Dear fellow hosts:
Has anyone considered buying surplus or used hotel furniture from companies such as hotelsurplus.? It seems to me that “normal” furniture cannot withstand the continuous day to day use by guests – what are your thoughts, please?
I would not. There are always deals on new furniture if you look hard enough and I would be concerned with the possibility of bed bugs or other critters nesting in secondhand upholstered furniture.
Is there a reason normal furniture isn’t good enough? Are your guests behaving any differently from normal? After all I sleep in my normal bed everyday, sit in my normal sofa everyday and cook on my normal stove everyday. All designed with everyday use in mind and holding up very well?
@Terryathome and @Zandra, thank you for your feedback. My occupancy rate is high and I have noticed that the furniture does not last as long as the furniture in my own home. Within a 30-day period the mechanism of a 6-month old sofa-bed broke and the almost-new queen size bed also broke. Either my guests are having wild and crazy sex that is putting too much “stress” on sleeping surfaces or the furniture is more heavily used than in my own home.
I only sit on the seats of chairs and couches. My guests tend to sit on the arms.
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This would be my concern too. Hotel furniture also seems to be too generic - surely one of the advantages of staying in an Airbnb rental is its quirkiness and lack of cookie-cutter furniture?
One thing I would like though, if anyone has a source, is those paper liners that hotels put in dresser drawers.
http://www.chicshelfpaper.com/Kitchen-Shelf-Paper-Drawer-Liners/
https://www.containerstore.com/s/kitchen/pantry-organizers/drawer-shelf-liners/123
https://www.papermart.com/plastic-coated-paper-shelf-liner/id=79094
That is the limits of my google-fu.
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as it happens I sit on the arms of furniture too! Again I thought that was normal use.
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A really good question that I’ve been wondering about too. I have a suspicion that it’s mostly about all that wheeled luggage coming in and out. I think many guests are hurling their 50 lb max weight capacity suitcases onto our sofas, beds, and even our dining room tables to do their un/packing. Then at the end of their trip when they’ve finished packing, they drag that even heavier, unwieldy suitcase (with hard-edged plastic and metal pieces that connect the handle to the bag) off our furniture (you know, because it’s too heavy to actually lift!)
While not related to this question, that same luggage bashes into baseboards and walls, leaving scratches, marks, scuffs, and sometimes just takes off some dry-wall.
So I’m going to go with heavy luggage as my final answer. : )
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2 years ago I bought 10 used boxsprings from a hotel closing.
I replaced some very old (15+ years) spring feathered matresses.
In 2 years I will be replacing the matresses on the boxsprings, but I keep the bottom part.
Had the same problem with dirty suitcases on beds etc We now have a folding luggage rack in bedrooms and people actually use them 
I might do if we had anything like that site here - there seem to be some quite good deals, although some of the stuff looks pretty similar to “ordinary” furniture. I don’t know if it would really be more sturdy.
BTW, UK ignoramus here , what’s a “loveseat”?
I think - although after living in the States for ‘only’ 23 years I’m definitely no expert - it’s a two seater sofa?
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I think that in the UK - in antique furniture anyway - it’s a long chair that’s S-shaped when looked at from above. They are actually more ‘loving’ to sit on than a two seater sofa
I bought some heavy duty bamboo chairs 10 years ago, they still look great.
About 6 yrs. ago I bought a white painted bamboo and rattan set at a hotel sale. It was a double dresser (missing the mirror), two night stands ea. with a single drawer and a headboard for a queen-size bed.
I think it was around $200 and it was for my furnished LTR. It’s still in the unit with the same tenants (a young couple). I added a tropical print comforter and an 8’ tall artificial banana plant in a basket.
I feel sorta bad that I knowingly doomed the couple to having to dust the banana leaves all these years.
Yes, a love seat is a two seater sofa, either with the two seats next to each other or facing opposite from one another.
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They are more loving to sit on if smooching is your idea of loving. For more body contact than just lips the side by side two seaters work better.
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A loveseat is generally a shorter (in length) sofa around 5’ long and seats two (as opposed to the standard 7-9 foot length sofa.)
I purchased new sitting room furniture for my rental last Fall and got rid of the queen-size microfiber sofa-bed and two side chairs. I replaced them with a leather loveseat and leather recliner w/footstool. The purpose was to scale down and add more space. The two pieces were manufactured in Norway and cost a pretty penny ($4K) but the comfort and quality were important to me since it is for our own use as well.
I haven’t been back so I don’t know first-hand how they held up but the housecleaner says they are the same as when purchased. (Heck, they better be.)