My Dream Spare Room

Okay so this is probably my favourite room of my ideal student home. Yes, I still have my bedroom and bathroom to cover, but I’ve been thinking more and more about the spare room recently that I decided to write about it first!

Now, if you are unaware, I’ve been thinking slash dreaming about my dream student home in a ‘if money were no object’ type way and so I’ve been writing several posts on it. So far we’ve covered my kitchen and my living room, so today I’ll chat all about my spare room because yes my dream flat would have 2 bedrooms but be less than £350 a month rent including bills – a girl can dream! So onwards with the post!

Now every room has to start somewhere, and that’s why I wanted to start with the floors and walls. Again, it’s surprising how hard this is to pick out! I wanted a blue/green colour as both are said to be good for improving your focus as well as helping with sleep – surely that’s a juxtaposition? How can I be focused on work at the same time as being set towards sleep by the walls? Anyway, never mind the effect of the colours, I found this Sea Green Matt Emulsion paint from B&Q and felt it went quite well with the Soft Touch Saxony Carpet in fawn. What’re your thoughts? I’ll keep the skirting boards, window sill, window frame, door frame, and door all in the same off-white that I used in the living room.

And now the boring part is over with, I can move on with the furnishing! Before I go any further, I should probably point out that this dream/ideal student house has a built in wardrobe in the two bedrooms, with a shelf up top, and enough room that I can put a hook for dressing gowns on the inside.

So to start with, this room is going to be both my study and my guest room, so my furniture would have to reflect this. To be honest, this room is a little difficult for me to describe, and it lead me to draw it out roughly before I even started on this post. If I’m being honest, I would probably use it as primarily a study, and if anyone was staying over I would put them in my room and I would take the guest room instead. For this reason, I would want a really big sprawling desk so I could really spread out when studying or blogging. I’d have this desk up against the window so that I had some daylight and something to look at when procrastinating. So the best I could find, considering the size of desk I’m dreaming of, was the Alex/Linnmon Table in white from Ikea shown below.

The useful thing about this desk is the drawers – stationery in one drawer, laptop and external hard drive in another, generally just the whole thing can be easily organised with blog stuff on one side and university stuff on the other. I would try and keep the desk as clear as possible when I’m not working, but I would definitely have a little DAB radio sitting there, one that I can plug my phone into to play my own music and charge my phone at the same time because let’s face it, iPhones have rubbish battery!

Now, for my awesome desk, I need a chair that’s actually going to support my back while I work! Have I mentioned that these exams are currently wrecking mine? So I was drawn towards the Herman Miller Classic Aeron Office Chair from John Lewis.

I had originally planned to have 2 little art-trolley things on either side of the desk but since this one comes with drawers it really isn’t necessary!

Now that the more office-y things are sorted, I would probably want this sofa bed from Debenhams.

I don’t know why but I always assume leather sofas are going to make more comfortable sofa beds – what do you think? Because this is a 3 seater sofa, it leaves plenty of room for 2 people I think so that’s the best option for when you’ve got those annoying people who won’t sleep where you tell them to. What bedding would I put with this, I hear you ask? Well, ask no more! I would probably go with this set shown below from Dunelm. All bedding would be stored in the built in wardrobe, inside a little hamper. However, I would probably put the Rectangular Cushions and the Continental Pillowcases on cushions on the sofa even when the bed isn’t in use. Also, there are matching blackout curtains that I would get – they can be sort of seen the the picture below.

Hey, something has to make up for the uncomfortable mattress that always accompanies a sofa bed! On top of that, I want to put two side tables beside the sofa. As a person with glasses, I often find myself sleeping in hotels and other places where I don’t actually have anywhere to put my glasses and a glass of water, never mind my phone while it charges. That’s why this side table from Ikea would be perfect! I’d put a lamp on each one, and probable a cute box of tissues on the lower shelf of each table.

What’s the first thing you do when you get to a hotel? Okay, so probably not the top of most people’s priorities but I love when I find a TV in the room – it just means I can relax and have my own thing on if I’m not in the mood to sleep. With this in mind, I would probably put a TV into this spare room. Of course, my dream TV would have Netflix, Sky, and Amazon Prime all on it for no extra cost, but I would probably go for this one from Currys and put it on top of this lovely little TV unit from Debenhams.

And of course there would be a DVD player etc in the room for whoever was there. The final piece of furniture I would introduce to the room would be a bookcase in the corner. I really liked this one from Ikea because it’s specifically designed to fit in the corner.

Again, this room would be filled with lots of little artsy bits and pieces. I’d also have a mirror in the wardrobe so that anyone staying in the room can do their hair or makeup without any fuss!

While it isn’t to scale, I’ve included a computer-made sketch of how I would arrange the room. Hope you like it!

Related: Are you looking to redecorate and change your skirting boards? Why not check out this Torus Skirtings from Skirting World?