Lucy Hayes (@lucyhayes37_), winner of Best Small Space in House Beautiful’s Real Style Awards 2026, has transformed her ex-council flat into a warm, imaginative home packed with clever ideas and beautifully styled moments. From her now-viral painted doors to thoughtful small-space solutions, Lucy proves that a compact footprint can still deliver serious personality.
What’s your decorating style in three words?
Warm, easy and crafts-inspired.
What’s the best lesson you’ve learned about decorating your home?
Time is a key design ingredient – I’d often be disappointed when a room technically was ‘done’ and it still felt bare or soulless to me. In the early stages I panicked that this was because my design ideas weren’t right, but I’ve come to learn that there’s a gentle accumulation and adjustment that happens over time that truly makes a place feel warm and lived-in.
What advice would you give about decorating a small space?
Inevitably, storage is going to be the biggest challenge. Try to find solutions that are beautiful as well as practical, because the reality is that in a small space, you’re constantly surrounded by everything you own.
What was your biggest decorating challenge?
Decision fatigue! It felt like a lot to go from renting and only having to decorate a bedroom to having to buy things to fill an entire flat. I had vague ideas of what I wanted and liked but was worried about being influenced by trends and getting bored of what I’d done or spending a lot of money on something only for it to break.
Did you have any DIY disasters along the way?
Overall I was very lucky (though I didn’t really attempt much DIY for fear of messing it up!). However, one quirk of my 1920s flat is that it has curved skirting boards, which had been painted over in every room, covering the lovely wood and making all the rooms look smaller.
What to Read Next
I hired someone to sand all the floors, but the angle of the skirting boards made them hard to do unless by hand. I spent weeks in the evening putting paint stripper down, covering it in clingfilm and then scraping off layers and layers of paint with a spoon. The congealed paint went everywhere and was so sticky – it kept clinging to the newly sanded and sealed floors which I desperately was trying to avoid.
What’s a surprising small-space hack you discovered along the way?
Colour can make spaces feel bigger, not smaller. Having large pieces of furniture can also help to trick the eye – because they feel more generous, they can have a knock-on effect on your perception of the room.
What stage of decorating do you dread? Which makes you do a happy dance?
I dread it when custom orders arrive – tiles or custom cut shelves for example, because I’m terrified that I’ve calculated the size or amount incorrectly. My kitchen units were 3cm short, and to this day I have no idea how that happened. The stage I most love is probably the very beginning or the very end: you’re either imagining all the possibilities or experiencing the satisfaction of the room being done.
What do you think is the biggest myth about small spaces?
That they can’t feel big and grand and spacious. I think size is how a space makes you feel. If a room feels crowded and your eye can’t travel, it can make even big spaces feel small. The same goes for small spaces feeling big.
What does ‘home’ mean to you?
It means a space where you can relax, recharge and just feel completely comfortable and yourself in. There’s a practical element to that – a space needs to support how you live, but also something more energetic as well.
