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Transforming Small Guest Rooms: Innovative Guest Bed Ideas for Welcoming Homes

Home / Blog / Transforming Small Guest Rooms: Innovative Guest Bed Ideas for Welcoming Homes

If you’re lucky enough to have a spare or guest room in your home, creating a welcoming experience for potential guests while ensuring the space is functional all year round is quite a conundrum. Choosing the perfect guest bed is a huge consideration, especially if the room is small. The best guest beds for small spaces are ones which don’t take up too much space, yet still give anyone visiting the comfort quality and sleeping space they need for a great night’s sleep. In this blog post, we aim to inspire you to find the perfect solution to your guest bedroom problem, detailing how the right guest bed, whether it be an ottoman bed, trundle bed, sofa bed or folding bed, is the key.

Guest Beds For Small Spaces

Many modern and period homes have what many call a box room. Some choose to use it as a home office in today’s world of working from home, some use it as a walk-in dressing room and some use it purely as a spare or guest bedroom. Some even use it as a combination of all three. If you do want that box room to be available to visiting friends and family, you of course require a guest bed. That said, it’s a bed that may only be used a handful of times a year, laying dormant as a waste of space for the majority. In the limited space of spare rooms, this is far from ideal. The best beds for these small spaces are ones which double up as something else when not being slept in. They could offer extra storage for just about anything or a cosy place to sit and read or watch television. To help you choose the right multi-functional guest bed for your needs, we have listed the best guest beds for small spaces below, offering an insight into all the options at your disposal.

What Are The Different Types of Guest Beds?

Ottoman Beds

Ottoman beds, sometimes referred to as storage beds, are a perfect option for your guest bedroom. Inspired by ottoman storage boxes, ottoman beds open up from the side or bottom of the bed to reveal a well of storage space underneath. The ottoman beds available at specialist retailers like Home Treats UK come with gas-assisted lifting mechanisms which make accessing your storage space a doddle. A single ottoman bed is the choice for small spaces, but you can also choose larger if the room space allows for it. Having an ottoman bed in your spare room means you have somewhere for visitors to get a good night’s sleep but also an area for you to store anything from seasonal clothing to toys, shoes and just about anything else.

Trundle Beds

Another guest bed solution is the trundle guest bed. A trundle bed is a bed which sits beneath a single bed, able to slide out to create a much larger bed or either a second separate bed. Trundle beds are a hugely popular choice for guest beds, especially as guest beds for small spaces where a tiny box room can be transformed into a comfortable space for more than one guest to sleep in. Once the visitors have left, the bed can be put back away and transformed back into a single bed to save space. When the bed is not being used, it can be an easy place to sit and relax or a place to store bulky items. For a space saving guest bed, you should absolutely consider an underbed trundle guest bed.

Folding Beds

Folding guests beds are another great solution for your spare room, offering similar benefits to trundle beds in that they are folded out to reveal much more sleeping space. A folding guest bed can either be one which sits as a single bed for the majority of time and folds out into a double when required, or an entirely folding bed which can be easily stored away and only brought out for guests. Taking a folding guest bed like this one for example, it compactly folds away while not in use to save space, and can easily be hidden away in the corner of a spare room or neatly slid into other storage space you have. When family or friends stay, simply take it out of storage, open it up and there you have it, a guest bed with a mattress ready to go.

Sofa Beds

A popular choice as a guest bed is the timeless sofa bed. Not just as a solution for small spaces, some people even choose to have a sofa bed in their lounge where guests can sleep when visiting. That said, we think sofa beds are best for spare rooms, as they provide homeowners with another comfy place to relax and unwind throughout the whole year, but turn into a comfortable guest bed when needed. Sofa beds are also one of the most aesthetically-pleasing guest beds you can buy, as the bed frame is hidden away within the sofa, which can be decorated with all the cushions and throws you like. This makes sure that the guest bed stays in keeping with the rest of your home decor style and encourages you to actually make use of your spare space which can often lay unused for much of the year.

Bunk Beds

For children’s sleepovers, bunk beds are an ideal guest bed solution. If you have the space in the spare bedroom, choosing a bunk bed means your little ones can have more than one friend to stay at a time, enriching their lives. Similarly, choosing bunk beds for the kids’ own rooms even when they don’t need the second bed will allow them to invite friends over to stay in their room and make use of the second bunk bed. Having a kids’ guest bed available through a bunk bed frame just opens up more opportunities for people to stay, while not taking up any more horizontal space in your home.

Day Beds

Days beds are another kind of guest bed which many of our customers choose as a hybrid option between sleeping, relaxing, lounging and sitting. Put simply, day beds are a small single bed which is used at other times by the homeowners as a comfy space for seating. They often have extra support around the bed, opened up at only one side which faces out into the room. In a similar way to sofa beds, going for a day bed as your guest bed of choice will allow you to have a comfortable and stylish space to sit and relax throughout the weeks, months and years, which can easily be used as a comfortable guest sleeping space. Day beds feature soft yet supportive mattresses with either memory foam, springs or natural fillings, and are one of our favourite choices as guest beds for small spaces.

Regular Beds

Of course, if you have the space and don’t mind a generally unoccupied bed taking up unusable space, purchasing a regular bed for your guest room is always an option. It’s likely you would want to choose a relatively simple yet still elegant and practical guest bed as it won’t be used that often and we have many options in that area. Single guest beds are an obvious choice for box rooms, but choosing a double bed is sure to be a popular decision with any couples you may want to invite round to stay. Even these regular beds can be used for storage through the introduction of underbed storage boxes or drawers.

How Do I Keep A Guest Bed Fresh?

Now you know which kind of guest bed is right for you, you may be wondering how you can keep your guest bed fresh when it’s not in use. This is a regular conundrum for people with guest rooms, with homeowners also often searching for advice on whether to keep a guest bed made too. We would fully recommend keeping your guest bed made even when it’s laying dormant. Ensure you wash and replace the sheets and bedding as soon as your guests leave, ensuring smells, creases and stains do not set in. To keep guest beds fresh, ensure they are made up to a high standard, and keep this freshness by using room or linen sprays periodically. Additionally, the age-old method of sprinkling baking soda onto a guest bed and vacuuming it off a while later is still a great way of removing odours and keeping a guest bed fresh.

In Summary

We hope that by reading this guide of guest bed ideas, you are in a more-informed position to purchase the perfect guest bed for your home. Guest beds are only of our specialities here at Home Treats UK, from ottoman beds and folding guest beds to trundle beds and a whole lot more. We hope your guests have a luxurious time in your home and you’re able to make the most of the space in your spare room even when there’s nobody in there sleeping.