Skip to content

Bedtime Stories: Dress Your Guest Room to Impress

By Jess McBride, Houzz Contributor November 17, 2016

thumbnail_GuestRoom

This story originally appeared on Houzz.com.

With the holidays just around the corner, it’s time to consider the best ways to host your houseguests. The following checklist has 12 ways to make overnight visitors as comfortable as possible. We follow a guest’s journey from arrival to awakening, pausing to reflect on the elements that will transform a simple guest room into a true retreat for harried travelers.

1. Personalize the space. Let’s begin with first impressions. A stylish and uncluttered space is a given, but including a surface upon which to write welcome messages to new arrivals will personalize the room and set a tone of gracious hospitality. One way to do this is by painting a feature wall with chalk paint. Here, empty frames draw attention to brief quotes, but you could also fill in guests’ names or draw walking maps to favorite coffee shops or landmarks.

Master Retreat

2. Add a bedroom bouquet. Fresh flowers are always appreciated as a gesture of hospitality. For a few dollars — or for free, if you happen to have a cutting garden — you can show guests that they’re important enough to you that you took time to beautify and freshen up their space in anticipation of their arrival.

3. Make unpacking easy. Luggage racks in a guest room take a cue from the hotel tradition of giving guests a designated place to set down suitcases for ease of unpacking. This way visitors won’t have to stoop down uncomfortably to unpack their suitcases on the floor, and they also won’t be tempted to lift their not-so-clean wheeled luggage onto the bed.

Related: Keep These Measurements in Mind When Designing a Bedroom

Country Crib
Contemporary Bedroom

4. Stock up on storage. A storage chest might be the most versatile addition you could make to a guest bedroom. Leave it empty for guests to stow their things, or fill it with extra blankets and pillows. This bedroom takes storage a step further with underbed drawers that slide out, and the bookshelf behind the bed can be filled with reading material or other curiosities to entertain guests.

Related: Hang a New Headboard 

Baby Makes Three

5. Provide a place to hang things. If you’re tight on space and are carving a guest suite out of a small, closetless room, here’s a hack you might offer your guests as an alternative to an armoire or a closet. A wall-mounted clothing rack like this will give them a stylish place to hang the items they’d rather not leave to wrinkle in their suitcase.

Coastal Cottage

6. Wrap them in luxury. After a lively day exploring the best your city or town has to offer, your guests will feel pampered in thick bathrobes as they get ready to wind down for the evening. Especially if the guest bathroom is not attached to the bedroom, one-size-fits-all robes will allow guests to traverse the hallway comfortably and modestly.

master bathroom

7. Make their towels easy to find. Having to rummage around for clean towels after a shower is uncomfortable or awkward for guests. Whether you stock them in a basket inside the guest bedroom or on a shelf in the bathroom, make sure your guest towels are in plain view and easily accessible. Speaking of towels, offer the full range of sizes: washcloths, hand towels and larger bath towels or bath sheets.

Maybeck in Mahogany

Follow Us

Your Land, Your Legacy: A New Way to Build at Suncadia
Sponsored

Your Land, Your Legacy: A New Way to Build at Suncadia

For those who believe that where you live should reflect how you live and how you’ll be remembered Suncadia invites a deeper kind of ownership. It’s an opportunity to create a home that is entirely your own, on some of the most desirable homesites in the Cascades, while benefiting from the ease, support, and long-term…

Settling In, Not Just Moving In: How Seattle Newcomers Find Their Footing
Sponsored

Settling In, Not Just Moving In: How Seattle Newcomers Find Their Footing

Photos courtesy of Royalty Moving & Storage Seattle. Explore: Seattle Relocation Resources Moving to Seattle is rarely just about transporting belongings from one address to another. For many newcomers, it marks the beginning of learning a city that operates on its own terms, shaped by distinct neighborhoods, changing weather, and an unspoken culture that locals…

Coasting Into Calm

Coasting Into Calm

After purchasing a weather-worn, ant-infested cabin on an Oregon beach, a Seattle couple hires a regional team to transform it into a stylish weekend retreat.

When architect Andrew Montgomery first pulled up to his clients’ house in Arch Cape, Oregon, there were logs in the driveway, courtesy of the sizable swells that come with the coast’s king tides. At just 28 feet above sea level and as close as you can get to the water without being on the beach,…

Blueprints for Building Community

Blueprints for Building Community

After tragedy struck a local restaurateur family, one of their daughters stepped in to complete the design for her brother’s unfinished home.

Although he was just 35 when a heart attack took his life, Khoa Pham’s imprint on Seattle’s international district was such that the city quickly designated April 21 as a memorial day in his honor. With his rescue pitbull, Pinky, by his side, Pham cut a colorful figure through Little Saigon and became well known…