guest rooms

If you're hosting guests this Thanksgiving, you'll want to keep them cozy and comfortable with a well-equipped guest room. Even if your guest "room" is just a pull-out couch or an air bed on the living room floor, you can still make them feel welcome and loved with a few essential items.

Want to know what's top on my list? See if you already own these basic essentials that will make any good guest room (or temporary guest space) great when you read more

The Stanford Inn, an eco-friendly resort in Mendocino, CA, offers an idyllic escape from high-speed city life. Burrowed in a thick redwood forest and overlooking an amazing seascape of the Pacific, the Stanford Inn is a quintessential Fall relaxation spot for nature aficionados (and is pet friendly, too).

When I stayed there recently, I found the air quality to be unlike anything I have ever smelled: a fresh, dewy mix of the salty sea and redwood trees. All of the rooms have ocean views and overlook the large vegetable garden, which supplies ingredients to the the Ravens' Restaurant, an acclaimed organic, vegetarian restaurant.

Read more about the Stanford Inn.

Here's a post from CasaSugar Community member h2urHome from the Su Casa group:

I recently posted a photo of the guest room I completed in my newly finished basement. After staring at the photo for a week or so I decided there were some changes I needed to make.

Continue reading to see what the room looks like now!

Here's a post from CasaSugar Community member inspirata from the Su Casa group:

Our guest room was the worst room in the entire house. The carpet had obviously been peed on numerous times by past tenants' pets, and the walls were just . . . ick. We decided it was time to redo this room. We started by pulling up the gross carpet and started painting.

Continue reading to see more during and after photos!

This holiday, many households will be packed with visiting friends and family. If your home is one of them, follow these tips to make your loved ones feel right at home.

• Make room: Even if you don’t have a designated guest room, be sure to give your guests some room of their own. Clearing out a little space in a spare closet or a drawer in the bathroom can go a long way toward making guests feel at home.
• Give the grand tour: Show your guests around the house as soon as they arrive, and don’t hold back the details. Guests will appreciate knowing the quirks of your house ahead of time so they aren’t left fumbling around on their own later.
• Have bedding handy: Before your guests arrive, dig out your spare bedding and keep it somewhere accessible. That’ll give your sheets and blankets a chance to fluff up and air out, and when it comes time to make down beds, you won’t have to make a big show of pulling out extra linens.
• Give reverse hostess gifts: Even though you’re the hostess, having a small gift waiting for your guests is a nice way to welcome them to your home. Think of things they might need during their stay, like travel-size toiletries, travel candles, goodies, or a new book or magazine.
• Cozy up their space: Houseguests often end up staying in rooms that aren’t always used for sleeping, so think about whether their sleeping quarters need anything extra to be comfy and cozy. Add extra blankets or feather beds, space heaters, or hang temporary curtains if necessary.

How do you make out-of-town guests feel at home?

Here's a post from CasaSugar Community member LiliesandBiscuits from the Su Casa group:

Most of our house is pretty modern, and honestly pretty masculine. Of course my manly husband disagrees, but I think we've found a happy medium for most rooms. The guest room, however, was my domain. He couldn't care less about it since he's never in there, so I decided to make it more feminine. My husband's grandmother handmade us a quilt for our wedding, so I decided to design the room around it. It's the only white room in our house, and surprisingly I actually like it that way.

Almost everything in this room is a hand me down. The bedding is all new, as is the mattress and box spring. The wicker dresser had been in my bedroom since I was born (it needs a new coat of paint, but for now I'm pretending it's "rustic" on purpose). The table was found in the basement of our house. The chair is an extra dining chair (I would love a different one, but this works for now). Husband and I made the headboard. The luggage rack was my mom's. Please ignore the "charmingly old" ceiling fan, that's on our to-replace list eventually.

To see all of the photos from LiliesandBiscuits's guest room, and to find out where she sourced the rest of the room, check out her post on the Su Casa group. Do you have a room that deserves to be showcased? Be sure to post your before and after photos in the Su Casa group!