Skip to content

Home

Read More ›

Bedtime Stories: Dress Your Guest Room to Impress

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

Can Alaska Kelp Help Washington Crops Beat the Heat?

Can Alaska Kelp Help Washington Crops Beat the Heat?

A Ketchikan company is working with WSU researchers to see whether its kelp-based biostimulant can help grapes and berries withstand environmental stress.

From the floatplane, reddish-brown kelp traces the edges of the small islands between Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island like brushstrokes on the surface of the water. Up close, on a rare 70-degree July day in Alaska, the kelp is glossy and beautiful, though the wind coming off the water makes it nearly impossible to…

PlantCon Is Coming for Seattle’s Windowsills

PlantCon Is Coming for Seattle’s Windowsills

The nation’s largest gathering for houseplant lovers makes its Pacific Northwest debut this August with 200 booths, hands-on workshops, and a DJ.

My house is full of plants, enough that I’ve lost count. Houseplants have the same suspicious math as tattoos: One is rarely the final number. I propagate cuttings in jars of water, regularly rearrange corners of the house in pursuit of better light, and like to imagine the entire collection is improving the air. That…

Noir Lux Lights Up Fourth Avenue

Noir Lux Lights Up Fourth Avenue

The Seattle candle brand’s new two-level pop-up brings workshops and community gatherings downtown through September.

It’s often said that good things come in threes, and for Colina Bruce, founder of the lifestyle and home fragrance brand Noir Lux, that’s certainly proving true. With a flagship shop in Belltown and an outpost in Ballard, Bruce is rounding out a Noir Lux trio with the opening of the Noir Lux Collective on…

Better Together: This Take on Co-Housing Emphasizes Quality and Community

Better Together: This Take on Co-Housing Emphasizes Quality and Community

The Seattle project presents an out-of-the-box model, where investors are also residents, and the design focuses on longevity and tenant retention—not profit.

Growing up in rural Detroit, Chad Dale spent many after-school and weekend hours playing with neighborhood kids in an open lot near his house. It’s an experience he always hoped his children would have someday, but by the time he became a father in Seattle, land was at a premium: either already developed or prohibitively…