17 design ideas for office-spare-rooms
Spare rooms are a saving grace in any house, with many providing the dual role of the office-spare room. House & Garden is packed with brilliant spare room ideas, but sometimes you have to be creative to get the most out of a space. Of course, it would be lovely to have just the right amount of rooms for everything you want to do in your house, but it's rarely the case, and many of us will need to amalgamate a room's functions from time to time. Like blending anything - butter and sugar, oil and vinegar, an old dog with a new kitten - there are sensible ways of doing it to avoid too many hurdles, curdles and scratches. Don't, for example, stick a desk in the corner of the living room, which also houses all of your kids' toys, and expect peaceful blended bliss. Don't put your free weights next to the kettle and expect to be picking them up whilst it boils. Don't have your teenage son's room function as the guest room if said teen comes home from university every weekend, leaving Aunt Sue on the beanbag in the playroom.
In successful office-cum-bedrooms, we find that the weight of purpose leans rather to one side or the other. In other words, you'll get the most out of a room that is a guest room (with a study in it), or an office (that's a guest room). Unless you really do have ample space and storage to extrapolate both a luxurious guest room and a useful, functional office, then the ability to pack away one or the other will benefit you tremendously. In this 1960s flat in west London, designer Natalie Tredgett was challenged to create a flexible live-work space out of a low-ceilinged, two-story apartment. This is best seen in the office/spare bedroom, where the bed fully folds up into the wall, leaving room for a fully-fledged office, with Fiona McDonald’s ‘Nova’ chair at an Ikea desk. When guests do come by, the ample built-in storage allows the owner to pack away her work bits and easily transform the room into a temporary home for loved ones passing through.
Other rooms in our archives are more confident spare bedrooms, with attractive antique desks or bureaus that could look and function as vanities, whilst also offering an extra bit of space for private work or calls. Either way, an office and a spare room is a practical and doable composite, and lots of designers in our archives have done it very right.


















