Guest Room Design Tips

Posted by Ben Thompson on 08.7.10

What is the qualitative value of your guest room?  Quantitatively speaking it allows for 2 more people to "sleep" in your home.

All of us would hope that it is more than just a place to torture our friends and families who love us enough to suffer through a visit with us.  This article gives a practical roadmap to increasing the qualitative value of your guest room.  This blog post is inspired by recently reading some of Sarah Susanka's design books.

Here are some simple tips to having a fabulous guest room:

  1. Stay in your guest room every once in awhile.  Is it comfortable in both summer and winter?  Is it quiet at night?
  2. Many guests are very uncomfortable having to walk through public spaces to get to the bathroom.  My family is open about stuff like that.  But most people are not as free as we are.
  3. The top of the bed doesn't have to be the place you put the suitcase.  The floor is not an appropriate spot for Grandma to dig through her suitcase.  A 5 foot desk area could be a perfect place to open up luggage.  After all, if you're only spending 2 nights, who wants to unload all your clothes into the 2 dressers (unnecessary) in most guest rooms.
  4. Bedding - my parents and in laws would die with heat in the summer because we forced them to sleep with our fluffy 3" thick down comforter we have on the bed.  We had overlooked the need for layered bedding.  Don't forget a fan or alternative heat source if it's not a normally comfortable room.
  5. Think like a hotel - what is your favorite hotel to stay in?  Do what they do in your home.  Yes, now is the perfect time to schedule a trip to do some research.
  6. Offer different thickness of pillows in the room and don't have hand-me-down pillows.  Throw out the pillows from the 90s and buy new ones.
  7. Two twin beds is roughly the same as a king sized bed so if you have to displace the kiddos for guests consider pushing together twins to make guests comfy.

We love having guests in our home.  These tips will help demonstrate our love more fully to those we invite into our homes.

Topics: Love Where You Live, Thompson Times, sarah susanka, guest room