Tag: Planning

Introducing Our Rustic Country Market Guest Room…

Published on by byjoellaLeave a comment

2020 was the year of transition and challenges for us, and I’m NOT just talking about the pandemic.

My motto for 2020, was “Perfect Vision.” It was my last year working for the federal government in real property contracting. I was so excited! Due to the pandemic, I teleworked from home from March until I retired in December, 2020.

One of our 2020 goals was to relocate out of the Phoenix metro area to a small town, recreational area after I retired. We were going to downsize, but the only house we found that would work for us was a larger, 1986 house that had a lot of (undisclosed) deferred maintenance (AKA: fixer upper). After we moved everything out of our Phoenix metro house and we listed it for sale. It sold BEFORE it hit the market for more than the appraised price.

VISION: Future Guest Room…

We decided to convert the second master (primary) bedroom into a Guest Room to list on Airbnb, and to use when family and friends visit. The process of remodeling this room was an adventure in itself. Truth is, the whole house has had its share of issues: electrical, plumbing, lighting, flooring, insulation, windows, appliances, etc. At the rate we are fixing things, we practically have a new house.

  • The carpet, windows & blinds needed to be replaced.
  • The ceiling fan was defective. The blades were loose!
  • Note there’s no blades on the ceiling fan.
  • Needed to finish the wood stove area.
  • Original walk in closet, future breakfast room. Kept the 2nd closet at the other end of the room.
  • Bathroom was dated. No GFI. The tile was very slippery when wet!
  • Replacing the old door to the back storage room, our future mud room. The original door wasn’t an exterior door and the steps were dangerous.
  • Removed this door to our pantry. (There was a 2nd door on the other side.)
  • Huge, dated, jetted tub, didn’t work well. Used a lot of water!

What we did to create our Rustic Country Market Guest Room:

  • Converted the exterior storage room into a separate, exterior entrance/mud room.
  • Converted the extra walk in closet into a breakfast room.
  • Created an entry between the mud room to the breakfast room.
  • Removed the closet door that was for the walk in closet, now breakfast room.
  • Removed dated, nonfunctioning window blinds.
  • Replaced the carpet with vinyl, plank flooring.
  • Removed and sheet rocked over a second door to our walk in pantry.
  • Replaced all the windows.
  • Total renovation of the bathroom. Removed an old jetted tub.
  • Painted the walls and trim.
  • Replaced all the light fixtures.
  • Corrected electrical issues and added a GFI to the bathroom.
  • Added a carbon monoxide detector & a fire extinguisher.
  • Replaced the exterior deck & stairs.
  • Furnished and decorated the room.

Plans Changed…

Instead of using the room for an Airbnb, we moved my 80+ year old mother into the room for 3 years. The room started to be too much for her to care for, so we moved her into our smaller, back guest room, and proceeded to move forward with setting up the room as an Airbnb.

Our Airbnb Guest Room…

Kept the original bay window seat.
Includes a desk and wine chiller to the left.
The door to our pantry was originally behind the headboard.
Total bathroom remodel.
This was the original walk in closet.
This was the original outdoor storage room.
Our Guest Room after pictures.

I’ve added the following info pages related to our Rustic Country Market Guest Room:

Our hope is that guests come as strangers and leave as friends.

If you’d like to book a stay at our Rustic Country Market Guest Room: Visit our Airbnb Guest Room page.

We aren’t just a market, we are Rustic Country Market Living.

Inspiring Home Life ♥️,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR

Looking into the future…

Published on by byjoellaLeave a comment

Rustic Country Market is going to change in the future.

What kind of change?

We are planning to expand our registered trade name, Rustic Country Market, into a home based business. I registered and created this website in 2015, and have an organic following on FB based on the name Rustic Country Market Living.

I’ve organized and supported others’ businesses most of my life, and now I’m going to focus that experience on Rustic Country Market. Our long term goal is to start/organize a local marketplace to sell rustic country items. In the meantime, we are going to participate in newly formed, local farmer market.

Adapting…

For some, there’s a fear of success, because success can raise the performance bar.

(Dilbert was cancelled in 2023.)

We “retired” and relocated the end of 2020, in the midst of global chaos; and took on a fixer upper in the rural White Mountains of AZ. As our home projects slow down, we are looking forward to doing what we enjoy, instead of what we have to do. We had hoped to travel in retirement, but with the economy going as it is, we’re limiting our love for travel to our local area.

It’s not the strongest of the species which survives, nor the most intelligent which survives. It is the one which is the most adaptable to change.

Charles Darwin

Believe…

We believe if you attach a feeling to a belief, you will make a way for change. We love God and we love USA country living. We love small towns. We love our garden, greenhouse, canning, home cooked meals, chickens, BBQ hut, wood fired oven and pizza. We love the smell and taste of fresh roasted coffee. We love our hot tub where we can sit under a vast starlit sky (because we live where there’s no light pollution). We love making things. We love crafting. We love going to garage sales and estate sales. We love repurposing things, instead of throwing them away. We love old and new rustic stuff.

We believe our name, Rustic Country Market, fits our country lifestyle.

Humble beginnings…

We’ve been busy planning our local, Arizona, home based business future that includes:

  • Rustic Country Decor
  • Small Batch Roasted Coffee Beans
  • Coffee Mugs & Signs
  • Nest Run Eggs
  • Various Dried Hot Pepper Spices
  • Dried Russian Sage Bunches

There’s a lot of details to attend to when starting a business.

Time has been flying. It’s funny how day to day, nothing appears to change, yet if we look back, EVERYTHING looks different.

I’ll be sharing our new journey, as things progress, on RusticCountryMarket.com, because I love to journal, write, and create.

We aren’t just a market, we are Rustic Country Market Living.

Inspiring Home Life ♥️,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR

Meal Time Update…

Published on by byjoellaLeave a comment

WOW! It was a busy, eventful summer! Time flew by. As things wind down, I now have time to share more about our meal time experiences.

After 4 weeks, we decided to let Home Chef go (pause/cancel the service) and try another meal kit service. My goal was to supplement our Sun Basket dinners with some quick lunch and snack items, not replace them.

I will say this about Home Chef…

Home Chef is affordable, and their main dinners taste like average, home cooked meals. Home Chef offers quick salads and smoothies – which initially intrigued me. During the 4th week with the service, we started to notice that the salads pretty much tasted the same for the most part. The smoothies were good, and easy to make.

I didn’t like the amount of extra shipping trash that came with Home Chef. (We haul our own trash to the dump/transfer station bi-weekly.) While the shipping material was biodegradable for the most part, it took up a lot of space in our trash compared to Sun Basket. On top of all that, the food flavor just didn’t compare to Sun Basket. (We are still enjoying Sun Basket.)

UPDATE: Since this post was written, TK is no longer in business, but I’m keeping the post because I liked their delivery method.

Next Meal Kit Experience: Terra’s Kitchen…

We tried Terra’s Kitchen (TK) for a few weeks.

Love the shipping vessel.

TK ships meals in a reusable, climate controlled, delivery vessel that is return shipped (pre-paid) back to Terra’s Kitchen the following day. Shipping is free with orders of $100 or more or $6.99 (at the time of this writing) for orders under $100.

Everything fits inside neatly.
The vessel is empty and ready for pickup the next day.

The reusable vessel intrigued me, because I don’t like all the extra shipping trash that comes with other of meal kit services.

Ready to eat salads, perfect for lunch.

TK’s ingredients are “pre-prepped” which is supposed to shorten cooking time. The food is prewashed and individually packaged in recyclable containers. They offer meals, snacks, deserts, beverages, salads, meat, etc. They offer a variety of dietary options: Mediterranean, Paleo, gluten free, low cal, and vegetarian. Most products are antibiotic and hormone free, non-GMO and organic when possible. Pricing varies depending on what you order.

TK’s Vegetable and Chicken Couscous Bowl

I sent an email to TK’s customer serviced to find out if they delivered to my area, and they responded quickly with a friendly, yes! I downloaded their app and scheduled our first order.

We didn’t stick with TK very long. We quickly grew bored with their flavors and food selection to choose from. Absolutely loved the shipping vessel because I had minimal trash from the meal kit service; however, the pre-prepped items had a shorter, freshness life expectancy.

Sun Basket is Still Our Favorite…

We’ve been with Sun Basket since January, 2018. We never grow tired of their flavorful recipes. We’ve cooked meals inspired by countries we’ve never visited. They save me shopping time, and are healthier and more affordable than going out for dinner at a restaurant. Plus, my husband and I enjoy preparing the meals together.

Inspiring Home Life,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR

Cooking at Home…

Published on by byjoellaLeave a comment

We’ve been enjoying Sun Basket for awhile now.

In fact, the featured picture on this post was one of our Sun Basket meals we recently cooked at home, Sesame-crusted Salmon with Orange and Roasted Carrot Salad. It tasted AMAZING!

We were ready to add another company to supplement our Sun Basket meals. I did some searching and decided to give Home Chef a try. They ship for free if you order over $45, so I ordered the following meals for 2: a meal to cook, a “no cooking required” salad meal and 2 smoothies = free shipping!

Here’s what’s on our 1st Home Chef menu this week:
  1. Mojito Pork Chops
  2. Sesame Chicken Salad
  3. Strawberry Colada Smoothie(s)
The Home Chef menu will be added to our Sun Basket menu for this week:
  1. Shrimp tacos diablo with pickled cabbage & lime.
  2. Sicilian chicken breasts with salmoriglio sauce and broccoli.
  3. Piri-piri shrimp with curried sweet potato-coconut mash.

Home Chef will be our 4th meal kit company we’ve tried. Our first experience was Blue Apron, the second, Sun Basket (our favorite), and third was Green Chef. You can read about our experiences by clicking the preceding links.

Our first Home Chef shipment arrives this week, so be sure to check back to find out how our  meal kit experience with them goes.

Until next time….

We aren’t just a market, we are Rustic Country Market Living.

Inspiring Home Life ♥️,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR