We (me and my wife) had an amazing time at Laurie's place. But let me take this in three steps: the location, the house and the host.
Laurie's place is located in a relatively quiet street between two nice avenues full of restaurants, stores, cafés and other cool stuff and it's only a few blocks (about 5 minutes walk) from the metro which goes straight to Manhattan. Super nice neighborhood. Perfect location i would say.
The house itself was lovely. There are three floors (or four if you will, there's a basement too): the bottom floor with a living room and kitchen, the second floor with two rooms and a bathroom, and the third floor with two rooms and a bathroom as well. We stayed in one of the rooms on the third floor. It worked out great. The only thing was that the wifi didn't reach the whole way up which could be a little bit frustrating, but it worked fine in the living room/kitchen. Also the hose was clean.
Laurie was a great host. She was so helpful from the very beginning and gave us a lot of help in different ways. She served breakfast every morning (good breakfast too!) which was nice and comfortable. She also gave some advices what to do in the city and it was very fun to just hang out with her, a really nice person.
If you are considering renting a room, all I can say is that it worked really well for us and we had a very good time there and I can definitely recommend it!