The photos of the front are misleading. I was expecting a gorgeous place to hang out in the front but the landscaping is overgrown. It’s obvious that this is probably somewhere the owner creates his pieces since there was an abundant amount of miscellaneous wood all over the property.
Pros:
the kitchen, bathrooms, and rooms overall seemed pretty clean. The kitchen was really nice to have since our son has food allergies and we needed to cook and prep all his meals. There were pantry and cooking staples like salt, olive oil, and spices.
Check in was easy. John left the door unlocked and the key on the counter.
An easy one block to the beach. I forgot that windansea beach is not stroller friendly but that’s on us. Beach toys and a boogie board were on the property for use as well as extra towels. Perfect for our beach day.
There is a washer and dryer if needed. Cute patio in the back but we didn’t make use of it.
The piano was fun, my son and husband both enjoyed playing with it.
There was Netflix! Our kiddo loves coco melon with his bedtime bottle.
Cool wood pieces through the house including the live wood dining table.
Cons:
While the kitchen was clean, other parts of the house were not. I should have taken the previous reviews into account. There were cobwebs in the corners of the house and dust on the table the tv is in. It’s a beach house, there was sand on the floors. There was saw dust on the window sill of the secondary room. With such a hefty cleaning charge I expected the house to be cleaner than it was and would like part of our cleaning fee refunded.
The toilet of the main bathroom was leaking and it would occasionally flush throughout the time we were there making it difficult to fall asleep.
There were Amazon packages left outside the house for the owner. Not necessarily a bad thing but felt a little unprofessional.
If you have a little one like we do, just FYI there are vintage grates used for heating on the floor. I wish I took a photo to post but it was larger than I expected. The holes of the grate are approximately 5x3cm. One is right by the piano and we used the ottoman to cover it and the other one is right by the door of the main bedroom. We kept our opened suitcase over it to keep our toddler from sticking his fingers in it. John did say the house was not baby proofed so just as a heads up for anyone wanting to stay with kids.
And just also a note that none of the windows have screens. There weren’t too many bugs where that was a problem. There are mismatched curtains covering them and that helped a little.
Overall:
Would I stay here again? For how close it was to the beach and the places we were visiting (UCSD, Torrey Pines, Sea World), maybe if it was cleaned up a little. It’s walking distance to restaurants and in a decent part of La Jolla. It was what we needed for our stay, just wish the photos were not as misleading and the house was cleaned better to our arrival.