Not Spending Money

The Perfect Guest Room?

Overnight guests come to the smallest of homes, and I know I have a real desire to make them feel welcome and have their guest experience really be enjoyable.

In my perfect world, this would involve:

• A perfect, pretty little guest bedroom set up just for them
• Clean and fluffy blankets, towels, and pillows in their closet (in addition to the ones in the bath and bed) so they can use as many as they like
• A cleared closet with a luggage rack and hangers for their personal belongings should they need it
• Fresh flowers in their room
• Their own bathroom, fully stocked with all neccessities
• Having a full complement of extra toiletries available for anything they’ve forgotten
• Taking time off work during their visit
• Stocking the room with a magazine or two that they like
• Being able to take them to see the local sights during their visit
• Take them out to dinner while they’re here

Each and every one of the above points can become really expensive, and sometimes beyond the reach of us mere mortals to provide, so I want to identify the root things going on here instead of just addressing the symptoms. Why is this important to me?

Ultimately, it’s not the separate bath, full guest suite, and dinners out that are important, but the desire to communicate that they are expected, wanted, and well-cared for in my home. This is perhaps the most important realization, because there are plenty of ways to provide those feelings and experiences in my home without the items on my expensive guest-needs list above.

Have you considered alternatives to a guest room?

If you live in a smaller home, as I do, it might not be possible to provide a separate guest room. There may be ways to get around this– have you considered asking members of the family to share to provide their rooms? Have you offered your own room, and set up a bed elsewhere in the house for yourself? If this isn’t reasonable, then where will the guest be sleeping? Let’s say you have a sleeper couch, day bed, air mattress, or futon that you are planning on setting up for your guest once evening falls. These can be quite comfortable options, but a little extra planning can help the guest feel as special as though they had their own suite.

The Importance of the Guest Space

Even if you don’t have a guest suite, having a designated “guest space” can be a very strong way of expressing welcome to a guest.  One benefit of a guest suite is privacy, so think about ways you can provide privacy for your guests while they are around. Is there a niche in the house somewhere that you can place your extra bed that will offer a little more privacy? For example, can that air mattress be set up in a little-used dining room, and the table and chairs moved out/aside for the duration of their visit? Is it a bed that can be left up during their entire stay, so they have a place to rest during the day or leave their stuff when you go out? Do you have a folding screen that you can place to provide them with a little extra privacy? Even just re-arranging some living room furniture can introduce a nook in a public space that guests can feel is a little separate from “everyone else’s” space.

People need a place to put their things during their stay. Regardless of where you find it, there needs to be some “guest space” that they can claim. If this space is in the middle of the living room, plan a place where they can put their luggage out of the flow of traffic. Maybe it is under a nearby table. Even providing a nearby chair “just for them” will allow them to drape their belongings over it during their stay. People can be very territorial, and one of the displacing things about being a guest is not having “one’s own space.”

Setting up the space for them lets them know that you are excited to have them around and provides a more polished experience.  Ideally, a guest bed will be set up in this space upon their arrival, so when they see it, they’ll know that you’ve gone to the effort to prepare.  However, in some cases this isn’t possible, such as when you need the main couch to make a bed.   In these cases, it can be welcoming, if not slightly magical, for a guest to suddenly come in after a walk or a shower and see that their bed is all made up for them where none was before.  The main thing here is that they will feel like they have a space all just for them, even if you cannot afford a whole guest suite and are inviting them to sleep in your living room.

Tips for your Guest Space

• Whether they are sleeping on the couch, futon, rollaway, air mattress, or
  

  Hotels can make sofa beds look welcoming.

  couch cushions, make the bed up nicely with pretty sheets and matching blankets to the best of your ability.  Go to the extra effort to do hospital corners on the sheets, fluff the pillows, and turn the sheets down nicely. Would a throw blanket look welcoming at the foot of the bed? What about the throw pillows from the couch?  Going to the trouble to make it look pretty helps the event feel more deliberate and less thrown together.

• Have plenty of blankets and pillows on hand, just in case. Having some nearby, in a closet or folded neatly on a chair,  means that the guest won’t have to ask if they get cold in the night.
• Pick out some books they might enjoy for bedtime reading and furnish the guest space with them. If you don’t have any they might enjoy, a trip to the library for a popular novel might not be a bad idea.
• If the bed is on the floor, find a way to provide some nightstand space for them.  Some guests like a place off the floor for their water, glasses, jewelry, etc.  If there’s no table nearby, maybe you can pull in an occasional table from another room, or use a low trunk or bench.
• Arrange the table lamps so that they are convenient for bedside lamps. Ideally, the guest would be able to turn it off without getting out of bed.

Even this couch-cushion bed on the floor looks inviting when prepared well.

The Rest of the House

Of course, hosting overnight guests goes beyond preparing a place for them to sleep, although that’s the main difference between overnight and regular guests.  There are other things that don’t cost any money that you can do throughout the rest of the house to help them feel at home.

• Clean your home as much as you have time for before their arrival.
• Make sure the bath they’ll be using is comfortable.  Do you have a fresh set of towels laid out for them?  If the bath they are using is also the powder room used by others during the day, do you have a separate towel available for drying hands, or are people expected to use your guests’ towels? (Please, have a separate one.) Do you have a candle you could place in there? Have you made sure all the surfaces are clean, especially the mirror? As a finishing touch, you could fold the toilet paper into a little point like they do in swanky hotels. This is pointless but a fun way to send a message that you care.
• Have food on hand that you know they like, and let them know that they can help themselves.  Even if you have regular meals planned, having a few munchies available takes pressure off you as host and lets everyone be more patient and more flexible with timing of meals and events.

Activities

If in your ideal world you take them to an expensive restaurant or a night out on the town in your home city, and your budget prevents you from fulfilling that, there are a lot of other ways to reach out, provide activities, and share your home and life with them that don’t cost money.

• You might have a favorite park where you can go and place a blanket in the shade and play frisbee.
• You might have some favorite walking routes that you can share with your guests.
• What do you do in the evenings? If you like board games, do they? If you have a movie you think they’d like, can you check it out of the library? If you garden, would they enjoy helping? Is there a recipe you could enjoy trying together? Sometimes just doing what you do normally is perfectly fine for guests as well.
• Do you have a favorite bookstore you want to show them? A favorite coffee shop? A favorite street of shops?  Are there any local festivals that weekend?

And ultimately, if you haven’t seen your guests in a while, you’ll probably enjoy sitting around and catching up just as much as any other activity.  And if they are close to you, they’ll probably just enjoy sharing in your life, regardless of what it is.  If they’re coming to visit you and not your city, it almost doesn’t matter what you have planned! Having a few ideas on hand is nice and can help them feel like you are excited for them to be there, but good friends don’t expect you to be the Ritz and will enjoy whatever you have to offer.