It is ! And it’s been there since the sixties 
.
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Occasionally, hotels and motels will undergo major remodeling with the new furniture and wall art. When I was a poor university student, I furnished my apartment with used motel/hotel furniture that was priced very cheap.
Call your local motels/hotels and ask when they plan to remodel next and will they sell their old room furnishings.
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My friend decorated her rental for her personal use. Her life circumstances changed so she then chose to rent it on Airbnb She has two beautiful Japanese woodblock prints hanging. I’ve Encouraged her to remove them. Sadly people will take anything. There is nothing in my rental that I would be heartbroken if it disappeared.
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I live upstairs so I think that discourages the worst kind of guest.
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Hello!
I do interior staging and styling for short term rentals as well as commercial and residential spaces. The type of art and the amount you invest really depends on your personal preference. You can really elevate the look and feel of your space with mindful decor items which can help increase the value of your rental property and without breaking the bank. When you increase the value of your space it allows you to either rent out less often for the same amount of money, as well as attract a more desirable guests to rent from you or to increase your revenue from your STR. Please feel free to reach out if you are interested to discuss further.
Thanks!
Carly
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Adding a few well-chosen pieces of art can insert character and personality into your property, but as a few others have mentioned, expensive pieces might not be the best idea! Charity stores and car boots can be a great place to source inexpensive and interesting pieces.
You could also take a few good quality photographs of the local area, e.g. a pretty local park, a stunning sunset on the beach etc then maybe enlarge and frame them?
Hope you find what you are looking for!
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Thanks for sharing @Shelleymuz. It’s nice to know that there are people who care about emotional atmosphere in their places. I’m delighted to learn that you actually were able to successfully sell your artwork. I’m sure your visitors find your place and and art delightful if they decide to buy it from you.
I definitely see that people are seeing the value in better art work in their rental but often it’s either expensive or just time consuming to get pretty stuff.
As far as I looked there is not many companies on the market that support both ABB hosts and local artists at the same time. Also majority of art rental services are extremely expensive and not convenient to use.
My hypothetical idea is that ABB hosts would be paying a monthly subscription fee to be able to pick a number of various original art pieces posted by local artists. The annual subscription would probably equal to the amount some people spend on art in thrift stores and online (somewhere $200-400, tax deductible of course). Service would include shipping and handling and also allow payments to be processed in case visitors would like to purchase. In such case shipping would be available for purchased pieces and ABB host gets a % to offset subscription cost. Even though this seems extremely complex business to run, it definitely seems to be a win-win-win for ABB hosts, local artists and travelers.
And I really appreciate everyone willingness to contribute to this conversation and value your opinions. Speak if you have anything to say 
@Helsi, as far as why this idea is better than existing services, I don’t know yet. But what I know is that there is a taxi service and there is Uber/Lyft. Why Uber and Lyft exist if it’s the same transportation service as cabs? In my opinion it provides more value, convenience and better customer experience. So if the idea I have in mind can provide better value, convenience and customer experience it has great potential to succeed. Now I’m just eager to learn if people actually think it’s a good idea and would consider using such service if one existed.
I feel a wave of critique 
coming up in me, sorry 
.
What would I actually get for that amount? One, two, three paintings?
If I understood well, in your model our BnB becomes kind of a tiny gallery that allows local artists to sell their art to our guests. I see the following problems to your business model:
- The amount of people that yearly passes through any given AirBnB room is always relatively low. Also, most people are not traveling to buy art. Out of 200 yearly guests (e.a.100 couples), maybe 10 persons could be interested in buying art, but for a sale to go through you still need a match between the offering and the guest’s taste and money. Supposing actual sales are rather unlikely, how will you keep the artists happy?
- To be beneficial to us hosts, we would have to attract more or higher paying guests. Without a doubt our place will become more attractive with some nice pieces of art, but this does not guarantee our market being able to support higher prices. And there’s a more important sting to the idea: the AirBnB system is very much based on the principle “what-you-see-is-what-you-SHOULD-get” and some guests are rather ‘anal’ about this principle “When I booked there were butterflies on the wall, and now there are triangles. Triangles don’t allow me to sleep.” So supposing sales actually do happen, it could cause us trouble.
- How will YOU source local artists? How will you find an artist in let’s say León, Nicaragua? That seems more a job cut out for a local (host) instead of a distant you.
- Personally (and I think I’m not alone) I’m not very fond of the idea of renting stuff instead of owning. Certainly for rather static things like art. If I can pay $200 to $400 a year on a subscription, I will also be able to just buy a few pieces of art and put them up for sale.
- Your win-win-win for ABB hosts (doubtful), local artists (unlikely) and travelers (?), seems more like a win-win-win-WIN with the fourth WIN being the only guaranteed (=yours).
I must say you have given me great ideas. I think I’m just going to put a small price tag on my homemade art 
. If something gets sold, I will just have it remade and back on the wall within 3 days 
.
I might also try to make a deal with some local artists: They provide art for free and if a sale goes through they pay me 10% instead of the usual 50% in galleries. That would be a WIN - WIN - WIN instead of a win-win-win-WIN, won’t it?
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Get a little tired of everyone wanting to have a nibble, nibble nibble of my STR income.
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And that is the 64 million dollar question isn’t it @airbnbart
As you have seen from the feedback so far, the vast majority (in fact I think all us) have said that we wouldn’t use such a service.
I think you would be much better targeting large scale management companies, if you can demonstrate you can offer something better than what’s already out there in the marketplace.
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I second that. And the chair is nice too… where did you get it?
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Our BnB is in a South American country where they don’t mind importing design copies from China. We bought it in a local furniture market for $US 45. It’s very comfortable and being plastic very easy to clean 
.
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Critique is what I’m looking for since it reveals the flaws in the idea.
I’m also glad you liked my idea of selling art in your place and have some action plan lined up I would definitely encourage hosts to do so (not too intrusively though).
And once again I’m not here to sell or have a nibble of someones pie, I’m here to discuss a hypothetical idea and hear opinions on art decor. Such service doesn’t exist yet and would be completely optional for anyone if I find $64 millions to build it 
I wish @GutHend that 4th WIN could be achieved without first three wins but unfortunately it is ultimately impossible to achieve success and profitability without providing value to customers. If such business model fails to attract customers or provide value to them it will fail spectacularly (no WIN for me in that case either).
But you brought up a lot of good questions that can be addressed. I have thought about some of them and have answers/solutions. I won’t bore you by explaining those. I’d rather ask you what features and cost would make you as a host use such platform?
I’m not too worried about artists, there are a lot of decent artists and young talent who wouldn’t mind exposing their artwork. And besides ABB rental display you always can do straight sales to have artists make money.
We have art both on the walls and installed in our property (sculpture and framed art). None of it is for sale but we make the artist’s names known in our listing.
No issues with damage. I just wouldn’t hang anything expensive where steam accumulates or there would be water damage such as near the shower or bath.
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The chair is nice. Yes
van gogh is great i have one of those prints too