Get guest-ready, quick: interior stylists reveal how to get your home ready to host family and friends

Warm welcome: Emma Jane Palin’s bright two-bedroom home in Margate

(Emma Jane Palin)

For more than a year, aside from intermittent moments last summer, our front doors have been firmly closed to guests, even as we’ve spent more time at home than ever before.

While the easing of lockdown restrictions this week has given us more scope for leaving the house, they also allow us to welcome friends and family once again.

But are we ready to host after a year of indoor isolation? Searches for sofa beds have increased 76 per cent week on week, according to John Lewis, while indoor-outdoor pouffes and beanbags have seen jumps of 96 per cent and 498 per cent this week compared to the same time last year.

We’ve asked three interiors stylists how they’re getting their spaces ready for loved ones to stay in style and comfort — no matter what size or shape their home.

Emma Jane Palin (@emmajanepalin)

Emma Jane Palin likes to style her guest room depending on the visitor, with a table and magazines to make it feel like a master bedroomEmma Jane Palin

“Now’s a good time to remember your guest space isn’t just your closet, get rid of any of those last organisation bits — the charity shops are open again so take those things away,” says interiors stylist and writer Emma Jane Palin (@emmajanepalin), who lives in a rented two-bedroom home in Margate.

She has been using online second-hand store Thrift+ in lockdown to sort through her wardrobe, sending clothes off and then choosing whether to receive vouchers for FarFetch as payment or donate the proceeds to charity.

“Our guest room is a really plain, white room so I like to change the vibe with some fresh bed linen and cushions.

“I choose a colour based on who’s coming to stay and what I think they’ll like, then I add magazines and books. Make sure the lighting is good, with bedside table lamps, so people can use the bedroom in the same way that they could a master bedroom.”

Bed linen, like this Old Rose set priced from £45 at Loaf, and bright cushions can help change the feel of a plain white room

Make sure early risers are provided for so they don’t have to feel guilty for waking you up, says Palin. “Although we’ve also got a speaker in our guest bedroom that connects to our phones, so we can wake people up with music if we want to,” she laughs.

Palin and her partner, Joshua John Parker, are in the process of buying their first home in Ramsgate and so are on the look-out for clever things to buy for when guests visit their new house, too. “John Lewis has a daybed that turns into two single beds, and Urban Outfitters has a Togo-style sofa that folds flat — like a pillow bed — which is really beautiful.”

Given she is currently renovating a caravan into a retro holiday rental in Margate with designer Whinnie Williams and travel writer Anna Hart, she has done her research.

• Bookings from the end of May, @clubjupiteruk

Jasmine Rosten-Edwards (@oneoffto25)

Jasmine Rosten-Edwards is welcoming back guests to her home in Surrey with new linen, towels and soothing room scents

“New towels and new bedding will make people feel at ease. And use room scents — like a lavender spray,” says Jasmine Rosten-Edwards, owner and director of online art gallery One Off to Twenty-Five (oneoffto25.com), who shares snaps of artwork for sale styled around her eclectic Victorian home in Surrey on her Instagram account @oneoffto25.

“Think about what you can give people to take away. Can you give people some herbs to take home in a pot? It’s been such a tough year, little gestures like that are special. People are more relaxed outside at the moment so we’ll still try to get out in the good weather as much as we can.”

Outdoor furniture is top of her to-buy list but, with sets selling out fast or months-long waits on delivery, Rosten-Edwards has been scouting vintage shops and salvage yards, in particular Retrouvius in Kensal Green and Sunbury Antiques Market.

Joanna Thornhill (@joannathornhillstylist)

Joanna Thornhill suggests using a room divider, such as Habitat’s (£150) to hide your WFH desk

“If you’ve got a room that has been multi-tasking as a workspace, trying to approach it with some flexibility is key,” says Joanna Thornhill, interiors stylist and author of The Mindful Home (@joannathornhillstylist; joannathornhill.co.uk), who lives in a Victorian terrace house in Walthamstow.

“If your desk is in the corner of your dining room, help it blend into the background a bit more — could you use a room divider screen to hide it and soften the look of the workspace?”

Swyft’s new sofa bed, here in velvet vine green, can be delivered in 24 hours. It comes with a double mattress and topper, priced £1,995

Sofa beds have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, says Thornhill. A decade ago they were notoriously ugly but now they’re comfortable and there isn’t a compromise on style.

Swyft has a new three-seater sofa bed with double mattress and topper that costs £1,995 and can be delivered within 24 hours.

“Our spare room is really tiny, most sofa beds wouldn’t fit in it, so we got one from made.com that folds down in a futon-type way. We tuck yoga mats underneath it, and have a throw over the top which reaches to the floor, so things are within reach but tucked out of sight.”

If you are buying a sofa bed that is the same size as your bed, then any nice bed linen for guests you may splash out on won’t necessarily just be used twice a year, says Thornhill.

• The New Mindful Home: And How to Make It Yours is out now (Lawrence King, £14.99)