Kind of an odd one here, but I thought this community might have some ideas for me!
I currently play guitar in our guest bedroom, which doubles as my office when I work from home a couple of days a week. There’s not a lot of space in here. My desk is in the closet (it’s a “cloffice”—the desk basically spans the length of the closet), with an office chair. That’s where I usually sit to practice, but the desktop has some other “clutter” like the keyboard, mouse, monitor, and other things related to actual work, plus speakers that I do sometimes use to practice and/or record.
In the rest of the room there’s a bed, nightstands, a dresser, my amp (a Boss Katana 50 on a stand), and my guitars on their rack.
I usually sit at the desk in the closet. I will sometimes connect my audio interface to my laptop there and cram it in wherever I can fit it. There’s not much room for anything else like a music stand on the desk, which I’d like to have. I don’t think my office chair gives me the best posture when I play. It makes recording things a bit of a pain because I have to finagle the angles to make the positioning work.
I guess I’m looking for ideas or suggestions or inspiration for how other bedroom guitarists make it work with limited space! (I always feel envious seeing Justin’s studio in his videos—I guess that’s a perk of making a living with your craft. You can justify devoting real space to it!)
What i used to do, before i started using an ordinary, regular chair (with cushioned seat, no hard surface because that gets pretty uncomfortable really quick), is removing the armrests of my deskchair.
All it took was an allen key and i had a chair that would make guitar playing pretty comfortable.
I don’t know if that’s something that could be done with your chair, but have a look.
About that music stand.
I found this: Millenium Tabletop Music Stand Bamboo – Thomann België
Not sure if it’ll fit your needs, but it fit’s on a table for sure.
Behind my desk, I barely have room for my chair. I got a headless guitar and it makes a huge difference for how it feels to hold it in the cramped space.
I also have my primary setup in the living room. I doubt most spousal units will be ok with that, but it is part of how I solved my space problem. I have my Helix on a wheeled desk just big enough for it and my laptop, I. have the cab around the room diagonal from me, mostly out of the way and also pointed NOT down the hall toward the bedroom. I bought a long cable so I could route it around the edge, out of the middle of the room. Guitars sit on a stand tucked into the corner of my space. I also use an office chair with the arms removed.
While I’m not in a closet. I do have limited space. My house is 832 sq ft.
My dining room is my work, music space.
I do have good fortune of having a bay window in my dining room.
My work/music space is in that bay.
Desk is central . Desk has a shelf at the back of it. My monitor is there under that shelf. Bookshelf speakers are on top of the bookshelf itself.
Under my desk is a peavey bandit. I suppose about as big, maybe a bit bigger than your katana 50.
Next to my desk is a small square table. It has my printer on it only. This leaves a small amount of space where a notebook would fit. I try to keep this space empty for the next notebook, or music, or whatever paperwork of the day.
Under that table is where I keep my 4 pair of shoes stacked up. My shoes are never left out in the open, short of what I’m wearing when I take them off.
On either side of my desk is, R side a pc which is next to a standard size stereo speaker (R channel), next to that is a china hutch. It has my stereo in it. Also afixed to my right side of my desk is a small shelf. It has my audio interface on it and the computer modem. I have two multi switches for computer wiring routing.
On the left side of my printer/shoe table is my supro amp, next to that is the left channel stereo speaker. This fills up the entire bay of the dining room. All items are accessible and within reach.
My last amp is on a separating (between the dining room and living room) half tall wall. A princeton reverb sits perfectly on this shelf/wall.
I have 3 pedals, they sit in front of the bandit on the floor. The bandit oem pedal is on top of the bandit.
Under my shoes is my pedal power supply, a A/B/Y switch and the princeton reverb oem pedal.
It’s all concise, everything is in reach.
My guitars are stored in the living room in there cases. I got three. The are against the wall next to the princeton reverb, but are in the living room.
I’ve tried to make use of all available space and I can’t think of another way to make it more compact.
The bay is filled from side to side. There is no unused space. Stacking is a must.
As for music. I can fit 6 notebook pages on my desk. I have no music stand.
Good luck.
ps, I got one last thing. In ft. of my Left channel stereo speaker is my cardboard cat scratch stuff and a tuna can (brand cat sleeping bowl) + my guitar stand. One guitar is left out at a time and on that stand during the course of the day. So far, the cat scratch stuff works to keep the cats from using my amps as a scratching post.
Stacking up and under is my key to keeping it all out of the way and concise.
If the guitar rack is on the floor, could you put the guitars on wall hangers? That might free up some floor space that you could use for a music stand or hard surface for speakers and audio interface.
Or if you don’t fancy guitars on the wall, could you put shelves up and put your speakers and audio interface on there. Or attach speakers to the wall.
I almost always record stood up, so chairs don’t really come into the equation for me.
I agree with @simon_plays_bass that it could help if you don’t mind sharing photo. Might lead to some useful suggestions.
Your practice space sounds like mine. Mine is my son’s old bedroom. He is now an adult and away at university. It’s a very small room. I agree it is a pain in a small space given mics, mic stands, sticking out guitar necks, cables etc. I’m often cursing myself for turning round and banging the guitar headstock on something. So far, no damage! Phew
My wife is happy I use that space rather than cluttering up the living room or our bedroom. However, my wife loves the look of my guitars so 2 are on the wall in our bedroom. It makes me want to play guitar every morning when I wake up.
Man, I’m not sure ya can improve on that. What ya got is very tidy.
My only thoughts are, put the amp on top of the dresser. Might have to loose the toy (I assume) guitar amp display though.
Put the guitars in their cases and store them in another room. That may not get ya much though. I personally have one guitar out at a time, on a stand. Where ya got the guitars at now would be that space, so it’s still in use. Perhaps a bit cleaner looking?
Don’t look like ya can go up in the closet so that’s out.
Amp under the desk?
If ya move the amp it seems what ya’d gain is moving the hamper? w/the backpack on it closer to the dresser. Then ya’d be able to open the door all the way.
imho, ya ain’t go to many options. What ya’ve got going seems pretty good to me.
Ever thought of spinning that bed around sideways, moving that white chest of drawers somewhere else, and setting yourself up against that wall, with a new bigger desk? Perhaps even monitor stands for the speakers. You’d also be near that window, which would add something as well; and get you out of that tight space you’re in.
Might help with a few things, both physically and creatively.
My music setup is in a bedroom that used to be a guest room/office combo. I had a sofa with a fold out bed in here and pulled the bed out once in about 5 years. So that huge piece of furniture went away (gave it to a coworker). and I replaced it with a couple of chairs that are comfy to play guitar in and look nice. Also a small shelving unit where I keep music books and supplies. My instrument cases go on a rack in the closet. Some of them have instruments in them. Some don’t (and the instruments are on stands or hangers). Amp goes along the wall and I haven’t needed to get creative about stacking it with anything yet.
I do need to tidy up a bit, though. There are too many music stands (mic stands, tablet/phone stands, laptop stand) just standing around not doing anything. And my wife’s ukuleles have found themselves in cases laying flat on the floor scattered all over the place.
I have a long desk that has two desktop computers. One is my main computer that has my audio interface connected. The other one is dedicated to monitoring my owl box camera (and live streaming when it’s working and there’s an owl present).
Getting rid of that big piece of furniture was key.
Yeah that’s all you can really do here. If it’s a guest bedroom and not regularly in use then moving the bed out and replacing it with something smaller or a fold-up bed of some sort.
The obvious one though depends on budget and how often the guest room is used for guests but some sort of sofa bed would probably be a better choice for the room. It’s quite a compromise, making your life worse day to day for the comfort of guests who potentially don’t visit very often
In my case, it was an easier decision. My house has 3 bedrooms and the office was sortof like the spare spare bedroom. The one time I used it I had 8 people sleeping in my house and that was WAY too many for the size of my house. I can technically still use the room that way by throwing down an air mattress if I move a bunch of the music stuff towards the walls, but I’m not going to offer space for 6 guests to sleep again.
My “other” guest bedroom gets used by guests maybe every 4-6mo. Since I have the space, I keep it as an actual bedroom. But even with that frequency, if I had need of the space for something else, I’d get rid of the bed and use it.
It’s funny because I was watching a YouTube video the other day about optimising space in a small home. They made the point of how expensive having a guest room is in a small home. You typically end up paying thousands or tens of thousands extra, with interest for a room that often gets used barely a handful of days a year. It’s a bit crazy when you think of it in those terms and yet many of us do it because it’s the norm! You compromise your life every day, with a cramped work space all for the comfort of guests once in maybe not often.
I don’t mean this to sound critical by the way. You may have regular guests. It’s just a way of challenging conventional thinking and if it gets one person to reconsider why they keep an entire room in their house barely used then it’s been worthwhile
I get it. I really do. Honestly I’m in a financially better position than most in my family. And the expectation is that family puts each other up. In fact for my inlaws, they get upset if we want to stay elsewhere. But that hasn’t been a pleasant experience for any of the 21yrs I’ve been married. so we do it anyway.
I’m at the point now where I don’t really care so much. No matter what we do, quite a few of our family members have NEVER visited. so if I need space, the guest room is the first to go.
When I was a kid, most houses had a guest room. These days, pretty much no one has. So my first idea was indeed: get rid of the bed. But I do realise customs and situations can vary.
Oh I’d love to ditch the guestroom and turn it into an office/studio but unfortunately it does get enough use that I think it would be tough to justify. Maybe if ever get around to finishing our basement I’ll get a nice dedicated space.
