(Female here) I picked out a color for the walls in our own home (greige with just the tiniest hint of green) and the painters tried to color match it and it came out WAY too green. MY DH told me he couldn’t tell the difference, but I could and I had them repaint it with the right color. Years later, my DH told me he COULD see the difference, but he had no idea why I cared!
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That’s quite funny, @PitonView.
One thing I’ve found about paint is that greens are the hardest ones to get right. They either look natural and easy on the eyes, or they look putrid or industrial.
My guest room is actually painted green- some walls are a solid very light, creamey-looking green, like a cream of asparagus soup. The other walls have the same base color with a darker, mossy green rubbed on overlay.
Understanding a color wheel is helpful to change a paint color that is too whatever. I chose a taupe for my bedroom wall, but when I started painting it on, I found it had a pinkish tinge I hated. I took it back to the paint store and told them to add a shot of green, as adding the opposite color on the color wheel will tone down what you don’t like. The paint guy said, “But there isn’t any green in this paint formula.” I told him I knew, but it would cancel out the pink tone. He was really sceptical, and was then amazed that it resulted in just what I said it would.
I’ve always found that the best way to get the color you want is to bring something with you to the paint store that is the color you want- a dish, a piece of cloth, a book cover- and hold it against the paint sample.
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Yes, but Mexico is tile heaven, especially Dolores Hidalgo! An artist friend in San Miguel de Allende had a custom shower floor with a galaxy and the drain in the center. She just took the painted design on a day trip and picked up the tiles a month later.
I was hoping to do custom tiles for my now never to be done kitchen. 
I set up my airbnb and run it alone. YouTube is a great resource and also, I find that if I need a handy person to help, I can go to my local city’s Facebook group or hire through one of the many websites that offer these types of services. (And I’m 61). You can do it.
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Yes, you can do this on your own.
I understand how you feel. It can be daunting and lonely doing this on your own - especially when your family and others knock you for it.
64 year old grandmother here and home share host. Doing it alone. Borrowing tools I don’t have for larger projects from neighbors, watching YouTube tutorials for stuff I don’t know (although my wedding present from my Dad was a set of tools and power tools and he taught me how to do a lot).
Didn’t tell my family until after I’d booked guests and made money. Any haters? Fuck 'em. They’re not you and you don’t need the negativity.
You need help with mattresses and other stuff? Hire someone. You must have a neighbor who is handy - ask his wife if you can borrow him. Find a handyman to bring in as needed. Do stuff when your cleaners are there.
You CAN do this on your own.
Also, what type of place do you have?
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@Cyndyrr327 You have gotten a lot of good advice, and positive encouragement here from other women who do this on their own.
However, it occurs to me that maybe it is more than you can and want to handle and hosting might, in fact, not be the best choice for you, especially since your family is unsupportive and unhelpful. I just wanted to put that out there, because everyone saying “You can do it!”, might make you feel like even more of a failure if you really feel it’s too overwhelming. In the end, you are the only one who can decide if you really feel up to it.
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I think that many (most?) of us don’t have support and I can’t imagine what sort of support the OP needs.
Some of us have had direct opposition. Some from neighbours, me from neighbours plus the homeowners’ association.
It sounds as though the OP hasn’t had opposition but just needs guidance every now and again and that’s one of the things this forum is here for.
Running your own hospitality business can be a lonely job - but it’s also a worthwhile one.
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There are people who post here all the time who don’t seem well suited to what being an Airbnb host involves. Whether it’s dealing with Airbnb or guests or the negatives of property ownership. It just doesn’t have anything to do with gender or lack of familiar support.
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Yes, many people aren’t suited to it. I only mentioned the lack of family support and female hosts because those were the things the OP seemed to feel was making it difficult for her.
One of the strangest things to me is hosts who have chosen to homeshare, yet seem to resent having guests around or to have to relate to them aside from the bare minimum. Nor do they seem to have the ability to speak to their homeshare guests about something quite annoying, disturbing, or unacceptable the guest is doing, instead feeling uncomfortable in their own home, spending all their time in their bedroom so as not to have to encounter the guest, counting the days until they leave. I’ve even read posts from homeshare hosts asking if it’s okay to require their guests to leave the house by 10am each day, and not come back until after 4.
Tons of hosts would not be able to, nor even entertain the thought of having guests in the home where they live, sharing common spaces. Totally understandable. But listing a homeshare just so you can make some money, when you actually hate having the guests around, seems a bizarre choice. Surely there are other ways to make money…
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I think she needs a hug, to know she’s not alone, and some help with the initial setup and larger jobs. And maybe some wine or libation of choice.
@Cyndyrr327 I hope seeing so many women here doing this on their own helps you get past this bump in the road. You’re strong and took on a new business that can be daunting at times. I don’t know why your family isn’t supportive, so I’m sorry you are dealing with that. Tell them all to either help or sit down and shut the f-k up. It’s your dream and you can do this.
Too small holes are better than too big!
I know I’m looking forward to an update and hope you feel better.
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Before my husband and I signed up as Airbnb hosts, we talked for an hour or more with a host, at whose home-share my sister had stayed.
This host is a single woman in her 60s. She started out using one bedroom for Airbnb. She thought she would just make a little money here and there.
But she has a big house. And her guests often asked whether she had other rooms available.
After we signed up as hosts, we had the opportunity to go stay with this woman outside Nashville. She has a five-bedroom house. She now rents out all five of the bedrooms, including her own, and she sleeps in the basement when she has a full house.
She had been hosting for about a year when we stayed there. She told us that she found that Airbnb was a major source of income for her.
Her family also disapproved. She lived in this large house out in the country, with no one there to help.
But she did fine. And she loved it.
No one can tell you how much money you will make, but the opportunity is there. I sincerely hope you go for it.
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My hub only does the one rottenest most important (recurring) job at our str, and I kind of can do it if he can’t. Being much more handy than him in the first place allowed me to dream up the possibility of creating Tiny Tiki, which he was against until it was too late to turn back! Wood shop and building is kind of second nature to me, after fabric and designing.
To the OP, really it’s not rocket science and you can practice drilling holes in a cheap or free board of wood. I did all the woodwork, built the bed, built the couch, tiled the bathroom, installed the entire floor:: in my trailer rental and it gives me satisfaction in spades to know that. It wasn’t easy, but much easier than finding, waiting for and paying a pro. If you have to buy a few tools ( I mean lady size power tools) and learn to use them, it can be fun!
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I’m with you there. Even the so-called pros don’t do as good a job as I do most of the time, because I’m so detail oriented. I ended up learning to do a lot of stuff myself, not because I really wanted to learn it, but because I got sick of standing over people making sure they were doing what I wanted and a good job of it. I figured if I had to spend time overseeing what was being done, I might as well spend that time doing it myself. Not to mention the money it saved.
And I could do things on my own time, not wait until some pro had time to schedule me in, or wait around for them to show up 4 hours late.
I once was staying at my daughter’s shortly after she had had her bathroom floor retiled. I noticed that the light grey grout turned really dark when the floor was wet, and told her the grout needed to be sealed lest it damage the wood subfloor. She said the tilers supposedly sealed it. I got a bottle of silicone sealer and a little paint brush and spent a couple hours sealing the grout lines after which it no longer changed color when it was wet.
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@Cyndyrr327 I saw this today and thought of you and of everyone on this forum who has faced down the nay-sayers and followed their STR dreams.
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True. There’s another type of tile made here, different from what people think of as traditional Mexican tiles, made by a company in San Luis Potosi. It’s a very old style of tile, that were out of fashion in modern days, now back in fashion- this one company makes them, in both traditional and modern patterns. They are concrete, with a top layer of colored, patterned cement, not glazed (they require sealing) They are gorgeous, but pricey. I would have loved to be able to afford to do my floors in them.
I 
This group!! Every comment, advice, and even the permission to quit (yes, sometimes we need to hear that too) is greatly appreciated!!!
So I cried a lot, my 17 year old son heard me and fixed the fire stick to the tv without being asked and told the rest of the family. The next day they apologized and seem to be totally on my team now.
So that was a couple days ago. Yesterday I got the slip cover for the couch in the mail but wasn’t crazy about the color and was going to send it back. This morning I go downstairs and it’s on the couch!! 
you know how hard those are to get back into the bag to return but HOW SWEET!! It was the same 17 year old son
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56, disabled & married here. After reading everyone’s comments, you’re all so inspiring! Neither my husband nor I am ‘handy’ though he’s seriously stepped up. Each of us can only see out of one eye, me not enough to drive, him barely well enough to drive, and dads don’t teach their disabled kids how to use power tools growing up. So we’ve had to wing it. For stuff we can’t do, we try to hire someone off NextDoor. Looks like I need to be watching some YouTube!
But yeah, I get where you’re coming from about barely hanging on. You’re not alone. Our own house is a horrible mess, the yard is too. We’re dealing with elderly pets that need meds every 12 hours, our own house remodel as we can, and jobs that are both more than full-time, my family is unsupportive. My husband was hit by a 16 year old uninsured driver last year and is still suffering brain injury from that. Right now, we just tell anyone who asks that we’re doing the best we can, and keeping the 6 bdrm 2 listing duplex up takes priority because no one is paying to stay in our house. But I love hosting, and my husband loves seeing the project succeed, and learning how to do stuff. So we keep poking at it as best we can.
Would hiring a co-host help out? Reading your second post, make your son your co-host. He’d be learning a valuable skill that relates to everything.
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While I am married, I am the one who runs and manages our airbnb. My husband has a full-time job and helps when he can with flips.
I was raised by makers, my parents own a leather business and my dad is a retired master carpenter. I know my strange upbringing has benefited me when it comes to hands on projects. I learned at a young age to use my hands and tools and be creative. I now own my own textile/ sewing/ leather studio that I run by myself in addition to the airbnb.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s to try to not get overwhelmed (and trust me, I often have to remind myself of this) I try not to focus on the giant mountain of work that I have, but instead focus on one small task at a time.
As others have said YouTube is a wonderful resource. You might also look on Facebook for groups that can offer advice and tips for working on a house. I’ve been sewing since I was five and am now 42, I own nine sewing machines for my studio. When I was having issues with one of my industrial machines I found a Facebook group and had so many people offer helpful advice and talk me step by step with how to fix the issue. They saved me having to pay someone to fix it, and I now an even better understanding of that machine.
If this is what you want, you can do it. Is it always easy, of course not. And even if the airbnb business turns out to not be for you, you can at least say you learned some new skills along the way. Heck, I never thought I would be so good at working on 100 year old light fixtures and faucets, haha.
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Cool. I did leatherwork for years, and now have an upholstery business. I also have industrial machines, but not 9. 
Just a straight stitch machine and a serger. I also figured out how to fix my machines- those things weigh a ton, it’s not like you can just drop it off at the sewing machine repair place. I’ve found that people who think they want to sew often get really frustrated, because they have no idea how to adjust or fix anything on their machines. I’ve had people ask me to take a look at their domestic machine that isn’t working properly, and the first thing I ask is when is the last time they oiled it. They look at me with a blank expression. I ask them if they would drive their car without oil.
One girl said she didn’t know what was wrong, it was a new machine, and she was trying to make clothes to sell. She had the needle in backwards. She said she’d taken a sewing course- I had to wonder what kind of sewing course doesn’t teach how to insert the needle.
Another friend said her machine wasn’t sewing properly and when I took the needle plate off, there was such a thick layer of fuzz in there, I was surprised the needle could even penetrate it.
And I’ve had people say, when I tell them they need to adjust the tension, say, “Oh, I’m scared to touch the tension.” I don’t know how they think they can sew if they don’t even know basic things like that.
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Yes, never underestimate the power of crying.
I have a friend who taught her then 18 year old son who lives with her how to clean the Airbnb studio (as well as checking guests in and orienting them), as she works as a nurse and doesn’t always have time. Now he’s often a better cleaner than she is, because he has young eyes and will spot something she missed, like a hair stuck to the shower wall. Sometimes they do it together, so it goes fast. She pays him for his time, which is fair and a good incentive.
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