Laurie's place is extremely clean. It has a perfect level of stylishness for an AirBnB-- it doesn't feel tossed together out of cheap Ikea stuff and discards from someone's living room, but it's not so fancy you are afraid to sit down or walk in with your dirty shoes. We let her know in advance that our daughter would sleep on the convertible futon, and it was made up for sleeping when we arrived. A nice feature is that the two ends of the "living room" feel like two distinct spaces, the end with the convertible futon and a little desk, and the end with a couch and television. The queen size bed in the bedroom is extremely comfortable.
We easily accessed the house from the airport with no car for $2 each -- we took the light rail from the airport and then transferred to a bus which dropped us off a block from Laurie's house. The next morning we walked from the house to Macalester College in about 20 minutes. Other colleges are in the neighborhood, making it a good place to stay for college visits.
The guest space includes a mini-fridge and microwave and a supply of cups, glasses, plates, silverware, tea, and sports bars.
I didn't understand (probably from being in a rush when I made the reservation) that Laurie's guests access the upstairs AirBnB space through her back door and kitchen. So, it is very private once you are in the little unit, but not an entirely separate space from the main house where Laurie lives. It's kind of what I imagine the ideal AirBnB site really is -- a way for someone to expand her horizons by meeting guests and supplement income to make their own housing more affordable.
Laurie has a lab rescue, Guiness, who is bark-y when strangers arrive, but otherwise totally sweet. She is also raising a service dog puppy, an 8-month-old lab, also darling. She was eager to ensure they did not bother us in any way. When she is not home, the dogs are confined, and she would have kept them away from us when she was home so they didn't bother us, except that we insisted we loved dogs (we do). The dogs do not go into the AirBnB space.
Laurie was incredibly low key and flexible and friendly -- she didn't hassle us for exact details of our arrival and transportation, yet she was waiting and entirely welcoming when we got there. She invited us to vacate the space at our own convenience, which ended up being in the late afternoon, rather than the morning of the day we left -- that made a huge difference for our logistics since we were traveling around on public transportation. She was totally forgiving and gracious about me forgetting to leave the key behind and thus having to mail it back to her.