Multitasking: how to create a home office in your spare room

Working from your spare room can be both rewarding and frustrating. You can shut yourself away for work, home admin or hobby focus, but it can be a real challenge to practicality with weekend guest space.

But, with a few clever touches, your spare-room office can be both. Pick the right furniture, decor and layout, and you’ll create a retreat where guests will be cosy and comfortable and you can enjoy your perfect workspace.

1. Use a curtain divider

Separate sleep from study with a pretty fabric panel

However nice your working environment is, sometimes it’s better out of sight. And when you’re trying to combine work with pleasure, the result feels jumbled if you don’t get it right.

Fred Horlock, design director at furniture and home decor company Neptune,  agrees: “In a smaller home, some spaces must serve a dual purpose, like a home office within a bedroom. However, rooms like these have a tendency to turn into a visually incoherent space.

“This can be avoided by using softer or decorative pieces such as curtains and room dividers. These allow for a feeling of separation while maintaining  the  functionality and design aesthetic of the space.”

Although you may choose to leave the curtain open when no one is visiting, it easily can be closed when visitors arrive.

2. Change your outlook

You really could be working from anywhere with a wallpaper mural

Who says dreaming is only for bedtime? When you’re having a dreary day, there’s nothing like a change of location to boost your mood. But if you’re tied to your desk, why not change your perspective with a wallpaper mural?

We love this one from Rebel Walls, which features Chatsworth Park at night. Dark and mysterious, it’s also in line with this year’s green interiors trend. We particularly love how the positioning of the bed makes the pavilion building resemble a faux headboard.

Keep the finished look classically simple with light, wooden furniture, neutrally toned bedlinen and a simple black desk light that can easily become a bedside lamp for guests.

3. Don’t dismiss redundant walls

Position a slimline desk in the empty space between windows

Easily distracted? Locate your desk in the dead space between two windows to help you remain focused during the work day.

Choose a slimline desk with hairpin legs so the room doesn’t feel cluttered. To avoid blocking traffic, add a simple cube seat or stool that can be tucked away when not in use.

Positioning a mirror above the desk also creates a handy dressing table space for visitors. Although colour choice is a personal preference, we love how this duck egg blue is sharply contrasted with reds, coppers and conker-toned wood.

It’s a great blue bedroom idea. Make sure you’ve also got a comfy occasional chair that feels anything but corporate.

4. Add a bespoke corner workstation

There’s no doubting the brilliance of a bespoke solution for rooms that need to be multipurpose. Bespoke storage designers are considered experts in their field, coming up with a host of handy tricks and solutions to get the best out of your space.

“Often we miss opportunities to integrate an office into unused or underutilised spaces,” says Rachael Hutcheson, national retail manager at Sharps Bedrooms.

“Key spaces to look at are the corners of a room. Perfect for housing a desk and shelving, they can offer a discreet area to work in.”

Her words ring true when we see how the addition of an L-shaped desk in this room does just that. And, in addition to ensuring the view from the bed is directed at the artworks and plants, it creates another opportunity for a subtle bedroom lighting effect.

5. Use your sofa bed as a divider

Create a back-to-back layout

“Sofa beds or trundle beds are also a great way to save room whilst ensuring guests can stay when needed,” says Kirsty Roper-Hall, beds and bedroom furniture buyer at John Lewis.

So if your spare-room home office is used less frequently as a bedroom, heed her advice and call upon the services of a sofa bed. When it comes to layout, follow the simple rules of this scheme:

• Pick a sofa bed with a back that’s higher than your desk.
• Face your sofa bed towards the window and your desk behind so that they both benefit from natural light.
• Use wall space for storage units and hanging rails.
• Add a floor or tall desk light that can be angled over the desk or the bed.
• Use the lower wall space under windows to house your books and work files.

6. Use a dressing table instead of a desk

Choose the right design to make it fashionable and functional

“It’s really important when designing a bedroom office that you don’t overcrowd the area – and instead make it comfortable and calming to help you focus, as well as switch off at the end of the day,” says Roper-Hall.

“With plenty of storage, a dressing table is a great alternative to a desk,” she suggests, “allowing you to hide away your work equipment whilst saving valuable space. A neutral colour, like white, can help to blend it into the background and avoid it being the focal point.

“To make the room feel more relaxed and less ‘office-like’, you might also want to opt for a chair without wheels,” Roper-Hall continues.

“Dressing tables will rarely provide enough space for a traditional desk chair, so if you don’t feel comfortable on a stool, you could also consider a chair without arms.”

Pair with pretty mint green and pick smaller decorative items for styling your bedside table. Why small? They can be easily tucked away in the spacious drawers when you don’t have guests, leaving you with more than enough space for your work essentials.

7. Hang mirrors

Increase the sense of space with mirrors and mirrored furniture

Mirrors are a great way of increasing the sense of space in your spare-room office. As well as ensuring your guests can check they look presentable, they will reflect plenty of natural light to prevent you squinting over your laptop.

To further enhance the look, use mirrored-effect ceiling lights and large mirrored decorative accessories. Mirrors are a surefire way to turn up the dial on a dark office day and are an uplifting addition to a dark-coloured interior scheme.

8. Use plants to soften the divide

Boost your air quality with a natural barrier between work and play

We’ve loved this year’s biophilic trend, which has encouraged us to embrace more greenery in our homes. If you work from home, getting a blast of the outdoors can be more difficult, especially during winter, when the days are shorter.

Thankfully, there’s a multitude of plants to choose from when it comes to creating your own indoor jungle. If you need safe houseplants for pets, or plants that suit a sunny spot, read our features on the best kitchen plants and best conservatory plants.

9. Add an elegant bureau

Create a dark and cosy atmosphere with rich reds and wood

Bureaus are a furniture choice we often refer to when discussing home offices. Why? Because their compact but highly functional nature make them more than fit for purpose.

Need storage? Tick. Need a work surface? Tick. Want to emulate the feeling of leaving work each day? Tick – simply close the lid. Need to have plenty of space for a bed and additional chairs? Tick.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the history of the bureau’s design dates back to 17th-century France (the word bureau in French means office), which means if you prefer a more classically designed interior, there’s a wealth of choice available.

Combine a glossy dark finish with reds, greens and golds and you’ll have a scheme fit for a king.

10. Use navy for a neat and crisp finish

Combine with white and rattan for a soft but professional feel

Prefer a more corporate look but still need to make your guests feel welcome? Nothing beats navy for a clean, crisp and polished interior.

Pair with light-coloured walls, add some texture with rattan accessories and if you’ve got budget to spare, commission a bespoke home-office unit and wardrobe to match.

Combine recessed shelving with cupboards and drawers and ensure you have sufficient layers of lighting to provide you with enough brightness to work, and to give guests the chance to tone it down at bedtime. We like how this scheme uses spotlights in both the ceiling and the recessed desk area.

11. Use a wall-hanging desk

Free up floor space and utilise an alcove

Want to extend the visual boundaries of your spare-room home office? Dismiss a more traditional desk in favour of a wall-mounted option.

A smaller version makes a great space-saving bedside table idea, and a wall-mounted desk works in the same way. Neat, compact and still providing ample work surface – and in this case, handy storage drawers – locating the unit in an alcove gives you the ultimate out-of-sight work solution.

Continue the clean-lined approach with some floating shelves and mount your desk light to the wall for maximum work-surface area. Pick pastels and neutrals as your accent shades and add an inspirational quote in a frame to keep you motivated when things get tough.

12. Disguise your desk

This unit is probably the slimmest workstation we’ve ever seen

At first glance, we thought this piece of furniture was a flip-down storage unit for shoes, until we took a closer look and realised it’s one of the most slimline workstations we’ve come across.

Let us list the ways in which we love thee… I mean, the ways in which this unit demonstrates it’s perfectly formed for even the smallest of spare-room home offices.

• It’s slim enough to fit in the neglected space behind a door.
• It requires only one plug socket as it has a cable that takes power to a recessed multi-socket and light unit inside the workstation.
• It has shelves hidden at the sides for storing files and stationery.
• It includes mini shelves and a slatted back panel for additional storage.

It’s without doubt utilitarian and simple in style, but there’s absolutely no question as to whether it’s up to the job.

If you’re simply looking for somewhere to hide away and catch up on emails, tackle some puzzles or indulge in an hour of crosswords, then look no further. This is your solution.