Interior design, Melbourne
Rooms shaped around real morning routines, honest budgets and the way your household actually moves.
2021 to 2026
A narrow Victorian terrace opened up along its full length, so the kitchen, the courtyard and the morning light now run as one long room. Lime plaster, pale oak and a single good rug did most of the work.
Plate 01. Full residential design, completed 2025.
A family of four and a very small back room. The brief was storage that did not look like storage, and a bedroom that could still feel like a room on a school night.
Plate 02. Full residential design, completed 2024.
Two engineers, one work trip to Singapore in March and a dog who sheds. Everything was chosen to survive being used.
Plate 03. Full residential design, completed 2024.
A working renovation by a client who wanted the shell to stay visible. Joinery was left to read as joinery, and the furniture was left to float.
Plate 04. Decorating consultation, completed 2023.
A room for a serious reader with too many books. Built-in shelving was designed around the actual dimensions of the collection, not a standard module.
Plate 05. E-design package with a joinery plan, 2023.
A holiday house that had to work for six adults in January. The kitchen carries the room; everything else got out of its way.
Plate 06. Virtual interior design, completed 2022.
A good room is not styled. It is edited, in favour of the people who will use it.
Every project starts with a conversation in the room itself, usually for an hour, usually without a laptop open. I want to see where the mail lands, which chair everybody actually sits in, and what the light does at seven in the morning and again at four in the afternoon. Those two hours tell me more than a floor plan does.
From there the work is subtraction. I edit the brief down to what is genuinely needed, then build the room around a small set of good materials that will age well and be repaired rather than replaced. I would rather specify one oak dining table and get the chair right than fill a room with pieces that merely match.
I work mostly for families and couples in their thirties and forties who have just moved, just had a child, or just bought a house with good bones and the wrong feeling. They are not looking for a showpiece. They are looking for a house that works on a Tuesday in February with the lamps on and the mail still on the bench.
The practical work is handled properly. I measure, draw, specify, order, and stay on site through the install week, because that is when the difference between a good room and a nearly good room is decided.
I ask about the boring parts first: who cooks, where the mail goes, and who works from home.
Mara Vance
Two hours in the home, a written brief, and a fixed scope agreed before anything is drawn.
One point of view per room. A short, specific list of what goes in, what stays and what leaves.
Ordering, delivery and the install week, handled by the same person who drew the room.
Every engagement opens with a paid discovery visit or a video walk-through, so the first conversation is about your rooms rather than about a shopping list.
Complete design and documentation for one or more rooms: measured drawings, a full specification, every item ordered, and the install week supervised on site.
Not included: building work, structural changes and anything that needs a permit.
A single long session in your home with a written plan afterwards: what to move, what to buy, what to leave alone and how much it will cost.
Not included: ordering, delivery or the install week.
Everything I would do in person, done over video: 3D room visuals, a lighting and paint plan, an itemised schedule with trade pricing and a shopping list.
Not included: on-site measuring or installation, which a local tradesperson handles.
The room, resolved on paper. Two concepts, a colour and material schedule, and a drawing of the joinery, handed over as a set you can build with any tradesperson.
Not included: product ordering, trade pricing or site supervision.
Fees are fixed and quoted in writing after the first call. Trade pricing is passed on at cost, with no mark-up on furniture or lighting.
We had been living in a showroom for two years and could not say why it felt wrong. Mara asked about the kettle. The whole house changed after that conversation.
Priya and Dan RamanBellbird House, Fitzroy
The drawings were so clear that our builder stopped guessing. Three weeks saved on site, and the joinery came out exactly as it looked on paper.
Elena RuizYarra Terrace, Abbotsford
She is the rare designer who will tell you to keep the sofa.
The Local Interior, March 2025
A portfolio of rooms that look lived in, which is harder than it sounds.
Habitat Journal, November 2024
Proof that restraint can still be warm.
Open House Quarterly, June 2024
Tell me about the rooms and the budget you have in mind. I read every inquiry myself and reply within two business days.
With questions about the rooms, not a sales pitch.
We work out the scope together and what it will take.
Scope, timeline and a fixed fee, with nothing hidden inside it.
New work and studio notes, most weeks
Studio notes on materials, natural light and the rooms currently in progress.
