A spare room works hardest when the furniture in it does more than one job. In a typical British box room of around two and a half by three metres, the set that succeeds is usually a small double or single bed with built in storage, one slim bedside unit rather than two, and a single tall storage piece instead of a low sprawling one. Everything else should either fold, stack or hang.<\/p>\n
These nine ideas are arranged roughly in order of how much difference they make. You do not need all of them. Two or three, chosen for your room shape, will change how usable the space is.<\/p>\n
The instinct is to fit the largest bed possible so visitors are comfortable. In a small room that backfires, because a guest who cannot open a suitcase or walk past the bed without turning sideways is not comfortable at all.<\/p>\n
Work out your circulation first. You want a minimum of sixty centimetres of clear floor on at least one long side of the bed, and ideally seventy where someone will dress. Measure the room, subtract that walkway, and see what length and width remain. A small double at one hundred and twenty centimetres wide often suits a spare room better than a standard double at one hundred and thirty five, and the difference in sleeping comfort is smaller than the difference in floor space.<\/p>\n
In a room this size, the floor under the bed is the largest unused volume you have. An ottoman bed converts it into a single deep compartment that takes spare bedding, luggage and off season clothing. A divan with drawers is the alternative when there is not enough clearance above the bed to lift a gas assisted platform.<\/p>\n
Check the lifting direction before you buy. Side lifting suits a bed pushed against a wall along its length, while end lifting suits a bed in an alcove. Getting this wrong makes the storage effectively inaccessible.<\/p>\n
Two matching cabinets look balanced in a main bedroom. In a spare room they cost you a walkway. Use one cabinet on the side that people will actually get out of, and mount a small shelf or a wall light on the other side.<\/p>\n
Look for cabinets around thirty five to forty centimetres wide with a drawer and an open shelf. The open shelf matters more than it sounds: guests tend to put a phone charger, a book and a water glass down within the first few minutes of arriving, and a flat surface with a lip keeps that tidy. Our modern wooden bedside cabinets UK sale<\/a> range includes slim widths suited to narrow rooms.<\/p>\n A wide chest of drawers eats wall length that a spare room cannot spare. A tallboy in the same collection holds a similar volume in roughly half the footprint, and the extra height draws the eye upwards, which helps a low ceilinged room feel taller.<\/p>\n Keep the top surface usable. A tallboy at around one hundred and ten centimetres high doubles as a place to set down a bag or fold laundry, which removes the need for a separate table.<\/p>\n Many people skip the wardrobe in a spare room and rely on a hanging rail. It rarely stays tidy. A one door or two door wardrobe at around fifty centimetres deep gives guests somewhere to hang two or three items and gives you somewhere to keep coats, spare bedding or clothes in rotation the rest of the year.<\/p>\n If the room is genuinely too narrow for a hinged door, sliding doors solve it. You lose a small amount of internal access but you recover the entire door swing, which in a box room is often half a square metre. Browse our modern 2 door wardrobes UK sale<\/a> for the standard sizes that pair with most bedroom collections.<\/p>\n Most spare rooms host guests for a few nights a year and sit empty the rest of the time. Designing around the rare use is wasteful. A compact desk under the window, a reading chair in the corner or a set of shelves for household storage gives the room a daily function without preventing it from working as a bedroom.<\/p>\n A wall mounted fold down desk is the neatest version of this. When it is down it gives you a working surface; when it is up the wall is flat and a guest can walk past it. If you prefer something permanent, a narrow desk of around forty five centimetres deep will still take a laptop and will not block the walkway.<\/p>\n Mirrors genuinely help a small room, but only when they reflect something worth seeing. A mirror facing a window doubles the daylight. A mirror facing a blank wall just doubles the blank wall.<\/p>\n The most efficient option is a mirrored wardrobe door, since it gives you a full length mirror without using any additional space. Where that is not possible, a single tall wall mirror on the wall opposite the window achieves most of the same effect. Our modern bedroom mirrors UK sale<\/a> selection covers both wall mounted and freestanding styles.<\/p>\n A small room reads as larger when there is less visual interruption. Three pieces in the same finish, sitting against a wall painted in a similar tone, blur into the background. The same three pieces in three different woods create three separate objects and the room feels crowded.<\/p>\n This is the strongest argument for buying a matching set in a spare room. It is not about looking coordinated for its own sake; it is that consistency reduces visual noise, which is exactly what a small space needs. Pale oak, soft white and light grey all work well. If you want depth, put it on one wall behind the bed rather than in the furniture.<\/p>\n Corners are where spare rooms lose space. A bed pushed into a corner blocks access on two sides. A chest of drawers in a corner leaves a dead triangle behind it. Before placing anything, decide what each corner is for: one for the bed head, one for tall storage, one for a chair or lamp, and one kept clear for the door swing.<\/p>\n Mark it out with masking tape on the carpet. Ten minutes of tape saves a great deal of trouble when a wardrobe arrives and turns out to block the light switch.<\/p>\n A spare room set that works usually looks like this: an ottoman or drawer bed sized to leave a real walkway, one slim bedside cabinet, a tallboy, a slim wardrobe and one mirror positioned to catch daylight. Add a compact desk or chair only if the floor plan genuinely allows it.<\/p>\n If you would rather buy the pieces as a coordinated group, our modern bedroom furniture sets UK sale<\/a> collections are matched for finish and handle detail, which removes the guesswork. You can also shop individual pieces across the range at Furniture in Fashion<\/a> if you are adding to something you already own.<\/p>\n As a working minimum, a room of around two and a half metres by three metres will take a small double with a walkway on one side and space for a slim bedside unit. Below that, a single bed or a day bed is usually the more comfortable outcome.<\/p>\n In most cases yes, because a spare room tends to absorb household storage as well as guests. The main consideration is clearance: you need room to lift the platform fully, so check the ceiling height and whether a sloped ceiling or a window sill will interfere.<\/p>\n It helps, but it is not essential. What matters more is internal consistency within the room. A spare room with three matched pieces will look considered even if the finish differs from your main bedroom.<\/p>\n Keep one clear surface and one clear corner at all times. Storage that lives inside furniture is invisible; storage stacked on the floor or on the bed is what makes a room feel unused. A tallboy and an ottoman bed together usually hold enough to keep the floor clear.<\/p>\n Not strictly, but a slim wardrobe earns its place across the rest of the year by holding coats, bedding or off season clothing. If space is very tight, a wardrobe with a single hanging rail and a shelf above will cover both uses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A spare room only works when every piece of furniture in it does more than one job. This guide sets out nine practical ideas for furnishing a small British spare bedroom, starting with the decision that matters most: sizing the bed around circulation space rather…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[361,1314,2811,6821],"class_list":["post-65333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bedroom-furniture","tag-bedroom-storage","tag-ottoman-beds","tag-small-bedroom-furniture","tag-spare-room-ideas"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}4. Go Vertical With Clothing Storage<\/h3>\n
5. Use a Slim Wardrobe Rather Than No Wardrobe<\/h3>\n
6. Let the Room Have a Second Purpose<\/h3>\n
7. Mirror One Wall, Not Three<\/h3>\n
8. Keep the Furniture Tones Consistent and the Contrast Low<\/h3>\n
9. Plan the Corners Before the Walls<\/h3>\n
Bringing It Together<\/h3>\n
Frequently Asked Questions<\/h3>\n
What is the smallest room that will take a double bed?<\/h3>\n
Is an ottoman bed worth it in a spare room?<\/h3>\n
Should a spare room match the rest of the house?<\/h3>\n
How do I stop a spare room feeling like a storage room?<\/h3>\n
Do I need a wardrobe if guests only stay a night or two?<\/h3>\n