NYE Letter To Yourself

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You know how every NYE I write a letter to myself that I open the next NYE? Well I forced it on all my guests this year, mwahahahaha!

Ok, maybe not quite forced it. More like, put some paper and envelopes and such in all of the rooms with a little explanation of the tradition and said that if folks wanted to write themselves one, I'd happily mail it to them next year.

I was super touch by how many people took me up on it!

Happy New Year to all of you out there!

Barn Wood Bar Booth

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I love, love, LOVE the barn wood bar that Steven built for the Inn. It's handsome and sturdy and very much suits the surroundings.

I'm just realizing that I never actually made a post on how he built it. Hmm.... Here's the quick photo montage:

And DONE! Haha! Well actually it nearly happened that fast. Design*Sponge confirmed that they were gonna come up and do a feature and we were like, "Cool, there's literally nothing in the rooms right now but that's fine. We'll TOTALLY be able to stage two room types and build a bar in three days".

And while it was kind of insane, we did it.

We kept a lot of the bar the same for the first few months, moving and/or adding things here or there depending on how we'd seen guests use the space.

But as time has gone on, I've found myself feeling not entirely in love with this corner:

The orange chairs and low white stools are in the rooms and I love them there--

But for whatever reason they just weren't doing it for me in the bar. They somehow felt a little... dainty all together.

So one afternoon sitting behind the bar I asked myself, "If you could have anything there, what would it be?" and immediately I was like, "Duh, a big barn wood booth."

So I asked my carpenter-man and he said, "No problem" and spent the next few weeks thinking and planning, solving questions of weight and support and how to do this with as little lumber as possible. I'd wake up to the alarm ringing and roll over to find him open eyed, already talking. "I think I figured out a way we can get the kick space to yada yada carpenter talk early in the morning..."

We've been on a crazy project binge recently, finishing the wood trim in the hallway and "wallpapering" it with old encyclopedia pages and--

I'll do another post on that once it's finished up, but there's a sneak peek for ya.

So basically we've be on such a roll that we figured fuck it, let's keep going! Yesterday (yes, on Christmas Day, after opening presents), Steven turned his studio into a woodshop and built the booth's skeleton out of new lumber:

And luckily today it was sunny for the first time in weeks and all the snow had melted and our guests weren't arriving til the late afternoon so...

We dragged the interior frames into the bar and set up camp in there. And by "we" I mean "he". I mostly ran around with the dog, did some springtime-esque yard work, and wheelbarrowed over lots of wood for our bar's fire pit.

I occasionally bopped in to hold pieces in place, press here, pass me that etc. And to take pictures of course! Of Steven drilling from the underside so you won't be able to see screw heads on the bench seat:

Of the fronts with kick-spaces going on:

Of myself at the bar:

Of Steven head butting his shadow's butt back supports going up:

Of two stacks of planks for the backs of the booth:

And of the finished product!

If the carpenter looks a little more dazed than pleased as hell with his work, that's because he's consumed only half a Cliff bar and a Coke all day. And it's 4:15pm. And he just dragged that stump in to be a temporary table.

But YAY! Isn't he good?! Doesn't it suit the bar so well?!

Here's Before and After right next to each other:

Next up making a low table to set drinks on. And re-hanging the art and maps so they suit the new set up. And finding a new place for the toaster oven in the mornings. And making a pillow or five so guests can get cozy with their Nordic glögg and boyfriend and whatnot.

Woohoo! Thank you Steven! I love it. I love, love, LOVE it.

UPDATE 12/28:

He used the bases of those Ikea stools and made custom wood tops. BAM!

And I moved some pillows and dried wildflowers in here to soften it up. Ba-BAM!

But I didn't use a real camera to photograph it. BAM! I mean, sorry.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

Happy One Year Anniversary in the Catskills!

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A year ago today we packed up our new Subaru and drove north from Brooklyn to move to the Catskills and open an inn. I remember being the kind of nervous where you feel nothing as we signed the surprisingly few papers needed to transfer the property deed.

Despite the piles on the lawyer's desk, it was done in a matter of minutes.

We picked up Italian sandwiches at a local shop, and two shovels from the hardware store since we'd heard it was supposed to snow the next day. Then we drove to our new house, the thrill of this huge change starting to settle in, our grins growing wider with each mile we came closer to our new home.

We met our first neighbor before we could even get the keys in the door-- Gary, who pulled up in his pick-up truck and welcomed us with an oh so friendly mile-a-minute monologue about "the valley" and all the nice people in it. I remember thinking how Moroccan or Malian that felt, to be welcomed like that. How not NYC.

We walked in every room, opened every closet door we'd been too bashful to invade during previous visits. Kept proclaiming things like, "Oh my god we live in a HOUSE! This is our HOUSE!" We even went down into the basement to poke around. Strolled the eight acres of land. Then had a celebratory beer and photo op to capture the moment:

Our moving truck which was supposed to meet us had broken down in Brooklyn and couldn't be repaired until the next day (which actually turned into the day after that) so we set up camp with what we had.

A crate as a dinner table:

Sheets as a bed:

And some Cretian ouzo to cheers the move with since this whole buy-an-inn-upstate idea had been born over a bottle of ouzo on a beach in Crete:

(Oh, Sougia.)

We ended the night with a bonfire:

I wish I could say we slept like babies, but really we slept like grown-ass adults on a floor with only a sheet to pad us, which is to say, uncomfortably and fitfully.

I remember just how dark it seemed outside too. How much it felt like we were in this lit-up fishbowl. How attuned we were to every unfamiliar creek that echoed through the empty house.

But you know what was so much better than our fitful night of sleep? Waking up in our new home. Making coffee and taking our steaming mugs out into the crisp morning, the dew still frozen on the meadow.

And you know what's even better than that? Being able to do that every day since.

We've put a lot of work into this place as a home and a business since moving here. There were times, especially right before we opened, when I almost didn't believe my own mantra of, "Everything will get done because it has to."

But it did! And through that work, over that time, this place became ours. And now, when we drive down the road and we come up to this house, something inside me says home.

And when I look out our window into the meadow, I think home.

And when I open our creaking door to go to work at the Inn in our backyard, I think home.

Not to mention all the people we've met over the past year who've made this whole experience more than the lonely move to the woods it could have been. And all the friends and family who've visited and even put their own sweat into the place. To all of you I say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! People talk a lot about community but I feel like it's something I'm only just beginning to truly understand thanks to this past year.

And to Steven. Cheers. Thank you. I love you. You make everything an adventure!

And thank god you turned out to be handy with a hammer.

Cuz Yea, I'm An Entrepreneur Now

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This summer, a young woman by the name of Mia Sakai reached out to me about starting a company designed to "deconstruct the mystery of building a business from the ground up, one story at a time", POLYNATE. She wanted to interview me, could she stop by some time? Having benefitted myself from kind strangers responding to my 'cold' emails, I was more than happy to oblige, though I have to confess there was a part of me that thought:

"Wait, me? Don't you want business owners? Oh. Right. That IS me now."

And so, on a day so hot and bright her iPad suffered a heat malfunction while recording, we sat down and talked business.

You can read the interview in its entirety here. She asked me really thoughtful and practical questions, and it turns out I had an awful lot to say about how I got here. (Said everyone about themselves ever, I know, haha!)

And while it was kinda surreal to be interviewed as a business owner for the first time, it was even MORE surreal to see my answers all laid out on her beautiful website.

And I honestly got a little dizzy when I realized this was not just a pretty graphic of hotel-esque images but rather, an actual timeline of my LIFE leading up to opening:

I often describe my year at NU Hotel during which I was a Front Desk Agent/ bar tender/ bell hop/ anything-they-effing-needed as a "montage"-- the working-my-way-up montage that I unfortunately had to live in real time with no peppy movie soundtrack at near minimum wage. But here it was! The actual montage! All finally behind me.

Yea, it's still weird. I mean, we've only been open a few days shy of three months. And we haven't even lived up here for a whole year yet. I still say things like, "We just opened". But now comes the rest of it. The running of the business not just planning for it, the continued growth. The numbers that aren't just projections but actual data from actual occupancy reports and such. The payroll taxes and re-ordering of bulk soap, the catching up on laundry, the changing menus and decisions about what types of advertising are working.

I'm happy to report I FUCKING LOVE IT.

Yes, I get tired sometimes. (Did I mention my Friday shift is fifteen hours long?) And yes, I get annoyed and overwhelmed sometimes. (No I'm sorry, I'm not gonna tell the Internet about those guests right now, haha!) But this, all of this, is what I've been working for. And it's making people happy. So happy! And that just makes me want to cry it makes me so fucking happy.

On the tough days I wonder if this is really enough to give the world. A little hotel in the middle of nowhere? But on the good days I know that this is about memory making, about giving a whole slew of people the respite and inspiration they need to go off and be better people. And that's more than enough to keep me going.

 

So How's It Been?

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We've been open over a month now (woohoo!), so the number one question I've been getting lately from friends and family is: "So, how's it been?"

"Great! Everything I'd hoped it would be and more! Tiring! Satisfying! A little nutty! Fun!"

Then most folks rephrase the question or follow with, "No, but really-- how's it been?" and I have to reiterate that really and truly I meant what I said. Often I have to soothe people by listing specific things I like about it all so far like:

"We've met so many cool people! Everyone's been so supportive! Nearly every weekend is full through October! We got our first repeat guests! No one's trashed a room yet! It's so exciting to finally be doing this thing I've spent the past two-plus years working towards!"

"Yeah, but [insert that person's specific worry here]?"

It's quite sweet actually. Because what I'm hearing when people ask me these questions is that they want me to be happy and they want me to succeed. They want me to mean what I've told them and I do. It has been all those things so far, and sometimes I feel so damn pleased that I catch myself wondering, "Is there something that I'm missing? Something else I should be worrying about?"

Sure there is. There's all kinds of tedious bureaucratic stuff that goes along with opening a business that we're still slogging through, but it doesn't keep me up at night the same way any more for two main reasons:

1. We're open! I've got much more immediate and satisfying things to worry about like who's checking in this afternoon, who's celebrating an anniversary this Friday and needs champagne, how to publicize that party we're having next weekend, when the wine and whiskey is being delivered...

2. I "sleep the sleep of the entrepreneur" as my friend Stephanie who co-owns Community Bookstore says. Aka, I basically black out the moment I put my head on the pillow. Poof! There goes all the worry-time.

And now I should take a moment to thank everyone who's come up to visit, who has sent friends our way, who has called and written to ask, "So how's it been?" because actually you are all a huuuuge part of why what on paper should be the craziest 6 weeks of Steven's and my lives has been so damn fun. So thank you! And come back soon, keep sending friends and family and cool co-workers, because this place is a living thing and thrives when its filled with happy heartbeats.

See you soon!

 

Yeah, It's A Little Surreal

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To be open that is. We've waited soooooo long for this! My first thought in the morning is still, "Ugh, I wonder if we'll hear about the permit today". And then I remember, "That's right we got it! We're open! AND THERE ARE STRANGERS SLEEPING JUST A FEW HUNDRED FEET FROM US." Yea, of course I was anticipating that last part, but it still kind of make me giggle.

Anyway! I want to say a huuuuuuuuuuuge thank you everyone who came out our Opening Weekend. You were all tons of fun and I want you all back ASAP!

A big thank you to my dear friends Lexie and Ryan who win the award of "First Paying Overnight Guests"! Lexie and I have know each other since kindergarten so it was definitely a sweet moment to share with her.

And an enormous thank you to my parents! They'd been planning on coming up for a visit those days anyway and when they were on their way, I got the call with the final ok to open. So it was wonderfully serendipitous to have them here for Opening Weekend!

(Dad always winds up being the photographer and therefore not photographed!)

Because they are the best parents in the world they arrived and went to straight to work. I'm not even kidding. They were literally cleaning toilets right up until we popped the bottle of champagne.

So thank you everyone who's been dropping in, having a drink or a popsicle, booking rooms. It's so fantastic that it's finally HAPPENING!

I Love Lamp: Hand Painted Signage

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Since it's a nice crossroads of our look and a good price, we've been hand painting all of our signage out here at the inn. We're going about it in a pretty old fashioned way too: Step 1. Print an outlined and life-sized version of the wording.

Step 2. Flip it over and trace the back with charcoal.

Step 3. Place the paper charcoal side down on the sign and rub so that a faint outline remains on the sign, then paint over it!

Step 4. Wipe down any remaining charcoal once and paint dries and voila!

We used the same method yesterday for painting the room numbers.

The door handles and lights are on alternating sides, so I knew I wanted the numbers to be in the middle to give the building a uniform look.

I thought about painting big numbers right in the middle of the doors but decided that might awkwardly take over. So I decided to paint them centered on the door frame instead. Actual numbers (like 1, 2, 3, 4) would look weeny on that 4" trim and be hard for guests arriving at night to see, so I decided to use the font I made for our logo and spell out the numbers instead.

And I love it!

There was one hitch: we have a mechanicals/laundry room in the middle of the strip. "Laundry" wouldn't be hard to paint but it sure would be boring.  So we went with this instead:

Cracks me up!

I know this means that everyone and their mother are going to open that door. I can't decide if it's funniest to just leave it as an immensely boring laundry room or to take it further-- label the washing machine "time machine", the dryer "teleportation device"... You'll have to come for a visit and see for yourself!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

So Close

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Yesterday Steven and I were in Lowe's buying lightbulbs and gravel and lord knows what else-- there's always something else!-- and we were totally that miserable couple you see in stores like that. We are both SO. OVER. buying things for this hotel. And want oh so desperately to just open already! We had friends come by on the 4th and it was so much fun--

And encouraging too-- it's so great to see people enjoying themselves on the property. And to learn from what they need and suggest. But it gave us a taste of what it will be like when this place is full of guests and oh my gosh WE WANT MORE. We just want to do this already!

So why aren't we open yet? Because we're waiting on our final permits from New York State and the bureaucratic backlog is staaaaaaaaaggering. We're such a small operation it's hard for us to be a priority, but being this small and missing so much of what would be our busy season means... well, it means that sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep at night.

Before this I never understood why new restaurants and such couldn't give you a hard opening date but I get it now. And the fact that the State can't give me a hard date drives me absolutely bananas because because this is a reservation based business!

Every day I'm asked, "Are you open yet?" Sometimes I laugh about it. Sometimes I explain the situation in detail and list all the silver linings. Other times I think I might just break out into hives right then and there from the anxiety.

It reminds me of this website I came across for pregnant women who are constantly asked, "Have you had that baby yet?"

So that's where we're at. No, we're not open yet. Yes, it's a huge fucking bummer. But yes, one day this will all just be a funny story to tell. (Knock on wood!) At the very least--apparently I'm in more of a silver linings than a hives mood--it's BEAUTIFUL out here. And there's nothing like the epic scale and force of nature to put things in perspective for you.

Here's to seeing you all up here sooner rather than later!

Spruceton Inn on Design*Sponge!

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Today my fan-girl dreams came true: Design*Sponge is featuring the Spruceton Inn!

They call it a "soothing and enlivening escape. Taking cues from the motel’s existing structure, the Spruceton Inn is an endlessly charming and delightfully unfussy retreat, both beautiful and refreshingly simple".

!!!!!!!!!!! [That's my computer version of pure excitement.]

A few weeks ago, Maxwell Tielman came by to shoot the place and I've been looking forward to seeing how he captured it ever since. Needless to say I'm pleased as all heck!

A week or so after that, he wrote to say that they'd like to expand upon the piece and include an interview about the process of renovating etc which I was more than happy to oblige. Lemme say, it was REALLY hard to not write a novella in response-- it's been quite the journey so far.

You can check the whole thing here. And if you aren't an avid reader of Design*Sponge yet, you should be! Like I've said before, I think they do a really wonderful job of being MUCH more than a website of pretty photos.

Thank you Max and everyone at Design*Sponge for the coverage!