How To Prepare A Room For Airbnb
So you’ve decided you’re going to put your spare room on Airbnb. Now you are wondering how to prepare that room for Airbnb.
This post gives some ideas of things to do to prepare your spare room for Airbnb guests. It includes advice on what size of bed to use, how to set up a laptop-friendly workspace, WiFi considerations and everything we can think of about setting up your Airbnb guest room.
What Size Of Beds Are Best For Airbnb
Most people seem comfortable with a queen-size bed. If you have room, you can go to a king. If that’s what you choose, it would be a definite upgrade.
If your room isn’t big enough for a queen-size bed with a laptop-friendly workspace, you are better to go to a double bed and have room for a chair and table or desk.
If you have a small room, you might have to make do with a twin bed and make your room available for only one guest. This will lead to fewer bookings. Few people travel alone.
If you have a larger room, another alternative would be to put a queen and a twin in the same room. This would allow you to accommodate three guests, and charge a bit more because of it.
We have one room that has a queen-size bed. Our second guest room has a double bed because we felt it would be too crowded with a queen-size.
We thought having only a double bed would affect the amount we could charge. We found that it doesn’t seem to matter. We have as many people in the smaller room as we do in a larger, and the rates are pretty much the same.
Airbnb Laptop Friendly Workspace
Airbnb knows that business travellers appreciate having a laptop friendly workspace. It is so important that they have created a special group of amenities for it. You should try to include one because you will get more bookings if you do.
This means a comfortable chair and a table or desk that’s a good height for people to work. It should be well lit, have plenty of plugins, and have good WiFi.
It’s a good idea to locate plug-ins on top of the desk instead of on the floor. Guests prefer not to have to crawl around on the floor to get set up to work.
Once you set up a laptop friendly workspace, tell potential guests about it by adding it to your amenities.
Wi-Fi
You may want to improve your Wi-Fi and Internet connection when you start hosting your spare room on Airbnb.
Airbnb guests expect good Wi-Fi. They can tolerate not having a television in their room, but a sure way to get bad reviews is to have poor Wi-Fi.
We recommend having a separate guest network on your router. A guest network will keep your guests’ communication separate from your personal communication. It will also prevent guests from accessing any computers you have in your home. Most modern routers can be set up with separate guest networks.
Share your guest network name and password with the check-in information you provide.
Having said that Wi-Fi is important, what you can provide will depend on what’s available in your area. If your Wi-Fi and or Internet connections are slow, we recommend you mention it in your listing.
You might want to highlight that your place is rustic, rural or out-of-the-way, assuming that it is. Promote unplugging from the hassles of modern life. Try to make poor Wi-Fi a feature instead of a shortcoming.
In general, you don’t want to put anything negative in your listing. But in the case of Wi-Fi, most people are expecting it to be good. If it is not, you should mention it to avoid disappointment, and negative reviews. It’s better to let them know upfront.
Airbnb Decor Tips
Mirrors
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of us all.” You probably want to have a mirror in your guest room. You have one in your bathroom, but guests may want to make sure they look OK before they leave, and if you’re in a shared bathroom situation, the one in the bathroom won’t always be accessible.
As well, some people like to take their time doing their makeup and would feel more comfortable if they weren’t taking up a lot of bathroom time.
Plenty of Power Plugs
We mentioned this for a laptop friendly workspace, but it also applies to the room in general. Guests appreciate plenty of places to plug-in their electric and electronic devices. Today everyone travels with lots of devices that need electricity.
Guests have left compliments because we have power strips on both sides of the bed. They liked that they could both charge their devices. When setting up your room you’ll want to include plenty of power outlets. The cost is quite minimal so it makes sense for happier guests.
You’ll find a lot of your guests watch ‘something’ on their cell phones or our media devices. They watch movies, sporting events, news broadcasts or streamed TV shows. If you can, plan for a place for them to set up their devices to comfortably watch while sitting on the bed.
Lighting
Also want to make sure that your room has adequate lighting. Remember that some guests may not see as well as you do. Whether they have vision problems or not, everyone appreciates a well-lit room. They need good light for putting on makeup or working.
We do this by having lamps on the desks and bedside tables besides the main overhead light.
Drapes
When your guests want light they want light but when they don’t want light they want darkness.
As Airbnb hosts, we have people coming in at all times of the day or night. Sometimes they’ve been driving all night and they want to sleep during the day. They want their room as dark as possible. Finding drapes that block light well is very important for these guests.
Don’t make the mistake we did in one of our rooms. We put drapes that matched the decor of the room. We chose them for their color not for their light blocking ability. In the end, we replaced them with ones that didn’t work as well with the decor, but blocked the light better. Save yourself the cost by buying drapes that block light well to start with.
Airbnb Colors
One of the things you’ll have to do at some point is to decide on the color scheme for your room.
This is something that’s up to you to decide. As long as your color scheme is not in bad taste, it should work. If you choose colors you like, you will attract people that like what you like.
We chose a color scheme that a friend liked, and then named the room after the friend. We use the story of the friend to help attract people to the room.
You might also decorate different rooms to be more masculine or feminine. We thought this would attract more men into one room and more women to the other, but we found it didn’t matter. Women book the more masculine room and men book the more feminine room. What seems to matter most is which room is available when they are ready to book.
You might want to draw your guests attention to an event in your area by choosing a color scheme for that event. For example, if your place is near Disneyland you might decorate in Disney colors. You might even use pictures or posters of Disneyland. You could also use a local sporting team’s colors.
You might decorate using colors you’ve always wanted for your bedroom but we’re never allowed to have. If you like them there will be people out there who also like them.
As a final thought, if it’s not your thing, you might want to pay someone to pick your color scheme and design your room.
What Should I Buy For Airbnb
When you’re setting up the guest bedrooms, there are a few things you want to buy.
My accountant tells me that we can record the items in this section as “cost of goods sold.” This may vary by location so please consult an accountant.
Airbnb towels and sheets fall into this category. When choosing towels and sheets, be aware that you will need to replace them regularly.
Over time, guests have accidents so you need to replace either a top sheet or fitted sheet now and then. If your sheets are all the same you’ll be able to make sets much easier.
We had a guest dye her hair and leave stains on towels and sheets. She must have laid on the bed while waiting for the dye to work. Because they weren’t ‘all-white” we couldn’t bleach the towels and sheets and ended up replacing them.
Airbnb host groups recommend white because “white says clean.” If your towels and linens are a dark color, guests may think it is because dark colors hide stains and dirt better. Using white says to your guests that your place is clean and you aren’t hiding stains.
For all these reasons, we recommend you get all white towels and sheets so you can bleach them often.
Don’t make the mistake we made by buying towels on sale, thinking we could replace them later at the same price. When we went to replace them, they weren’t on sale, and we ended up having to pick something more basic (and white).
If you are hosting more than one room, use sheets and towels that would work in either room.
We started with different towels for each room and it would be easier if they were the same. That would mean we could mix without matching. As we replace towels we are using the same type for both rooms.
We recommend you have one design and maker for sheets and another for towels. If you do, it is easy to mix without having to match.
Airbnb Storage
When planning, think about where your guests will store their coats, jackets, shoes, boots, etc.
Coats And Jackets
If you have a closet near your entry, you might decide to make space available for coats and jackets there. But I have heard of guests not wanting to hang their coats with those of other guests or their hosts.
Another way is to provide extra hooks or closets in the bedroom for coats. Guests might like this better because they can keep their coats in their private space.
We have hooks on the backs of our guestroom doors and in-room closets for guests to keep their coats and jackets.
Boots And Shoes
You can choose to have boots stored on a mat at the entrance door, or designated place in their room.
If you have pets, guests may worry that your animals may damage their footwear. If you’re worried about this, it might be better to have a mat in the guestroom for footwear. That said, only a few guests have mentioned it in our place.
We ask our guests to leave their shoes or boots on the mat at the front door. This helps keep things clean because guests don’t wear their footwear inside. It has an added benefit that you know whether your guests are in or out based on whether their shoes are there or not.
Questions
Our goal is to help you succeed at Airbnbing your spare room. We would love hear from you with other question you have for us to answer. Please contact us or comment below with your questions.