Small Gaming Room Ideas: Home Office + Guest Room Makeover

This post shows how we transformed a small, boring room into a gaming space that also works as a home office and a comfortable guest room. I’m sharing exactly what we did, the DIY projects we tackled, and the budget-friendly choices that helped us make everything work in a very small space.

This room had been abandoned long enough. It’s small, it had to serve more than one purpose, and it couldn’t feel overwhelming or expensive. So we set a budget, picked a date, and finally made it happen.

What This Room Needed to Do

This room wasn’t meant to be just a gaming room. It needed to work for all of us.

• Be a functional home office and PC gaming space
• Include a bed for guests
• Work in a very small bedroom
• Stay within a tight budget
• Feel cohesive, not cluttered

Why We Chose a Gamer Theme

We realized while brainstorming that what we all three have in common is that we love pc video games.

We’ve always been kind of gamers. I still remember playing Prince of Persia, Doom, Wolfenstein, or Spear of Destiny back when we had to install the games with a gazillion 3 ½ disks. Do you remember those days?

I sure do.

The same goes for my husband. He started building his own PCs at the age of 14 and started playing action games right then. 

But neither of us had or needed game consoles. We got used to keyboard and mouse from the very beginning and it seems awkward to use the controls of a console.

I did play Nintendo, PlayStation, and even Sega at my friend’s house, and I must confess I love Mario. If I had a console, it would be a Nintendo for sure, so I can play again and again the old-days Super Mario.

Now our girl is inheriting the love for pc games, playing games like Roblox and Minecraft (closely supervised at all times). What we love about these games is that she uses creativity to build stuff, and she’s become very good at it.

It seems only logical to use the gaming world as our theme to start our small gaming room setup makeover.

The Room Before the Makeover

The Before

Let’s start from the beginning.

This is what the room looked like when we first moved here.

What a mess LOL.

Then we started upgrading a few things like the divan bed and PC desk but the truth is that this room was more like a storage room than an actual room. It was quickly becoming a dumping ground for all things around the house.

Planning the Small Gaming Room Setup

A few key points that led our decision-making;

• All items we got were either on sale or reused what we already had.
• The space should feel cozy, fun, and super functional
• Not overdoing the gaming side of the decor.
• Install new blinds.

Using Black and White as the Base Color Palette

My husband loves black and white; his PC tower was already black and white and the table was white with a black gaming chair. So we had a good start there

Starting with black and white helped keep the room from feeling busy.

Painting the Column to Create a Focal Point

Paint in black the weird column in the middle of the back wall. A fresh coat of paint makes it all better and also creates a focal point.

We also wanted to install black shelves to match the column on both sides and create contrast against the white wall. For the shelving, we reused the shelves I had in the living room, repainted it in black, and were good to go.

This is us in work mode all the way. Motivation overload LOL.

Gamer Decor That Still Works for Guests

We wanted to find decorative items that would be black or dark colors, somewhat related to the games we like, and also be nice for a guest.

We absolutely loved this ZEN lighted metal word. We knew it would look amazing on the shelves, giving nice ambient lighting.

Then in another shop, we found this clock and ooooooh we loved it.

It was about keeping our eyes very open in every shop we went to. We found very cool, inexpensive items. But still, we are looking in case something cool shows up!

Adding LED Lights Without Overdoing It

One thing we knew we wanted to do was to apply LED strip lights behind the desk to match the PC tower’s mood and a more gaming style.

We are planning on adding some LED lights to the ceiling, too, but it’s more of a future upgrade.

Updating the Desk With Painted Drawers

The gaming desk was way too white, so we decided to give it a new look, changing the drawer chest and revamping another one that we had, making the front of each drawer black.

You can check out the Drawers revamp full DIY tutorial here.

Handmade Gamer Wall Art

We decided to make ourselves a few posters with our favorite games.

Some would go on the black column and others on the wall space above the bed.

Updating The Divan Bed

The bed decoration would be black and white with an accent color.

Since the bed was divan-like (Ikea furniture), we wanted to give it a more sofa look, so we got some square pillows from Ikea, and I created pillow covers with fun keyboard key designs.

The final touch was the accent color pillow with our logo in it!

We couldn’t miss that, right?

Hiding Storage With an IKEA Trofast Hack

The Trofast Ikea drawer needed either to go or a revamp, so we decided to revamp it.

We created and installed a door so it would hide the mess and the plastic drawers that I didn’t really like one bit.

You can find the tutorial for the Ikea hack: Trofast door project here.

And all the crap left had to go. 

Adding Greenery in a Low-Light Room

We wanted to have some green in the room too but with the lack of natural light in the room, we went for faux plants.

The Gamer Room Decor Reveal

This is still an ongoing project. There are more things we want to make that we couldn’t in such a short period of time, and with the available budget. So we might keep feeding this post as we go.

As of today, this is how it looks.

I absolutely love how our gaming room home office makeover turned out and it became my favorite room in our home so far.

We even still think of other things we can add or improve to our home office design so it might change with time.

We might bring bookcases, nice light fixtures, maybe our favorite game figurines, and who knows what else might come!

Now when we play, we feel like we’re in the groove, haha.

It’s a lot more fun to be here, play, or work.

And of course, for guests, this room is now way homier than it was before.

Ideas You Can Take From This Makeover

If you’re working with a small room that needs to do more than one job, here are a few ideas you can take from this makeover:

• Use paint to define zones (like the black column)
• Stick to a tight color palette in small spaces
• Upgrade furniture with paint before replacing it
• Add gamer details through decor instead of clutter
• Use DIY projects to stretch your budget

Hope you enjoyed today’s tour. I was so excited to finally share it with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Home Decor Ideas to Try

If you enjoyed this Gamer Room Decor, You might love these other home decor ideas:

These are some other Guest Office Decor I love

• Office Reading Nook and Guest Room by Saw, Nail & Paint.
• Guest Room Transformed Into Stunning Office for a Work From Home Mama by The Haven List.
• The Cheater Formula to Decorating a Blank Room by A View Along the Way

If you loved what you saw today in our Home Office Makeover, don’t forget to PIN and share it with friends!