oh, that would be SO GREAT for when my parents move and then i'd get to wake up in a hotel on christmas morning...

Small IS beautiful. And confident. Here is something I'm considering: remodeling the laundry room, moving it to the ground floor and using it as part time guest br/full time pantry/ full time laundry room. Of course storage is vital and a Murphy bed.

Not having a guest bedroom puts a strain on everything you do with guests. In the mornings, you have to arrange what time, and where, to meet. You can't relax knowing you have to leave your house in a minute, or have to wait for your guests to arrive so that you can have breakfast together. Similarly, in the evenings you'll always be having one eye on the time, knowing that your guests will have to take a taxi back to the hotel instead of just being able to collapse upstairs in the guest bedroom after a few too many tipples. Not having a guest bedroom is for people who clearly don't like having guests.

While I agree with the idea in principle, in execution it means a seriously cramped ability to host guests.

One of the joys of having a home is the ability to welcome people into it.

We had had a room for years that was primarily the guest room, even though we don't have a whole bunch of overnight guests (a couple of times a year for a couple of nights at a time). We started about the use of the space a couple of years ago; as our friends grow older, they tend to prefer to stay in hotels (as do we when we travel), the space was mostly used only by the cats. Seemed like a waste. So now we have converted it into a reading room for us. Although we still have a fold out couch people could use, the room in now oriented toward our use of it, rather than toward saving it for once in a while...and we find ourselves using it almost every day. One of the best (and cheapest!) changes we've ever made in our living space.

I agree with the post about convenience. Iam all for the multi-purpose guest bedroom. Ours is an office with a very comfy sofabed.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to offer space to guests. But, I live in a major city that is a desirable tourist destination. If I did not, perhaps I would not need it as much. Oh, wait, I have a kid, and she has grandparents...guestroom necessary. But, I also use it for off season clothes storage, etc. and in the past it has doubled as a home office.

Our guest bedroom is only 8x10 feet, and is a total luxury to have in NYC. And I must say, when both my husband and I had raging fevers for 3-days straight this winter, having an extra bed to thrash around in independent of each other was a godsend.

So true TRWhite! As someone who has slept on many a person's couch and floor, I appreciate the rare guest room. It's also nice to have a space to put my stuff out of everyone's way.

The guest room at my mom's house (which was mine and my sisters' til we moved) gets used a lot. There's someone sleeping there at least 2 weekend's a month and the dog likes to use it when he needs a dark quiet spot. But it's also used for storage and to put out the drying racks for laundry.

A guest room doesn't have to be solely a guest room, if you make it multi-functional, then it's well used space. But if you're someone who never has guests, then I guess it's not necessary. Personally, I'd much rather stay at someone's home than a hotel.

Yeah, that makes sense, if you're building a guest room. But if you've already bought a house with one that money is already gone. You could always find a smaller house and of course you could invest that money, but your home isn't all about investment potential, otherwise you should only use the cheapest tile, flooring, furniture and invest what you saved. You absolutely shouldn't spend money you don't have, but if you have it, there are lots of situations where the extra space is useful and just plain nice to have.

I agree that it is a much different experience to have people (or be a guest) in the home as opposed to a hotel. But at some point the cost of the space definitely outweighs the benefits, even when you take all of the problems TRWhite mentions. I would suggest that it is not so much a matter of not enjoying guests, but that the line gets drawn in a slightly different place for everyone depending on their circumstances.

Agree with comments on the guest room doubling as a multi-functional room. My condo is 790 square feet, that extra room makes my place psychologically bigger.

When not hosting overnight friends and family members and occasional boarders for the extra income, the guest room is used as a nursery/safe place for the feral kittens I've trapped (caught their fathers and uncles and had them neutered, but the mama cat remains at large). All my kittens are socialized and adopted to good homes, but I wonder once this cold weather finally quits if the mama cat is going to show up and drop off another batch of kittens.

move closer to the beach and you get to use your guest room on the weekends 3 full months a year :)

Wow... Amazed by how infrequently some people have guests. My guest room was in use about 15-18 weekends last year, and I expect about the same this year.

And when my parents or friends aren't using the space, I use it as a sewing space, room to hang dry clothes, dump things that I need out of the way if non-sleepover guests are coming, and its closet is full of my clothes, purses and shoes.

Not having the guest room would be much more stressful than the consideration of having to fund the extra 150 sq. feet (not a large room).

I have a guest (spare) room where friends or family can sleep over if they need/want to just because that's how things worked out. Would I insist on one if I were to move, or go to the trouble of extending if I moved to a house which didn't have one? Well, I'd have to think about that. The expense and inconvenience might outweigh the pleasure of occasionally having people to stay.

We've never had a guest bedroom because we rarely have guests who stay overnight. On the occasion that we have, we give them our bedroom and we have an inflatable bed for the living room, or they're content to sleep on the comfortable couch. Honestly, having a guest room is a luxury when you have a small apartment or home anyway, and it's just my preference to not do it if we don't need to.

I don't have a guest bedroom in my new house, and I wish I had... my parents have to stay at a hotel, and my friends sleep in our room while we use an inflatable matress in our living room.

I don't mean a full, always ready and useless guestroom, but a nice space, with a comfy convertible. I love the idea of a reading space.guestroom !

It all depends on your life style, where you live, and how often you have guests. We don't have a guest room currently and are looking to move within the next 6 months. A guest room is on our list of Must Haves. We regularily have company from out of town sleeping on couches. It will be amazing to be able to give them a bed to sleep on with privacy! What's the point of having an amazing house if there's no one to share it with?

Agreed. I think a strict guest room that stays closed up 50 weeks out of the year is impractical. I think having a convertible space is much more important. My guest room is storage, a workshop, a sewing room, my "greenhouse", laundry rack etc. I love having that dedicated space where I can leave projects and equipment out and just shut the door. It's all easily moved and stored or hidden behind folding panels to have a blow up mattress and space for a guest. It's so much nicer than having them camp out in the living room of my little apartment.
I guess it all depends on how you use it and how you live.

We had a guest room in our two bedroom condo, but then we had a baby, so the guest room became his bedroom. I wish we had a bigger house to have a guest room, but in the five years living in our house, we've only had overnight guests four times. Now we'd probably just offer up our bed and we'd sleep on the couch. Or maybe do an air mattress in the living room?

My tiny extra room with a twin-sized futon came in handy when I was diagnosed with cancer and needed to have family stay with me often. I was glad that they had somewhere more comfortable and private to stay than my couch.

It really depends on your guests. I have 3 young children and my dad, who adores them, finds the chaos a little too much after a while. He and my mom always stay in a hotel--even in my old house when I had a guest room/bath; they like some post-dinner peace when they visit. And that makes bedtime around here a little easier too.

As someone who works from home exclusively, making my office into a sometimes-guest room would be the quickest way to make having guests a burden rather than a pleasure. I know because I've done it many times before. Saying 'yes' to overnight guests was basically declaring you won't really be working the whole time they are visiting. So when we bought a house with a tiny extra bedroom, I was super excited about the "wasted" space.

Problem #1: Guest bedrooms are wasteful of space.
Problem #2: I don't want a TV in my living room.

Solution: A daybed + TV in the spare room.

We made the second bedroom into a office/study/studio, but we also have a leather futon. There isn't anywhere for a guest to store their things, but at least they have a place to sleep on--with sheets and a comforter if need be (no pillows!).

So far, only my sister spends the night every now and then, but I worry about when we have a guest(s) that will spend more than two days with us . . .

I'm on the multi-purpose room bandwagon. Right now my husband and I have a 3-bedroom house, but no kids yet. We have a master bedroom and we each use a spare bedroom as an office. Each office has a futon and doubles as a guest room.

When we do have kids, it might be a bit more complicated, but when we got new living room furniture, we specifically made sure the set came with a sleeper sofa in anticipation of not having spare bedrooms one day. Fortunately, most of our family lives nearby, so we don't have to worry about overnight guests too often!

When we moved a guest room was high on the list of desirables. We've lived in this new house for almost 2 years now and LOVE the guest room. It's used about 2x per month and we see our out of town guests lots more because we have suitable accomodations. Our old house was technically a 3 bedroom but not practically a 3 bedroom. The largest bedroom was a walk through space that adjoined the kitchen and we used it as an office. The middle sized room was our bedroom. The third bedroom could barely accomodate a twin, so we turned it into a closet. It worked quite well for us but meant that overnight guests had to sleep on the sofa bed on the "wrack of pain" as we liked to call it. Hence, we had few guests. It is a lovely thing to offer a comfy bed, some privacy, and gracious space to folks who come for a visit.

I've done both, had guests here and at local hotels (due to pet allergies), both worked because the guests were given a key and could come & go at any hour. That said, in an expensive market (San Francisco) I just cannot maintain a dedicated guestroom any longer because the room just wasn't being lived in, I'll still have a very comfy ottoman-bed for guests but the twin beds have been removed - and - it will now be my library and office. I'll just have to lockup my files and pull my laptop out to work on when guests are here. After having one guest announce his visit, and his intent to take my personal bedroom for his use, my philosophy is now... here's what I have for guest space and, if they express a dislike for it, here's a list of hotels!

One of the best things about having your own home (actually owned or rented) is being able to share it with people you love (or at least like) on occasion. There's something so nice about waking up in the morning with guests in your home. I get excited about preparing my home for them and hosting them during their stay. When you don't have guests, of course it would be great to use the space for something else if possible, but planning to save money so I can put my 'guests' in a place that's trying hard to be like the home I can't or won't let them stay in is weird and impersonal.

It depends on your lifestyle. I moved from a house with a guest bedroom with its own private bath to a condo without a guest bedroom. I totally miss that guest bedroom- more than anything else.

I love hosting guests - we have a bed in the office, which is also handy for times when someone snores, or is sick, or on call for work and up all night. I can't see ever having a whole room just for guests that no one else ever used though. My sister maintains two entire official guest rooms, but she makes quadruple my salary, and so can afford such luxuries. It is lovely when the whole family can stay in one house for holidays!

"First calculate the cost of the additional 300sf"....

That would be 3 extra rooms in my house, increasing the sf by 30%. And I would love to have the extra rooms.

The are missing the fact that the luxury of having an extra room used for pretty much nothing, is a status symbol. Having a different room for everything is also a status symbol. Small house living and having multi-purpose spaces is not. It's not about saving money. It's about looking like you don't need to save money.

This thread is silly.

When we lived somewhere where nobody wanted to visit, our guest room was a waste. However, now that we live in a place that people enjoy visiting, our guest bed is in frequent use. I doubt that we will ever live in such a spacious place that the guest room doesn't have a secondary or tertiary purpose.

I think very few people in my country buy a bigger house on purpose because of the guest bedroom. If they have on, often the guest bedroom used to be the kids room and then the kids moved out. Or, the guest bedroom will be the kids room but the kid isn't here yet so the room gets used as a guest bedroom till the kid is here. My parents guest bedroom for example was my sisters room. Same with my grand parents.
Or you find the perfect house, but there is one room you don't need. Would you pass up the house which is perfect in all other aspects (and in your price range) just because there is one room you don't absolutely need? No, you will buy the house anyway and turn the spare room in a guest room.

We live in 600 sf one-bedroom (family of three) and guests are welcome to stay here, arrangements can be made.. but I like living in a small home and don't want the extra space to clean and to pay for.

Let's make a huge distinction here! The entire idea of a guest room is predicated on having overnight guests. I love having people over, and I love cooking for my friends. But they're all local and they have their own homes!

It's not about whether you enjoy having people around...and it's not about whether you entertain people...it's that sometimes you just. don't. need. a. guest. room. not because people don't visit you...but because no one needs to stay overnight.

Relatives stay overnight with us maybe three times a year. For those three times, I'm fine with sleeping on the floor. Let's not confuse "don't need a guest bedroom" with "why don't you like opening up your home to people?"

I just bought my first house, and NEED a geustroom. I'm from the east coast and now live in the midwest. Old friends and family will always need a place to stay when visiting me. So I'm having a twin bed with trundle in the geust room. It's also where I'll keep all my sewing stuff. Always functional.

What Pi said.

I'm not a person who wants to play host for more than a few hours. I also happen to live in a small studio, and when it comes time for people [usually family] to visit I become very grateful for my limited space.

Speaking as the person who is usually the guest in this type of situation though, I will say that 9 times out of 10, I wish the person DIDN’T have a guest room. Along with that friendly place to stay comes the underlying fact that you are a guest in their home, you have certain obligations and there is an etiquette that must be followed. Hotels come with alone time [oh, glorious alone time!], and you don’t have the same guilty feeling at check-out if you haven’t changed the sheets and made the bed.

We have no room for a guest room: just a couch that pulls out into a double bed. It's a camping adventure when guests stay overnight. I love the kerfufflement of the living room couch pulled out, suitcases exploding everywhere, cats exploring the new caverns in wonderment, and people who love me enough to want to come visit from afar. My husband doesn't love it.

One of my children's bedrooms becomes a guest room when needed. She has a nice queen bed and it is a pleasant room to spend time in. It is decorated in a way that isn't cluttered or too young. When we have guests, my daughter moves out of her room and sleeps in the extra twin bed in her sister's room.

That quote is halfway bizarre, because I think it's a little hard for many apartment-dwellers to know who it's directed at (ok, maybe it's just me). Is it really assuming the audience is in a position to build a house in suburbia or something? Because 300sqft for one room feels like a lot. My room in my mom's house (in suburbia) might be that big, but none of the 4 apartments I've lived in in philly have rooms anywhere near that size... I'm pretty sure.

For an extrovert, home is a place to invite everyone you know.

For an introvert, home is a place to escape from everyone you know.

I can only afford one bedroom for now, so when the time came to buy a new sofa, I bought one that folds out. That was two years ago and it's only been used for a total of four nights because I just don't have guests often.

Even if I did...there are much worse places to wake up than in my living room, surrounded by books and art.

It really seems odd (culturally - so maybe just not that Australian) to have a guest room - should anyone come to stay with us (the occasional grandmother when we were young), we kids were just shoved in the same room for a while.
When DrHeliotrope & I lived overseas, no guestroom, so people either put up with the floor or paid to stay elsewhere - who wants relos dumping on you for a couple of weeks? When we moved elsewhere in Australia, my mother in law seemed to think we should be paying another couple hundred a week rent for a second bedroom for weekend guests (or ironing & dumping of junk) - if she wants the room, she should pay, we didnt need it that much.
Mind you, we wouldnt let people sleep on our brand new sofa, either...
Picky? Us?

AT sort of posted the quote out of context I think. I originally read something similar awhile back in the financial section of the Chicago Trib. The article was about thinking about cost per use when making new purchases (such as building a new house). Similar to this:

http://personalfinancebythebook.com/to-buy-or-not-to-buy-the-“cost-per-use”-method/

having put up many guests in my bedroom, or on an air mattress on my living room floor, i'd much rather be able to offer them a guest room. it would be a multi-function space, of course. an office/craft room with a pull-out futon or sofa bed. then everyone would have their own space with a door to hang out in either late at night or early in the morning. it just seems more civilized to me.

I have always lived an expatraite life in Paris, Beirut, Rome and Helsinki all fun places for friends to visit. We always considered a guest room de riguer but latterly I have turned the guest room into an office and provide local accomodation for visitors most of whom can happily pay for their own hotel. If it is visiting children then a nice B & B at the end of our road provides a good annexe and privacy all round.

I absolutely would never give up having a dedicated guest room. Sure I don't use it every day however, I hate having guests crash all over the house. The next day I have to tip toe around trying to make breakfast and get ready for work without waking everyone. With a guest room our guests have their own space for all their stuff.

Yeah, no dedicated guest room here, but we have a room that's set up as a bedroom but also has various stuff stored in it and gets hung out in. We also have a den/office/etc. room that has a futon in it. Both can be used for guests but get used by us as well.

I bought a one-bedroom single family house (not too uncommon in my area) which has a detached studio/in law apartment. A friend is renting the studio currently and I haven't moved in yet but I would use my dining room/sunroom as a guestroom.

It's the perfect arrangement.
It is surrounded by windows, so even though it's small it seems bigger, has it's own door (the backdoor) I could the dining table into the kitchen, and put curtains on a rod to separate the room from the kitchen. It's also on the other side of the house from my room.

I want to get two twin beds and use them as a sectional day-bed (idea I got from AT) and put them together to form a king when there are guests.

I suppose if my renter moves out I could convert that into a guest cottage as the studio has a laundry room, bathroom, and kitchen.

I signed up just to comment on most of these comments: What social strata do you guys come from where guest rooms are actually commonplace or taken for granted? Acting like the "hassle" of orchestrating meeting up with your out-of-town guests who are at a hotel (in today's technological age, how difficult are a few text messages?) is an undue burden is silly -- and I guess I'm glad you guys have the disposable income for a house that has an extra room.

I had to laugh at "My parent's guestroom gets LOTS of use" to find out that LoTS of use equals ... a couple of weekends a month. A room that sees actual use 4 out of 30 days a month is an unused room.

I also had to laugh at the first commenter who comes across as a spoiled brat -- sarcasm about waking up on Christmas at a hotel... mature.

Maybe instead of seeing guestrooms as necessary, maybe you should ask yourself why you need lots of overnight visitors in the first place? Is it because you moved far across the country from your friends and family? The economic thing to do (what poor people do) is stay near their friends and family, eliminating the "need" for a guest room. Kids at college? That's what the couch is for, or an air mattress.

Formal dining rooms are another underused over priced room. It's easy for people stuck in their ways of thinking to rationalize "Hey, I use that room once a year but that's damn important to me because it's WEIRD not to have a dining room." But it's also a wasteful way of thinking. Just because it's the way it's always been done doesn't mean it's the best way to do things. . .

When your parents/old friends live in another country and their visits are lengthy, then a guest room is a sanity preserver for everyone. When the room is guest free, we use it as a playroom/den. The double duty arrangement that didn't work with us was having my home office as the guest room. It's a complete pain in the neck to have to move out of your regular work space when people are staying. I guess everyone is different and it all depends on your financial circumstances/stage of life/views on the environment and space etc. But sensible as the hotel thing sounds in theory, would your guests really let you pay for their overnight accommodation in a hotel/b&b if you didn't have a spare bedroom for them? I can't see it! I see lots of embarrassing conversations!

It's an odd sort of designation, the "guest bedroom". All that it means is that you happen to have more bedrooms than you have family members to fill them. You may not have consciously decided to have the extra room, but fate or other considerations made it happen.

For example, I have a four bedroom house despite the fact that I live alone or with a single housemate. I never wanted a four bedroom house, but at the time I bought my house it was the one property that met all of my other needs in terms of price, location, condition and having a decent kitchen.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that some are born with guest bedrooms, some achieve guest bedrooms, and some have guest bedrooms thrust upon them!

It is obvious that people do have different expectations but it has nothing to do with being spoiled. I have three extra bedrooms now because my husband and I are empty-nesters. But we moved into this house the day we got back from honeymoon, it was a filthy 100 year old wreck of a place with rats, mice, snakes, lizards, cats, and maggots but we cleaned it and restored it, and I intend to spend the rest of my life here. Any friend of mine who needs a place to go knows where I live and is welcome to stay as long as they need or want. They can visit with me in the parlor or in the living room or they can have some time to themselves in the library. They can breakfast with Mr.P in the breakfast room, lunch at the kitchen counter, and we'll dine in the superfluous dining room. Afterward on a soft evening we can sit in the front porch swing or if the mosquitoes are bad we can move to the screened in porch. Yes, I have wasted space and room to spare but it is much less waste than the house down the road that has stood empty and falling further into ruin these 25 years. But someone who lives in LA inherited that house, and they are paying property taxes almost as high as mine, they want to sell it but don't understand or won't face up to the difference in property values. We have worked on our house every one of the 25 years we've been here and we still have plans -- what we've never had is a mortgage because the place was cheaper than our first car together. It depends on where you live and what phase pf life you are in whether you have "extra" bedrooms or not. And no matter how you are using it or how you style it a bedroom is still a bedroom, Especially when you go to sell it!