Are you overwhelmed by the thought of designing your airbnb? Whether it’s a studio apartment or 8 bedroom house these airbnb design guidelines will take you from anxious to empowered in one easy read.

Having a plan for your airbnb design is crucial to creating a great guest experience. As listing on Airbnb becomes more competitive, slapping together some ikea furniture and calling it a day isn’t going to cut it.

After coming up with my own airbnb design ideas and helping out close friends and family with their listings, I wanted to share all that I’ve learned through research and experience in this post.

This post is all about airbnb design guidelines.

Airbnb Design Guidelines

First, some Airbnb design ideas

Before diving into the design guide below, brainstorm a few ideas around what you want for your listing. Themes are very in right now and honestly help SO much when pulling together decor for a house. Is there anything unique about your property, area or city that you could pull from to create the theme? Why do people travel to your area? These questions are key to ask yourself in this stage. For example, Nashville has been a top destination for Bachelorette parties for years. If you had a listing in that city, you could design the perfect girly getaway experience to attract those types of guests!

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Second, who’s your target audience?

You need to know who you are catering too. Is your listing family-friendly? Pet-friendly? A romantic getaway? For the traveling professional? This will inform your design choices more than you realize in the beginning. You also need to have nailed down the guest count at this point. Your guest count may be capped based on local laws so understand this before investing in furniture.

Now, let’s dive into design guidelines

1. Create cohesion throughout

You want to think about your design holistically and how you can incorporate it into every room of the house. I think most hotels are a great way to think about this piece. You know what you’re getting in every space of the property and it’s designed to evoke a certain experience. This is not your personal property where personality shines through in kids rooms and various photos on the wall. If you picked a theme, this theme should be expressed from the Master suite to the guest bath.

2. Workstations are a must

It’s not a secret that remote work is part of almost every company these days. Most travelers expect some type of work station, even if they’re on a true vacation and visiting a very touristy/vacationy destination (Hawaii, Cabo, etc.). It doesn’t need to be huge but a desk and chair is super important to incorporate in your design.

Want to know what’s essential to your Airbnb listing? Click here to read the Airbnb Essentials guide for every Airbnb.

3. Minimalism is key

Remove the clutter! This is good news because it means less stuff to keep track of and less stuff to buy for set up. Every piece of decor, furniture and art should serve a specific purpose. Knick-knacks are great when you’re curating open shelves or decorating a mantle but don’t overdo it. What would be even better is to get purposeful knick-knacks for decorating. Think cute board games, beautiful coasters, fun coffee table books about the area, candles and pretty dishes that are useable for the kitchen.

4. Color and fun elements

Almost every experience we have is captured by a photo on our phone and shared on social media. How can you capitalize on this as a host? Create instagrammable moments in your listing. If you purposely create photo opportunities, guests will LOVE this and I can guarantee that it will help them book your place over someone else’s listing. Now this can be as easy as doing a different door color from the walls, painting a backdrop in the bedroom or an accent wall in the living room. Paint is cheap and goes a long way!

5. Durable furniture

Do not, I repeat, do not buy cheap furniture! This will only cost you more in the long run. Spend money on quality, stylish pieces where guests will spend the most time (think couch, dining chairs, mattresses and bedframes). Guests will be rougher on these items and not think too much about wearing shoes on the rugs so be prepared. Every year we get all our furniture professionally cleaned and for quality pieces, they are brought back to life in this process!

6. Storage for travelers belongings

Think about function for the traveler when buying your furniture. Drawers are awesome and having space on the closet floor for bag storage is great. Do you have a mud room for shoes or a basket by the front door where guests can put items they’ll need when they leave the home? Your guests are not going to need as much storage as a someone living there full time but they will want to be able to put their stuff away so they can enjoy the space.

7. Greenery

Greenery brings the best of the outdoors in! It also has a way of breathing life into a space unlike any other design element. If you have the right team in place to have live greenery and not let it die, go for this. Otherwise high quality faux plants are a must.

8. Highlight your outdoor space

Whether big or small, treat your outdoor space like another room and add amenities! Gas fire pits are an inexpensive amenity compared to the coveted hot tub. But hot tubs add SO much value in most vacation markets so it may be worth the splurge. Make it comfortable for a meal, outdoor gathering and include a BBQ! If your outdoor space is big enough to have an outdoor kitchen, invest if you can. Every amenity you can provide that is key to your market will elevate the design and experience for your future guests.

Speaking of outdoor kitchens, read my Airbnb kitchen essentials article here!

9. Good lighting is a must

I would argue that good lighting and various forms of lighting is HUGE! It’s not going to be called out in guest reviews but is a super basic necessity that hotels get right. Think of everything from can lights that are dimmable, to lamps in key areas, to great lighting in bathrooms for guests getting ready and bedside lamps for reading before bed. This is a fantastic way to add elevated and purposeful design elements to every space.

10. Take risks with the design

This is absolutely the right time to do take risks with the design of your home! Guests want to stay somewhere that is a true experience. Gone are the days of craigslist furniture and iphone photos. Guests want a perfectly curated, unique stay so you get to have fun with this. Even if you don’t have a designer eye, you can pull so much inspiration from Pinterest, hire an online designer or your friend that has a knack for decorating. The money spent on this portion of the set up will pay you dividends for years and demand at the top end of the ADR for that area.

This post was all about airbnb design guidelines for a perfectly curated listing.