time.

It was a lot of fun for our kids to be included and overall an experience that we never thought would arrive. And that was great. a lot of fun. Unexpected. So what was something about being within that experience with A&E filming that? What was something you learned about being on TV that you didn’t realize before?

To stop talking over people. I’m a talker. My husband’s a talker. We have a lot of banter with each other. So in our episode, they definitely captured our banter. We’ve been married almost fifteen years, and I just think that’s what keeps us best friends. And it was smile. You always need more makeup.

So back in 2013, I think it was. Gosh, how quickly we forget. But I was on Wheel of Fortune and, you know, like being a part of that experience.

The actual filming of the episode, I was like, this is totally wild. Like for the commercial breaks, they come and powder your nose and you’ve got somebody, it’s like a coach to a boxer in a corner. Like, okay, you’re doing great. Like just keep, keep that energy up or whatever. And I was like, wow, like you wouldn’t normally see this obviously with the edited episode. Yeah. But that was something that surprised me. It was, yeah.

The crew was amazing. I mean, they’re they’re real people, but they’re extremely talented people. And you don’t realize that there are cameras everywhere. I mean, we had, there was a small crew. It was only about six people, but I mean, they had drones, they had two cameras. They have a director who was extremely talented, a sound person. Oh, we’re listening for the ambient noise. you know, we had to shoot each scene three times, the walkthrough, you know, from behind the walkthrough from the front, the walkthrough through the room. So there was just so much that went into it. And I haven’t such a high respect for those people in their profession because they are hard workers. I mean, from sunup to sundown, so they work hard.

So when you saw that episode air on TV, what did you think? Oh, my gosh. We had a watch party with our friends.

It was amazing. It was so much fun.

I was very excited to see that they captured our personalities. And, you know, there wasn’t a villain or we weren’t, you know, fake or anything like that. That was the real us. So as you saw us, that’s us. That’s so fun. That’s so fun. And then my next question is, how do you feel like being a part of that experience has helped you gain more bookings? What has that looked like on the back end of that?

Well, the week that the episode came out, we had seven bookings in one week, which is usually would take a month to get seven bookings.

You know, it was. It definitely inspired me to find more pictures, better pictures. I added floor plans because I think that was really important. We hadn’t had that before. And I think the flow of the house is important to people when looking.

You know, hired someone to start working on our social media to gain followers, to help people find us.

You know, a lot of people that were watching the episode were asking their friends, you know, how do we find them? So, you know, now we’re trying to get our Ridgeline name out there. So that was something that we’ve been working on since then. Very cool. Very cool.

All right. I also just want to ask you, you know, from your perspective, when hosts think about design, they often focus on making a space look beautiful. How do you balance the aesthetic piece with the functionality piece and the guest experience piece? And the reason why I’m asking that, I also think that’s something that would shine through in an episode of Million Dollar Mountain Homes.

I guess I think of my kids whenever I think about functionality.

I think of everything that is, you know, three feet and below can get broken. So we maybe want to have bigger pieces that are easily lifted. We want to have less, you know, tchotchkes, little, little pieces that could get easily broken. Yeah.

I guess more big statements, you know, downstairs we have a big wall mural. And so that really adds to the personality of that room. That mural is probably twelve feet by six feet.

And so that was really a design statement in that room and.

A beloved one, too, it’s pretty characteristic for that area.

So yeah, I would just say more big statements.

I used wallpaper. There’s a little bar downstairs and we have a really fun, beautiful black and gold Sasquatch wallpaper on our bar.

It’s got a nice black leather looking tile on the background of it. And so I feel that it’s very sophisticated looking, but it also has, you know, your whiskey glasses and wine glasses right next to it. So it’s fun, but adds a lot of personality to the space.

In the bunk room, I have a triple high bunk bed that we made.

So, but it’s secured to the wall. I promise it’s sturdy. But we painted a big, beautiful wall mural on the background there of the mountains. And so the kids really love that room. We’ve got faux plush animal heads on the wall so that they can, you know, have some personality in that room. So I would say the big statement pieces. Yeah.

Add to that. So, yeah. And it sounds like with the things that you’ve chosen for the home, it’s character, it adds character. It’s not just beauty, but it adds character and something that people will talk about. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

My, I wanted a modern mountain home and that’s, that’s what we got. You’re not going to find, you know, wooden, shiplap on the walls or, you know, logs or anything like that. But I did find a lot of reclaimed wood and that’s what I used for our mantle. I added a, ban, all of our banisters are reclaimed wood that I found on Facebook marketplace. Yeah, our master bath sink, as I was telling you, the vessels are porcelain, but the actual vanity was a huge piece of oak.

And so we added a lot of those wood elements, but it’s very industrial. So you can still see the pipes showing through at the bottom or, you know, one of our bathrooms, the tile has a brick look to it, so it looks like it’s, you know, concrete and brick. And we’re just, we’re really happy with how it turned out. And that industrial feel, you know, makes it extra sturdy. Yeah. There you go. There you go. So I’m just curious, how has building this cabin changed the way that you think about hospitality the way that you think about entrepreneurship and even changed your family’s future? How I think about hospitality.

I just, I try to put myself in everybody’s position, you know, whether it’s an older couple who are meeting up with friends there, I think about what would my mother, you know, want in a place that she was looking for, if it’s a girl’s trip, how would I feel? what would I look for if I was going up to the cabin with my girls? we’re near the Toccoa golf course. So if it was a group of guys going up for a weekend of golf, I just try to think how they would think in those situations and what they would look for and want. And, I had a lot of fun, friends, a group of friends went up for a fortieth birthday. And so I had a bunch of fortieth birthday decorations and she didn’t ask me to do it. But I put up a bunch of fortieth birthday balloons and banner and everything. And, you know, I just imagine like her delight when she walked in the room and saw that was waiting for her. And, you know, Even if they don’t say anything, I imagine they did. And I imagine that she was excited when she walked in. So yeah. That’s so fun. That’s so fun.

All right. I want to move to the lightning round. Okay. So I’m going to ask you to answer a few things with the very first thought that comes to mind. First question is, where is your favorite place to vacation?

The beach, any beach, Turks and Caicos would be my number one spot. I’ve never been. I feel like I need to go. You do. Grace Bay. Add it to your list. Okay. I’ll make it happen. Make it happen. All right. Next question. What’s one place you’ve never been that you want to visit?

Another beach, but the Bahamas is on my list. I’ve never been. Really? Yeah, I know. Surprisingly. But also Thailand is my husband’s favorite place. And the beaches of Thailand. It’s always beach with us. Right, there you go. We have the mountain. We can go to the mountain anytime, so we want to go visit the beach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard so many people say such wonderful things about Thailand and how gorgeous the beaches are. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So I’ll go to Turks and Caicos first and then I’ll come with you to Thailand. Yeah, that sounds great. Hey, I will meet you in Turks and Caicos. Next question. What’s one thing you know now that you wished you knew when you were starting out in the world of short-term rentals? Oh my gosh, I still don’t know enough. What’s one thing I know now? Gosh, I don’t know. I just feel like there’s still so much to learn.

Gosh, I don’t know. Anything that surprised you about, wow, I didn’t know I had to do this or I didn’t know guests did this or anything like that?

Gosh. Gosh.

I didn’t know that we were going to have to put as many instructions on how to open the blinds, how to turn on the hot tub, how to, find the trash, how, I mean, there’s just, there were so many things that we thought, oh, that’s common knowledge, but we have to put instructions on the record player and how to do the surround sound speakers.

So many things that are a draw to the cabin, I didn’t realize we were going to have to have a manual for a lot of those things. So how do you deliver those instructions? Do you put signs up? Do you have a book in the property? Do you have a digital guide? What does that look like for you? All of the above. So we have QR codes to scan to show you the YouTube video of how to work the record player. Then we have a QR code to our digital book that tells you step by step.

We have laminated little pieces of paper on the record player that show on off, you know, put this here, put it on thirty three speed. And then we have a digital and then we have a hard copy.

Of our welcome book with laminated pages that show you, you know, this is the switch for this and turn on this and, you know, troubleshooting. Oh yeah. Yeah. You can’t miss it now. We don’t get any more of those questions.

That’s so funny. I think I need to do an instruction guide on TV remotes. That’s the one thing I feel like our guests consistently have issues with. It’s like, you know, the TV doesn’t work or something like that where somebody’s changed the input. That is actually on my cleaners checklist as well as my inspection checklist to make sure that they verify that the TV, all the apps are logged out of and that folks can get straight to the streaming home screen. But in the middle of a guest day, you know, buttons get pushed on a remote and then they can’t ever find themselves back. So, you know, we have fire TVs.

And we never had an issue with anyone. I mean, because they can’t push an input button on the Fire TV. And so when you turn it on, the app screen is right there. The only thing that we have had a problem with was the remote, the batteries.

And so now we have batteries hidden so that people, you know, don’t just hold themselves to them. So if that happens again, and somebody messages us and says there needs to be new batteries, we can tell them exactly where to look for them. Yep. That’s awesome. Yeah. We keep our spare batteries in a locked lock box, if you will, inside the closet where we also have spare towels and sheets and light bulbs and things like that. Because you never know, obviously, when a guest is going to need something. But if you leave it out, they sometimes help themselves. Right, right, right. You know, one thing I still haven’t mastered are towels.

I mean, sheets, we have pretty good sheets, but the towels, I just, I don’t know what color because white doesn’t seem, bleach doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to. I think it’s a little more concentrated than before, but I can’t decide if I want to move to color or just do I need a better quality? I don’t know. How do you keep your towels clean? Yeah. Well, I tell you what, it is very difficult. So I use white towels. And this is actually a discussion we just had inside the Achievers Club a few weeks ago, because some of our Achievers ladies are team white where they’re, you know, they want white towels. They’re, they’re looking for white towels when they go and stay. And then we have some ladies that are team gray, where they use gray or even colored towels. For me, I use white and we have a lot of, you you know, shrinkage in inventory because we’re constantly having to churn things out. I do have a full laundry operation in the back of our office, with staff who’s usually staff, two different shifts doing laundry. and I am shocked by the way, some of our towels come back from our guests. It’s like who uses spray tan and dyes their hair purple when they’re on vacation. Evidently my guests do. Yeah.

But it’s insane how insane the towels are. It’s insane.

Yeah. So it’s not that they’re inexpensive towels. It’s that they’re white towels and people are going to do it no matter how expensive they are. Right.

I mean, definitely feel good in the fact that you are not the only one that’s dealing with stained linens. It’s definitely a thing. We do have a defined process where we will pre-treat something for the wash, wash it, dry it. If it’s still stained, then we treat it again, send it through another cycle. If it’s still stained, then we soak it in another combination of stain remover. I don’t even, we’ve got the recipe on the wall. What, what goes into there? Yeah. And still sometimes we’ve got to throw things out. Right. Yeah. Because it doesn’t work. Right. Right. So we do our best. Yeah. That’s some that’s one thing that I didn’t realize we were going to be replenishing as much is the towels, linens, things like that. So, you know, I want them to be quality and I want our guests to be comfortable and, you know, not feel like they’re at a Motel 6. But, you know, that was that’s. That’s something that definitely money is spent on year after year. Yep.

Yep. Okay. That was, that was the, perhaps the longest banter on a lightning round question I’ve ever had.

No, I was talking girl. It’s all good. Don’t, don’t apologize at all.

Next question. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? Okay.

You can’t do it all yourself. You have to have a good team. I’m very type A, very I can do it the best way. And you can’t. I have a full time job. You know, this is not my full time job. And so your team is very important and you may not find them right away. You know, it may be something that you have to keep looking for.

But you have to let the people who do who are the best at their job do that part of the job. Amen. Amen. Yeah. I, I couldn’t agree more. I think the folks who actually get stuck the fastest are the folks who try to do everything themselves. Yeah. Right. You got to have good people around you. All right. Last question. What’s one thing and or person that you’re grateful for today? Oh, my husband. Easy, easy. He, he lets me, Go on with my crazy ideas. He gives me looks every now and then, but he knows that I have a vision and he just has to trust me. And I’m just so grateful that he doesn’t try to put up roadblocks that he trusts me. And so we just have such a mutual respect for each other. And I think that’s why we’re still friends, in love and happily married after fifteen years and he’s still my best friend and We really support each other.

When I’m frustrated, he’s there to support me. When he’s frustrated, I’m there to recognize him and support him. So yeah, that’s easy. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. True partners. Yes. True partners. That’s so good. April, if folks want to learn more about you or your amazing cabin, where is the best place for them to find you online? Sure. So right now we’re really focusing on Instagram and then Facebook as well. So on Instagram, we’re at The Ridgeline GA, and on Facebook we’re at The Ridgeline Blue Ridge. Yeah. So good. April, thank you so much for being here. Absolutely, thank you. It was so fun.

Did you enjoy the episode? Don’t forget to Subscribe, Rate, Review, Like, and Share!