How to furnish a Vacation Rental Home: 3 basic rules in 2023

3 basic rules to figure out how to furnish a vacation rental home

Figuring out how to furnish a vacation rental home is no easy task, we all know that. Just thinking about it is a magical trigger for a series of targeted questions such as:

• What colour to paint the walls of the bedroom?

These are immediately associated to another main question:

• How much does it cost to furnish a vacation rental home?

And here we are, ready to give you our advice on how to furnish a vacation rental home by guiding you with our 3 basic rules for the Home Stager.

Express your personality

As a first tip for furnishing a vacation rental home, aim at creating a space that represents your personality and your way of conceiving your guest experience.

What do you want to convey to your guests?
What first thought would you like them to have when they open the door?

Furnishing a house is also, and above all, a creative process that allows us to express ourselves and, with the various alternatives of stores at our disposal, the cost will certainly not be a valid excuse to prevent us from choosing our own style of furnishing!

Besides, who said that in order to get eye-catching design furnishings for your vacation rental home you have to buy new furniture?

It might instead be a good idea to search for furniture items in the countless flea markets available or on online marketplaces.
Not only will you save money, but you can also give a second life to old objects… sometimes even in unexpected ways! (If you like this approach, you might find other useful ideas in our article about slow tourism).

And no, you don’t necessarily need an interior designer to decide which way to go. You can search for inspiration of the best furniture for rental property on pages such as Pinterest, Westwing and Zara Home sites created with exactly this goal in mind. And remember: getting inspired does not mean to copy!

Vacation rental design ideas

Whether you have a chalet, a beach house or an apartment in the city, in our template you can find many ideas and different interior design styles to choose from, such as:

• Minimal
• Modern
• Nordic
• Coastal

Simplicity

Once you have identified your decorating style, focus on one key concept, useful for most aspects of our lives:

Less is more.

Don’t think that filling a space with objects, appliances or decorations necessarily gives the idea of comfort and well-being to your vacation rental home! Remember that your guests are usually staying with you for a short-term rental and do not need superfluous items, too many decorations or knick-knacks.

Think also about all the extra time it takes to clean a room full of objects that will only collect a lot of dust.

In addition, your guests will need space to leave their personal items, their new purchases or simply their clothes that they will take off in a hurry to get changed and to go to see the unmissable exhibition your city is hosting this weekend.

Don’t let the snowball from Christmas ’88 get in their way or, even worse, end up in a thousand pieces on the floor!

Functionality

How to choose the perfect kitchen furniture?

How to choose a good lighting for your home?

These are just a couple of the numerous questions we can easily answer by focusing our attention on the objective, namely on functionality. You don’t need a master’s degree in interior design to understand that every room is a space used for different activities and therefore requires different furniture, tools and even different lighting!

Don’t just focus on how to decorate a vacation rental, instead ask yourself what you need to provide in a vacation rental home and how to arrange items according to the environment!

A few examples?

In the bedroom you might think about installing several types of light sources: table lamps offering a soft lighting option that would not be blinding for the early hours of the morning but more powerful light bulbs or spotlights to allow your guests to choose their clothing carefully.

Don’t forget to place switches and sockets for the mobile phone near the bedside table to make it as easy and convenient as possible to do some of the most common activities!

In the living room, try to create a cozy and relaxing space by using soft colors  in order to allow your guest to have a place where to rest.  Also, make sure that searching for the wi-fi password does not become a titanic task, as well as searching for the hairdryer in the bathroom!

More generally, display what might be of daily use in the kitchen, on the dining table for example:

• Oil
• Salt
• Coffee and coffee machine
• Sugar

You might decide to leave the towels neatly folded on the bed of your guests, or directly in the bathroom, already placed on hangers, as many property managers do.

In any case, to make things easier for your guests, you can always use a welcome letter to show them where to find essential items.

How much does it cost to furnish a vacation rental home?

There is no single answer to this question. The cost depends on your needs, the style of furniture chosen, the materials and the result you want to achieve. But don’t let this stop you.

It is possible to furnish a holiday home without spending too much money!

On Ikea, for example, to furnish an apartment consisting of kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom, a budget of between € 6000-7000 is necessary.

However, keep in mind that the location of your property can affect the cost indicated and that having custom made furniture will be much more expensive.

Moreover, to avoid spending a fortune it is essential to decide your budget before starting to buy the various furniture.

A tip we want to give you to stay within your budget is to establish in advance the maximum price you are willing to spend for each room.

To sum up

Often we don’t need a detailed written answer, but someone who can give us simple and effective guidelines!

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