FURNISHING A RENTAL CONDO
IN BANGKOK

Furnishing a condo you live in and furnishing one you rent out are different jobs. In your own home, you optimise for how you live. In a rental unit, you optimise for people you will never meet: tenants who move in with their own habits, cook, entertain, sometimes keep pets, and move out again — while the furniture stays, and has to look as good in the next set of listing photographs as it did in the first.

This guide is for owners furnishing a Bangkok condo for the rental market, whether you live in Thailand or are managing the unit from abroad. We will not tell you what yield to expect — that depends on the building, the location and the market, not on the sofa. We will tell you how to specify furniture so it survives the tenancy cycle.

THE BRIEF IS DURABILITY, THEN APPEARANCE

The furniture in a rental unit faces more use and less care than almost any furniture in an owner-occupied home. So start by deciding what must not fail, and only then decide what it should look like.

Frames. The frame is what fails first and costs most to fix. Look for kiln-dried hardwood frames with glued and pinned joinery and reinforced corners — the way our atelier builds every sofa and chair — rather than stapled softwood or board. A good frame can be re-upholstered after several tenancies; a cheap one goes to the skip.

Seat cushions. Foam density decides whether a sofa still looks like a sofa after two years of heavy use. Ask what the cushion is made of and how it is wrapped, not just what it feels like in a showroom.

Legs and bases. Tenants drag furniture. Solid timber or metal legs that are properly fixed into the frame survive this; screw-in legs into board do not.

FABRICS: CHOOSE FOR THE WORST TENANT, NOT THE BEST

Upholstery is where rental furniture shows its age soonest. Three principles help.

Removable covers where possible. A cover that can be taken off and cleaned between tenancies extends the life of a sofa considerably. It costs something in design — not every silhouette suits loose covers — but for a rental unit it is usually worth it.

Performance fabrics over delicate ones. Tightly woven fabrics with good abrasion resistance and stain resistance outlast velvet, loose bouclé and pale linen in a rental. Save delicate textures for accent pieces that see less use.

Mid-tone colours. Very pale fabric shows every mark; very dark fabric shows fading and dust. Mid-tones in warm greys, taupes and muted greens hide wear and photograph well.

Leather is a judgement call. Good leather ages well and wipes clean, but it needs ventilation and occasional care, and a unit left closed and unconditioned between tenancies in Bangkok's humidity is hard on it. We go into the trade-offs in choosing upholstery for Bangkok's humidity.

SURFACES: STONE AND LAMINATE OVER SOFT FINISHES

Dining tables, coffee tables and kitchen worktops take the most abuse after the sofa. Hard-wearing surfaces — sealed stone, high-pressure laminate, well-finished solid timber — tolerate hot cups, spills and cleaning products far better than soft lacquers or veneers. If you want natural stone, be aware that marble and travertine etch with acidic spills unless properly sealed and maintained; we cover the details in travertine and stone tables in Bangkok.

BUILT-IN STORAGE IS WHAT TENANTS NOTICE

Ask anyone who has viewed rental condos in Bangkok what makes a unit feel liveable and the answer is usually storage. Units with a proper full-height wardrobe, a storage wall in the living area and enough kitchen cabinetry feel larger and are easier to live in than units that rely on freestanding pieces.

Built-in storage has a second advantage for owners: it stays with the unit, it cannot be removed by a tenant, and well-built carcasses on a moisture-resistant board last many years. For what to look for — board, hardware, ventilation, depth — see our wardrobe checklist for small spaces, and for what we build, built-in furniture.

SIZES: STANDARD WHERE IT HELPS, CUSTOM WHERE IT COUNTS

Rental furniture should usually be sized for the room, not for any particular tenant. A few rules work well:

Beds in standard mattress sizes, so replacement mattresses and bedding are easy to source.
Sofas scaled to the room — usually smaller and shallower than an owner-occupier might choose, because a sofa that dominates a narrow living room makes the unit look smaller in photographs. Our sofa size guide covers the dimensions.
Dining tables that seat the number of bedrooms times two as a sensible default.
Storage built to the full wall, where custom work earns its cost most clearly.

FURNISH FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Most tenants decide whether to view a unit from the listing photos. Furniture that reads clearly in a wide-angle photograph helps: low, clean-lined sofas that do not block the window, a dining table that shows the full room behind it, consistent colours and materials across rooms. A unit furnished as one coherent scheme looks more considered than one assembled piece by piece — and that coherence is easier to achieve when one team designs everything.

COORDINATE FURNITURE WITH THE RENOVATION

If the unit is being renovated before it is let, furniture and renovation should be planned together. Built-ins are fitted against walls, electrical points and plumbing that the renovation may be moving. Loose furniture has to arrive after the dusty work is done but before the photographer. Done separately, those two jobs tend to collide.

Our turnkey service handles both with one team. Interior design is ฿2,000/sqm (minimum ฿100,000) and turnkey construction starts from ฿20,000/sqm (minimum ฿1,000,000), with built-in furniture included in construction. The building's juristic-office approval is prepared for you, and owners managing from overseas receive weekly progress reports with photos. See condo renovation, the full rate card, and our worked examples in condo renovation cost in Bangkok.

If the unit is already in good shape and only needs furnishing, individual pieces can be commissioned on their own — see custom furniture in Bangkok. Every commission is quoted at a fixed price before production, with a 5-year structural and 2-year upholstery warranty.