Overall a good value and a beautiful house. The house is small but the space is extremely well laid out so it feels more spacious. Perfect for 1-2 people or maybe a couple with a baby.
The house is really nicely done with hand-scraped hardwood floors, granite counters, etc. The surrounding neighborhood isn't the greatest, but it's close to 635 and has a very tall privacy fence and gate, and inside the house was surprisingly quiet.
2 nice large TVs (one living room and 1 bed area) with Roku and all the normal streaming channels. This was great as I usually bring a Roku and didn't even have to use mine.
All the usual kitchen items including a Keurig, and plenty of dishes, utensils. I didn't use it, but the washer/dryer was nice also.
Minor suggestions to Jude for improvement would be:
1. Hand towels (missing in kitchen and the bathroom only had 1 washcloth hanging where a hand towel would go), and otherwise no other washcloths. So if you want to use a washcloth then you could only dry your hands on the bath towels.
2. We weren't given the door code upon check-in, only the code for the gate (which didn't work while we were there). So I had to call Jude to have him let us in.
3. The house has a lot of candles inside which was a nice touch, but all but 1 were totally burned out. I would either replenish them or remove them.
4. Probably be good to note in the listing that there is a large dog that roams the grounds. While he was very friendly, it could be off-putting to some, as he came running up to us the moment we arrived.
5. Personally in the fridge, I would not have bottles of water for sale. Most Air BnBs offer complimentary welcome offerings. I would either give them away or not offer them.
6. Bath towel hooks. There's no place to hang bath towels after you dry off and with 10' ceilings most people would not be able to hang them over the door or shower curtain rod. Just a simple 2 hook on the back of the bathroom door would be a good option as otherwise guests are having to hang them on the door knob.
7. There's not a good place to work on a laptop. While there is a bar stool counter area at the kitchen, the bar stools seem homemade and the seats wobbled way too much to be a good place to sit and work. That leaves only the couch or bed. Alternately a small desk under the TV in the living room would be good.
8. The internet cut out frequently. Luckily it would never stay off for long, but over the course of an hour, there would be 5 or so outages of about 30 seconds to 1 minute. A minor annoyance for sure but eventually I just switched to using my phone as a hot spot.
9. In the closet there are only hangers and no place to unpack things like socks or underwear. 1-2 shelves in the closet (plenty of room) would help a lot for travelers who are staying a while and don't want to live out of their suitcase.
10. Pet shampoo? It was nice to offer shampoo and body wash in the shower area, but the 2 bottles of shampoo were pet shampoos. Either get people shampoos or don't offer them at all.
However, the big issue was how poorly the unit handled the cold.
The weather was nice upon arrival, but the next day's cold front dropped outside temps down to the 20's, and inside the house, the temp never got above 60 and that was with the heat set to 86. There is just 1 unit, a European-style wall unit, and it obviously couldn't keep up. And since it was in the main area, the bathroom got really cold.
The house appears to be new-ish, so I doubt the issue was with insulation or the windows. Hopefully the AC side handles the Texas heat in the summers better, but 1-2 space heaters in the house would have helped a lot.
Those improvements/considerations would definitely make the difference between 3.5 and 5 stars.