How To Create A Multi-Purpose Room with a Daybed

Our third bedroom has definitely made its rounds on social media, Instagram, Tik Tok and Pinterest.  And in case you have not seen it, in 2020 we created a multi-purpose room with a daybed. It included a nursery for our daughter, a guest bedroom and a home office for my husband.

Why we needed a multi-purpose room?

During the pandemic, my husband stopped traveling and began to work from home. Our house has three bedrooms so we needed to create a multi-purpose room, with a dedicated space for him to work. The boys were doing virtual school, so we converted their playroom and my office into virtual classrooms. My daughter was about 6 months old so we decided that she would only need her room for bedtime. That allowed us to convert her closet into a cloffice. We added a desk and shelves and it became my husband’s workspace. It was his room during the day. At nap time, she would sleep in a mini crib in our bedroom. I didn’t need access to our room since I was essentially homeschooling the boys so it all worked out.

Being a family of five in just over 1600 square feet, I’ve gotten used to being creative and making spaces work extra hard for us.  So when I set out to create a multi-purpose room, it was important that I incorporated a space for our guests. My mom and my in laws visit us often so we wanted a space for them, post-pandemic.

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How we created a multi-purpose room with a daybed?

The starting point to this multi-purpose room was this Ikea daybed. I also found this similar daybed that functions the same way.   I spent weeks looking for a daybed that would convert into a bigger bed. It proved to be a lot harder than I expected. Most daybeds have a trundle that didn’t work for us. This daybed was the only one I found that started as a twin bed and converts into an almost king size bed. As a twin, it was perfect for when our daughter outgrew her crib and the king size bed would be great for our guests. This daybed is the reason I was able to create a multi-purpose room that accommodated a nursery, guest bedroom and office.

Closet

To create a multi-purpose room, the closet needed to accommodate a workspace. And without the closet,  I needed to create space for her clothes. As part of the design, I added Pax wardrobes on each side of the daybed. This was plenty of space for her clothes, especially since the daybed has three deep drawers. To make the daybed and cabinets look custom, I built shelves on top to frame it in and added trims on the back wall with 1″x2″ pine boards.

Office

We removed the wired shelves in the closet and painted the walls. Then we built three floating shelves. The first one functioned as a desk and the other two as shelves.

Nursery

There is nothing fancy about the nursery. Essentially we added a crib to the only corner left in the room. I added peel and stick floral wallpaper so she would feel like she had a special and designated space in her room. She was one, so really, it would not have made a difference to her. I guess you can say it was more for me than her.

We’ve had this setup for over two years and it has worked great for our family. If you are looking for different ways to maximize a room in your house, check out this post where I shared how I style one room, two different ways. I also shared how I converted a dining room into a home office here. You can also read more about this space featured in Apartment Therapy.

Most Frequently Asked Questions about our Multi-purpose room:

1. What daybed is this?

It is this Ikea daybed. I also found this similar daybed that functions the same way.

2. What mattresses did you use it?

We opted not to use the mattresses that were sold as part of the set since it looked really thin.  We purchased the bed and mattresses separately and ended up getting the Ikea Morgedal mattresses.

3. What size bedding do you use?

When the bed is pulled out, we use king size sheets/bedding. These sheets are the ones we currently use, they are so soft. We also have them for our bed. When it is set up as a daybed,  we use extra deep XL twin sheets.

4. Is the bed comfortable?

Comfort is subjective, We opted for thicker mattresses because we wanted our guests to be as comfortable as possible. We knew the thinner mattresses would not be as comfortable for adults.

5. How has it held up?

We’ve had the bed for over 2 years and it is in perfect condition.

6. Was the bed hard to set up?

It is an Ikea bed and there are a lot of parts! It definitely took a few hours to put it together. I remember having to take some of it apart because I made a mistake. Definitely time-consuming but was worth it in the end. It is such a great and unique bed, also budget-friendly.

7. Where does your daughter sleep when you have guests?

My daughter is three. I would say 9/10 nights she comes into our room in the middle of the night. So when we have guests, she sleeps with us. She loves it and we’re totally ok with it.

8. Where does your husband work when you have guests?

Now that the kids are back in school, my husband would either work in the kids’ playroom which has a nice desk setup with a beautiful library or in our bedroom. Our guests are typically family so he would always try to take time off to spend with family.

9. How big is the room?

The room is 10’x10′.

10. Where are the curtains from?

I’ve linked the curtains for you here. I got it in white.

11. How come my bed does not allow me to rotate the mattresses vertically like the way you have them?

Sizes vary depending on country. My bed is a North American bed. I was made aware that the bed is smaller in some European countries. Therefore, the mattresses cannot be rotated vertically like I have shown in some of my videos.