Secret Styling Club's top tips: 10 easy ways to make space in your home work harder — from zoning rooms to upcycling furniture

Lockdown has changed the way many of us use our homes, with living rooms that function as schools and offices by day also having to serve as relaxing havens in the evening.

Finding a way to create multi-tasking, flexible spaces isn't always easy - but small changes can make a huge difference.

Interior stylists Laurie Davidson (@lifeofaninteriorsstylist) and Maxine Brady (@welovehomeblog), the creative duo behind Secret Styling Club, are experts on transforming interiors and small, underused areas of your home to make your space work harder.

From styling magazine photoshoots to curating interior design for TV shows such as Gok Wan's Fill Your House For Free, along with sharing their expert tips on lockdown interiors projects Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show, the pair have more than 40 years’ experience between them.

"Between us we've been styling hundreds of rooms and sitting on all of that untapped knowledge, so we thought why don't we spread the word and teach people how to do it," says Maxine.

Now, along with hosting styling workshops, Maxine and Laurie offer an online design service for home makeovers, helping you to transform your space with their expert guidance including tailored moodboards, 3D floor plans and a curated shopping list.

They pair also regularly share tips for transforming home interiors on a budget and using what you already have.

"It's not always about buying new pieces. Rethink what you have at home. Move things around your home a lot and restyle spaces to keep it fresh," says Maxine.

"Shop your home and think creatively," says Laurie. Look at current trends for furniture and think about how you can update existing pieces, such as adding new handles to cupboard doors.

"Have the confidence to do it yourself. Try upcycling an old piece of furniture or use YouTube to learn how to put up wallpaper."

Right now, our homes have to be multi-functional, with rooms suddenly becoming home offices, schools, gyms and play areas by day and then a spot to unwind in during cocktail hour.

Think about where best to carry out these extra functions and create dedicated spots for them.

It might be that the garden becomes the play area, a corner in the living room makes the perfect spot to squeeze in compact desk, and perhaps the utility room becomes a smoothie station, or a cupboard could be a bar area.

If space is tight, you'll probably need to move furniture around regularly to suit what you're using the room for.

Consider fixing castors to a coffee table, chair or storage chest to enable you to wheel it out of the way quickly and easily. Or add them to a drawer or crate that can be filled with toys and wheeled under the sofa or a cabinet, out of sight.

Clutter and mess can get out of control easily, and will only add to feelings of frustration or anxiety.

Invest in storage boxes so you can easily pack away craft materials, school books or your laptop and files in the evenings.

Busy households may also want to leave a storage basket at the bottom of the stairs, so that during the day you can pop everything in that needs to be taken up – which can then be done in one fell swoop at the end of the day.

If space allows, look at the layout of your garden so that you have a space for eating and an area for play – and try not to mix the two.

You could also make an entertainment area by setting up a bar, an outdoor cinema area with a projector for family movie nights, or popping up some tents for a fun “at-home camping trip”.

Not enough paint left to do a full room? Why not paint bold shapes and patterns, such as a circle or triangle, on to a wall?

You could paint a square or rectangle shape behind a picture or mirror and do the same with a headboard behind the bed.

Door “lipstick” is also a big design trend – it's where you paint your door (or window) frame in a bold or contrasting colour to your walls.

Finally, you could use your leftover paint to highlight architectural details in your home, such as a ceiling rose, your front door, skirting or picture rails.

So, you're going through your rooms and changing things at a rate of knots, but also don't want to spend on large pieces of furniture. Now's the time to repurpose rarely used items.

Need an extra table for the kids to do their crafting? Add some legs to an old door - see The Hairpin Leg Company.

Need some makeshift shelves for a working from home area? Why not make some out of hardback books, old crates or pallets, or scaffold planks and industrial pipes?

Think about adding a bird house, a group of bird feeders or creating a bug hotel outdoors.

Or, if you want to see what visitors your garden attracts at night, invest in an outdoor camera that will track any wildlife.

It's the new buzz word – but what does tablescaping mean? Well, it's to arrange a group of items artistically on a table.

Whether you set up a relaxed, country-style display with single stems in glass vessels, or a more glam affair with your “best” china, make a celebration of a meal and create a show-stopping spread to be proud of.

Want to be more creative? Add pattern and colour by wallpapering your walls, your ceiling, the panels in your furniture or even the space in between your picture rail and ceiling.

If you're not a colour fan, opt for something a little different, like a metallic effect instead – Rockett St George (rockettstgeorge.co.uk) stock some great designs.

When you need a quiet place to retreat, either to read, take work calls or simply get some space, why not use a shed?

Decorate the interior with a chair, a radio, a rug and pictures on the walls – you could theme it by giving it a “Hamptons-style” coastal feel, using pretty pastels. Or give it a zingy tropical look with lots of plants.

Alternatively, turn it into a playroom – somewhere all the toys and craft equipment can be kept.

As an extra project, and a way to keep the kids entertained, you could get them to paint a mural on to it – a jungle or under-the-sea scene perhaps?

Remember, you can easily paint over it later in the year should you want to.