This thread made me smile, as I became a much better homeworker by hosting on airbnb. It created so much motivation 😉
What does a 50 year old lady do, when a guest floods the house, or another removes a glass sink or another hides a key in a flower pot till the wet earth destroys the lock a few weeks later?
Call airbnb, if it's recent, get a refund, go to the homeworker store and repair. Mine can be reached by metro, they deliver and they have very instructive and detailed films about everything on their homepage.
Lay a floor? For luck, I could already handle a saw quite well, but I would not have dared to lay a floor without the motivation and the films. I am very proud of my floor, I count the sum of the experience, between flood, learning to lay a floor and having a new floor as a profitable event in my life. (Profit in the sense of gaining experience and beauty)
I became a great plumber over the years, the glass sink helping a lot. It's transparent, could be a salad bowl. Seems removable, right? It's round, it could be turned - yeah, you can turn it, it unscrews the drain or might brake it, if I fixed it quite well. (unscrewed a few times, broke 5 days ago.) I can change the whole drain, removing the sink, refixing it etc in less than 2 hours now. I get so convincing now, that even my sceptic mother let me change her 40 year old water taps in kitchen and bathroom.
Electricity is more fun, I lay sockets whereever someone could need them. For chargers, a light, a fan and one more, you never know. That part, I learned during studies, no need for a film there.
Renting and having a parrot, there is always something to paint. It seems guests and bird share the habit to fling food around.
I like changing my home all the times, whenever I have an idea, what could be made better. Before last winter I climbed around on a ladder and insulated the ceiling in one of my two ateliers, to chase the last drafts, after finding this great material when doing the floor. This summer I climbed on the roof to fix some leaks. There was this cool material, a tape with a sticky bitumen side. No fire requested (I'd hate to climb on the roof with a gas bottle, flame thrower and a heavy roll of bitumen.) This tape is light, just stick it on. No more leak and the rest came handy, when they had a leak in the sink in my favourite bar. Got a free chocolate cream for a bit of tape.
I like these big homeworker stores. I go there to get a curtain to protect my guest's modesty, a lightbulb, a can of silicone, stroll around a bit, get an idea, find a new tool, a new material, that allows to realise a new project.
I have a few guests who come from time to time, sometimes after a year or several years. They always look at what has changed, since the last time.
I try to add a picture, of my apprentice plumber. He likes construction work of all kind, but deconstruction even more so.