James Rodrigues
How To Set Up An Office Guest Room – This is a room tour of my bedroom and home office combined. I share tips on how to design a versatile spare room, even if it’s small! Hope you find useful bedroom office ideas to create your own spare room.
This versatile living room makeover is a complete DIY, and I used lots of Ikea products and furniture to make the living room functional and affordable.
How To Set Up An Office Guest Room
So my home office/living room is 11ft by 11ft, our house is less than 1k sqft, and this house only has 2 bedrooms.
My Brothers Wfh Office And Guest Room — Before
So this room is the only room we have, and it has a lot of work to do.
Come take a tour and see how we remodeled our bedroom step-by-step into a great room and home office.
But before that, let me introduce you first to give you a better idea of what we are doing with this area.
The space is a former bedroom in a 1940’s house. It feels old but not in a cute way.
Blissful Guest Room/office Combo: Before & After Design Photos
Here is a before photo. Since the photo was used for an open house show, the photographer used a wide-angle lens to make the room appear larger.
Ready to see how I transformed this room with all the ideas I’ll share with you next? Continue reading.
When designing a multi-purpose room, I like to set a clean slate at the beginning so that the space is open and compact. Later it becomes easier to add different functional pieces to the room.
So for this room, before the hard renovation, I did some basic renovations with old walls and floors.
An Office To Guest Room Transformation
We removed the carpet, laid the floors under it, and then painted the floor a light gray.
Light colors can help make a space feel larger, especially if the windows are north-facing, which doesn’t let in much light during the day.
This room was originally covered with a vinyl wall and we tried to remove it, but it didn’t work. So, instead of covering the boat, you can read my DIY tutorial in this post.
I painted the walls in Benjamin Moore Moon, which is a light gray with pops of yellow and green. I also painted the windows and light fixtures to make the room look like this.
Before & After: Guest Bedroom/home Office Makeover
When designing a multi-purpose room, I first list all the functions I want the room to perform. For my room, it’s a combination of home office, guest room, and craft room. .
First, this room must be a home office where my husband and I can work on our own projects after work or do our homework on WFH days.
When we have guests here it’s a guest room – especially since it can accommodate up to 2 people.
Finally, the craft room, or sewing room, is where I want my sewing machines because I like to make projects.
Home Office + Guest Room
Next I have to decide what is most important: what will I use this room for most of the time?
It’s impossible to do 3 things at the same time every day, so be smart about it and join my battles.
Fitting three jobs in an 11 x 11 room isn’t easy, so I prioritize based on our daily needs.
Since we don’t have frequent guests, I decided the space would be 60% home office, 20% bedroom, and 20% craft room.
Office Guest Room Ideas For A Versatile Space
Next, I have to think about all the necessary furniture that I need to work, and choosing a bed for the purpose of the room is a very difficult thing, because it takes up the largest space and is expensive.
Including the guest room is 20% important and I have a small room, so I don’t want to have a big bed that takes up too much space, so I chose a sofa bed.
So, when I work, I use a simple sofa to relax; And when guests come over I can open it up and it becomes a full size bed with a mattress.
In fact, we had to return the first sofa bed we bought because the mattress was so hard. When it’s time to use it as a bed, we have to move the back cushion down, which is uncomfortable for face sleeping.
Emily Bowser’s Beautiful Hardworking, Multipurpose Room Reveal (+ Get Ready For Her Diys)
So, instead, we choose a pull-out sofa with a mattress on top, so that when used as a bed, the surface is flat.
We ended up buying one from Ikea called FINNALA. Color light brown. One interesting thing to note is that the colors on the website look lighter and warmer than what I received. In real life it looks light gray.
Going with the lounge feel, I also added a wall sconce so it could be a table lamp when people are sleeping here or a reading light when we use it as an office.
It is always a good idea to have a side table next to the sofa for people to place their drinks on. I used this side table from West Elm that fits perfectly under the furniture. When we use this room as a large room, we move it to make it a nightstand.
Sure Fire Ways To Organize A Combination Office
We slept for a week while I filled the window seat in my mother’s room.
Btw, I put flat things under the furniture like my cutting mat! Also, some great documents. If you have a small sofa on the floor, this is a good place to store things – remember that you are storing things there!
Above the sofa bed, I added a gallery wall. Since it functions mostly as a home office, I want it to be cozy and inviting.
Many of the prints have been collected over the years, some from my own print shop, which you can see here.
Turn Your Home Office Into A Guest Room With A Murphy Bed
Our life is limited. To save space and improve the functionality of the home office, I decided to make a built-in desk.
This way, I can push all the office desks against the wall to make room for the sofa bed. Another big bonus of having a cabinet is that you can have multiple drawers to store things.
On the right, I made a small table and bottom to use as a dressing table. This is due to the limited space of windows and room doors.
This is my sewing and working chart. But sometimes when I need a bigger space. I use the office desk as my crafting desk.
Our Guest Room/office Basement Suite Reveal … + How To Make A Basement ( Office) Feel Warm, Happy And Functional
I have a post with a video on my desk, so check out this DIY desk tutorial if you’re interested.
Built-ins are a great way to add storage while keeping things organized because they fit perfectly into the space. Also, you can paint it to match the wall color like I did here.
Above the desk, I added custom sliding shelves to add more storage, but mainly to have some display shelves so I could listen.
Our house is old, so we can’t attach it to a stud, the house actually has a lot of cross beams. So this floating shelf is mainly for decorative purposes, I don’t put anything big on top.
Office Guest Room Ideas For A Cozy Temporary Sleeping Space
Now, let’s talk about design ideas for wardrobes and how to make them versatile enough to be used in your living room and office.
One, I use it to store sewing and craft supplies because I have a lot of work to do. I don’t use much space in the main room for crafting purposes, so I also need a room to store my knick-knacks.
I decided to keep the closet tree so that when it is used as a guest room, they can also hang clothes on the tree. I also added those wooden boxes to store things.
I have a post about this closet makeover sharing my DIY process and all the details. You can read about my closet makeover here.
Diy Guest Room/home Office Makeover
I created this beautiful artwork to make you feel calm and dreamy. You can find it here in my print shop.
Instead of using curtains, I chose a light shade. I chose a white Roman shade from Pottery
Since I have a gallery wall and have a lot going on in this small space, I decided to keep the shade simple.
I love how the vertical lines mimic my vertical boat wall. I think this light fixture can be used for both guest room and home office.
Cool Guest Bedroom And Home Office Combos
I’m really happy with how it turned out! It is very useful as a home office and when we sleep here, it is comfortable enough to sleep for a long time. And do it
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