Rita notes: Spare rooms
Rita Konig explains how a few clever touches can turn a spare bedroom into somewhere really special.
When decorating houses, I find guest bedrooms are the most liberating to design. On one hand, there is less pressure for them to be fabulous; on the other, they don't have to be something you will not tire of, so you can be more adventurous.
Unfortunately, spare rooms can also fall into a dangerous category: second-division spaces where leftover stuff tends to end up. If this is the case in your house, have a rethink; it sounds like this room needs to start doing more for you. Don't let a spare bedroom languish waiting for a guest to show up: have it double as a study or little television room. This is so much more luxurious than the bereft guest bedroom, and gives you an additional space. For this sort of hybrid, I would recommend having a daybed rather than (ever) using a sofa bed or trying to get a double bed in the room. I have one from The French House in Parsons Green, south-west London.
If space is limited, have a box bed made by a good joiner, with a mattress upholstered in a fabric of your choice. The bed can then remain unmade until a guest arrives. Depending on the shape of the room, these can fit between alcoves or underneath a window. The American interior designer Albert Hadley had one of these in his dressing room between two cupboards. This is a very particular style of room, though, and is best for the overnight guest rather than long-term visitors.
There are certain things that the more regularly used guest bedroom needs to deliver. First, it is nice to open a cupboard and find a set of plump hangers rather than a skinny selection of metal ones from a variety of dry cleaners. It is also nice not to find your hosts' ski clothes/shooting kit/grandmother's evening dresses bursting out of the cupboard. Beside the bed, I love to find short stories or biographies I would never normally buy; when you have forgotten your book, these can be perfect to send you off to sleep. Another thing to think of in the early stages of a project is the electrics. While you are putting switches by the bed, consider a USB port - the overseas guest will be particularly grateful when they realise they left their adaptor plug at home.
I remember houses where there was a tin of Digestives and a Thermos of water beside the bed. It is old fashioned now, but I do think that a carafe of water is so much cosier than a bottle of Evian, and a tin of water biscuits is rather nice to stave off midnight munchies. These things always leave a guest feeling that extra care has been taken, which is really nice.
The relationship between bedrooms and bathrooms is interesting. One of the things I would recommend when working with an architect on the floor plan is that a bathroom with a window across the passage is preferable to an internal en-suite bathroom. Houses can become too much like hotels and people disappear into suites, which can be rather ghostly. Passage life is good. If there is an opportunity to create a lobby between the bedroom and bathroom (possibly with cupboards in it), then do; any distance created between the loo and your pillow is good.
Taken from the July 2016 issue of House & Garden.
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