I am so thankful to have a craft room, a reading room, a home office, a photography studio, and an extra playroom. Now you think I have a huge mansion, right?
Wrong.
What if I told you it’s possible to have all these functions in your own home today, even if you don’t have much extra room?
Let me introduce you to the multifunctional room. The idea is you take one room or area in your home and design it to serve several different functions.
Here is my multifunctional room. I wanted this room to have several different purposes:
- be a quiet place to read the Bible, pray and write in my journal
- host my home office
- house my photo studio and store my photography equipment
- store craft supplies
- serve as an extra play room for the kids
- convert into an extra bedroom for guests
Let me give you the full tour of my multifunctional room:
Reading Nook
You can see me taking this picture in the mirror!
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The gliding chair helps make this reading nook a comfortable place to relax and read.
Home Office
Our Easy DIY Desk on a Budget paired with this beautiful lamp and shade create a great environment to get some work done.
Photography Studio
Playroom
This room also serves as a craft room, storage and a guest bedroom. This room is right across the hallway from a guest bathroom so all I have to do is take out the inflatable bed and this room easily converts into the perfect guest space.
This one room serves 6 different functions. So it’s sort of like having an extra 6 rooms in my home! Now it’s time to share all the secrets on how I did it.
How To Create A Multifunctional Room
Choose 3-4 main functions for the room/area
Make a list of all the activities you’d like to do in this room. Then order them from most important down to the least. The top 3 or 4 items on your list will determine how you design the rest of the room.
For me this room had to have a quiet reading area. I need to have quiet time in the mornings so I can spend time with God reading the Bible and praying. The days when I skip this important start to the day are noticeably harder. Creating a place that makes quiet time easy is so worth the time!
This space also had to be a home office. Having space to pay bills and organize the family paperwork was a must. Creating a photography studio, craft room and playroom for the kids were the smaller but still important objectives of the room.
Dedicate the most space in the room for the main function of the room
The reading nook and office were the two biggest objectives of this room so they were delegated the most space. The office has a desk big enough that I can spread out all the paperwork. The reading nook was delegated enough space for a glider ottoman, floor lamp and shelves for books and journals.
Crafting and photography were further down on the functions list, so all those supplies are organized in the storage unit and big closet.
Use furniture that multitasks
One of the best objects that demonstrates this is my filing cabinets. They serve as the main structural support for my beautiful desk and they offer storage as well. Each top drawer stores office supplies and the drawers function as filing cabinets.
The storage unit multitasks by storing my Bible and journals, photography equipment, and toys for the kids. It also creates a great place to hide my foldable lightbox which gets folded down and hidden behind the storage unit.
Take advantage of vertical space
I’m lucky enough to have a pretty big closet in my multifunctional room. As you can see in the before photo, a lot of the vertical space was being wasted. I bought some clear bins (on sale!) and use them to store craft supplies. Now all that vertical space is being utilized and I can get to my craft supplies easily.
I made sure to use vertical space on the desk as well. I needed an organizer to file papers but I didn’t want it to take up too much space. I found this paper organizer and it was perfect!
Make sure all design, decor and purchases for this room meet your objectives
If you’re considering a piece for the room that doesn’t meet the objectives, it may have to be cut out. Remember, we’re treating this space as real estate.
Decide one thing you’ll splurge on
Make this a space you’ll enjoy being! My splurge for this room was this beautiful lamp. It may be my favorite item in the whole room.
Source List
Gliding rocking chair and ottoman – about $130 with free shipping from Amazon (we moved this into the room from our son’s bedroom)
Filing Cabinets – about $50.00 each (only available in Walmart stores) If you need an online source, here is a similar one on Amazon.com
Cherry wood desk top – about $20.00! This was a project my awesome hubby made (you can see the full tutorial here)
Vertical desk organizer
Acrylic lamp base – $19.99 at Lowes
Lamp shade – $13.48 at Lowes
Storage unit – $39.99 (only available in Big Lots stores) If you need an online source here is a similar unit in an espresso finish
I hope you enjoyed the tour of my multifunctional room. What does your dream multifunctional room look like? I’d love to know!
Shared at: Best DIY Projects and Recipes, Project Inspire{d}, The Makers, Work It Wednesday, Creative Spark, Think and Make Thursday, Thrifty Thursday, and Your Turn To Shine.