Wow, thanks all for the fast replies. The "residential or commercial" thread did not seem to provide useful information - other than that some have residential mortgages, but I didn't know if it was still possible to make the conversion. We definitely are consulting an accountant already and will talk to an attorney. We've run lots of questions by the city and historic folks and seen no obstacles so far. No desire to try to "fool" anybody!
Mainly wanted to see if anybody jumped in with dire warnings..
The problem I got into was that I did my remodeling after I got a variance in the zoning for the b&b. The zoning HAS to come first. But then the construction had to conform to commercial codes. It was a real nightmare. You should see if there needs to be any permitting that has to be made to your zoning, like a conditional use permit or a variance and then see if that impacts any remodeling you might need to do. In addition to having (ideally) a bathroom for every bedroom, the health department may require changes to your kitchen such as a handwashing sink, or some such. Five or more rooms also requires ADA compliance that could require some remodeling. Some municipalities also require sprinklers. Hopefully you've checked all of this out. I've heard it said that you'll spend at least twice as much and it will take twice as long to finish the project. I live in a dysfunctional community, so it took 4x's as much of both, but I love what I do. Consider yourself fortunate to have found this forum. You'll get all sorts of advice and meet innkeepers with all sorts of perspectives.
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Very good advice, thanks. We will need a special-use permit. We are pretty sure we've learned what we need from the city but will double check before we get the special-use permit to avoid your construction nightmare. Also going to keep everything small enough to avoid ADA, commercial kitchen, etc. As long as we don't host events, serve breakfast only and that only to our overnight guests, meet parking requirements, and so on, we can keep it at the least-complicated level. Bathroom for every guestroom makes sense anyway, and we plan to add one. Our town appears to be fairly B&B friendly. B&B requirements are spelled out in the ordinances on the city's Web site -- assuming they didn't leave something out! City has a unified development code and we can meet with all officials at once (health, fire, zoning, permits, etc.). We have a great contact who is both our Realtor and a B&B operator in the same town. Knows everybody, and she likes us.
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