The new setup won’t allow guest access to the kitchen, so I’m planning to provide kettle, toaster, microwave, bread, cereal, jams, croissants, sliced ham, coffee, tea…is this too hotel-like, and not really the Airbnb philosophy - i.e. borrowing someones home?
House is VERY central, 2 restaurants and a pub are within 40 paces. However, if someone books a place for a week, they’d have to eat out constantly, which is fair enough if they’d booked a hotel…but maybe not from Borrow-a-home.com.
Obviously this will all be mentioned in the info. Do I run the risk of losing potential bookings? I realise price will reflect this.
I don’t think so. I started with the traditional model and moved to the more like a hotel model, adding an ensuite bathroom and separate entrance and taking away access to the rest of the home. Bookings tripled. My results may not be relevant to you as I attract mostly people driving through and needing a place for the night, not people who are making this their destination.
Airbnb has moved away from this and is very much trying to get hosts to replicate the hotel experience.
I think this works, though the ham is questionable. It is expensive and lots of folks don’t eat pork. And, it goes bad more quickly than the other items.
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I’ll replace the ham with Nutella!
Thanks for the replies so far…K9KarmaCasa: tripled!
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Yep! People booking my place clearly preferred privacy over community. Part of it was on my side, I was able to open more dates because I no longer had to make sure I was here and so on.
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I don’t think it will matter too much. We rent one room in our home. When we started out, we allowed full access to our kitchen for any use. When people started cooking “Thanksgiving-level” dinners at 9pm, we learned our lesson and put a stop to it. Now, we allow “light cooking” which is use of the microwave, fridge to store cold supplies, coffee maker, dishes/cups to use for cereal, reheating food, etc. It has not made a difference in our booking rate, but has made a difference in my peace of mind!
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Have you analyzed from your bookings so far what percentage of your guests have actually used the kitchen? And to what extent? (The highest level being thanksgiving-level, good one @Dawn_England! 
)
That first step should give you an idea how necessary the kitchen is.
If I were you, I’d do this in two phases - first only supply the simpler items - cereal, tea coffee etc., and monitor its usage. If the need to invest in other items, especially stuff like m/w is justified, then buy them.
Seeing as how central you are, it might turn out that you might not have to go the whole hog (no reference to previous posts about a certain food item discussed!)
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yes, good advice there. I was a host last year, and starting again in a couple of months, so I won’t have the chance to check on kitchen usage.
Good point on starting with the simpler stuff…I was thinking about fridges, microwaves, et al, but may well be a waste of space (and monies)
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I came on this forum initially because I had "thanksgiving "cooks in my houses for 2.5 weeks. Being a new host I was afraid to say anything and I was traumatized to the point of wanting to stop hosting.
I also have the same set up as you, limited use of kitchen. I do allow a little cooking like boiling and omlet making. Or similar. Most of my guests don’t even touch kitchen even don’t make coffee .
I noticed people from Latin countries are very much into cooking. They always warm up milk several times a day for tea and coffee and this milk burns all my pots .
They are the ones who often don’t book when I remind them about kitchen rule.
One girl from Argentina I had to chase away from the kitchen on day 2. Gourmet burritos , enchiladas and other fun stuff was in her program. She still cooked but secretly when she knew I would be away for the night and other guests were complaining about her spending 3 hours at a time on a kitchen late at night banging pots and pans and disturbing everyone
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Jeez, 3 hours!
And burnt milk 
I love that we all have experienced the “thanksgiving-level” cooks and can get a good chuckle out of it.
I would agree with what K9KarmaCasa said about people valuing privacy over other things. At our place, guest have their own private bathroom in our home and this has been mentioned several times to us as the reason why they booked with us (well that and our old victorian house is just awesome…and full of super fun artwork… and us…ha!).
When we started doing this, we had 2 bedrooms going, and both rooms shared a bathroom. As an experiment, we turned one room off and raised the price of the other because it would now have a private bathroom. We make almost as much money as running 2 rooms, with half the work. SCORE!
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Dawn! That’s very similar to the setup I’ll be doing. Original plan was for two groups of two people (there’s two bedrooms), but I was concerned about two separate groups having to share a bathroom. Then had a brainwave, to let both rooms as one let, i.e., for groups of four people, with their own bathroom.
It remains to be seen if I’m short on bookings, as I imagine there’s more couples out there, than groups of four. I 'spect that’ll be my next post!
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Survive the kitchen, however, my last gift to use it, damaged one of the burners on my stove. So now my stove only works three-quarters of the way I’m not so late. And I did not know this until after she left. Ergo, I guess are entitled to use the stove and oven, but some minor things. I usually suggest takeout or easy to prepare
I’m still pretty new, but I’m doing a no-stove option. Guests can store things in the fridge and an area of the cabinets. Microwave, toaster, and hot water kettle are all fine to use, as are cups/plates/silverware. But not the stove.
I don’t provide breakfast - I’m in the middle of a major city, a block away from a diner-ish place open at 7 or 8am with much better options than I can offer, and two-three blocks away from multiple grocery stores.
For the other non-breakfast hosts out there: if you have a guest coming in very late, do you offer to pick up anything for them? Or does that blur the lines too much?
Let them take care of themselves and buy their own food.
I only offer tea, jot chocolate and coffee and maximum toast and butter
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I used to provide kitchen access (shared flat situation) - but I learned over time that allowing guests to use your kitchen / providing breakfast in many cases can be a bad bad idea.
It gives guests many more areas to find fault in and strike you down in the review. It gives hosts many more things to worry about and maintain/repair.
If the expectation is managed during reservation (that there’s no kitchen access) I think it turns out much better over all (for the host surely.)
And sometimes I think if almost every (shared-acco) host removed kitchen access, these issues will disappear/diminish (including guests’ assumption of access or even right to the kitchen!)
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I don’t offer a kitchen. My rental has a ‘kitchenette’ area with a mini fridge, microwave, small counter, tea kettle (water boiler), as well as cutlery, plates, bowls, cups, tea cups, pour over coffee maker and things like cutting board, knives, etc. I provide cereal, coffee and tea. Basically, it’s great for a quick breakfast, reheating leftovers, and snacks, as there isn’t a stovetop or oven.
I haven’t received a single complaint, but I also live in a ‘foodie’ town where eating out is a major reason for visiting. It also encourages shorter stays, which I like!! It is noted in my listing that there is no kitchen, and I haven’t had any issues. I was also worried about this initially, but I didn’t need to be.
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I allow access to the kitchen. It’s only been a problem a handful of times over the years and I can’t imagine not doing it. For those of you who don’t allow it and don’t offer a kitchenette like @banana (love your name!), do you provide water in the room and facilities for making tea & coffee? I can’t function in the morning without a cup of tea first :(.
I have an electric kettle and I provide cups and the makings for instant coffee or tea. As I told one guest, “it’s just emergency rations, I need coffee so I can go get coffee.” Despite this I can a pair of Japanese girls who asked about kitchen use. I said sorry, no kitchen use. They messaged again and asked “could be at least boil water?” This is despite the kettle and microwave. I didn’t see the message until hours later so I guess they figured it out, they gave 5 stars.
Ha! That’s me, but with tea. So where do they get the water to fill the kettle ? Is it from a bottle?