Guest Rooms That Truely Welcome Your Visitors

In planning spaces in our home for overnight guests our ultimate goal is to offer a place that is warm and welcoming. Some home situations allow dedication of an entire guest cottage or retreat, more often it is a guest room and sometimes that guest room has the unique challenge of having to serve combined uses, both an office and as a guest room. I am happy to tell you that with smart planning and creative decorating it is possible to transform almost any space into a comfortable retreat for guests.

Minimum planning requirements for a guest room would include:

• A good bed, one that is comfortable, and a good supply of pillows and blankets.


• Sufficient lighting, such that meets the needs for people who are sharing the room but who may have different nighttime routines, for instance provide individual light sources that can be turned on and off from each side of the bed.


• Window coverings - even if your guest room has a beautiful view, it still needs window coverings to allow for privacy, light control and even control of room temperature.


• Comfortable seating that invites guests to rest, read or write. An overstuffed armchair with an ottoman is a good choice.

Good design for a guest bedroom would require it to be comfortable and welcoming for guests, while mixing well with the balance of the living areas.

In the photo above, while planned and decorated as a handsome guest room, this retreat is a dual use room as it also is the homeowner's private sitting room between guests. The secret to such easy transition? An upholstered daybed that's equally enticing for overnight guests and daytime relaxing. This scheme is a sophisticated blend of beiges, tans, taupes and whites. The mirror is a key element to over the top and still subtle grace.

In the other photo here, we see a crisp white batten lace bedding ensemble. It draws us, even entices us, offering comfort and warmth. In fact it is just a day bed with a bit of decor. If we compare this photo with the above photo, this room is more feminine and has a Victorian look. The sumptuous bed and tray filled with teapot, teacups and scones are hard to resist. I can envision an afternoon with a great piece of literature and perhaps an afternoon nap as well.

For fun, if we look at the batten lace guest bedroom again, imagine if we were to switch out the traditional floral artwork ... and what if we were to replace it with either of the two contemporary, colorful prints that are shown in the column on the right in this blog. You will see they are ("Landscape with Trees and Pond" or "Red House"). Opening our mind's eye, we would see that despite keeping the distinct crisp white batten lace bedding, changing the artwork with either of these pieces would profoundly alter the feel of the guest room. It gains a certain whimsy and joy. I even imagine the scones would taste different. What do you think? Do you see it?

We want guest rooms to be private retreats for our visiting family and friends but it is equally important guest rooms should mix well with the adjoining areas. For a guest room to be a feast for the eyes for the homeowners, they shouldn't have to live in these same rooms to feel its beauty and rever it. The 'genuine seeing experience,' the excellent mix, the satisfaction is simply in the moment of engaging that room and its beauty, and that energy connection that it is set aside for very special times with very loved ones. The dynamics of those special moments can derive from good planning and good design.

Patricia, Editor

Do you have questions about a guest room or another room in your house? Submit your issue in the 'Ask The Designer' Section and one of the designers (or more) will provide feedback.

Home Improvement Design Concepts (Balance)

Often designers arrive at initial consultations where the potential client has spent a good deal of money and yet to be satisfied with the results. Clients with a dream-room in mind, spent alot of money, but no dream. The client loved the detailed bookcases, French side chairs, etc., and you know the pieces were not cheap. Still . . . it just doesn't feel right. It is almost painful that it isn't working, after so much effort.
In creating and reviewing the design of a room, balance must be achieved. Balance is equilibrium, the distribution of equal weight; and if missing in our surroundings, we feel uneven, perhaps even anxious. Balance makes us comfortable, gives us stability. It reduces stress and gives us peace. Understanding the balance is a great example of how we experience and interact with our environments.
As we enjoy a picnic site and find it beautiful and relaxing, we notice it is a sunny day, the blue sky above and a landscape of nature surrounding us. Were we to take the same site but locate it on a slight incline, the calm and harmony evaporates. When we enter a room and notice a tilted picture on a wall, the desire to want to march over and correct it is because we need equilibrium, we need balance. A carpenter installing beautiful new wood flooring will avail himself of his level to assure that his composition, the completed flooring job, has balance.

The creation of a beautiful room
is not much different than the
creation of a beautiful painting.

Painters are aware of the need for balance and will sometimes create an imaginary vertical line down the middle of a canvas, to help assure the counterbalancing or evening of the elements of the composition. We too can use a similar technique by imagining a vertical chalked plumb line down the middle of a wall - our composition.
In balance, it is ‘visual’ weight that we are considering. The more an element attracts the eye, the more it 'weighs.' In seeing balance between a bright red balloon and a black bowling ball, the balloon might have more visual weight than the black bowling ball.When teaching your eye to see visual weight, it might help to see the room from a different perspective than we do everyday. You could walk back from a particular wall about fifteen feet and as you look at the pieces, slightly squint your eyes. This technique is similar to adjusting a camera lens. By adjusting your focus, you will see that the items will either be visually drawn toward you or they will fade to the background. Those items that are drawn toward you, or that your eye perceives as stronger have more visual weight.
It is through adjusting the elements on either side of the imaginary vision line, through evening them, that we achieve balance. Understanding that balance creates harmony and comfort is vital in our journey to learn how to create beautiful rooms and how

to create beautiful rooms for us.

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This article is one in a series of Design Concepts, to go to the entire list, click here.