Home Office and Guest Bedroom Ideas for a London Penthouse

It comes as no surprise that we are designing more and more home offices within our projects, as working from home becomes a more permanent feature in our lives. Creating a flexible working space is important, especially living in London where space is a premium. However, home office guest bedrooms can also be attractive in their own right. For a penthouse project we recently completed, we designed a home office guest bedroom in one of the rooms. Creating a home office with a hidden trundle bed is a great way to maximise space in a small area. With a little bit of creativity and style, you can create a functional and aesthetically pleasing workspace that also doubles as a guest room.

The clients were thinking practically and knew that they would need a space to be working from home more. They didn’t want to give the room away completely to a home office, so we designed an elegant home-study-guest-bed-room which provides a peaceful working space overlooking the incredible views of London, whilst easily transforming into a welcoming guest bedroom. This room achieves a lot. It is functional and glamorous. The key to making the most of this type of space is to make sure that the furniture and décor are both modern and multifunctional. Choose pieces that can serve multiple purposes, such as a sofa that can convert into a bed. Choose colours and fabrics that are neutral but still have a modern feel. This way, the space can be used for both office and sleeping.

We sourced an elegant desk to sit in the dual aspect window, which not only looks the part, it is 150cm wide so provides a decent working surface for screens and necessary working equipment. It has subtle brass inlays and feet, ribbed frontage and curved lines, which soften up the very straight lines of the new-build apartment. Lighting is also key when creating a home office with a hidden trundle bed. Make sure to incorporate a mixture of natural and artificial lighting to create a warm and inviting atmosphere. Incorporate task lighting to the desk area so that you can work in the evenings without having to strain your eyes.

The brass detailing works with the touches of brass in the sideboard to the right of the desk, and with the gold shade of the curtain fabric, the flecks of gold in both the artwork and antiqued mirror installed on the wall. Finally, add a few personal touches to the space to make it feel like your own. Incorporate artwork and rugs to add texture and personality to the room. Choose colours that complement the other décor in the room.

Rather than using only paint or only wallpaper, we added depth to the space by decorating the walls in a combination of paint, wall covering and mirrors.

Incorporating some antiqued mirror created the feeling of more space in what is a relatively small room, but a room that works really hard. The rich blue paint shade is Hick’s Blue, Little Greene. We chose a linen shade wallpaper by Altfield for the sofa/headboard wall, and the mirrors were created bespoke to fit from floor to ceiling. Bespoke sheers and blackout curtains have been installed; the sheers help to block some of the sunlight coming through in the day as well as providing privacy, and the curtains can be used for a good night’s sleep, when the sofa is turned into a double bed for guests. 

The sofa hides a trundle bed underneath it, which can be used to have the option of two single beds, or joined together to become a double bed. It is a really elegant design. Finally, add a few personal touches to the space to make it feel like your own. Incorporate artwork and rugs to add texture and personality to the room. Choose colours that complement the other décor in the room.

We also designed a curved corner storage unit which was bespoke made to fit the room, to give the clients more space to store their items – both hidden and open shelving for that added flexibility, especially useful when the home office guest bedroom is being used as a guest bedroom. Finally, add a few personal touches to the space to make it feel like your own. Incorporate artwork and rugs to add texture and personality to the room. Choose colours that complement the other décor in the room.