Working with Nina has been an incredible experience. She genuinely cares about her projects and her clients. Nina really listened to us and gently guided us to rethink certain ideas, resulting in even better design outcomes.

Comfort and Functionality:

We feel incredibly lucky to live in such a comfortable home!

The house is flexible, with movable sun screens, external blinds, and partition doors allowing us to control how connected or private we want to feel. It’s both practical and beautiful, and a true sanctuary.

The spacious kitchen and dining area, with ample storage, has become a hub for our children, where they love to eat, craft, and study in a warm, inviting space. The layout makes getting the kids ready for school and bedtime much easier.

I love how flexible the spaces are -  inside/out - the options of large moveable sun screens, external blinds, large internal partition door give us the option to be as connected as we’d like to the surrounding neighbourhood. We are hoping the modest kids’ bedroom sizes encourage them to come out more. 

I also appreciate how different living zones flow so well into each other physically and visually from the front entrance but also read as separate areas due to elevation differences, kitchen joinery and sliding doors.

Feedback from Visitors:

Friends and family have been full of praise for the house, often commenting on its warmth and thoughtful design. The pool, fire pit, and open living spaces have made it a hit for entertaining, especially with the kids. It’s wonderful to see how much everyone enjoys being here.

 It feels like a real sanctuary! A restful cocoon despite being located in an exposed corner a throws stone away from the local school.

The home feels calm, peaceful, and perfectly suited to both daily life and social gatherings. We couldn’t be happier!

- Susan C

We had problems right from when we bought the house, particularly with thermal comfort and noise. Initially, we thought we could manage without an architect and just replace all the windows. However, the more we considered it, the more we realised we needed professional advice to reconfigure the windows and spaces.

The design and building process was smoother and faster than I had anticipated. It was clear that Nina had a good relationship with the builders, which made everything easier. I appreciated not needing to get involved in all decisions, knowing that Nina handled them well.

Comfort and functionality:

Now the house feels quieter and more peaceful, the connection to the outdoor courtyard is open and inviting. I love the screening above the pool, looking down towards the road. I really like how that screening frames just a specific glimpse of ocean.

In the summer, the pool transformed how we use the outdoor area. It changed how I entertained guests, often sitting and chatting in the pool.

The light in the living and dining area is spectacular, especially in the mornings. Visitors have been struck by the changes, often commenting on the reframed views they hadn’t noticed before.

I hadn’t really noticed the air quality before, but now I don’t detect outside smells, fumes or smoke.

The new kitchen configuration and the additional windows has made a significant improvement. Having that natural light onto a stove makes such a difference when you're cooking. I love the timber stair screen which anchors the space. Our new study has also become a well-used space, the lighting is perfect.

The design achieved what it was meant to, in that it framed what we wanted to look at, and filtered the neighbour’s houses.

What was the best part about working with us?

You were calm, relaxed, easy to talk to, and didn’t push us to undertake more work than we were comfortable with at the time.

- Rebecca C

'We are first time renovators and love working with Nina. She is creative but practical, relaxed, and easy to work with. Nina is patient and accommodating of our requests and needs. Her designs have really addressed the challenges of maximizing space and liveability in a small house and of working with challenging council restrictions. We have found the whole experience fantastic and recommend her highly.

The colours: I think what I love most about the colours in the house is that they are very welcoming and relaxed but also surprising. Every day I'm still happily surprised looking at them. I think they make our home feel very fresh and interesting but warm and like a family lives here (which we do). I also love how the bright happy colours downstairs sort of shade into subtler, peaceful colours upstairs.