first off, if you want friendly, earthy and artistic to the hilt, lois and her home are up at the top of the list. lois is very engaging, and has GREAT recommendations as to where to go - to eat, to stroll, to hear music - you name it, she knows the who and where of austin, and especially its creative and funky side. her home is in a sweet, quiet neighborhood, parking is easy - right out front - and plentiful, and the room we stayed in was in the back so it's private as can be. there are plenty of pillows for the futon and soaps and towels for the bath, so that's comforting. the room is clean, bright, colorful and charming, and charm is often what i look for in b&b's, so that's why lois' place caught my eye to begin with. so, now for the not-so-good part. my husband and i are middle aged - i'm 49 and he's 59 - and while we're in pretty good shape overall (we came from d.c. for a tennis clinic weekend outside san antonio (which turned out to be brutal but fun!) but we wanted to see austin first. my husband has a hopefully temporary ankle problem that makes it a little more challenging to deal with futons on the floor. the futon-only aspect wasn't what i had expected, and couldn't see it was that from the photos when i first checked out the listing. the futon needed to be pulled out and a top sheet put on it by us (i didn't find that top sheet until the next morning when i had a look around). there was no bed table or bedside lamp, so there was no way to read in bed without the overhead light on. the building that is this one-room retreat space is not actually designed to be a bedroom; the ceiling is very high, so the lights are way up overhead, and so heat rises, too, and if it's chilly, as it was the night we were there, you need to put both the heaters on - i'm grateful they were in the room. and there were plenty of blankets, too, so that helped. quite frankly, the bathroom was uncomfortable as it is very small. the sink faucet is a goose-neck so high above the bowl that water splashes everywhere when you turn it on with any force. the shower is very narrow, so if i was much bigger than my petite 5' self, i don't think i'd enjoy it much. the reason i mention all this is a) it's good to know if you're older and this is not what you're looking for, b) the way the room and bathroom are set up is not likely to change, so there's no reason to just mention it privately to lois, and last but not least, c) because of the price. at $80/night, i felt this was kind of pricey for what we were...