“It’s Airbnb,” our friend said, six years ago, “And you could rent out that cottage behind your house.”

“That cottage” is a 350 square foot building in the same French Normandy style as our home. After we moved into central Santa Rosa in 2012, we cleaned up the cottage, put furniture in it, and offered it to family and friends.

But the thought of earning a few extra bucks by renting it out to the occasional tourist sounded like an exciting opportunity. After all, we needed to replace our 30 year-old roof, and we wanted to help our grandson, whose parents are deceased, through college. What a perfect way to utilize the cottage that sat mostly empty.

I researched the Airbnb website’s requirements and we decided “Absolutely we can do this!”

We got rid of the pullout sofa and replaced it with a beautiful antique ball post queen bed, installed a kitchen sink, added other accessories like towel racks, shelving, lace curtains and drapes, small fridge and microwave, and antique table for two and chairs. What fun it was to decorate. Fleur de lis. French prints. Eiffel Tower clock. Monet key chains.

What to name it? We hit all the key words and called it our Wine County Historic Town Cottage. We set up a Facebook page and took dozens of photos, inside and out. And finally, I completed all the information with photos on our very own Airbnb listing: www.Airbnb.com/rooms/2908680?s=51

Build it and they will come. Oh yes, they did! Endlessly. We did one-nighters at first, but that was exhausting. So we switched to two-nights minimum before the second year, and we’ve been happy ever since. We’ve had guests from Korea and China, Canada and Australia, England, Germany, France and practically every state across the US.

We’ve had Ironman competitors (women, actually), cyclists and marathoners, country music fans and cannabis aficionados, medical professionals, engineers and other techies, brides-to-be, anniversary couples, sommeliers, chefs, pilots, and high school reunion attendees. Had it not been for our Airbnb cottage, we never would have met all these wonderful people who hug us when they check out.