Many of us have, in our homes, spare rooms that serve little obvious purpose. For example, maybe you live alone in a two-bedroom house, or your kitchen doubles as a dining room – potentially leaving a more traditional dining room going unused elsewhere in your residential property.
If you do have a spare room, you are probably currently just using it as an overflow compartment for random junk, or a place where clothes are regularly hung up to be dried. However, could any of the following uses serve that room better?
Home office
“Why would I need a home office?”, asked probably no one ever since early 2020. Nonetheless, there would be one potentially large obstacle to refitting a spare room as a work-from-home space: as Real Homes point out, spare bedrooms are usually somewhat small.
Despite this, most of them can still accommodate a desk and a chair – and, for a storage cabinet, you could get some especially small furniture legs to help yourself further free up precious space.
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Home library
Have you ever wanted to be like Belle from Beauty and the Beast? No, not in the sense of falling in love with a prince or befriending talking cutlery…
Okay, you probably don’t have enough square footage in your home for a traditional-looking library room – but Bob Vila insists that “your spare bedroom is the next best thing”. You would just have to install shelving across the walls, stack those shelves with books and place a comfy chair in the room.
Pet room
If you’ve got a pretty independent-minded cat or dog, imagine how much they could rejoice at seeing that you’ve given them their own private sanctuary in your home.
Fill it with your pet’s favourite toys, and remember to decorate the space with dog- or cat-themed wall art to send out the message to any human intruders that, hey, this is the pet’s place!
Games room
You probably already play games in many different places around the home – but, seriously, have you ever tried to play Monopoly on a kitchen table? It’s a cramped experience – especially if there are already ornaments that other people in the house would prefer you not to remove from the table.
However, reserving your games – board games, computer games or potentially both – for a dedicated room would allow you to more easily set up all of the necessary equipment as well as throw in a few luxury extras, like a mini-fridge containing beverages.
Home gym
Gyms have been closed for a while because of the pandemic – and, even if your local gym is now open again, you could still be reticent about sharing workout space with people you don’t know.
Hence, it is easy to argue the case for a home gym. You could use it for yoga, running, strength training or any other type of workout, provided your home gym is furnished with the right gear. Perhaps you could include a yoga mat, a treadmill and – for reliving post-work stress – a punching bag?
