CREATING A WELCOMING GUEST ROOM
Little touches make family and friends feel at home
Inventor Benjamin Franklin once said house guests are like fish: they start to stink after three days. You may agree, but with holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah on the horizon, you may soon be opening your home to out-of-town guests.
If your guest room has become your home’s catch-all or serves double duty as an office, gym or hobby room, now’s the time to make sure it’s functional and comfortable. Who better to offer advice than someone whose business is all about making sure guests feel welcome?
“Firstly, the room has to be spotlessly clean,” says Guy Laporte, co-owner of Craigleith Manor Bed & Breakfast in Collingwood, Ont.
“Nobody wants to be a guest in a room that has dust balls under the bed. If there’s an ensuite bathroom, that ensuite has to be spotlessly clean as well.”
Here are some additional tips on how to be the host with the most:
Clear the clutter. “Think about personal belongings that are in that room that aren’t of any interest to anybody but you,” says Laporte, pointing to doll collections as but one example. Remove anything that’s collecting dust or taking up space. If the room has become a catch-all, put things back where they belong.
Take stock of the bed linens.
“Are the pillows comfortable? Is anything worn out and need replacing?” asks Homesense design expert Tamara Robbins Griffith. “Give your guests options in terms of layers so they can make the bed as cosy or as light as they want it to be with a duvet, coverlet at the bottom of the bed and a throw.”
Bedding should be pristine. “Recycling your teenager’s bedding onto the guest bed may not be a great idea,” says Laporte. “Think about pillows and bedding that are hypoallergenic. Feathered pillows might be the first things you think of when it comes to creature comforts, but allergies are a huge deal and many, many people cannot tolerate feather pillows …Hypoallergenic fibre-filled pillows are a great alternative. Throw them in the washer and dryer after every guest and they puff up exactly as if they were brand new.”
Add creature comforts. A private set of pristine towels is a must. “B & Bs pride themselves on clean, fluffy, 100 per cent cotton towels with no kind of tatter or tear,” says Laporte. He also recommends a box of tissues on the nightstand.
Consider putting together a basket with towels, a luxurious, freshly-washed robe, a pair of slippers and perhaps even a small bottle of hand lotion. “Seasonal hand towels to complement neutral bath and face towels will add a special touch,” Robbins Griffith says.
Bedside tables with lamps invite guests to relax with a book before nodding off. Decorate the tables with candles, a vase of fresh flowers or a small plant. Place a couple of bottles of water or a carafe of water and glassware on a table, especially if the room doesn’t have an ensuite bathroom, she adds.
Offer storage. Especially if your guests stay for an extended period of time — such as a week — a chest of drawers so they can unpack would be appreciated.
Create space in the closet, complete with flocked hangers so guests can hang special outfits and keep them wrinkle-free, Robbins Griffith suggests. Add temporary over-the-door hooks or install pretty hooks on the back of a door or on a wall to hang towels to dry and/or other items.
Keep guests connected. If your guest room doubles as an office or other space, make it look pretty so it’s one cohesive room. “Your guests might travel with a laptop or ipad, so leaving space on the desk so they can check their emails is a nice gesture. It’s always nice to put out the Wi-fi password and you can even print it up and put it in a small photo frame,” she says. Phone chargers are another nice touch.