Roof construction is finally underway, a long-anticipated event that has been met with glee and bewilderment. After two years living in our beautiful, roofless home, we’re finally getting a roof! It’s wild watching how quickly everything goes up; however, the progress that is made day-to-day is another reminder that our deadline to prep Sunset Shanti for a new rental season is soon approaching - a challenge in and of itself.

Realistically, this won’t be the only rental season deadline that we’ll stress over, but it’s the first one approaching with our new canvas. Everything that we’ve mentioned before regarding supplies and materials in the Virgin Islands still holds true - the scant resources available here are often poor quality and overpriced, while shipping items is not only expensive, but a royal pain in the butt (we recently heard from our contractor that imported doors and windows are backed up for at least 12 weeks … AHHH!!! … don’t worry, we found another solution, but this is the kind of stress we’re dealing with, you guys!). The task is daunting, but with the skills and ‘know-how’ we’ve accumulated over the last two years living on St. John, it’s excitingly manageable!

Our task is to work within a tight budget to create a space that’s a warm, inviting respite for our guests - an escape from daily life in favor of a paradise getaway. Because our budget is so tight (thanks, COVID), we’ve had to get creative with how we allocate money. While Isabel is in charge of style and decoration, my task is to build. Here’s the deal: we can either buy a shitty overpriced dining table that will probably break within a few years, or we can teach ourselves to build a sturdy, stylish dining table - one that we actually like, and which will last us years or until we decide we want to build a new one.

The difference between the preparation of our first rental season versus the present one is the drive to see what we can make, as opposed to what we can buy - this means tables, bed frames, you name it! Here’s the thing about us: we are always learning and always experimenting. We’re now exponentially more capable than what we were before. In the past, did we spend the time to research and learn how to maximize the resources we did have available to us? No. Did we buy things hastily in the aisles of Home Depot because we were hungry, grumpy, and rushing to make the ferry back to St. John? Probably. Not only is it more fun to build tables, shelving, and bed frames, but also, the instant gratification is overwhelming compared to the dread of buying an overpriced piece of plastic at a big box store.

Here’s the thing about me: I’m a doer; I like to have my hands busy. As a kid, I would rush through mundane assignments and tasks so that I could go outside and play ball. If I wasn’t playing ball, I was thinking about the next time I’d be able to. This sensation is slowly returning, except, instead of playing ball, it’s building furniture and learning/practicing new tools. That statement alone may be the most ‘30-year-old’ thing I’ve ever written, but building furniture gives me that same feeling of joy that I sought each day in our backyard growing up. Isabel and I are active in the pursuit of what we want our home and business to be: a place that constantly evolves alongside the quality of our abilities and skill-sets. In the same way that we would practice as athletes, there’s a similar drive to better ourselves as property owners and hosts. We feel as though we have something to prove and we always want to be better than we were before.

It’s startling to see how quickly the roof is being put together because it highlights the fact that we need to now rise to the occasion. The new rental season is around the corner, and, for the first time, we’re going to have a solid enclosure. The new structure already looks awesome; it’s now up to us to make this place ours. So, we’re curating art, we’re building furniture, and we’re meticulously going over layouts. Amongst all the chaos of starting a family during a global pandemic that parallels a recession, we’ve bet on ourselves. A challenge we wholeheartedly accept.

Stay tuned for more updates as this project progresses - we’ll share lots along the way on our Instagram page!