Should you have a guest room?

[Nogg]

I have a new house.
I can’t decide what to do with spare room.i have two DC ( still young)
One has taken the en-suite double room.
One wanted the smallest double room because it overlooked garden.
I have my own bedroom.
I have a single bedroom as a office for WFH
Downstairs there is only one big kitchen dinner living space. One small to medium living room.
i have a spare largish double room. (I think maybe a DC might want it when they are older to swap for the smaller room)
I Don’t think I’ll have that many overnight guests because I am not that social and relatives live near enough to go home!
So should I make the room into spare guest bedroom or what do others do?
A play room or put in a sofa bed?

thanks

I think guest rooms are such a waste of space. We have an Ikea day bed thing in my office for the very rare guest.

Do you have a partner? My greatest pleasure in life at the moment is having my own bedroom. (Middle age = incompatible sleep issues). No spare bedroom here, but none of us share. Bliss.

im not sure what else to do with it though except put in a sofa bed and maybe some toys or children computer games?

No partner thankfully so no one to escape from!

Craft room, library, walk in wardrobe, music room- hobby space. Tbh with kids surely a playroom would be ideal ?

Only if you enjoy having visitors and can afford to purchase or rent a property that's larger than you need. I don't have one. I use all my rooms and if I didn't I'd either downsize or rent the spare one to a lodger. Of people want to visit they can sort out their own accommodation.

Maybe a sofa bed could work.
then could be used for toy room activities. Kids currently hardly spend time in their own rooms though. Maybe when older. I suppose I might need the odd babysitter nights. Are sofa beds comfy for older people?

I'd use it as a playroom / somewhere to keep bigger toys so bedrooms are for sleeping and downstairs isn't overtaken by toys. As kids get older they may want somewhere to do homework, play music, do crafts etc.

My eldest has the bigger of the 2 DCs' bedrooms kitted out with a double bed. The deal is that on the rare occasion that we have guests to stay, she has to clear out and camp on DC2's floor for the night. It works well as a compromise! We kept it as a spare room for years, but it seemed mad to keep this big room empty on the off chance someone came to stay.
I would turn it into a playroom for now OP but with a double sofa bed so you can put people up when needed.

True I guess if they take up music or something they could put it in there. I have cut back on toys a bit so we are not over run at the moment. Unlike the previous house!

maybe it’s bad but I didn’t move the large toys such as doll houses car tracts etc. But maybe this would be good.

so does anyone have a sofa bed and is it comfortable enough for a elderly relative?

Gym
Library
Studio
Playroom
Dressing room
Collection room
Sauna

Re. your question about sofa beds and elderly relatives, when mine comes to stay for a night once a year, I take the sofa bed and give e them my bed.

Get a daybed with a proper mattress and chuck loads of pillows and blankets on it for the children's day to day use. Then it'll be perfect for elderly family members or children's sleepovers as they get older.

Ok I’ll look at daybeds although I’m not sure what they are.
both kids already have double beds although they are never in their rooms only mine!

I am so boring though I don’t have time for hobbies being a full time working parent!

Ikea hemnes daybed is a normal mattress

Your set up at home sounds perfect to me op 👌

We have a 3 bed and had 2 girls who shared the big bedroom, we had the medium (with built in wardrobes) and the box room was used as a "spare" .

We put a daybed in there which was fine for the odd night's sleep. It also had an electronic piano and a small TV with ps2 that could be used as a dvd player. It had some sing it (with microphone) and just dance, and buzzer games... so whenever friends came round there'd be a riot of singing, dancing and giggles.

Their gran sleeps on the daybed at Christmas.

Depends how often guests come. I loved having a guest room. One perfect room, that was always tidy. The other spare room was a gym, never used! 😳
You could make it into an all purpose room, sofa bed, TV and kids toys. Honestly it'll probably end up with junk from your kids. That's what my place looks like now!

We have this and the mattresses are slightly smaller than normal.

Our spare room is a dressing room/laundry room - heated airer etc, dresser with hair dryer and other things that are awkward to store, and the day bed.

I have a built in garage which is currently the junk room 😂
I think the thing would be computer games or music room.
currently Dc jumping on new sofas playing games on tv….. which is annoying!

Teenager lounge, or escape lounge for you if they bring friends home.

I would have a laundry room!!!
Set up my airers, shut the door and my house would look clutter free!
I like drying things on hangers and then I have a handheld steamer thing for school shirts which I might use on other clothes while it’s on my hand.

Also, while this is the dream for me, I think having another sitting room could be good when your kids get bigger.

I also recommend the Ikea Hemnes day bed - even with the original mattresses it is OK for a night or two ( I have slept on it. ) The only thing is it will be probably up against a wall so one person when it is pulled out into a double will have to clamber over the other to get out - but I think perfectly acceptable for an occasional night. It pulls out to a double bed but in reality ours gets used for the occasional single guest . With back cushions ( I had some made ) but big cushions would work - it makes a decent sofa / bed compromise.

We have 3 bedrooms but over lockdown etc I gave up my idea of a perfectly set up guest room & am glad I did . Our 3rd bedroom is now a bit of office type stuff so small desk etc - DH's bicycle thing & the day bed. So most days of the year the family uses it - but we can put up a couple of people as and when.

The Hemnes day bed ( original mattress ) ( & I know people will disagree with me here ) - my 80 year old father has slept on it for a few nights and the mattress was fine. I have slept on it and mattress fine. As my son is older we have had ( for his friends ) one one the day bed and the other one on the mattress on the floor cheek by jowl with the bicycle ) The Savoy it ain't but it does the job. No complaints yet. 😁

I have a utility room for laundry and sometimes airer in garage.
can’t imagine devoting whole room to laundry but then again I am not advanced in laundry skills.