Find the Perfect Bed for Your Guest Room
Having guests over, whether it’s for the holidays or an overnight visit, always brings joy to the home. When you have friends and family over, it’s a time for togetherness, great conversation and fun. And it’s also a time when you can all relax! From decor to perfect sheets, it takes some extra thought to create a comfortable guest room to make your guests feel right at home. Whether you’re furnishing a new home or redoing your current guest room, we’ve put together a few tips to help you get started.
Choosing a Bed
Take a good look at your guest room and think about where you’d like the bed to be placed. It doesn’t hurt to also think about how many guests you’d like to accommodate at a given time. Do you need bunk beds for the kids or just a queen size bed? Do you need extra space for a sleeper sofa as well? Once you’ve landed on a layout, measure the space where the bed will go. Then measure it again, just to super-sure. You can put tape down on the floor where the bed will go, and then place tape on the floor to indicate where the other furniture can sit around it.
Comfy, Cozy
It’s so thoughtful to offer your guests a comfortable bed. You also may want to spend some nights in your guest room (perhaps watching a movie or reading a book), so your comfort is important too! Try to opt for a firm, but plush mattress – think something you’d love sleeping on.
As you decide on the bed frame for your guest room, think about who will most likely be staying there. You can choose a frame that’s closer to the ground for elderly friends and family members or young children. A daybed or futon may be a good choice if you’re looking for versatility. While also providing a fair amount of comfort, a daybed or futon allows your guest room to be a sitting room or home office when someone isn’t sleeping there. A captain’s bed or storage bed may also be a good idea for guests – they can easily stow clothes and luggage when they arrive.
The Best Bedding
As guests enter the room, they’ll love a warm, inviting feeling as they look forward to spending the night. One way to welcome them is to make the bed the focal point of the room. If you’re using a daybed or futon, you can prepare it for guests before they arrive – think unfolding the futon or removing extra pillows from the back of the daybed.
Having bright and colorful bedding can also make the space joyful for visitors. If you already have furniture in place, you can easily find duvets and blankets that coordinate with your decor. For the summer months, cool, crisp sheets also work well. A light quilt and top sheet keep guests cool and comfy when it’s hotter out. For winter or around the holidays, you might want to choose seasonal bedding to add a festive look to the room. It’s fun to decorate your guest room as you would the rest of the house – a touch of green around St. Patrick’s Day, fall and harvest colors for Thanksgiving, and so on. If you want to, changing the bedding to reflect the time of year makes the room especially inviting for guests.
In winter, consider mixing in an extra-thick duvet and some flannel sheets. If the bed is off the ground, you can also include a matching bed skirt. This way, guests can stow their luggage underneath the bed, keeping belongings close by for convenience.