Make your guests feel at home this Christmas

Get your guest room Christmas-ready with new wardrobe doors

Christmas is coming, and if you are having guests to stay over the festive season, now is the time to start preparing. Time flies past so quickly at this time of the year and they’ll be at the door before you know it. So, if you want your home to end up on the nice list, it’s time to spring into action.

Take a good look at your guest bedroom and imagine you are seeing it for the first time. Be completely honest and ask yourself if there are a few improvements that could be made. To help you do this, here are five ways that you can make your guests feel at home this Christmas:

Declutter your guest room

This is a theme we often come back to in this column. But a good declutter really is the foundation on which to start making a bedroom comfortable. Your guests will want to feel welcome and that they are not intruding on your family life. But if they open the wardrobe doors and all your clutter falls out, they are likely to feel as if they are putting you out and getting in your way.

So treat the forthcoming visit as an ideal opportunity to get rid of the clutter and create lots of storage space for your guests. Remember that they will need wardrobe and drawer space to put clothes away, as well as at least one cabinet or table to put things on. 

See our recent article How to achieve a minimalist bedroom for tips on how to declutter the contents of your bedroom effectively.

Give your guests some privacy

Even if your guests are only with you for a couple of days, you all still need your privacy. And there are things that you can do to help this happen.

First of all make sure that the door to the guest bedroom closes properly, and won’t gradually swing open during the night. Also check that your curtains or blinds cover the whole window : even if you know the room is not overlooked from anywhere it can still be a bit disconcerting for guests to have exposed parts of a window, especially at night.

If you are lucky enough to have a guest room with an ensuite bathroom, this is ideal. But otherwise it can be helpful to run through some basic logistics regarding bathroom arrangements, and ensure that either the door locks or you have a sign on it to indicate when someone is in there.

Maximise the floor space for your guests

Part of the article we just mentioned – How to achieve a minimalist bedroom – covers the importance of maximising the floor space in a bedroom. And this is particularly important for guests. On a practical note, they will need somewhere to put their suitcases during their stay, without continually falling over them. But it’s also great if you can provide them with somewhere to sit as well, just so they have somewhere to relax on their own for a while.

One thing that can help with this is if you have sliding wardrobe doors instead of hinged doors that swing out. This can free up more floor space, particularly in a smaller bedroom, as you don’t need to leave a chunk of space in front of the wardrobe for the doors to open. 

So, if you have been thinking about changing your wardrobe doors, there is still time to get this done before Christmas. To see how DIY Homefit can help with this, check out our sliding door designer which enables you to create custom made sliding wardrobe doors that are exactly right for the shape and size of your bedroom.

Create a calm environment

Another key aspect of making your guests feel at home is to create an atmosphere of peace and calm in that room. One way to do this is to use calming colours such as pale blues, greens or neutrals. Even if you just do this on one wall – either using paint or a feature wallpaper – it can make a big difference to the ambience of the room.

Another way to bring a sense of calm into a room is to display one or two plants in the room. This is very much in line with the trend we have previously mentioned of bringing the outside in. It’s simple to do but can make a big difference. If you are not very good with live plants, even good quality artificial ones can help to bring the room to life – and they don’t need watering!

Add the perfect finishing touches

Whatever else you do to the guest room, adding a few finishing touches is essential. These can be decorative or practical – or both.

Decorative accessories include cushions, throws, rugs, and wall art. All of these can add warmth to the ambience of the room and make it feel cosy and welcoming.

On the practical side, try to think of a few extras that can make your guest’s stay just that little bit more comfortable. For example, do they have access to a bedside light, a clock, and a radio? And how about a basket of miniature toiletries in case there is anything they have forgotten and a jug or bottle of water for night time thirst. Also consider a collection of books or a few tastefully displayed magazines that they may like to browse through when relaxing.

Try to think of the things that you would like to see in a guest room that you are staying in, and do your best to provide at least some of them.

We hope that this article has given you some inspiration as to how to make your guests feel at home this Christmas. For further ideas, take a browse through our gallery of bedroom pictures to see what kind of changes you could make to your guest room before Christmas.

Do check back here soon for more tips from DIY Homefit on how to improve your home at Christmas and beyond.