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The quiet room is winning
2026 Australian Interior Design Awards point to quieter rooms, adaptive reuse and coastal homes that protect rather than perform.
Why Kmart is walking shoppers back to the door
Kmart checkouts are moving back to store entrances, a tiny layout reversal that says a lot about how we want budget home shopping to feel.
The Ikea sleepover wasn't really about Ikea
Ikea Sydney sleepover drew 5,000 hopefuls because $19.95 bought more than a bed: it offered a brief, playful version of home.
What Kmart's K Home gamble says about us
Kmart K Home turns budget decor into room-set theatre, revealing how Australian shoppers want the fantasy of a styled home at discount prices.
When the guesthouse becomes the showroom
Design guesthouses are turning brand worlds into places you can sleep inside, and Vipp’s new upstate retreat shows how aspiration now arrives furnished.
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Australia is over its white-wall hangover
Dulux Colour Awards 2026 winners point to a warmer Australian home, where colour works as structure rather than a weekend paint whim.
The half-made bed has entered its soft-power era
Mismatched bedsheets are turning the 2026 bedroom into a softer, less showroom kind of status symbol, if you can afford the effort.
Why perfect homes suddenly feel a bit embarrassing
The chicest rooms in 2026 are warmer, looser and a little less camera-ready, as Australian interiors drift away from beige perfection.
Why Sydney keeps falling back in love with the corner shop
Sydney corner-shop conversions are turning old shopfronts into bright homes while keeping a little neighbourhood memory alive on the street.
The $19.95 room where IKEA sells hope
IKEA PS 2026 turns budget furniture into a small-space fantasy, pairing a $19.95 Sydney stay with colour, wit and rental-era optimism.
What a bicycle tyre knows about a better room
Melbourne Design Week women are turning tyre tubes and timber offcuts into tactile furniture, and quietly redrawing Australian interiors.
Anthony Burke wants a smaller Australian dream
Anthony Burke thinks smaller houses and shared backyards might leave Australians less lonely, less indebted and better at living together.
Anthony Burke wants a smaller Australian dream
Anthony Burke thinks smaller houses and shared backyards might leave Australians less lonely, less indebted and better at living together.
Why white rooms suddenly feel a bit sharp
Earthy palettes are edging out hard white rooms, not because brown is suddenly chic again, but because people want homes that feel less performative and easier to inhabit.
What a bathroom showroom now understands about renovation fatigue
Sydney's new Reece Rosebery showroom suggests bathroom retail is now selling relief: calmer choices, steadier pacing and help for renovators already worn thin.
Open plan is not the answer: what three designers who live tiny taught me
Three Melbourne design professionals who live in tiny homes share counterintuitive advice: open-plan is not the answer, budget is a design driver, and homes will never be perfect.
What a room reveals when every chair is trying a little harder than comfort
Melbourne Design Week's 100 Chairs brings together 130+ Australian designers rethinking the humble seat, and local craft is finally telling its own stories.
How to style textile art at home without flattening the room
Textile art at home works best when you use scale, texture and restraint. Here's how to hang a woven piece so a room feels warmer, not themed.
The martini trolley is back, and not ironically
The martini trolley revival is less about retro kitsch than a new appetite for visible hosting, small rituals and rooms that know company is coming.
The small bathroom changes that pull a room together
In a cramped bathroom, the best budget updates are rarely the glamorous ones. Start with light, scale and storage, then let the room breathe.
Why our kitchens keep borrowing from restaurants
Restaurant-inspired kitchens are showing up across Australian renovations as homeowners chase warmer light, better flow and rooms built for company.
When the roof becomes the fantasy
A penthouse carved from the sky above Elizabeth Bay is less interesting as a trophy sale than as a clue to the way Sydney now packages scarcity, taste and home as one shimmering thing.
When Sydney's grand old sandstone loosened up
The Lands by Capella is more than a heritage rescue. It offers a glamorous, usable model for how older Australian buildings keep dignity and gain a pulse.
The Melbourne house that learned to exhale
Twelve years after its last major overhaul, Stephen and Tanya Mendel's Melbourne home shows how art, texture and editing can make a familiar house feel alive again.
Why the living room looks better a little undone
Living rooms in 2026 are turning softer and more personal, with books, textiles and better light replacing flat showroom minimalism.
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