How to Create a Multi-Purpose Guest Room

If you have an extra bedroom in your home, you might feel as though you have to choose between having a home office, a guest room, a craft room or some other purposeful space. The fact is, with some savvy furniture use, you can actually make the space a multi-purpose room, where you can satisfy your need for several different types of rooms. Here are some tips to consider as you go about configuring your space:

If you have a home office that will sometimes function as a guest room, then it’s better to allocate more of the space to your work-related items. On the other hand, if you host guests frequently but occasionally bring work home from the office, then a dedicated guest room with a separate work area would probably work out better. Either way, you’ll need to dedicate some of the space to a work area and some of it to a sleeping and clothing-storage area.

If the room that you’re working in is small, then you might be concerned that you don’t have the space for both a work area and a bed. While you might only have 100 or 120 square feet of floor space, don’t forget that you do have a lot of wall space that could hold furniture that will fold down when it’s needed. For example, a Murphy bed, also called a wall bed, sits up against the wall most of the time, in its own storage unit (which, incidentally, will provide you with some shelves and cabinets to use for whatever you need to store). When guests come to visit, you simply pull down the bed and they have a comfortable place to sleep. Another option is to invest in a table that normally sits up against the wall. If you have a craft project to do, or you really need to get some work done while at home, fold it down and, voila, you have a workspace.

Whether your extra room is functioning as more of a guest room, more of an office or more of a craft area, you will need someplace to store your (or your guests’) stuff. A custom closet system, complete with drawers, shelves, hanging racks and closet accessories, could work. So could a nice antique dresser, bookshelves with bins or any other method of organization that you can think of. When it’s time to use the room for its secondary purpose, it’s nice to be able to pack away as much of the office/craft/guest room stuff as you can.

Let the sun shine in and put in some nice window treatments. Buy a nice quilt for the guest bed, and purchase a comfortable rolling chair if you will be working in the room. Avoid making it seem as though the room is just a place to make do; it’s a part of your home, and you should feel comfortable in your space, regardless of its intended use. Go ahead and put some art up on the walls and include a CD player so you can play some music in the room.

With many homeowners opting to buy a home with an extra room, it’s great to be able to use the space for more than one purpose. Keeping some of the above tips in mind will help you to make the most of your space.