Getting the Guest Room Ready

Hello Friends!! I’m so excited to share todays post with you, all about getting your guest room ready! If you are reading this, and a wondering to yourself “I had no idea you had a guest room?”, then you aren’t too far off! Technically, I don’t have a designated guest room in our house – yet! But today I’m going to show you how I prepare for guest, and even how I set up a “make-shift” guest room for when we have guests.

Come and take a look ~

I’ve shared my office here on the blog before, and most recently decorated for Christmas – HERE. While my office doesn’t get too much FaceTime here on the blog, mostly because it’s piled high with stuff, this room also becomes our “make-shift” guest room when we have people stay with us.

I gave it a fresh coat of paint last winter, since this room is right off of our dining room and I painted that dark, I decided to lighten things up in here, and went with One Horn White by Magnolia, from Kilz.

What I haven’t shown you before, is how I flip this room into a guest room for my dad, who comes up from FL, and visits us a handful of times throughout the year.

The desk gets brought down to our basement, and up comes the spare mattress and boxspring to create a cozy little room just for him.

Of course it hasn’t always looked this plush and inviting! But thanks to the help from my friends at Serena & Lily, and their best in class bedding, allow me to get the guest room ready for the holidays, and I know one person who is totally going to appreciate this – my dad!

Since I don’t use a headboard, I set the bed up like a daybed, and create this look using Euro pillows along the wall. This gives the illusion of a headboard, and certainly makes up for any lacking there might be without an actual headboard for the bed.

Of course, one thing I always recommend is layering in pillows! You never know just how many pillows people actually enjoy sleeping with, so I like to already have plenty of options ready for them to choose just which ones they like.

Not to mention it makes the entire bed look more inviting!

Create Cozy Layers~

I love to provide lots of blankets. Our house gets really cold during the winter months, so when my dad comes to stay for the holidays, I like to provide plenty of options. Nothing is worse than waking up cold in the middle of the night, and not knowing where any of the spare blankets are kept.

Keep them handy either folded at the end of the bed, or tucked in a basket nearby, so they are out of the way when not using them. I also like providing a basket that makes it easy to plop the extra throw pillows in when it’s time to go to bed at night.

Although, if you ask me I would have no problem sleeping at night in this cozy bed 🙂

I also love to provide some bath essentials corralled in a tray for convenience. I always include at least 1 towel, and 1 wash cloth or hand towel, because at least this way I know for sure my guests have clean towels.

Keep extra bath items in a tray for your guests convenience ~

Of course this goes without saying, but I always give our bathroom a good cleaning before any house guest arrives. I also take this time to access the condition – er um smell of our bath towels. You know the ones that got left in the washer overnight, and you totally forgot about them for 3 days! Yep, I’ve been there too, and thankfully Serena & Lily has the ultimate bath towel collections.

My dad is 6’3, so you imagine his delight when he comes to stay with us this Christmas and I hand him one of our new bath sheets! It can wrap around me twice, which is perfect for anyone who is tall, or if you are like me and just really like big, plushy bath towels that don’t judge you for how many holiday cookies you eat this year.

I always tell my friends who are preparing for guests, whether during the holiday season or not, you can never under estimate the power of clean sheets and a bed that is made and ready for you.

Whether you have a guest room or not, I hope you feel inspired to make your spaces a little bit cozier this holiday season, as we prepare not only our homes but our hearts too for hosting guests.

See below, from office to cozy guest room, thanks to Serena & Lily!

I’ve rounded up my favorites below~