When you close your eyes and envision your dream home and the guest room you’d have, I bet it’s a serene oasis filled with comfort, style, and all the luxuries of a fine hotel including white bed linens. Here’s the trouble with this though, it’s not real life for most of us. For many of us, a guest room is a spare room, an office, a reading room, spare TV room, and so much more. Because honestly, who has enough rooms to keep an entire proper bedroom (and then some) in their house for the odd guest? Nope, for most people, a guest room is a multi-functional room and should be treated like such (rather than just another bedroom).
With that in mind, it’s time for another edition of Splurge VS. Save: Guest Rooms.
Where to Splurge
Sofa Beds
Yes, sofa beds. Forget about a traditional mattress in the guest room and make the room much more functional (and multi-purpose) for your everyday life by investing in a quality sofa bed. Not only will you enjoy a quality sofa bed in its sofa form on a day to day basis for reading, working, or vegging with Netflix, but the quality of the sleeping experience will make it a happy one for guests.
This room offers up a serene oasis for every day working and living, while offering up the same for guests when the room requires – the best of both worlds!
A funky sofa bed in a kid’s room is also a fun way to add extra sleepover space.
Lighting
As a multi-functional room, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got the right lighting for all your needs. Depending on all the room’s various uses (reading room, guest room, Netflix, or office) you’ll want to be sure you have appropriate task lighting or ambiance for each. And while of course, you can really splurge on each fixture – what we mean here is, splurge on the amount of lighting – really make sure you have a great ceiling light, floor lamp, and maybe a small desk or side table lamp to create the most inviting space for any need.
Where to Save
Bookshelves
With incredible big box store bookshelves at bargain basement prices, this is where you’ll want to save your pennies. Adding some moulding to multiple store bought units and covering up the tell-tale big box ‘holes’ gives your multi-purpose guest room huge amounts of storage for a small price. The bonus is not only are all your books, photos, and other collectables displayed but your guests also have a good book at their disposal as they snuggle into your comfortable sofa bed.
Side Tables
In your master bedroom, a good side table is a must. In a guest room, however, is where you can use fun alternatives depending on how much an actual ‘side table’ is needed (ie: when that awesome sofa bed you splurged on gets used). Forget the traditional pair and maybe opt for one or better yet, scrap them all together and use a funky occasional chair when there is a need to pop a little alarm clock, a book, and that ever-important small bedside lamp.
Looking for more inspiration? Check out this great round up on The Spruce of bookshelf hacks.
Rebecca, Your Furniture Expert