How Big is too big for One person?

MAINTENANCE.

If you own an historic home there is added maintenance on top of the regular day to day BnB maintenance.  People have no clue. If you are a single innkeeper you will have to hire out all of these jobs and you better be sure you know what you are doing or you will encounter corners cut and crappy workmanship.

There are two of us here and we do it all ourselves.  BnB's used to be something that a couple would take on where one is a handyman and the other can run and operate the day to days of the business.  If you hire it all out, then fogettaboutit.  Those are my 2 cents worth on the subject.  The rooms and occupancy is the gravy, imo. You can always hire a housekeeper/cleaner, there is not much of an issue with that.

Lawncare/gardens and all of that is highest when you have the most guests - when the green things are growing the guests are also here.

Thanks all......great thread

We also have 5 guest rooms, in an area with seasonal ups and downs. I could do it on my own as far as cooking, cleaning, guest management, marketing, and paperwork. I pretty much do that now since hubby has his own business. He helps out with serving and kitchen cleanup when the B&B is busy (and when his own workload allows) but I've also done fine when he hasn't been able to help with these things.

But if I would have to do this entirely on my own, I'd have to hire out the things that hubby does now: the outdoor stuff (mowing, snowblowing, shovelling, firewood) and maintenance/repairs. He works from home, too, so he's good at fitting these into his day.

If I was solo, I would have to have some sort of backup help lined up in case of unexpected fill-in-the-blank. That could mean having a cleaning contractor available on-call to come and clean for me; freeing me up to deal with the plumber or mechanic or vet or porcupine removal expert.

Oh, and if I did this solo, I could NOT do dinners except during the slow seasons. Not if I expected to sleep.

we have a 5 guestrooms. we are in an area of our state that is considered a "hotspot" so summers are quite busy. it's a very seasonal area so winters are not too busy. DH works an outside job from 11am - 8 pm 5 days per week. I pretty much run the inn myself with a little help from 2 summer cleaning girls. a couple hours per day about 4-5 days per week. that extra set of hands is nice but really when all is said & done, i still do much of the work myself. main reason being is because i am a control freak and it's not done right unless i do it. i always go behind the girls and double check that things are just so. i have had days though where i have had all 5 rooms coincidentally checking out on the same day and i am working by myself.

bless anyone who feels thay are able to  run an inn twice the size of mine by themselves. i sure could not. 5 is perfect for me & even then i am exhausted at the end of the day. when DH & i purchased our inn 2 years ago i was 29 & he was 35. our past lives consisted of 2 jobs each with each of us putting in about 90 hours a week. no exaggeration, the most i worked in 1 week was 96 hours. my point is that even though we are younger, full of energy & familiar with long work weeks, it still does not compare to the inn.

our friends & family are pretty surprised, when they visit, just how much of our day i seaten up by the inn. and they only think it is like it tthat day they are there. well, it's everyday. i rise at 6 am and am in bed about 11:30 each night. just when you think you are finished there is always one more thing that you have to do. 

ultimately, noone ever really realizes just how physically & mentally taxing running an inn is

Oh, and if i hear one more of my friends or family tell me that running an inn must be "so much fun" i seriously will poke them in the nose.

it looks like "fun" to them because they do not see me on the days when i am running around with a toilet brush, trying to answer the phone & doorbell at the same time, and the oven timer is going off because the brownies are done, and 3 check ins just arrived at the same time, (early of course!) and i have not had a chance to change my shirt that got something spilled on it, and i am on the verge of a mental meltdown.

then everyone gets checked in  and i have told what restaurants to go to, and they are munching cookies or dipping stuff in fondue and telling me how great everything is and how they appreciate how much trouble i have gone to for them,  i say (with my game face on ) "oh, don't be sillly, it's no trouble at all, really!"

I'm also getting on this topic late in the game.

Unless you have small, simple rooms (no big tubs, etc), I just don't see how 1 person could do more than 3. Of course the other variable in the equasion is how busy is the place? We go from May through September without a single day off. That doesn't mean we're full every day, but we do have at least 1 of our 4 very large rooms filled and in July & August we're in the 90-98% occupancy range. By October I can't even see straight. It's difficult to get out of bed because my body hurts. Doing this by myself? No way, no how.

In my opinion, if you're doing it solo it's better to stay smaller and spend your time trying to fill those rooms that you do have. Otherwise, it's a recipe for a quick burnout. Also, if you're thinking of doing it alone (or even with someone else) you MUST get hands on experience before you make your committment. That's really the only way to know if you will be spending your money wisely. IMHO

I am coming really, really late to this thread. I have 3 rooms, and could possibly do 4. My husband helps on the weekends but during the week he works in the "real" world. He does all the maintenance on the house and this is an OLD house, and all the yard work, except gardening. I do all the cooking, cleaning, marketing, etc. on my own. When we are out straight busy it's fine for a few days but then I start to really feel it; physically and emotionally. After about a week of non-stop guests I'm desperate for a break. But then once I've had a break, even a few hours to myself, I'm ready to go. We had friends that ran a B&B together. They started with 3 rooms and over the course of the next several years went to 8. They had full time help, inside and out, but still burned out after one year with the 8 rooms. They sold it just as they reached the point where they hated every minute of innkeeping.

After this weekend I'm rethinking my guess that I could do five alone....  Thank God for my dh!!!!

=)
Kk.

Chiming in a lot late here. But in what I've seen where I work, I feel as though 5-7 rooms would be comfortable for me as a not quite solo innkeeper. I have kids, like Willowpond's, who are old enough to be the Help, and a dh, who is on board with this idea as much as I am. If we tried to find a place that was big enough to to support our family, it would have to be 7 rooms (with their help). 4 or 5, I could do on my own with minimal help from the family. However, our whole family has the motto that: "We are a team." We also live by the creed that "many hands make light work". 

I have seen the amount of time it takes to clean up after 18 people for breakfast...I couldn't do that on my own. However, 8 or 10 people takes a significantly smaller amount of time to clean up after, for some strange reason.

There is another thread out there about turnkey or starting from scratch. From the very beginning, dh and I thought we wanted a turnkey, but it seems like we are veering more toward a startup. I think it would be difficult to love someone else's dream as if it were mine. I have my own vision and my own dream that would not be appeased by buying someone else's past vision. It also seems to me that the cost of redoing the "stuff" in a turnkey so that it was MY b&b would be as much or more than starting with a slightly cleaner slate.

Here is the real question:

Do you want to be a maid?  Do you want to open an inn and clean up strangers pubic hairs off toilet seats? Being an innkeeper is not glamorous to put is slightly, if you can afford and find reliable help, then you should do it.  We often forget the grunt work involved in operating a smaller BnB (meaning under 7 rooms).  We still have to do or pay to get everything else done we cannot do or have time to do ourselves, the lawns MUST be mowed, the weeds MUST be pulled, the floors MUST be clean, the linens MUST be crisp, the food MUST be good.  We typically open the inn because we like the guest interaction and all the business entails.  We can't enjoy any of that when we are hands deep scrubbing showers day in and day out (me speaketh from experience), guests begin to annoy us and we just look at it as a monotonous task.  Like someone would say "Why make the bed, I am just going to mess it up again" well that is innkeeping in a nutshell.  Make everything perfect today - by tomorrow it is a mess and you have to make it all perfect again.  

I saw 56 replies to this thread already on "how big is big enough" and had to laugh.  This will be #57, that's pretty big.

That sounds just like me....5 rooms...no more

just want to add that ....

even when you are straight out ... running the place ... just doing the cleaning and the un-pretty un-fun stuff ... and you still need time for *you* just like crashing when you get home from a 9to5 .....

guests who are b&b people, that are looking for innkeeper interaction and warm and fuzzy times, are NOT happy when they barely get to speak to the innkeeper. 

they want the illusion of innkeeping as ultimate dream job where the place magically runs itself.  i'm not being snide or sarcastic ... many guests like to feel as though they have made a friend and they don't like to feel like party guests whose host and/or hostess runs around and never visits with them. 

they want to feel as though they have found a place where the innkeeper is happy and loving having them there.  along with the actual work of running the place, you have to build in time to be with your guests or available for your guests ... not just when you check them in and when you serve breakfast, but throughout their stay ~~ if your guests are anything like my guests, so much of their guest comments were about m.e. 

you have to be 'in the zone' enough to gauge what each guest wants ~ how much interaction they want or if they don't want much at all. 

during the times when there was so much physical work to do, i knew that i was having a hard time being a good hostess.  so, sometimes, the front porch would be strewn with leaves or the dust bunnies were gigglling at me in not so secret corners in the library or the hall.

i'd be baking with an audience because i'd have to say 'i'm flying solo - come on in'

We have 4 rooms, maximum of 9 people as one room has a futon and will sleep 3.  I would be happy with just the 3 rooms to be honest and my PIC and I only have our B&B to run, do not work out of the house.  We do have someone to come in when we have flips, but can do it (and have more often than not) on our own.

Would not even want to enter the thought of having to do this on my own in a busy or slow time. 

We have a garden to maintain (we have a gardner come in to mow and trim the lawn), and a pool that at times I would love not to have.  

I admire all of you who do this and so much more. 

I'm chiming in late... been busy. 

We have four rooms.  Dh works full-time in a factory with the long-term goal of being full-time in the B&B.  (Two more years and he's outta there!)  We have twin five year old boys (the ds5x2) who can be helpful when they want to be... which isn't often enough or for long enough!  My dh handles the coffee, including ordering, roasting, grinding, and perking.  This week he had to work two 12-hour shifts so he made the coffee when he came home at 3:30 and put it in a caraffe for the 7:30 breakfast.  He also handles lawn (grass... I do flowers), most of the vacuuming and floor cleaning, and helps clean rooms.  Oh, and helps with the ds5x2, and dusting common areas, and window washing...  So while the B&B is "my thing" he really does a LOT of work around here!

I think we could do at least five, probably six rooms if we were both at it full time.  If I were all by myself I think I my personal max would be five... my dh is a lot of help, but he also requires my attention sometimes, as do my kids.  I'm happy to stick with four and have my family, though!

Our occupancy is a little hard to say as we've only been fully open a year.  2008's occupancy (with two rooms opening half way through the year) was about 24%.  This year we'll be above that, but I'm not sure where.  June was 46%.  Last year's July was 70% and I was absolutely beat afterward.  (But I know that I work hard for the summer then have a break in late fall.)  So, somewhere in the 40-50% range is probably where we'll end up eventually.

And yes, 45 minutes to clean a room sounds about right.  When we work together it goes a lot faster, but if it's just me, and the room has a king-sized bed, it definitely takes a while.  (Why a king should take exponentially longer than a queen is beyond me!)

If I were running a place alone I would definitely have LOTS of sheet sets (well, I already do, but even more!) so that I'm not doing laundry on days I have a lot of flips.  Come to think of it, that's what I'm already doing... if I have to flip 3 or 4 rooms I'm not doing laundry, and on a weekend where I know it's going to be crazy (like the one coming up) I make sure the laundry is all caught up before the weekend hits.

=)
Kk.

Hi all,

You're right, I didn't answer the question properly.  My answer was based on my dream inn situation.  There are lots of threads that discuss the nature of this business for aspirings, what size inn you need in order to make money, etc., but this thread actually has hit the nail on the head as I'm finding all of you answering very straightforwardly on the amount of time and effort it takes for one person to manage a number of rooms.  Our dream inn situation would have both DH and me working full time in the inn business and we've calculated that we would need that many rooms in order to generate the kind of income we feel we'd need.  I may not be a contributor very often here but I'm always learning from all of you and I'm on this addictive website probably several times a day on most days.  I appreciate that I'm able to participate some of the time even though I'm not a full-fledged innkeeper yet.  Some day ... hopefully, some day ... )

I am the full time Innkeeper with 3 rooms, and dh works full time outside the house.  He cooks brekkie, and leaves right after we serve it.  I handle EVERYTHING else.  I did, finally, break down and hire a lawn service, as mowing that 2.5 acres and tending all the flowers, etc was just too time consuming.  I wouldn't mind trying it with one more room, but that might be pushing it, time wise and especially laundry wise.

I work full time 4 blocks down the street from my B&B... but I

have 2 cottages... so guest can come and go as they please

without me there all the time. When I retire 4 Cottages I

think would be my max ? I am a solo innkeeper but really

enjoy my little B&B. At 65.5 I will retire in a few....Mary

for us...doing it all ourselves... 3 rooms was all we  could handle.  And as my back grew worse..it went to 2 rooms..then we closed.  However, I do have  2 friends who do everything themselves and they have 5 rooms. They admit it is alot of work and they don't get much time for "themselves."

Has anyone noticed that "SecondAct" has not replied back since they posted 6-8

 I would say on your own starting out with no experience 2 rooms and work up to what she could handle. I think I could handle 4 on my own, but DH can only handle 2 on his own since I have to prep for him, and he gets buried in the laundry

But if you have kids in the mix I would not do more than 2 until they are used to the situation.

Keep room for expansion of rooms or if they have a place with 5 rooms just don't reserve or advertise the others until they have their routine down.

Riki

 From my experience - 4 rooms.  We "opened" a number of years ago at the start of the busy season.  I had expected to have DH for at least moral support but he ended up working out of state from June until the end of September.  I was left with no choice but to jump right in, pretend I knew what I was doing and make it work.  

As the competence and confidence have grown, I've added to the things I handle outside of the inn .... and to be honest, last year was a nightmare - we took on too much.  

This year I'm back to just my four rooms and trying to help DH as much as possible with the new place.

I handle two.  It is very easy and everything flows.  I do most of the work myself.  I do have a handyman and a housekeeper I have on an "on call" basis.

No more than 4 rooms, definitely.  And then, you have to look at it to see if it is worth the stress and aggravation.  Seriously.  I'm not being negative, just realistic.  If you are looking at 50% occupancy, year round, it will be a lot of work for one person.  If you have low occupancy, with breaks in between the influx of guests, you might be able to handle it on your own.  Also, if you are constantly flipping one night stays vs. an average length of stay of several nights, that is also a HUGE factor.

I would be able to handle 3-4 rooms on my own if it was a weekend business, no problem.  You have several days to recuperate from the weekend and to have somewhat of a life. 

It is tough to be on your own...no question. 

Anyone doing it (or done it) with kids at home?  How would that affect your answer?

I have 3 and I do not think I would want 4. One more room does not sound like much - but is a BIG difference. I have a DH who does the dishes - at HIS pace - which means at times he is in the way more than he is a help BUT I do have to be careful of that delicate male ego.... Just the amount of dishes generated by 2 more people for breakfast would be a killer, not counting the sheets, towels, robes, and the more frequent appointments with the dreaded ironing board! And I will close before I will deal with all the workman's comp, FICA, etc of hiring some one.

I wouldn't do this alone at all. I've been on my own for the past couple of weeks while hubs handles a family illness and it's not something I would do without him by my side for the long term. If I had help every day I would consider it. Otherwise, I give kudos to all of those who do this by themselves (like SS) or do this with a spouse who does something else 'during the day' (as many innkeepers do).

"fairly busy area" is very subjective IMHO.   Would this mean heavy travel for X months then drizzle to no business for the rest?  Would it mean 50+% business much of the year?    This would all make a difference in the answers due to need of time off - I think back to that couple that were hired innkeepers - even with staff they were burned out within a few months. 

I have 5 guest rooms that I do 95% of the work.  DH is the handy man if things need fixing.  He helps with breakfast, does the yard work (except flowers), pool, etc.  We average 50-55% occ. for the year. 

What does busy mean - 35% occupancy, 50% occupancy - 100% for three months then 10% the rest of the year?

I can't imagine doing more than 2 or 3 with anything approaching 50% occupancy.  Maybe more when I was in my prime but not in my current lack-of-physical-fitness.