You may not give much thought to the home furnishings and accessories in your guest room, especially if you don’t entertain overnight guests often.
However, if your guest room vexes you as a source of lost or misappropriated space, it’s time to take back this valuable chunk of indoor real estate. It’s easy to transform your guest bedroom into a usable, multi-purpose space with the right home furnishings and finishing touches.
Our Love-Hate Relationship with the Guest Room
According to a recent poll by the home design site Houzz.com, almost twice as many homeowners admit to using the guest bedroom primarily for storage, staging or other purposes, rather than (or in addition to) a room for overnight visitors.
The spare room may be where you store winter coats and clothing during the warmer months, or a convenient place to stash the vacuum cleaner. Maybe you use it as a craft room or playroom for the kids. More likely, ascribing to the out-of-sight-out-of-mind philosophy, you use it to stuff things you don’t have another place for.
If you think about it, this is a significant waste of space, especially since you’re heating, cooling and cleaning it. What if you could change this tenuous relationship into a more loving feeling, and transform this wasted space into a functional, multi-purpose room?
You can, simply by adding some well-chosen home furnishings and accessories.
Begin by Determining Your Goals for the Spare Bedroom
Let’s assume that you do want to maintain a sleeping space for occasional overnight guests. Beyond that immediate goal, however, what else do you need or want the space to accomplish in your home?
Give this question serious consideration, but try to avoid the temptation to create a long, diverse list. Otherwise, you won’t have enough room for all the home furnishings you need to accomplish the list.
For example, you can easily combine the spare bedroom with either a home office setup, a playroom or a crafting space. Trying to force all of these uses in a single room, however, may be unrealistic.
Once you’ve identified your most important objectives, it’s time to set about choosing the right home furnishings and accessories.
Choose Home Furnishings That Multi-Task
Unless you have frequent overnight guests, begin by choosing those home furnishings that meet your own needs. If you want the space to serve as a home office, choose your desk, storage and accessories first. Then select sleeping and storage pieces that fit in the remaining space.
If your square footage is limited, choose convertible furnishings for sleepover guests. A convertible sofa or expandable daybed will function as seating space when you don’t have guests. This creates a more comfortable – and spacious – room for your alternative purposes.
To maximize storage, choose tall wardrobe-style cabinets and open shelving units, rather than traditional chests or dressers. Many contemporary daybed designs also feature storage drawers below the sleeping surface. If you can resist filling them up yourself, these are perfect for the use of your occasional overnight guests.
In Salt Lake City, Guild Hall Fine Furnishings offers a wide variety of fine furniture, lighting and accessories for your home and office. Our professional interior design staff can assist you in selecting the perfect pieces for your space, or we can place a custom furniture order for special sizes.
Visit our showroom today and let us help you put your guest bedroom to good use through the creative use of fine home furnishings.
