Welcome to A Cozy Casa
Never in a million years did I think I would be creating a website for my house, but here we are and honestly...I'm so excited! Let me backtrack a little bit and give you some context about how all of this came to be.
I've lived in Nashville for almost 10 years. It has been crazy to watch it grow and change over time. About 5 years ago, I realized the cost of renting was starting to increase rapidly and decided to go ahead and make an investment and buy a house. My cousin is a realtor in town and helped me through the process of trying to buy in Nashville. After a bid and an inspection fell through on other homes, she had a client selling a home in East Nashville (specifically Inglewood) and asked me if I wanted to see it before it went on the market. The house was not anything remotely to what I would have considered my dream house and it was not in an area most were willing to invest in at the time. However, it was in really good condition for a 1940s home and had so much character throughout that I saw the potential in the home and the neighborhood. Thankfully, that risk paid off — the neighborhood has new restaurants and coffee shops popping up all over the place and my street looks completely different with so many flipped and renovated houses.
During my first three years of owning my home, I decided to have roommates and focused on small, renovation projects throughout the home. Some of those projects were painting the majority of the interiors, redoing a good bit of electrical, changing light fixtures, and improving the landscape. (It sure seemed like a lot more than just those things at the time.)
At the beginning of 2017, I started thinking about the possibility of transitioning from having roommates to using the Airbnb platform. I had officially started my own marketing/consulting agency full time that would allow me to work remotely as well as few other changes in my life happening that made me realized I wanted to start focusing on larger renovation projects for the house and going on longer trips whenever I was traveling — so with all of those factors in play, Airbnb made the most sense.
Once I decided to transition to Airbnb, I think it took me all of two days to have a contractor signed on for the kitchen renovation and I was already working on mood boards for the interior design. My next few months, I let my house become a bit of a personal, passion project and poured a lot of creative energy into it...and loved every second of it. Then I went through the wonderful, lovely process of obtaining a Short Term Rental Permit that is required by the city of Nashville and officially started Airbnb-ing last June.
Since I started Airbnb-ing my house, I have spent a month in Haiti, two months all over Europe and Morocco, and just recently returned from a three-week road trip across the Southwest. While that seems glamorous (and for the most part it truly is), there are some cons to renting out your house, and I will address those in a later post. However, I have truly loved getting to share my home with others. Not only those who come and stay but through social media and now this website, this has become my own little project that I have total creative freedom with and I absolutely love it! In addition to my own design and products that I have sourced from all over the world, there have been several companies and brands that have wanted to partner with me or have photoshoots at my house (the natural light is pretty amazing!) which has resulted in a ton of people asking where they can purchase certain items. So I thought why not create a website that allowed me to dive deeper into my design style, renovations, and showcasing some of my favorite artisans and brands. I don't really have any lofty goals with all of this other than to have fun. So we shall see, I hope you enjoy my home as much as I do!
