Help understanding Airbnb tax deductions?

[Paul Winka]

I will soon be an Airbnb host and want to get my accounting right from the start. I am buying a house I will live in myself and rent out the different rooms for more than 14 days each year through Airbnb. I am aware of the 14-day rule.

Some of the items / services are 100% deductible like towels and bedsheets for guests. And then apportioning the mortgage interest, insurance, etc. 

But there are other scenarios for which I could not find out a definite answer on how to allocate, or no answer at all. I don’t want to cheat the IRS, but don’t want to leave money on the table either.

For example, I might buy a coffee machine, maybe $100. I don’t drink coffee but guests do. I don’t watch TV much either but might buy a TV and subscribe to Netflix. These would be all for the guests, so I could claim 100% of it as a “supply” on Schedule E? 

And then there are other repairs, improvements and other items, like a kitchen or bathroom rehab. Say a kitchen repair costs $20K. I estimate that guests “use” the house 40% of the time, so that would mean I could count this a capex of $8K, then depreciate that over a certain number of years?

It all seems kind of arbitrary, but anyway, am I on the right track?