15 Creative and Inspiring Ideas For a Spare Room

Let’s say you live alone in a two-bedroom home or you just moved to a house in the suburbs with more space than your city apartment used to offer. Chances are you have lots of extra space! You may even have a whole spare room that you’re not quite sure how to use. The list below has plenty of ideas for spare rooms, ranging from the most obvious uses to the slightly less common ways to use decor, lighting, and a little imagination to transform a space.

15 ideas for spare rooms

Any of these ideas for your spare room can take it from sitting empty to essential:

1. Guest room

Perhaps the most obvious use for a spare bedroom, a guest bedroom gives your visitors their own private haven when they stay overnight. When friends or family come to town, they’ll no longer have to find somewhere else to stay or crash on your couch. Seriously – even a small room with a full-size bed is better than your living room’s sofa bed. Bonus points if your guest room also includes a dresser, a cozy night light, and other essentials to help your guests feel right at home.

2. Home office

The sudden shift to remote work this decade left some people scrambling for home office space. While your kitchen table or a small desk in your bedroom’s corner is a great start, a whole separate room for your home office is best. With your work in one room and your personal space in another, you might have an easier time maintaining your work-life balance as both happen in the same space. (And if you can’t quite escape work while you’re at home, try these destressing tips when you feel overwhelmed by work.)

3. Study corner

Just as work has shifted to home, so too have some forms of education. For students looking to separate their personal lives from their studies, a spare-room study corner can be helpful. Admittedly, this idea toes the line between straightforward and unorthodox – why just a study corner when you could have a whole room? But for the small spaces that students often rent, compactness is the charm. A desk with some nearby organizers and bookshelves is all you need to create your own inspiring study bubble.

4. Full-room walk-in closet

This slightly out-there idea is the dream everyone with too many clothes strives toward: A closet the size of a whole room. Line your spare room with dressers, a vanity, and racks for your shoes, coats, and clothes, then organize all your clothes accordingly. You can add as much or as little storage space as you want – you literally have a whole room to work with. From color coordinated suits to neatly placed accessories, getting ready in the mornings will become a blissful breeze.

5. Dressing room

Take your full-room walk-in closet to the next level and make it where you pick out your outfit and apply makeup. Think about it: How often can your vanity fit right inside your walk-in closet? When you use a whole extra bedroom as a closet, you’ll certainly have enough room to add a mirror – maybe several – and plenty of storage to make room for your makeup, hair straightener, perfumes, and other accessories. Enter your spare room in your terry cloth robe and damp hair, and exit completely polished and ready to tackle the day.

6. Pet room

When you have a whole spare room, there’s no shame in devoting it entirely to your best friend. Dogs and cats love toys and lots of space to run around and play, so make your spare room their sanctuary. It would also serve well as a divider, in case you invite a guest who is allergic or scared of dogs. Add some pet beds so your curious critters can nap – one of their favorite activities – as well. Try incorporating some pet-themed decor ideas so your guests, not just your pets, know whose space it is too.

7. Kids’ playroom

If your little companions are kids, not pets, make your spare room their play space. Dedicated playrooms separate from nurseries or bedrooms can be beneficial for early childhood development, so if you have the extra space, use it! Beyond stuffing the space with your kids’ favorite toys, consider some kid-friendly room design ideas. Space-themed playrooms, for example, transport your kids’ play to the galaxy beyond without your kids actually going anywhere. Who knew spare rooms could be so adventurous?

8. Art studio or craft room

Speaking of adventurous: Try making your spare room your space for accessing your innermost creativity. Set up an easel and palette if you’re a painter, a desk if you’re a drawer or sculptor, or whatever art materials you might need. Make your room feel conducive to exploration with wall art and other decorations that stir your passions and activate your curiosity. Above all, set up your spare room in a way that makes you comfortable – when you’re at ease, lighting your creative spark is that much easier.

9. Home gym

Resistance bands in your door frame or jumping jacks in the backyard can only get you so far. If you’re committed to exercising solely at home, converting your spare room into a home gym can lead to better results.

Admittedly, going this route can be more expensive than the other ideas for spare rooms on this list. After all, the costs of benches, weights, flooring, and other home gym essentials can quickly add up. But reaching your fitness goals without leaving home is (soon enough) priceless.

10. Music room

With a spare room, you can say goodbye to your days of listening to your favorite tunes on tinny laptop speakers. Use your extra space as a music room where you set up a high-quality sound system and escape the day’s stresses. Close the door, soundproof the room, put on your favorite record, close your eyes, and let the awe and wonder of beautiful sounds overtake you.

11. Recording studio

If you both listen to and create music, you’ll likely find converting your spare room into a recording studio immensely fruitful. As a musician, you probably already know what you need – instruments, a computer, a DAW, the whole shebang. But the best-kept secret about a spare-room recording studio is how much of a difference proper lighting makes.

For starters, choosing lights that don’t emit much heat can keep your recording sessions drier (let’s admit it: playing music really works up a sweat). Colorful lights with patterns can also enhance your creativity and help you unlock your still-growing ideas. A StarPort USB laser light is a great example: Just plug it into your computer for instant starry skies that inspire wonderment and awe. Plus, since it’s USB-powered, you don’t need to free up desk or floor space in your already jam-packed studio (pun intended).

StarPort USB Light

$14.99

One tiny light. Thousands of stars!

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12. Home theater

Streaming services make it way easier to enjoy movies without going to theaters, but what if you miss the giant screen and tightly packed rows? Converting your spare room to a home theater can scratch this itch. Add high-quality surround sound speakers, a huge TV with crisp visuals, and rows of comfy seating to your spare room. Then, set up lighting that can go super dim for when the movie starts.

A great choice for dim, alluring home theater lighting is a set of BlissBulbs. These bulbs, which fit standard sockets, project thousands of stars into your at-home theater while leaving enough dark space not to introduce glare. It’s like watching your favorite movies at night in the most glorious open field, right from the comforts of your spare room.

13. Yoga studio

A spare room arrives to you as a blank canvas onto which you can project all kinds of ideas. There’s just one problem with that: Filling all that blank space can feel overwhelming. Yoga studios are a great solution to this problem, as visual stimuli and clutter are the antithesis of a good yoga space.

Instead, fill your yoga space with only what you need for your routine. Yoga mats, light dumbbells, and an essential oil diffuser are a great start. The final ingredient is lighting, and the Ark Ambient Aurora Light is a great example. The Ark projects a wondrous green aurora into your space against a stunning blue backdrop, and the sight can be deeply calming. And that’s exactly the mindstate you need to reach for a great yoga session.

ARK Aurora Light

$29.99

Transcend reality with a moving abstract aurora.

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14. Meditation space

As with a yoga studio, a spare-room meditation space needs to be free of stimuli. A white noise machine or soothing music can block out distractions, and gentle lighting in patterns or soft colors can help too. That’s why the Sky Lite is essential for meditation spaces. Its blue or green stars and blue nebula clouds provide that relaxing glow key to reaching your zen. Under the Sky Lite’s blue-green galaxies, transcendence isn’t just possible – it’s inevitable.

15. Gaming room

If you’re a console gamer, your living room TV might be one of your most frequent hangout spots. But what if someone else wants to watch TV? Then, you’re stuck without access to your favorite games. Well, unless you’ve converted your spare room to a gaming room. And even if you live alone or prefer PC gaming, properly designing and decorating a gaming room adds to the gaming experience. Under the right sights, you’ll be more immersed in your adventures.

On that front, the Sky Lite Evolve is an excellent choice for gaming room lighting. The Sky Lite Evolve shines customizable effects and brightness levels, not to mention multicolor galaxies. Imagine playing your favorite shooter or sci-fi game under the glow of starry nebulas? In transforming your space, you also transform your mind, leading to a fully immersive gaming experience.

Sky Lite Evolve: Smart Galaxy Projector

$49.99$39.99

The latest evolution in smart galaxy lighting.

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Light your spare room with BlissLights