Often the problem with your desk is finding space on it under the files people have told you urgently need your attention, the phone messages, invoices and not to mention the coffee cups and chocolate wrappers.

Luckily for you though, you get to leave the chaos of your desk at the office but do you find you still need a desk space at home too? Or do the kids need somewhere to do their homework or set up the laptop so you can keep an eye on them? Well creating a study or a space for a desk doesn’t have to be a major decorating extravaganza.

Actually, you can create space for a desk in the seemingly smallest space. To start with, look around your home for a corner or even a stretch of wall which you can’t really do much with. Once you’ve found it, no matter what shape or size it is, paint it off from the rest of the room. You can do this with a solid colour of paint to define the space, or even by masking off a pattern of stripes, anything which makes it different, and gives it its own personality.

Then you can go down and pick up a fold down table, the kind which screws into the wall and folds away when you’re not using it. Now you have your desk and your space and all you need to do is get to work, enjoy afternoon tea or answer a few emails.

You can personalise the space by choosing simple pieces of wall art to match the colours of the defining paint. Or you can screw special mounts into the wall above your new desk and hang those decorative plates which you never seem to get around to using but are still gorgeous to look at.

Now you have a decorative space even when the desk is not in use and you have a purpose built space to set up the task for the day.