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5 Ways to Ditch the Bedroom — but Keep the Bed

Bedroom

If you’re fortunate enough to have an extra room in your house that allows guests to crash on a spot other than the sofa, then you’re probably a popular host. Then again, if everyone you know lives within a 5-mile radius, you probably don’t have a ton of overnight guests.

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This means your spare room has probably become a place to stash all the things out of sight that you don’t feel like putting away or dealing with. Basically, it’s an oversized storage closet. So, it’s time to clean out the closet and make it a multipurpose room that keeps the bed for the occasional visitor. Here are some ideas for what you can do with that extra space.

Yoga Room

Yoga is supposed to be relaxing, but doing it in the middle of your highly trafficked living room with kids and pets swirling around you? Not so much. Take your little-used spare bedroom and create a Zen-inspired space that will not only make you love your yoga time, but will make guests love staying at your home.
Paint the walls soothing colors like cool blues or sage greens, and bring in a small stereo and a DVD player if your practice requires music or a TV to watch videos. Your guests will appreciate having these items in their room as well. Futons make great spare beds that also mesh with the Asian theme.

Library

Have a beloved book collection that’s mostly stored in boxes, boxes that are probably stored in your little-used guest bedroom? Why not turn that room into a library that still can accommodate your overnight guests? Line the walls with shelves and enjoy organizing your books by author or by genre.
A day bed is a great place to kick back and spend the afternoon with a good book, yet it still easily transforms into a ready guest room. Plus, guests will enjoy having their pick of books before bed.

Craft Room

You love to craft, but aren’t you tired of having your materials stashed in whatever free space you can find around your house? At the end of a long day, it’s much more inspiring to walk into a creative space than to piecemeal together a project on the dining room table. All you need to turn a bedroom into a craft room is some shelving for storage and a surface for working. If your crafty stuff doesn’t leave much room for a permanent bed, keep an air mattress in the closet for guests.

Play Room

If play space is limited in your living room or kids’ bedrooms, a guest room can make a great, dedicated playroom. You’ll want to keep the middle of the room open for lots of running around, so install shelves and keep baskets with lids around to line the walls for times when you need to pick up the toys and transform it back into a bedroom on short notice.
A sleeper sofa makes a great place for you to read while your kids play, and it also quickly transforms into a bed for napping or overnight guests.

Dining Room

A dining room table makes a great desk until it’s time to eat. You’ll probably find that a dedicated office space is much more conducive to tackling that pile of work in peace. All you have to do is clean out the stuff in your unused guest room and then swap out the dresser for a desk and filing cabinets. If you find it doesn’t leave much of a footprint for the guest bed, then consider installing a Murphy bed in a closet or on the wall.

Sennebogen, Emilie. “5 Ways to Ditch the Bedroom — but Keep the Bed” 17 May 2011. HowStuffWorks.com. 21 April 2015.

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