When you host people in your home, having a well-designed guest bedroom is an essential component to providing your guests with an enjoyable and comfortable overnight experience.
The best part about planning a guest bedroom is that you have the opportunity to be as creative as you want. Since it’s not a space that you — or anyone else — will be permanently living in, you can exercise more freedom to be bold with décor, experiment with reusing or repurposing older items, or include fun furniture or small touches that wouldn’t make sense in other parts of the home.
If you’re wondering how to get started with designing your guest room, or you just want to find a way to take it to the next level, here are 10 tips to help provide some inspiration.
Anywhere Can Be a Guest Room
Just because you may not have an extra “bedroom” in the traditional sense doesn’t mean that you can’t turn some other part of your home into a multi-use space that will make your guests feel welcome and comfortable. Attics, (finished) basements, and even a garage can be converted into a spare bedroom with enough TLC and weather-proofing. And if that’s not an option (say you live in a condo or just a small house), transform a home office or family room into a makeshift bedroom by adding a small daybed, futon, or pull-out couch and creating a cozy corner where your guests can relax.
Find a Theme
If you’re having trouble getting moving on your guest room design or don’t have a lot of interior design experience, pick a theme that you can base your decisions around as you begin planning and purchasing furniture and décor. One of the fun things about a guest room is the ability to decorate it without the constraints of the rest of your home in mind, so if you want to include something like nautical imagery, need a place to put some clashing artwork that you love, or you’ve always wanted to paint a room with bright, bold colors that would be too much for daily life, this could be your chance. Whatever you decide, you can use that as a jumping off point for the rest of the design.
Simple is Always Better
While we highly encourage you to have fun with your guest room design, remember that the space does serve a functional purpose (even if it’s just a few times a year), so make a point to keep it relatively clean and free of clutter. This will make it easier for your guests to settle in and feel at home during their stay, and it will also be easier to maintain when it’s unoccupied.
A Place to Recharge
In our modern world, everyone has at least one gizmo or gadget that they’ve brought with them that will need to be charged during their stay, so help your guests out by setting up a nice charging station on a dresser, desk or nightstand. Here are a few options for you to consider. And if you have the available space, consider setting up a whole desk and chair to provide a small work area, which will be especially useful for people who are staying for a few days or longer.
Establish a Chill Zone
Similarly, if the room allows it, set aside a portion of it to act as a sitting area/reading nook, some sort of space that is explicitly meant for your guests to hang out and enjoy themselves. This will create a better overall experience for the guests, since it will give them a place to relax on their own without being forced to spend all their down time in bed if they want some privacy.
Make Space for Multiple People
Depending on how many spare rooms you have and how many people you usually host, it’s probably a good idea to set up your guest room to comfortably sleep multiple people, and ideally multiple adults. Many hosts do this by setting up two twin size beds in the room, but as they quickly learn, that eats up a lot of available floor space that could be better utilized as a work station or sitting area. To better maximize the space in your guest room and safely accommodate multiple people, add an adult bunk bed, which features a strong and sturdy metal frame and massive 2,000 LB weight capacity. And with five decorative finishes to choose from, you can get a bed that matches whatever them or design you decide on for your room.
Spring for the Good Bedding
Having a sturdy bed and quality mattress are essential to providing your guests with a good night’s sleep, but when your goal is to make your guests as comfortable as possible, it’s important to put the cherry on top with high quality bedding. Look for higher thread counts and purer fabrics (i.e., little-to-no blending with synthetic fabrics) and spend the money to get quality pillows that will retain their shape and comfort. Also, make sure you know how to properly clean and care for your bedding materials, so that they won’t degrade and you get the most of them for years to come.
Provide a Nightstand
A nightstand is an essential component to any great bedroom, so don’t forget one for your guests! There are, of course plenty of great options for a traditional nightstand out there, some of which can also offer additional storage and/or opportunities to decorate and elaborate on your room’s theme. But if a standard nightstand won’t work for your budget or space constraints, that doesn’t mean your guests are out of luck. I’ve seen clever homeowners use everything from old chairs to storage trunks as makeshift side tables. And as long as your bed is against a wall, you can always add as small floating shelf right next to it to provide a space for guests to set their drinks, reading materials, or phones. (If you’re adding an adult loft or bunk bed to your guest room, don’t forget to add a tray so that people on the top bunk can keep their items close-at-hand.)
Entertainment Options
Though you’re surely a lovely host who is a delight to spend time with, sometimes it’s nice to just kick back in your own private space. You can both encourage and enhance this part of your guest’s experience by outfitting the guest room with a television (which includes whatever cable/satellite/streaming options you have in the home), providing some reading materials (books and magazines), and even leaving them a Bluetooth speaker in the room, so that they can connect their phone or computer and listen to music or podcasts. It’s also become basic courtesy to make your wifi password readily available, and many hosts have taken to making this part of the room’s décor by framing the password and leaving it out on the desk or nightstand.
(Image via DesignGenes Studio)
Stock Some Essentials
No matter how seasoned you are at traveling, it’s inevitable that you’re going to forget something, so be there for your guests by providing some basic essential items that they may need during their stay, such as towels and toothpaste. You can even take a page out of the hotel industry’s book and provide some extra pillows and blankets in the room, so that your guests can configure a bedding arrangement that is just right for them.
Don’t Forget to Have Fun
It may seem like a lot goes into designing a great guest room, but when it’s all said and done, it’s really just about considering the things that will help your guests ease into their stay and feel at home, so just consider the things that would make you feel comfortable and start building from there. And most of all, don’t forget to have fun and be creative with the space. Considering it will mostly likely be primarily occupied by friends and family, this is a great chance to express yourself and really test your interior design skills. In the end, they will appreciate the time and care that you’ve taken to provide them with a comfortable and memorable experience.