Interior designer Claudia Lambert is a master of the ‘space lift’. She coined the term (a pun on ‘face lift’) for when you want to reinvigorate a room without undertaking a major home renovation. with tried-and-tested results, Claudia has shown us how you can completely transform a space with only superficial adjustments.
“Some people don’t want to knock down their walls or reconfigure their kitchens, but they want to breathe a new life into their house,” Claudia explains. To this end, Claudia recommends a ‘space lift’.
Listen to Claudia Lambert on The Edit podcast:
What is a space lift?
Essentially, a space lift is a superficial renovation, whereby you change your furniture, wall colour or impermanent aesthetic features (lighting, curtains, hardware etc.) to completely revolutionise a room’s appearance and feel.
“There are so many things you can do to a space to make a dramatic change and give it a space lift without having to move a wall.”
— Claudia Lambert, interior designer and creator of the ‘space lift’
“It’s replacing kitchen countertops with a beautiful slab of stone that you fall in love with. It’s re-skinning the joinery in a different colour. Replacing the door knobs, re-tile over ugly tiles in the bathroom, replace faucets. It’s the smallest things,” Claudia Lambert explains to Home Beautiful editor Elle Lovelock on The Edit podcast.
One room, four ways
In her new book, Shaping Spaces, Claudia shows off how she changed just one room – her own living room – every year since 2020, without renovating. By changing the paint and the design theme, the room looks completely different every time.
“Each [room] is a snapshot of where I was as a designer and as a person,” Claudia writes in Shaping Spaces. “Each reflects my mood, my life and how I wanted to feel in my home at the time. It also proves how easily a room can be transformed, continuously evolving with you, without requiring a whole redesign or purpose-built furniture.”
Take a look at the room in 2020, 2024, 2025 and 2026:
2020
2024
2025
2026
5 ways to give your home a space lift
Where to direct your attention to makeover your room with minimum effort, but maximum impact.
1. Change the tapware
In bathrooms and kitchens, a simple change of tapware can steer a whole new style theme. This may even be done in a rental, pending your landlord’s permission. “Swap it back to the original when you move out,and you can take your fancy tap with you,” Claudia says.
2. Get new curtains
As we can see in Claudia’s living room, a shift from white Venetian shades to soft Roman blinds in 2026 provided a softer touch to the space. Changing the window treatments is a “game changer”, Claudia says. A switch from hard shutters to soft sheers, or adjusting the colour of your shades, will change the ‘eyes’ of your room.
3. Redo your kitchen cabinets
There are a number of ways to ‘space lift’ your kitchen. While Claudia’s suggestion of changing your kitchen benchtop to a new marble slab is the heavyweight choice, there are slightly less significant adjustments to consider. One is to “re-skin” your cabinets. Claudia suggests you can achieve this with micro-cement for a new colour and texture, instead of painting over laminate. Meanwhile, adjusting cabinet door handles is significant. “Lo and Co. have the most beautiful, little jewelled knobs,” she recommends. “It’s like jewellery for your kitchen.”
4. Paint your walls
Change the colour of your walls to “something other than white”, Claudia suggests. A fresh coat of paint is going to have the biggest impact on your space, and changing the colour will make it feel like an entirely new room. Need help nailing a new palette? Read Claudia’s step-by-step guide for developing a colour scheme from scratch.
5. Change your light shades
From lamp shades to pendant lights, altering the lights will deliver a huge change to your style theme. From unique fabrics, to coastal rattan, vintage metals or even a chandelier, just think of how different your room would look with a simple swap of the light shade.
Shaping Spaces by Claudia Lambert is now available to pre-order.
See Claudia’s interview with Home Beautiful on The Edit vodcast:
