Guest Rooms

[mechtilde]

I'm in the UK- I'm lucky in that I do have a spare bedroom, but on the other hand it is full of my DH's Warhammer stuff!

It depends on your personal circumstances. I had a spare room, which then became the children's room when they arrived. After we had two extra rooms put in the attic we had a spare room again- but there are plenty of people who don't have one.

[kethria]

Maryland here... I noticed once we moved back to my old neighborhood (a block from my mom's house) that the older houses (ours was built in the late 40's, mom's was built in the 80's) all have mother in law suites. My sister's house also has one. This means that the basement is like it's own apartment, we both have small kitchens, full baths and 2 bedrooms and a livingroom in the basement. Once we get it organized it will come in handy for guests, or short term rentals as we are walking distance from my work, where visitng scientists often come from foreign countries for a week or so at a time.

My sister rents her basement out to their friends, who have their own kitchen and bed and bath which is really handy!

We often wonder if that wasn't the original kitchen in the house and when everyone built up then the houses spread.

[katycoo]

I keep reading threads on here that mention Guest Rooms. Is this a common thing?

I my experience in Australia the only people who might have a "guest room" are people who have no kids living at home and live in a larger house (ie: more than one bedroom, eg: my parents have a 3 bedroom house and just them and my youngest sister still at home so have turned the other bedroom into a "guest room"). Most people with kids have just enough bedrooms for the number of people living in the house. We are a family of 5 living in a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. Houses may have an ensuite attached to the master bedroom, and then one main bathroom for the rest of the house, and sometimes an extra toilet (for eg a downstairs toilet if the main bathroom is upstairs), but very rarely a bedroom and bathroom assigned for guest use only.

From the threads I have read here I get the perception that everyone has at least a guest bedroom, and in some cases a "guest suite" that includes a bathroom. Is this true?

Even in Australia you may find this is regional.  My parents ALWAYS had a guest room, even while we were living at home.

A lot will depend on housing affordability and the area - whether people can afford to buy a house with more room than their immediate requirements.

[jmarvellous]

I have always lived in apartments when on my own. No room for guests unless they don't mind the couch.

My mom has a 4-bedroom house that was dirt cheap when she bought it, by other areas' standards. With three kids, it was just right. Now she has hosted up to a dozen guests with beds or air mattresses for everyone but herself (she took the living room couch). It's just 2, sometimes 3, people living there now.

My dad has a 5-bed house with just two regularly used, but he has turned a couple of those into long-term guest areas or offices at various points. One was a game room for a while. Dunno how it is now.

ETA: In 2 different large areas in Texas.

[MommyPenguin]

It seems to me that guest rooms are something that were a lot more common in the past.  Perhaps because, when travel was more difficult, guests tended to stay for much longer?  And it was also less socially acceptable to, say, bed somebody on the couch, due to privacy.  And there were no air mattresses. 

As the others have said, in my experience, it's those who don't have children yet (but bought a big enough house, expecting them) or who had children who are grown up and moved away, who tend to have guest rooms.  And in most of those cases, the guest room is really the "spare room," not necessarily kept empty except for visitors.

My parents didn't have a guest room when my brother and I were kids.  We each had our own room, and it was a 3-bedroom house.  When we left, they had two extra rooms.  My brother's got repurposed for my mother's quilting machine, but it still has a queen bed in it and is used as the guest room when visitors come (mostly myself and my husband).  My room has been repurposed as the playroom/kids' bedroom when they visit.  My mom, as I've posted in another thread, is a huge fan of toys, so the girls have as many toys at their house as they have at mine and she keeps that room for my kids.  We live 8 hours away. 

My husband and I don't have a guest room, either.  We have three bedrooms: our room, the kids' room (all three girls bunk together) and a playroom.  We usually set guests up on an air mattress in the playroom or somewhere like that.

[oz diva]

I have a spare room, which doubles as a guest room if necessary. But it also doubles as a laundry (or place to store clothes before they are ironed/put away) and storage for other stuff. So it gets pretty messy in there. If someone threatens to stay, it's quite a big job to get it tidy. Sometimes a kid opts to sleep in there too, but I don't tidy up as much for them. 

[Information_queen]

We have a futon in the living room

Well, theoretically, we have an extra bed, but only sometimes. I'm the snorer in the family, and my husband is a light sleeper, and he ended up on the couch so much we decided to maintain separate rooms for everyone's sanity So if needed, and he doesn't have to work in the morning (and a good night's sleep isn't critical), we will offer the extra bed. My brother still lives at home and sometimes travels with my parents, so we could host them all if they ever took us up on it.

Ideally, I'd like to have our rooms and two extra - one dedicated to guests, with a pack-n-play in the closet (lots of friends with kids, including my pregnant best friend - I'd love to have a place for her to put the baby down so she has one less thing to worry about - and others, of course, but she's why I thought about it), and the other for the computers/books/craft storage. I'd put the futon we have now in the computer room, and buy a sleeper sofa for the living room. I doubt we'll ever have that many guests, but I'd like to be able to if the opportunity arose. I feel like an actual, real bed is critical, though - my mom has back trouble from her spinal surgery and I want my parents to be able to stay with us, and not need a hotel.

My parents didn't have an extra bedroom until I moved out. It's Mom's sewing room now and they put an air mattress down when we visit. DH's mom and stepdad have 4 bedrooms - master bedroom, SIL's/guest room (depending on whether she's living there at the moment or not), exercise room (it used to have a bed but I think they got rid of it), and MIL's 'woman cave'. His dad and stepmom have 5 bedrooms, one for each of them, 1 for the office, and 2 guest rooms, I think. I do know the office used to be the guest room, and the 2 guest rooms used to be for DH's brother and sister when custody arrangements were still in place.

Most of my friends (that have their own houses) have 3 bedrooms. My best friend's house used to have 3, but the previous owners expanded the back of the house, enlarging the master bedroom, adding a master bath, and enlarging the third bedroom and putting a back door in it that leads to the carport. So it's not really a good bedroom any more. Not for kids, at least! They use it as a computer room and as their main access to the house. They had a spare bedroom but that's being turned into the nursery.

[CLE_Girl]

Like others have said I think it depends on location, age and finacial situation. 

I think the best times to have a guest room would be when you are younger (20's and early 30's) when you have friends that want to visit but can't afford a hotel or when you are older and have children and grandchildren that again want to visit but can't afford a hotel.  The second situation is much easier to have a guest room because you've either stayed in the house you raised your children in and have their bedrooms or you have the money to buy a house with extra rooms. 

My DH and I are in the first situation.  We have a three bed room house, with no kids, but we don't have the means to have a fully seperate guest room, so guest have to deal with a futon/pull out couch in our office.  We are hoping to renovate our house to make the large office (bigger then the master) into a smaller bed room and a den/office.  This is both because we want a seperate guest room now (child's room in the future?) and the office room isn't function at it's current size. 

When I was younger my parents build a house and purposly put in a guest suite because they knew my grandfather was going to have to move in at some point.  That became the guest room after he moved to a nursing home. 
 

[Perfect Circle]

I have a guest room (or spare room) and had one in my first, only other house I've owned) too. I love it. I live just outside of London in a small village, still on the commuter belt. The room is very much a guest room, although we do utilise the storage in there.

It's wonderful when we have people staying - we can still do our own thing downstairs in the mornings/late evenings and no one's sleep is disturbed.

[mechtilde]

It can be a generational thing too- house prices rose a lot during the eighties and nineties. Someone buying a house in the seventies would be able to afford a larger house than they would be if earning a comparable income today.

[WillyNilly]

I have never had a guest room.  Growing up we had a sofa bed in the semi-finished basement that was our play area, so when we had over night guests it was simply taken over as the guest room, but that certainly wasn't its primary purpose.

Once I grew up and moved out, I actually have always had the space for a guest room (1st apt was a studio but C shaped and big, I just about entirely lived on one side, second apt was 4 rooms - bedroom, living room, eat-in kitchen and computer room, current apt is 2 bedrooms) but the thing is, even when I had extra rooms - like my current apt for years the second bedroom was "the cat's room" or storage space (now its DF's office/man cave) I never had the budget or inclination to get a second bed or sofa bed, heck I don't even have an air mattress.  So actually the few times I've had people over, I put them up on my sofa in the living room, and not in the second 'bedroom'.