Airbnb Furniture: A Step-by-Step Guide to Selection and Care
After buying a short-term rental, you need to furnish it in a way that will allow you to optimize performance and maximize profit. Experienced hosts and property managers know that Airbnb furniture is one of the leading factors that dictate the success of a vacation rental business. The design and furnishing directly impact the nightly price that you can charge, the bookings that you get, the guest reviews that you generate, and the money that you make from your investment. That’s why it’s crucial to furnish your rental according to best practices in the hospitality industry and in line with market trends and guest preferences.
This guide provides all the information that STR owners and hosts need in order to furnish their property and prepare it for guests. We’ll start by covering the step-by-step process of choosing the optimal aesthetics for your second home before elaborating on the main furniture features to focus on and the best places to look for budget-friendly, yet quality items. Next, we’ll offer proven tips on how to save when furnishing your Airbnb and how to protect your furniture in the long run. Finally, we’ll conclude by looking at the pros and cons of DIY vs professional Airbnb furnishing to help you choose the right strategy for your needs.
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Airbnb Furniture: How to Define the Right Aesthetics for Your Space
Before you get started with furnishing your Airbnb property, you have to decide on the style that you want to go for. Once you’ve defined the right aesthetics for your space, the choice of furniture will be smooth and easy as it will be guided by the overall design concept.
To start on the right footing, here are the steps that go into selecting the best design and furniture idea for your short-term rental:
Design for the Needs of Your Target Guest Persona: First and foremost, you should launch the design conceptualization process by defining the types of guests that you want to host and the best furniture choices for their needs. Traveling business people have very different requirements and expectations from vacationing families, and the aesthetics of your property should reflect that.
Take Into Account the Property Type and Specifications: Another important factor to consider is your actual property and its unique features. A spacious single-family home allows for a more complex design with more elaborate details than a small studio where space is limited.
Align the Aesthetics with Your Market Identity: As a next step, you have to factor in the location of your short-term rental and the specificities of the area. Your Airbnb should be well-incorporated into the local culture and emphasize the unique aspects of the area instead of conflicting with the surroundings. For instance, Bohemian designs work well in urban settings, while Tropical Paradise themes match beach locations.
Resort to Timelessness: When selecting the overall design of your Airbnb rental, it’s a smart move to go for a classy, simple, timeless design that might not be particularly trendy at the moment but will still look relevant and catchy in a few years. Period-specific styles work well only if you invest in themed short-term rentals.
Check Out the Competition: A key factor to drive your Airbnb design and furnishing is the choices that your closest competitors have made. It’s a must to take a look at the top-performing Airbnb listings in your neighborhood and draw conclusions about the most successful furniture styles and selections. This research will also help you identify what your competition is missing so that you can add some unique aspects to your design to attract more guests.
Offer Something Unique: Building on the point above, you should try to incorporate a few distinctive elements into your design to stand out from the competition. Accent pieces and abstract decors are a good way to differentiate your property without going overboard and becoming eccentric.
Stay Consistent Throughout the Property: When designing your space, it’s important to choose a style and a theme and carry them through the entire property. Guests should move naturally and comfortably from one room to the next, without experiencing vexation.
Use the Available Space Strategically: In the definition of your Airbnb aesthetics, make use of the rooms and spaces to your advantage. For instance, incorporate sofa beds or bunk beds for extra sleeping options in small properties, and place corner tables or shelves in corners to utilize the available space.
Prioritize Comfort and Usability Over Trendiness: All your Airbnb furniture decisions should be driven by the comfort and safety of your guests rather than brand names and other less important factors. Choose pieces that are functional and contribute to positive guest experiences.
When in Doubt, Choose Neutrality: Unless you aim for a themed vacation rental, go for styles, colors, and materials that are neutral and natural. While there are few guests that would really enjoy a bright pink or fully black design, the majority of guests will be happy with beige or grey color schemes that create a sense of spaciousness, light, and timelessness.
Coordinate with Your Brand: If you’re a serial Airbnb investor and host, make sure that the aesthetics of your new property match with your overall brand. It’s important to incorporate your unique signature into the Airbnb furniture so that guests can easily identify your properties and book them across different markets.
When you’re choosing the most appropriate design and aesthetics for your vacation rental property, you can deploy one of the following strategies:
Design Your Property on Your Own: If you have any design and furnishing experience and/or work with a very tight budget, you can try to define the Airbnb furniture theme and concept on your own. After all, you know your property, your market, and your guests best. Just remember to focus on comfort, functionality, neutrality, and timelessness. Go for minimalist rather than maximalist options.
Use an Interior Design App: As a DIY host and designer, you can make use of interior design software, such as Room Planner and Planner 5D. There are many affordable and even free apps that can help you visualize the Airbnb design concept you have in mind and arrange furniture in a strategic way.
Hire a Professional Interior Designer: If you can afford it, it’s a good idea to work with an interior designer who can help you optimize the space, place Airbnb furniture efficiently, and create strong visual appeal.
Choose a Ready Furnishing Package: Some websites offer customizable Airbnb furniture packages that hosts can easily adjust to their space while retaining the overall style and theme. For example, with Showplace pre-made designs, you can choose from the most popular Airbnb design themes, such as Modern, Minimalist, Bohemian, Midcentury, Cabin, Scandinavian, and more. Each design package comes with a list of items that you can add, remove, or replace to fit the furniture to the specific needs of your property.
Work with an Airbnb Design and Furnishing Company: Finally, you can hire a company that specializes in the furnishing of short-term rentals. With their design expertise and hospitality knowledge, they will help you furnish your vacation rental so that it brings more revenue than ever before. Meanwhile, you’ll save on the cost of Airbnb furniture via access to industry discounts and economies of scale. You can check out the free Showplace furnishing estimator to get an idea of how much a professionally designed and furnished space will cost you.
Whether you choose the DIY method or hire a professional designer and furnisher, your Airbnb should produce excellent results as long as you base your choice of style and aesthetics on the principles listed above.
Key Features to Look for in Airbnb Furniture
Once you’ve defined the design concept and style for your Airbnb property, it’s time to start looking for the right furniture items to bring your idea to fruition.
Airbnb furniture selection should be guided by the following factors:
Style and Fit: While this might sound like a no-brainer, make sure that all items and pieces tie well with the overall design theme of your property and fit the available space. There’s nothing worse than a perfectly furnished short-term rental with a few dysfunctional pieces that ruin the whole idea. Or a couple of furniture items that are too big for the spaces where they are supposed to go.
Comfort: Go for brands and items that are well-known for their comfortable designs. This is particularly important for sitting and sleeping furniture, such as couches, sofas, futons, and bed frames. Guests appreciate simple, yet restful and snuggly furniture over elaborate pieces that are painful to sit on.
Durability: Choose Airbnb furniture that will last for long despite the intense wear and tear associated with short-term rentals. Prefer strong materials such as wood and metal over glass and plastic. Prioritize massive items over ethereal structures.
Easy Maintenance and Cleaning: Shop for furniture that doesn’t require complicated maintenance and is easy to keep clean. For instance, go for a leather couch rather than a plush one. The choice of colors is also crucial for making furniture look cleaner. Dominating black and white designs are a no-go unless you want to spend all your time as an Airbnb host on cleaning furniture.
Compact Pieces: Unless you are furnishing a mansion, focus on furniture items that don’t take up much space while offering a lot of usable area. Forgo oversized sofas with excessive armrests, large ottomans, and bulky wardrobes.
Clear Purpose and Functionality: Select Airbnb furniture pieces that have a specific function and contribute to the overall comfort of your future guests. For example, choose a small coffee table with storage space over a large one with no storage.
Easy Replacement: Only buy furniture pieces and appliances that can be easily and quickly replaced once they break or wear out. Avoid unique designer items that you won’t be able to replace in a few years without damaging the design concept.
Safety: One of the most important considerations in the choice of furniture for your Airbnb property is guests’ safety and wellbeing. Choose brands and items that do not cause allergies, do not break easily, and do not pose other threats to users. The last thing you want as a host is to get in legal trouble over injuries that guests suffered on your property.
Cost: Finally, of course, you have to consider the cost of the furniture that you decide to purchase. As a savvy investor, you should work out a furnishing budget for your property and stay within it. There are plenty of affordable options in the market, so you should not risk the financial health of your short-term rental investment project because of furniture that goes well above your budget.
While this might look like a long list of features to consider, they are all important when working on your Airbnb home design and furnishing. The key is to remember that running a vacation rental property is a business endeavor and should be treated as such, meaning that all decisions should be based on how they contribute to your business goals and bottom line.
The Best Places to Source Affordable Options for Airbnb Furniture
Contrary to popular belief, good vacation rental furniture doesn’t have to be necessarily expensive. There are many affordable options for hosts who want to make their property cosy and appealing without breaking the bank.
The top places to find budget-friendly Airbnb furniture and decor include:
Online Marketplaces: Sometimes Airbnb hosts are able to find quality pieces at very discounted prices at online marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. There you can find items that are simply not available in regular stores.
Discount Retailers: Online retailers, such as Amazon, Wayfair, and Overstock, offer thousands of furniture items, decor pieces, and appliances that can fit the budgets of different hosts. On top of their already affordable prices, they often have additional discounts for even more budget-friendly options.
Last-Season Sales and Clearances: It’s worth checking out major furniture brands and stores for seasonal sales and clearances. Discounts can reach and even exceed 50% on top-quality furniture just because it was designed last year.
Second-Hand and Thrift Stores: If you’re just getting started in the Airbnb business and work with a very tight budget, you can check out second-hand and thrift shops, like AptDeco, CORT Furniture Outlet, Reperch, Salvation Army, and Goodwill. Sometimes owners sell their furniture just because of moving places or remodeling their home, not necessarily because it is outdated and broken. So you might be able to land excellent deals.
Local Businesses: You can look for carpenters and small businesses in your area and strike a partnership with them. In addition to being cheaper than famous brands, they can make custom pieces that fit your property and spaces more precisely than readily available items.
Airbnb Furnishing Companies: Yet another place to source affordable Airbnb furniture is to hire an Airbnb design and furnishing company, especially if you want your property to be professionally prepared in a way that boosts performance. These companies help you save thousands of dollars on Airbnb furniture packages via access to industry discounts, so you might end up paying less than with a DIY design despite the professional assistance.
As long as you opt in for a neutral, universal design idea, you should be able to shop around and find the right furniture pieces at reasonable prices across different stores. Just remember to always check dimensions and specifications to make sure that furniture fits the spaces where it is supposed to go.
Airbnb Furniture Budgeting Tips for Hosts
Airbnb furnishing cost typically ranges between $5,000 and $50,000 or even more, depending on multiple factors that influence expenditure. Whether you have a small or more generous budget to get your property ready for listing, there are certain things you can easily do to lower the cost. Even if you are not limited by your finances, you don’t have to waste unnecessary funds on Airbnb furniture.
Following are a few tested and proven tips to cut costs when furnishing your vacation rental without compromising final results:
Do It Yourself: You can save up on your Airbnb startup costs by furnishing your property on your own. To do this, you can do extensive research on local comps to get a good understanding of best practices in the business.
Explore Furnishing Packages: As mentioned above, some companies offer Airbnb furniture packages that can be customized to nearly any property. While benefiting from professional design, these packages cost less than custom design and furnishing services as they don’t involve a dedicated interior designer.
Work with a Design and Furnishing Company: You can end up spending less on furniture when you hire a company to get your property ready. Showplace customers save an average of $10,000 off retail prices as a result of our exclusive partnerships with furniture stores and brands.
Check Out Second-Hand and Thrift Options: Second-hand furniture costs only a fraction of new items, and it can be a good way to get started before remodeling and professionally designing your rental once you have the money.
Shop at Budget-Friendly Marketplaces: Stores such as Ikea, Target, and Walmart offer good-quality, durable furniture at affordable prices. You don’t have to go for luxury brands as an Airbnb host.
Give Priority to Key Spaces Within the Property: When first furnishing your vacation rental, start with the most important rooms like the living room, the bedroom, and the kitchen. As long as you have these spaces covered, you can continue finalizing the other rooms along the way.
Focus on the Basics: Start with the main furniture items, such as a couch, a dining set, a bed, and some storage options. You don’t have to get your property 100% furnished and decorated in order to list it for renting. As long as you offer the basics, you can list your property, albeit at lower daily rates. It’s better to start getting your first guests at cheaper prices than to keep your rental vacant until it’s fully ready.
Make Use of Multifunctional Furniture Pieces: Another budgeting tip is to go for furniture items that satisfy multiple functions within the rental. For instance, sofa beds and extendable tables offer smart solutions to providing more options with fewer items.
Rent Furniture: When starting off, you can rent furniture to get your property ready and secure your first few reservations. Once your business takes off, you can save money from rental revenue to buy your own furniture. A few places that lease furniture include CORT Furniture Rental and AFR Furniture Rental.
Go for Energy-Saving Appliances: Even if you end up spending a bit more on purchasing energy-efficient devices, you will save money in the long term due to the energy savings that you will generate. As a host, you can’t really control the ways in which your guests use appliances across your property. The best you can do is to furnish a smart home that doesn’t waste unnecessary energy.
Prioritize Efficient Maintenance and Long Life: A final budgeting tip for Airbnb hosts furnishing their property is to go for items and appliances that are easy to maintain and are known for their longevity. While they might cost a bit more than standard furniture, you will save money down the road by not overspending on cleaning and fixes and not having to completely redo your short-term rental in a couple of years.
With these tips that experienced Airbnb owners swear by, you can get your property ready for listing with just a few thousand dollars while keeping long-term maintenance and cleaning budget-friendly too. A cosy, comfortable short-term rental doesn’t need to cost a fortune as long as you design it with good taste and thought for your future guests.
Protecting Airbnb Furniture for Long-Term Use
In addition to choosing cost-efficient items when working on the Airbnb interior design of your property, you should also take good care of your Airbnb furniture once you start renting out to ensure its long life. This will help you save a lot of money in the long run as you won’t have to change items every 2-3 years.
To help you out, let’s take a look at practical tips on how to protect Airbnb furniture for long life:
Start with Durable Materials: Guaranteeing the longevity of your furniture starts by buying items that are made of strong, durable materials such as massive wood and metal and resistant fabrics, whether natural, synthetic, or blended.
Choose Strong Structures and Massive Pieces: Similarly, go for solid, monolithic, robust items instead of airy, delicate pieces to extend the life of your furniture.
Select Forgiving Colors and Patterned Designs: In addition, choose furniture in colors and patterns that are able to hide some level of dirt. This is particularly important for sofas and couches and other pieces that are hard to clean on a regular basis.
Shop from Brands That Offer Extended Warranty: Moreover, look for stores and brands that go beyond the standard furniture warranty of 1-5 years. Some quality furniture shops offer extended warranty of up to 10 years. This is already a signal that they sell items that will last in the long term, and even if they don’t, they’ll be replaced for free.
Use Protective Covers: To protect your soft furniture, you can use protective covers that match the original color of the pieces and the overall design of the room. Remember to also use protective covers for mattresses, pillows, and duvets as these tend to get especially dirty with long-term use.
Disperse Carpets and Rugs to Protect the Flooring: You can incorporate rugs, carpets, and runners in the interior design to not only complete the aesthetics of the space but also protect the floor. That’s very important in case your property boasts wooden floors which suffer from more wear and tear.
Clean and Maintain Regularly: In addition to organizing the standard cleaning of the property between guests, you should schedule regular deep cleaning every 3-6 months. It’s easier to remove stains on an ongoing basis rather than wait for them to dry.
Set Up Clear House Rules: As an Airbnb host, it is your right to impose house rules which protect your property and your personal belongings within it, including the Airbnb furniture.
Provide Guidebooks with User Instructions: While most furniture doesn’t need an instructions manual, it’s good to offer instructions on how to use various appliances and amenities across your property. This will prevent guests’ misuse and extend the lifetime of your furniture.
Screen Guests: You can use guest screening software during the reservation approval process to make sure that you host only reliable people who are less likely to cause excessive damage to your property and furniture.
Collect Security Deposits: Besides the daily rates and extra fees, you can charge a refundable security deposit of a few hundred dollars that you can use in case of damages or excessive dirt.
Get Airbnb Insurance: Short-term rental insurance is not legally mandatory, but it’s a must to protect your property and your furniture under a wide range of scenarios. Standard vacation rental insurance policies provide coverage for the host’s personal belongings, which includes furniture, appliances, amenities, and others.
While you can extend the lifetime of many of your Airbnb furniture items with these tips, there comes a time when you simply have to replace worn out or falling apart pieces. Make sure to change items before it’s too late and they break during a guest stay, causing harm to your guests, resulting in negative reviews, and putting you in a legal mess.
Airbnb Furniture: DIY vs Professional Selection
The two most popular ways of furnishing an Airbnb property are doing it yourself (DIY) or hiring a professional Airbnb design and furnishing company. Both these options come with major advantages and disadvantages that you as a host need to take into consideration when choosing how to get your property guest-ready.
Let’s take a look at the main pros and cons of both:
Pros and Cons of DIY Airbnb Furnishing
The DIY model entails that you choose the theme for your property, work on the design (with or without the help of an interior design app), look for furniture, purchase the items, manage the delivery, and take care of the furniture and decor assembly and mounting.
The most considerable pros of DIY Airbnb furnishing comprise:
Host control over the property’s aesthetics
Good knowledge of the target guests and their needs
Familiarity with the local market and its culture
Truly unique design and furniture selection
Control over the implementation timeline
Flexibility throughout the design and furnishing process
Savings on the cost of professional design services
Meanwhile, the most important cons of furnishing an Airbnb property on your own include:
Lack of expertise in interior design and the specificities of the hospitality industry
Challenges in effective design principles and optimal space planning
Lack of access to professional interior design tools
Time-consuming, effort-intensive end-to-end process
Lack of knowledge of relevant furniture brand brands and stores
Lack of access to industry discounts, leading to a higher overall cost
Pros and Cons of Professional Airbnb Furnishing
Professional design and furnishing means working with a company that selects the most relevant design style, works out a comprehensive interior design for the entire property, does furniture procurement, and manages delivery, assembly, and even clean-up. From the host’s point of view, this is a hands-off approach while accessing professional services.
The main pros of professional Airbnb furnishing services are:
Comprehensive design that takes appealing photos and attracts more bookings
Attention to detail and polished overall look
Efficient use of space highlighting the property’s strengths and downplaying its weaknesses
Access to specialized vendors and trade discounts
Owner input taken into account at all stages
Passive approach that saves time and effort
Potential to maximize revenue and boost profit
At the same time, the major cons of professional design and furnishing for a short-term rental include:
Loss of some control over the design and execution
Less personalized design and standard theme
Standard 4-6-week timeline
Less budget-friendly Airbnb furniture options (no second-hand or thrift items)
Higher upfront costs
All in all, DIY can be a good option for hosts on a really tight budget who invest locally and who have some experience in interior design and furnishing, even as limited as furnishing their own home. Meanwhile, the best Airbnb furnishing services typically lead to better results and enhanced performance. They don’t have to cost more than the DIY option as a result of discounted prices available to professionals.
Final Thoughts
Designing and furnishing a vacation rental property is an exciting process that largely determines performance on the Airbnb platform, including ranking, daily rates, occupancy, reviews, revenue, and ROI. When it comes to Airbnb design and Airbnb furniture, hosts can decide between a DIY approach or hiring a professional. While both options have their pros and cons, working with the best Airbnb furnishing companies can help you design your property in line with best practices in the hospitality industry, attract more bookings, have more satisfied guests, and make more money in the long run. Fees are usually compensated through access to industry discounts and higher long-term revenue.
For custom Airbnb design and furniture that is based on the specifics of your property, your unique market, and your preferences as a host, check out Showplace. We help hosts save 75+ hours and up to $10,000 off retail prices in addition to boosting revenue by an average of 22% with professional end-to-end services that take up to 6 weeks to have your property launched.