La Casita has been shaped by people who don't live here

When we first prepared La Casita for guests, we tried to think of everything.

You walk through the house imagining somebody else using it. You open cupboards, lie on the bed, make coffee and ask yourself what you've forgotten.

And then your first guests arrive and show you the things you couldn't possibly have seen. Not because you've done a bad job, but because they aren't you.

After a while, you know a place too well. You know where everything is, which drawer to open and how the shower works. You stop seeing the small inconveniences because you've already adapted to them. A new person hasn't.

Some of the best improvements we've made to La Casita have happened because of that difference.

A coffee machine we didn't know we needed

Before Christine and Alex came to stay, Christine asked whether La Casita had a filter coffee machine.

It didn't. We had a capsule machine.

So Edmée and I went looking for one and came home with a tiny filter coffee machine. I called it the Barbie coffee machine.

It wasn't part of some carefully designed upgrade plan. One guest simply told us something that mattered to her, and it was easy enough to do something about it.

Later, Christine pointed out something else. There wasn't really a convenient place in to put things like socks and underwear.

We had looked at that bedroom countless times. We had slept in it, prepared it for guests and thought about storage. But she was right, so we changed it.

The next guests who used that extra storage had no idea that Christine was partly responsible for it being there.

I like that.

Sometimes you notice something before the guest arrives

Nadine had booked La Casita months before her holiday and had asked whether there was a socket beside the bed because she uses a CPAP machine.

There was, so that was easily answered.

A few days before she arrived, I was preparing the house and remembered our conversation. I sent her a photograph of the bedroom and asked which side of the bed she slept on.

Having a socket beside the bed isn't particularly helpful if it's beside the wrong side of the bed.

She was surprised that I'd remembered.

Guests notice things we don't

Guests tell us what they like about La Casita, and sometimes it's something we barely think about anymore.

They mention the quiet, the bed, sitting outside in the evening, hearing chickens, dogs and crickets, or being away from the tourist bustle while still close enough to go wherever they want.

They've made us look differently at our own place.

And occasionally they'll point out something that could be better. That's useful too. I'd much rather somebody tell me there's nowhere sensible to put their underwear than spend the next five years never noticing it myself.

Of course, we can't respond to every preference by adding another object to the house. If we did, La Casita would eventually require its own warehouse.

But sometimes someone points something out and you look at the familiar thing again and think: Oh. You're right.

A holiday home is never quite finished

That's probably what I hadn't expected when we started welcoming guests.

I thought we'd prepare the house and people would come and stay in it.

Instead, the people who stay here have gradually become part of the way the place works. One person asks a question we hadn't considered. Someone else tells us what they loved. Another points out something awkward. We notice how people actually use the patio, the bedroom or the things we leave for the beach.

And La Casita changes a little. Not constantly and not dramatically. It simply becomes a better version of itself because people have lived in it for a few days and we've paid attention.

However well you know your own place, the person arriving tomorrow will see something you don't.

And if you're paying attention, they may leave you with something useful long after they've gone.