Airbnb interior design in Batumi for a short-term rental apartment

Who will rent the apartment

We start Airbnb interior design in Batumi by asking who will be renting the apartment. A couple for the weekend, a family with a child for a week and a group of friends expect different things from it, and the answer determines the beds, the kitchen and the storage. The second question is the level: we choose finishes and furniture to match the neighbouring listings in the same building and area, not personal taste.

We plan the layout so that the apartment takes as many guests as it can without feeling cramped. The number of beds goes into the listing, and someone will sleep in each of them, so each needs a socket, a reading light and a place for belongings. Folding beds and chair beds squeezed in for an extra guest look cramped in the photos and later come up in reviews.

A design for the listing photos

Guests choose an apartment by its first photos, and it is shot with a wide-angle lens from the corners. So every room in the project has a camera position, and we check what falls into the frame from there. The wall behind the bed becomes the backdrop of the main bedroom shot: a headboard, a pair of wall lights and nothing else. Where possible, we keep the air conditioner, consumer unit and switches on walls that stay out of shot.

The sea view is usually shot from the door across the whole room, so we keep the furniture by the window low. A tall wardrobe or sofa back by the glazing hides the strip of water that guests book the apartment for. We don't hang the TV opposite the window: in photos the glass is reflected in the black screen.

A camera can be placed at the shooting position in the 3D model, so you see the shot before the renovation. Photographing the finished apartment, the lighting and seasonal shots are described on the page about photographing an apartment for listings.

An apartment that is quick to clean

Between check-out and check-in the cleaner has a few hours, and the design either saves them or eats into them. We go through the plan along the cleaning route: where the clean linen comes from, where the dirty linen goes, where the vacuum cleaner plugs in in each zone, where the bucket will stand. Then we look at the items themselves:

• furniture stands on legs of 10 cm or more, or goes right down to the floor, because a 3–5 cm gap collects dust and the vacuum cleaner can't get into it;
• mixer taps and handles have a brushed steel finish: polished chrome shows every drop, and matt black shows white marks of dried water;
• the shower walls are clad in large-format tiles: there are fewer joints, and they are quicker to clean;
• the worktop is ordered in one piece, with no join by the sink where water sits;
• headboards and chair backs have no quilting or decorative buttons that trap dust.

We measure each such decision in minutes of cleaning multiplied by the number of check-outs in a season: ten minutes at every check-out add up to hours of the cleaner's work by the end of the summer.

Wear resistance: a base for years, accents for a season

We divide everything in the apartment into three layers by how often it is replaced, and each layer has its own rules in the project:

A common mistake is to put the apartment's character into the base. Bright tiles across the whole kitchen wall look good in the first photos, but when you tire of them or they crack, replacing them takes a tradesman, and the apartment is blocked in the calendar for those days. So we keep the character in the layers that change without a tradesman. Which finishes stand up to a steady stream of guests and how they are installed is covered on the page about renovating an apartment for short-term rental.

Changeable accents

For each room the materials list has a separate list of accents with product codes, prices and shops. If a guest burns a throw or breaks a lamp, it is replaced with the same model, without a search and without agreeing the style all over again.

We choose the accents themselves by whether they will survive washing and a careless guest. Cushions have zipped covers, throws have no fringe, and rugs are machine-washable or can be vacuumed. Pictures and the mirror above the bed are fixed firmly to the wall at two points rather than hung on one nail, because heads and suitcases knock into them. These items are chosen and arranged by a decorator, and there is a separate page about the decorator's work with textiles and furniture.

Storage for linen, suitcases and supplies

An apartment for letting has two kinds of storage, the guests' and the owner's, and they should not be mixed. A guest needs a wardrobe for a week: a rail with hangers, a few shelves and space for a suitcase. A closed suitcase goes in the bottom of the wardrobe under a short rail: a large wheeled suitcase is usually about 75–80 cm tall, so we make the recess 85–90 cm high. Next to it we put a bench or a luggage rack for an open suitcase, so that it isn't put down on the bed.

The owner's cupboard is locked and holds linen, towels, cleaning products and spares. How many sets of linen to keep is decided by the cleaning service, and we design the shelves for that stock: a depth of 40–45 cm for folded linen, about 30 cm between shelves so the piles don't topple, and a separate labelled shelf for each bed size. We fit a grille in the door, because in a closed cupboard by the sea linen picks up damp. If there is no storeroom, we set aside a section like this in the hallway or above the washing machine.

From design to renovation, furnishing and the first guest

The renovation estimate is priced from the finishes list, and the furnishing list sets out the furniture, appliances and textiles with quantities for your number of guests. Working from this list, purchasing, delivery and assembly are handled by our team for furnishing short-term rentals. When the apartment is ready, the property management team takes it over: preparation for the first check-in, photos and the listing. The design does not guarantee income or occupancy: the nightly rate depends on the area, the season, reviews and management.

How much Airbnb interior design costs in Batumi

A design project for a short-term rental apartment costs from 130 to 190 ₾ per m². The price includes a layout for the number of beds you need, a selection of hard-wearing materials and a furnishing list. This is the designer's work: the renovation, furniture and appliances are not included.

If the apartment is simple, the walls and outlets stay as the developer built them, and the main shots can be solved with furnishings, express design at 57–82 ₾ per m² is enough. As a guide to the rest of the budget: a budget turnkey renovation with economy-grade materials costs 670–780 ₾ per m², and furnishing a studio for short-term rental 16,200–21,600 ₾.

A project with several bedrooms and bathrooms, made-to-measure furniture and 3D of every room costs more. An apartment with ready-made furniture and the outlets in place comes closer to the lower end. The final cost is set after the measured survey and once the scope of the project is agreed.