26 guest room ideas to make overnight visitors feel welcome and refreshed

The key to creating a fabulous guest room that your friends and family won’t want to leave is to treat it as if you were going to stay in it yourself. Give it all the comforts of home: the best mattress, a deep cozy duvet, the tactile throws and plenty of plush towels. Extras are uber important, a stylish bedside lamp, a good-sized mirror, and a lovely vase full of fresh flowers, the small details do matter and go all out with storage!

Alina Enache, architect and head design consultant, Scotlight Direct, says: ‘The guest room is sometimes an afterthought and one of the last rooms to be decorated. Often budgets are limited at this stage in an interior project. Still, it can become an inviting and very comfortable space for your guests with simple gestures of thoughtfulness.'

'Please don't let your Guest Room be where all your old furnishings go to die... a Guest Room should embody the look and personality of the house and not be the odd one out. The best trips are ones where you can live like a local during your stay, so offering guests a room that feels as thoughtfully appointed and welcoming as the rest of the house makes the whole experience,' says John Melhorn, architect, Thomas Melhorn.

Plump up the duvet, and discover easy and effective bedroom ideas to transform your guest room into an overnight rest and unravel retreat for favorite faces touring different places... These ideas will make them feel immediately at home.

By Holly Phillips and Sophie Warren-Smith