With the holiday season upon us, many of you will have out of town guest staying the night. To help your visitors feel comfortable, here are a eight essentials to creating an inviting guest room.

1. A Comfortable Bed

Ensure that the pillows and mattress are comfortable. You do not want your guest getting up the next day soar from a poor night's sleep. A memory foam mattress pad can make the stiffest of beds more comfortable. If possible offer two types of pillows. One soft and the other slightly firmer, since everyone has different preferences.

2. Crisp Clean Sheets

You would think this goes with out saying but I have experienced staying in a guest room that had remains from the previous guest on the sheets. It was gross and uncomfortable to say the least. Everyone appreciates crawling into a clean bed at the end of the day.

3. A Room Free of Clutter and Personal Photos

Otherwise, your guests will feel like they are intruding on your personal space.

4. Storage

Have a few hangers in the closet for your guest to hang their clothes. A couple of empty drawers is nice too. Especially, for those that are staying multiple nights.

If you have decorative pillows on the bed, have a place for your guest to store them; such as a bench at the foot of the bed or a basket. This will prevent the pillows from ending up on the floor. A bench can also double as a luggage rack.

5. Side Table

A side table will provide a place for your guest to charge their phones and place their jewelry and other small items.

6. Hooks

Consider a couple hooks on the wall or back of the door to hang items such as their purse, coat, and towel.

7. Personal Touches

Personal touches are thoughtful gestures that make your guest feel welcomed. Here are a few to consider. Fresh flowers, a welcome basket with toiletries and/or favorite snacks, reading material. A couple water bottles, so your guest do not have to walk to the kitchen in the middle of the night if they get thirsty.

8. Fluffy Towels

It is also helpful to place towels in the room for your guests so that they do not have to rummage for them or come find you when they are ready to shower.

With these eight essentials you are sure to have an inviting guest room.

Thanks for stopping by!

Our latest completed e-design, came from a client who like many, had a spare bedroom that needed to function as both an office and a guest room for the occasional visitor.

A couple requirements she had were A) when the room was being used by a guest, she wanted the ability to tuck away any office related items so that it felt more like a guest room than an office and B) she needed storage for her many books.

Based on the space, we decided the best option was to have a pull out sofa in between built-in bookshelves. The sofa could act as both a comfortable place to read and a bed when needed. We selected a streamlined desk with a storage drawer and suggested running electricity into the closet so that she could keep her wireless printer, filing cabinet, and other office related items behind the louvered doors.

For the color palette, we wanted to keep the room light so that it would be conducive to studying and also flow with the rest of the house. We kept the walls white, chose a pale gray for the built-ins (BM Owl Gray) and layered the room with neutrals and blues. The end result was a contemporary, beachy look. I absolutely love the contrast of the peacock blue sofa against the natural wood finishes!

Well, I hope you got some ideas. If you have a design challenge that you need help with, drop us a line. Whether it is finding the perfect coffee table or designing an entire room, we can help.

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Eight Essentials to Creating an Inviting Guest Room