Airing our dirty laundry.

Literally. Y’all, when we decided to build 12 tiny cottages as a couple vacation destination, the last thing I thought would be hard is the laundry. In my mind, it was simple…we’ll purchase the linens and then a local laundry service would help us launder them. Right? Wrong.

We did make the linen purchase. We actually splurged on Broolinen bedding. We wanted the beds to make a statement so we budgeted accordingly and then went for it. We made contact with a local laundry service. They were great. They would pick up and deliver the laundry, had quick turnaround times and, overall, did a good job. Until they didn’t.

What we learned was that the small family business we had partnered with had been sold to someone that lives in another state. We were skeptical, but gave them the benefit of the doubt. The owner made a special trip out to the farm to meet us and check out the cottages. It was relieving to put a name with the face and show him around. It’s important for us to ensure a high level of quality in everything we do, so when we have to lean on outside support, it’s always so helpful for them to see the cottages in person. We had a great meeting with him and he even made an introduction to his Operations Manager. Sweet.

For about a month the Operations Manager and I worked closely ironing out some wrinkles (pun intended :)) in the process and addressing some quality concerns. For a minute, I felt like we were on the right track.

Every now and again, I would receive bedding back that wasn’t ours. It belonged to someone else. I would immediately contact that laundry service to let them know and every time it was a simple mistake. No harm, no foul.

But one day, I realized our linen inventory seemed low. For weeks, Jase and I would keep count of every piece coming in and going out. We felt like it was getting harder and harder to stretch the linens and started coming up short. So we kept close tabs on it for a while. What we realized was we had a lot of missing linens. A lot. $1400 worth of missing linens.

We reached out to the company, they acknowledged they had an issue and they were working to improve their internal processes. In the meantime, they were frantically searching Sevier County for our Brooklinen bedding, to no avail. We were patient. Business is hard, especially when transitioning to new ownership, so we did our best to be kind, patient and prayed our linens would turn up.

They didn’t. And the owner said he would “make it right”, but that didn’t happen either. So, we went on the hunt for a new laundry partner. Unfortunately, no one in Sevier County had any additional capacity and couldn’t take on new clients. We eventually located a laundry mat that had a laundry service. We had to pick up and deliver ourselves and it wasn’t in a convenient location, but we didn’t have a lot of options at this point. Guests are still booking, still arriving and we needed linens. We worked with the laundry mat service for 4-6 weeks trying to get the quality where we needed it and just when we felt like we had arrived, our contact there took a new job somewhere else. :( We were so bummed.

Back to square one. We tried to stick it out with that service and work with another person, but it just wasn’t the quality we were expecting. With all of our options being exhausted, we decided our only option was to take all the linens to the laundromat ourselves. So that’s what we did. We found a laundry mat close to our house, met the owner and got busy washing all the linens. Y’all, I’m gonna be honest…after hours of being at the laundry mat, I felt like I had run a 26 mile marathon. It’s no joke. For weeks, we would carve out a whole day to go and wash all the linens.

On top of washing all the linens, there was no good way to get the pillow cases to not look like they had sat in a dryer for days. So we would iron them. Painstakingly, stand in our living room ironing hundreds of pillow cases. My Mom is a true angel and she helped iron, too. I bet she’s ironed at least 500 pillow cases the last few months. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think laundry would be our greatest operating challenge, but here we were.

Toward the end of 2024, Jase headed to Seymour to a new laundry mat, closer to the Farm, to process some linens. When he arrived, he noticed a Dry Cleaner, Laundry and Alterations place next door. Thank goodness for that man’s curiosity because without it, we would still be washing and ironing all the linens ourselves. He went in to inquire and learned they would definitely process our linens AND…they have a press!!! A pillowcase press! Y’all, I think Jase and I would pay any amount of money to never have to iron a pillow case again…so we jumped on it! We decided to give this new company try and the rest is history. We are so thankful for them and the high quality service they provide to us.

Needless to say, I’m thankful our laundry days are in the rear view mirror. :)