Ever since I lived in LA, I have always been happy to have guests stay with me. When I lived in the dorms, I had friends who slept in a sleeping bag in my room (with my roommate’s permission). I actually don’t think I had any overnight guests in the first apartment I lived in, but I only lived in that apartment for a year and I wasn’t very happy when I lived there. In my second apartment, I had friends who slept in the living room or in my room, depending if I was between roommates or not. And in my last place, I had friends who needed a place to stay and slept on an air mattress in my living room. Having guests in my last place was always a tight fit since it was such a small space. But I made it work by either moving my couch around or rearranging my living room so that there was enough room for an air mattress to fit.
I have never minded having guests stay with me, but at my last place, it was always a bit awkward. The air mattress took up almost all the space in my living room and the only bathroom was accessible only by going through my room. So if someone needed to use the bathroom during the night, they had to come into my room and the bathroom was only about a foot away from my bed. Fortunately, anyone who stayed with me was always just grateful to have a place to stay without having to pay for a hotel, so they never minded the awkwardness. But it wasn’t ideal for having people come to stay with me.
When my parents and I originally started looking at condos about 5 years ago, we were only looking at one bedroom condos since those were in the price range we wanted to stay in. I don’t think we ever looked at two bedrooms until when we started looking again more seriously about a year ago. And when we got serious about finding a condo, my parents and I set some requirements. And my parents said I needed to find a two bedroom condo. And while I was happy to find any place, I knew having a second bedroom would be nice to have since I work from home. Plus, then I could have guests stay with me and it wouldn’t be as weird as it has been for the last 20-something years I’ve lived in LA.
When my mom and I started to plan out what furniture I should look at, setting up the office/guest room has gone back and forth quite a bit. Originally, we looked at murphy beds since those would take up the least amount of space. Then we switched to looking at sofa sleepers. And I think we finally landed on a very cool (but not cheap) murphy bed that has bookshelves so the space will look like an office and have a lot of storage but will also have a full-sized bed for guests when they come to stay with me.
I won’t be getting this new piece for a few more months, but I had my first overnight guests at my condo this past weekend! A friend of mine was coming to LA for a wedding, and they needed a place to sleep the night before their vacation rental was available. I let them know that I didn’t have a real bed in the room yet, but I did have an air mattress, and they were fine with that. I did realize before they came to stay with me that I didn’t have sheets for the air mattress anymore, but I lucked out because I was at Costco after I realized that and they had sheets on clearance so I was able to get some.
When I was getting the air mattress set up, I discovered that the wall color in that room matched pretty well. I picked this color because I want to be able to self-tape auditions without needing to use a backdrop. So it turns out that self-tape blue and air mattress blue are almost the same.
It was awesome having my first guest in my new home. First, I hadn’t seen this friend since the start of the pandemic because they moved away right after things shut down. So getting to have some time to hang out in person and catch up was so great. And I know she was grateful to have a place to stay, even if it was on an air mattress. She had seen photos of the renovation as it was happening since I was texting it to people, but she got to see everything in person. I am really proud of how everything looks, so I do like to show off my new space. And of course, it was so nice having someone stay with me who had their own bathroom to use and didn’t have to always go through my room.
Even though I have always enjoyed having friends or family stay with me, it will be so much better now that I have a guest room for them to use. It will be nicer when I have a real bed in here, but at least it’s still a separate space for an air mattress and doesn’t feel like someone is just staying out in the open in the middle of my home.
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