This Old Art...

This Old Art...

This Old Art…

When we took over ownership of the motel last year, I remember our first impression of the rooms was that they were cute, but needed to be updated. The decorations in the room were relatively sparse, the primary art work were all these unique wood wall pieces. We thought they were nice, but didn’t fully appreciate them for what they were…

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Room Renovations Continue - Part 3

Room Renovations Continue - Part 3

The Room Renovations Continue - Part 3

We are making great headway on the renovations. Thanks to the help of Curtis and his daughter Kelly (two locals with a talent for construction), we are down to only 3 rooms left to tile. Towards the end of the month all the rooms will have tile, and of the 16 rooms, 8 of them will be freshly painted, have new base boards, and new drapes. We’ll tackle the painting of the other rooms in the following weeks. …

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Room Renovations Continue - Part 2

Room Renovations Continue - Part 2

The Room Renovations Continue

This week we gave Room 117 a facelift! This is the first guest room to get the living area completely redone. We wanted to make sure we were happy with our selections before ordering in bulk the materials for the other 15 rooms (headboard, baseboard, paint color, curtains, etc)…

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Sanderson’s Newest Additions

Sanderson’s Newest Additions

Sanderson’s Newest Additions

Although its been fun and interesting leapfrogging each other trying to manage the motel in the first few months, finding a full-time manager has been a priority. As it turns out, finding someone excited to move out to West TX is not too hard, but finding the ideal folks to have run our motel is a taller order…

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Come, Sit, Stay Awhile

Come, Sit, Stay Awhile

Come, Sit, Stay Awhile

Friends, our courtyard is looking so inviting!  When we came up to Sanderson to visit the motel back in May, we all saw the potential of the courtyard area in the middle of the parking lot.  All rooms face the area and it seemed the perfect template for creating a community space for guests to relax…

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An Evolving Motel Office

An Evolving Motel Office

An Evolving Motel Office

When we took over the motel in July we were taking over an operational establishment with clean rooms and and an inviting exterior courtyard.  Most of our projects (except the deep cleaning Kalea has been killing!) have been about adding a fresh coat of paint here or new seating there…

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Friends Lend a Hand

Friends Lend a Hand

Friends lend a hand and Tabb shares his thoughts about it

Last month we had the priveledge of welcoming a couple of friends to help in our motel endeavors.  Ava came up from Austin with great enthusiasm to be a part of this motel revamping experience.  She was a huge help with painting.  Joe's friend Tabb traveled all the way from Virginia to help us run the motel for a couple weeks….

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The Breezeway

The Breezeway

The Breezeway

The area between the motel apartment and the first guest room was originally open and not connected.  In recent years, a roof was installed connecting the two structures and walls put up to make it into a storage area.  The problem with too much storage is you tend to fill it up.  Plus, this eliminated a lot of natural light for the apartment bedrooms…

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Perseids Meteor Shower

Perseids Meteor Shower

Perseids Meteor Shower - This weekend!

Keep your eyes to the sky this weekend because August 11-13 is the peak viewing time for the Perseids Meteor Shower.  This meteor shower, named after the constellation Perseus, occurs every year from about mid-July thru the end of August.  This year, however, the showers are expected to be particularly specactular because…

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The Desert Air Motel - History

The Desert Air Motel - History

The Desert Air Motel - History

Over the last month we've been trying to dig deeper into the history of the Desert Air.  I'm going to do my best to get everything correct here, but I'm sure there may be some holes.  The Stavley's who owned the Motel in the 70s introduced themselves to us during our first week of ownership and wish us well in our endeavor.  They provided as quite a bit of information and it was fun hearing their stories…

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The Sanderson Bats

The Sanderson Bats

The Bats of Sanderson

Our friend Tabb agreed to come and run the motel for 10 days while we all needed to return to Austin for a bit.  Somehow Joe convinced him to drive to Sanderson, TX all the way from Virginia.  In any case, he made it here, helped us run the Motel, explored the town, and made some friends.  When we made it back to Sanderson to relieve him we expected he'd be departing the next day, but it turned out he landed a small renovation job for a neighbor.  This kept him in town a bit longer than expected. ..

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