How often do we devote the spare bedroom design the same attention given to primary living spaces? This client approached Decorilla with different priorities throughout her new build home. Each room received its own material vocabulary and furniture layout tailored to how guests would actually use the space.
The Challenge: Spare Bedroom Design
The client commissioned Decorilla to design their entire 3,300-square-foot new build. The designer has already established visual continuity throughout the other areas of the home. In this phase, the client wanted to extend the same glam transitional aesthetic into spare bedrooms and bathrooms, while addressing the specific requirements for guest accommodations. Among others, the challenges included:
- Material palette coordination spanning guest accommodations and bathroom zones
- Windowless bathroom requiring a lighting strategy that compensates for the absence of natural light
- All-black bathroom aesthetic using large-format tile with minimal grout lines
- Closet placement and door style that integrates with the spare bedroom design’s material language
- Wall surface decisions balancing tile application against visual overload
- Spare bedroom design scheme that maintains a glam transitional vocabulary established in the primary suite
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Design Inspiration: Spare Bedroom Decor Ideas
The client saved a variety of spare bedroom design images, some of them featuring architectural headboard walls. Vertical paneling also appeared in different references. Upholstered sections alternated with wood inserts to create rhythm, blending distinct textural layers. The common thread was that material quality carried the design language, bypassing bold pattern or saturated color entirely. The guest bedroom designs needed to match the same narrative and finish level established in the home’s primary spaces.
The bathroom inspiration fluctuated between two approaches. The windowless condition meant artificial lighting would define the room’s atmosphere entirely. Initially, the client wanted an all-black space using large-format tile with minimal grout lines. These ideas evolved with the other set of images, which showed black cabinetry paired with white or toupe marble walls. This second direction addressed the concern about whether full black coverage would overpower the small footprint. Floating vanities also appeared in many references, keeping the floor tile visible and maintaining visual openness.
Initial Concepts: Finding the Right Designer
The Decorilla team matched the client with two designers at the beginning of the project: Casey H. and Erika F. Each developed concepts for the spacious glam transitional home, fully addressing the brief’s requirements. After reviewing both proposals, the client selected Erika to move forward as the sole designer for the entire house interior.
Erika’s spare bedroom design proposal worked from a shared material base, then split into two variations. Both moodboards centered on upholstered headboards with vertical channeling. One version extended the fluting across the entire wall behind the bed, with narrow cream ribs running floor to ceiling. The second approach kept the wall flat, placing an oversized abstract painting above the channeled headboard to activate the upper plane. Crystal chandeliers, a common statement feature in almost all rooms of the house, descended in both bedroom schemes.
The sleek spare bedroom furniture in a similar style maintained cohesion between the two guest rooms. Black dressers appeared in both, positioned opposite the beds for television mounting. One room received curved white barrel chairs at the bed’s foot; the other got a streamlined bench. Area rugs shifted between the schemes—one in deep black, the other pale with a textured pattern.
Moreover, the spare bedroom decor layered neutral accessories across both spaces. Cream and taupe dominated, punctuated by black accents in pillows and throws.
Glam Transitional Home Interior Design Series
This glam transitional home unfolded across multiple design phases. Erika tackled the open living spaces, then moved through private quarters and functional zones. Material choices made in shared areas informed spare bedroom design and bathroom treatments. You can follow the entire development in the other parts of this story:
- Before & After: Glam Transitional Home – Open Concept Living (Coming Soon!)
- Before & After: Glam Transitional Home – Primary Bedroom Retreat (Coming Soon!)
- Before & After: Glam Transitional Home – Work and Wellness Spaces (Coming Soon!)
Results Revealed: Spare Bedroom & Guest Bathroom Design
The final iteration of both the client’s and designer’s spare bedroom decor ideas represents a clarified blend that works best for the given layouts. Visual coherence is strong, achieved primarily through a disciplined material palette and scaled architectural moves. Black and cream repeat throughout, with taupe shades bridging the two extremes. Moreover, the neat furniture organization establishes functional zones with a defined flow that leaves circulation paths clear.
The First Spare Bedroom Design
In a larger of the two guest bedrooms, vertical fluting creates a continuous rhythm from baseboard to ceiling and carries the room’s visual weight. Two abstract paintings hang centered over the thin ribs, above the upholstered headboard. Their muted brown and cream tones match the bedding layers. Meanwhile, black nightstands with gold bar pulls flank the bed on either side and complete the room’s discerning focal point.
A crystal ring chandelier hangs centrally above the bed, refracting light across the neutral surfaces. Black table lamps on the nightstands supply task lighting for bedside reading. The gold threads appear consistently throughout the hardware, lamp bases, the mirror frame, and the small table between the chairs.
A black dresser positioned perpendicular to the bed takes on additional function as a media console, with the TV mounted above its paneled drawer fronts. Its design carries the same transitional profile found on the closet and bathroom doors, connecting the freestanding furniture to the room’s architectural trim.
White barrel chairs curve around a small gold side table at the foot of the bed. Their rounded forms introduce softer geometry against the predominantly rectangular spare bedroom furniture. A full-length mirror in a black and gold frame leans against the wall nearby, serving both grooming needs and bouncing the chandelier’s illumination deeper into the space.
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Maximizing Space and Utility
The seating area at the foot of the bed addresses a common guest room problem: where visitors sit when they’re awake but don’t want to perch on the mattress. Two chairs and a table introduce a mini conversation cluster that feels separate from the sleeping function. The arrangement also solves circulation by keeping the path from the entry door to the bathroom clear along the room’s perimeter, since the chairs sit contained within the bed’s footprint rather than projecting into the walking zone.
Second Spare Bedroom Design & Decor Ideas
The other spare bedroom design takes a slightly different approach from its sibling space. Here, the upholstered headboard carries vertical channeling in cream fabric, creating dimensional texture across the bed’s surface. However, the spare bedroom furniture style and decor ideas are similar.
Two main setups face each other and echo their proportions like a calibrated mirror effect. The dresser carries its own run of vertical channels in a more compressed hierarchy. A mounted television on top of it repeats the artwork’s outline and placement above the bed. Floor lamps stand beside the dresser as a taller, narrower counterpart to the bedside lamps.
Brass appears at three tiers: overhead in the chandelier’s circular mount, at drawer level in console pulls, and flanking the bed in lamp frames that rise nearly to mattress height. Together with the chandelier’s tiered crystal strands, it catches daylight admitted through black-framed casements. Above the headboard, an abstract canvas presents gestural marks in stark monochrome.
Cylindrical nightstands carry the same fluting as the console. Their rounded forms curve, where the larger piece maintains straight edges.
The television placement maintains clear sightlines from the bed. It sits between two slender vertical forms rising from the floor to just below the chandelier’s height. These lamps provide ambient illumination that supplements the overhead fixture and bedside table lamps. Drawer storage below the television addresses guest unpacking needs, with gold bar pulls echoing the lamp finish.
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Guest Bathroom Interior
The spare bathroom design commits to dark surfaces throughout. Large-format marble slabs boast a prominent veining that runs diagonally across black fields. This approach addresses the client’s request for an all-black palette, at the same time introducing visual movement through natural patterning. Lighting integrated at multiple heights creates contrast against the marble’s depth, together with the crystal fixtures.
Vertical strips flank the vanity mirror and occupy recesses in the marble walls, casting an indirect glow that emphasizes the stone’s character. Within the glass-fronted closet, internal LED strips light each shelf, transforming storage into display. This layered lighting strategy further compensates for the bathroom’s lack of windows.
Below the floating vanity, integrated LEDs create a wash of light across the floor plane, visually brightening the base while reinforcing the cabinet’s suspended appearance.
Material selection centers on creating continuity across planes. Gold hardware appears consistently on the mirror frame, faucet, shower fixtures, and chandelier mount, establishing a warm metallic thread that ties functional to decorative elements.
Behind the toilet and within the shower niche, taupe stone moments offer subtle tonal contrast. A cooler neutral breaks the black expanse to eliminate the risk of it feeling overwhelming.
Storage organization uses glass doors for the closet, fulfilling the client’s desire for transparency that matches the room’s refined character. The glass also gives this comprehensive cabinet volume a lightweight character—it doesn’t read as a solid mass. Behind the framed panels, rolled and folded towels remain at hand near the shower.
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Design Details: Sourcing the Perfect Pieces
Before any materials were ordered, the 3D renderings gave the client visual proof of how the design would perform. The windowless moody bathroom, for instance, carried inherent risk. Would artificial sources emphasise contrast elements, or leave them to vanish into shadow? The renderings reassured the client that gold accents and LED strips would maintain enough visibility against black surfaces. In addition, trade access reshaped the project’s financial structure—spare bedroom furniture came in under initial projections. This created budget flexibility that went toward higher-grade cabinetry and thicker stone slabs.
Erika moved through multiple design iterations as the project developed. Early revisions tackled practical issues, while later rounds addressed refinements in finish selection and hardware scale. The client’s response came clear: “Thank you so much for everything, you exceeded my expectations in every way! Forever grateful for you 😀.”
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