Having space for guests, friends and family to stay in your home is useful, but creating a designated guest bedroom isn’t always easy, especially in a small property with limited space. But there are ways around it!
Here are three common guest bedroom dilemmas, along with practical ideas for how to solve them and create a bedroom area that your guests will love.
Dilemma: No spare room
Not having a spare room may seem like the ultimate problem, but there are ways around it. A designated guest room purely used for that purpose is great in an ideal world, but in reality a lot of people have to make the best use of the space they have.
Solution: Multi-purpose furniture such as sofa beds are an ideal solution for helping easily transform the purpose of a room. It could be used as a study or play room most of the time, then whipped into shape as a guest room when required.
Alternatively, you could partition off half or part of a room when required to create a guest area. There are lots of decorative room screen dividers available and you could always make them pay their way by hiding clutter behind them at other times!
Dilemma: Low budget
If you’re strapped for cash and wondering how you’re going to afford to create a guest bedroom, then it’s time to go back to basics. What’s the key thing any guests would appreciate?
Solution: A comfy bed is likely to be high on their priority list, so use the bulk of your budget on investing in a decent bed.
Look out for stylish second-hand bed frames in your area on eBay or Gumtree and buy a new mattress for it – there are plenty of good deals to be found at retailers like Tesco.
If you like the idea of having a double bed, but can’t run to buying one at the moment, then there are other options available, such as single beds which have an additional pull out bed tucked away underneath them. That way you get two beds, but have the added bonus of being able to put one out of sight when it’s not in use.
Brighten up the walls of the room with some colourful wall art, or have some of your favourite photos printed out and framed. Dress the bed with fresh clean bedding and a few cosy cushions.
Dilemma: Lack of storage
A spare room often ends up doubling up as a useful storage area (or a dumping ground) for other things, like children’s toys, winter clothes, spare bedding or Christmas decorations.
It’s not ideal for any house guests to be surrounded by random piles of items and doesn’t feel particularly welcoming. Neither is it great for them if they’ve got nowhere to put their overnight bag or hang up any clothes.
Solution: Beds that have built in storage are a brilliant solution, as you can hide away all your clutter in drawers under the bed, or even in a space under the base of the bed. No-one need know any of it is there (well, perhaps unless they try and move the bed!), but it’s still all easy to access when you need it.
If there’s a wardrobe in the room, try and clear a bit of space for your guests to use. Otherwise, put up a wall mounted coat rack with several hooks or invest in a coat stand, so they’ve got somewhere to hang clothing if they wish.
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Fantastic and very useful article! Sofa beds are the best solution ever and suprisingly they’re very comfortable. I am going to buy one, but still can’t choose appropriate colour and producer. I found beautiful red sofa on slf24.co.uk Have you heard something about the company?
I think you hit the nail on the head. it’s the almost-always lack of space. So the solution is multi-use/multi-function in some way shape or form. the difficulty is making that kind of practicality look good. Office+bedroom is the obvious one (I do that too) but you are left with an office that you use a lot and a bed that is rarely used. yet the bed take up a MASSIVE amount of the space….disproportionately so. Futon-type solutions make sense … if you like the 90s.