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Hold the sample in the room.

We’re two interior designers in North Adelaide. We plan whole rooms, draw every cupboard and shelf ourselves, choose the stone, oak and paint with you, and stay until the last shelf is in.

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A living room in a bluestone villa: oak cupboards and open shelves along one wall, a linen window seat under a sash window, and late sun across the floor
A living room in a bluestone villa, North Adelaide, used most at four. Read about this room

Five samples from this room. Tap one to find it in the photo.

Five samples for a living room on a shelf: terrazzo, travertine, rift-sawn oak, linen and a clay-pink paint card

    Tap a sample to see where it is in this room.

    Four rooms we drew and saw built

    A living room in a bluestone villa: oak cupboards and open shelves along one wall, a linen window seat under a sash window, and late sun across the floor

    A living room, North Adelaide

    A bluestone villa · used most at four

    A villa with high ceilings and a window to the west. We built the whole wall in rift-sawn oak: two tall cupboards for everything that shouldn’t be seen, open bays for what should, and a window seat deep enough to lie on. The hearth is one slab of honed travertine. The walls are limewashed in a clay that goes rosy at four, which is when the room is used most.

    How we planned it: a living room is used most in the late afternoon, so we plan it round where the sun lands at four. The cupboards go where the light doesn’t reach; the window seat goes where it does, and gets the heaviest linen we can find.

    • Rift-sawn oak cupboards, shelves and the seat
    • Honey travertine the hearth, honed
    • Cream terrazzo a small side table
    • Oatmeal linen the seat cushion
    • Clay after rain the walls, in limewash
    A kitchen in the morning: crown-cut oak cupboards, a terrazzo bench with a bowl of quinces, and low sun from the left

    A kitchen, Prospect

    A cottage · the sun at breakfast

    A cottage kitchen that gets the sun at breakfast. The pantry is a tall cupboard with its shelves drawn to the jars, so nothing hides behind anything. The bench is terrazzo with small chips of brick, sage and cream, because the room is narrow and a busy stone would crowd it. The cupboards are crown-cut oak, which shows its arches; in low morning light, that’s the point.

    How we planned it: in a narrow kitchen we keep the terrazzo chips small, so the bench reads calm from a metre away; a long bench can carry bigger ones. We chose the chip size standing where you’ll stand at the sink.

    • Crown-cut oak the cupboards and pantry
    • White terrazzo the bench
    • Silver travertine the window sill
    • Flax linen the blind
    • Quince skin the wall by the table
    A bedroom wall of limed-oak wardrobes around a window seat with a blush linen cushion, in soft morning light

    A bedroom, Walkerville

    An old house · slept in late

    A bedroom that’s slept in late, so we planned it for soft mid-morning light rather than for the lamp. Limed-oak wardrobes run the whole wall, with a window seat between them that has become the best place in the house to read. The doors have small turned knobs, not finger pulls: you open a wardrobe half awake. The bedside is a block of pale travertine.

    How we planned it: most bedrooms are seen by lamplight, so we usually choose the colour at lamp height, at night. This one is slept in late, so we chose it at mid-morning instead and checked it under the lamp after. Warm lamps turn most greys green, so we test for that first.

    • Limed oak the wardrobes
    • Blush linen the seat cushion
    • Pale travertine the bedside block
    • Blush terrazzo the ensuite floor, next door
    • Fig, split open the wall behind the bed
    A study of smoked oak shelves with a built-in desk, a yellow cup on the desk and parkland treetops outside

    A study over the parklands

    A city apartment · worked in all afternoon

    A small study in a city apartment, with the parklands’ treetops outside. Smoked oak shelves run floor to ceiling, drawn to the books and rolled drawings that live there, with the desk built into the wall so the room keeps its floor. The drawer unit has a grey terrazzo top with big chips, which hides ink. The walls are a green-grey that takes the colour of the trees in the afternoon.

    How we planned it: in a study the desk goes against the window, not facing it: side light, no glare on the screen, and the view is there when you look up. The shelves are drawn to the books you own, measured before we draw a line.

    • Smoked oak the shelves and desk
    • Grey terrazzo the drawer unit’s top
    • Walnut travertine the bookends on the shelves
    • Green-grey linen the blind
    • Parklands green-grey the walls

    The same paint at nine and at four.

    A paint card is lit from everywhere at once. A wall gets one window, and whatever the floor and the other walls throw back. So we choose every colour in the room, at the hour you’ll use it. Try it here.

    The same clay-pink room three times: cool and even at nine, brighter at one, and at five with the low sun thrown across the floor and the far wall
    9 am1 pm5 pm

    Worked out in your browser for an illustrative room, 4.2 by 3.6 metres, with one window. A guide to how light behaves, not a colour match.

    Pick a paint

    Clay after rain

    Which way does the window face?

    4:40 pm

    What you’d see

    Clay after rain, window facing west, worked out for an illustrative room at nine, one and five.

    How we draw a cupboard

    Every cupboard is drawn to the millimetre before anyone cuts a board. Tap a number to see what each part is for.

    1200 150 2700 side front, 1:10
    A tall pair of cupboards in a villa alcove, from the front and from the side. The wall on the left isn’t straight, and the drawing shows how the cupboard meets it.

    1. The strip we shape to a wall that isn’t straight — and no villa wall is.

    2. The 3 to 10 mm gap we leave between doors and round a panel, so each part reads on its own and nothing rubs.

    3. A groove cut into the door’s top edge instead of a handle, so nothing catches your hip.

    4. Hinges that slow the last few centimetres, so nothing slams.

    5. The top piece that closes the gap to the ceiling, so dust has nowhere to sit.

    6. The recessed base, set back so your toes fit and the doors seem to float.

    From first sketch to the last shelf

    Every job goes the same five steps, and the two of us are there for all of them.

    4200 sun at 4 sofa here? oak wall, open bays

    Step 1

    The sketch

    We measure, sit in the room at the hour you use it, and sketch it with you at the table. Then we come back with a first plan to argue over.

    Five samples on a shelf: terrazzo, travertine, rift-sawn oak, linen and a clay-pink paint card

    Step 2

    Samples on your table

    The real stone, timber, cloth and paint, left with you for a week, because oak looks different at breakfast. These are the five from the room you picked at the top.

    Study joinery sheet 3 of 7 drawn by Roomwright 2400 600 600

    Step 3

    The drawings

    Every cupboard and shelf drawn to the millimetre, and checked against your walls before the joiner cuts anything. You sign off each sheet.

    • oak veneer, fourteen sheets
    • linen, eleven metres
    • pulls, blackened steel
    • one honed travertine hearth
    An order sheet drawn for this page.

    Step 4

    Orders

    The stone takes longest, so we order it first. We chase every order so you don’t have to.

    Hands in a work shirt setting the last oak shelf onto its pins, a small wooden level resting beside them

    Step 5

    Install day

    1. 7:00 we meet the joiner at the door
    2. 13:00 doors hung, gaps set
    3. 16:30 the last shelf goes in, and we sweep

    Things we’ll talk you out of

    Five we hear often. Tap one to see why.

    There are two of us

    One of us measures and draws; the other chooses and orders. Both of us are there on install day, and we don’t leave until the last shelf is in and the floor is swept.

    We take a few rooms at a time, so the one who drew your cupboards is the one standing in your kitchen when they arrive.

    Tell us about the room

    Which room, where, and when you use it. We’ll reply to arrange a time to come and measure.

    The glass shows the sky over North Adelaide at this hour.

    Where we work

    • North Adelaide
    • Walkerville
    • Medindie
    • Prospect
    • Thorngate
    • Kent Town
    • Norwood
    • Unley
    • Parkside
    • apartments in the city

    Further out, ask — we’ll say honestly if it’s too far to stay on site.

    Which room?
    When do you use it most?

    Roomwright · Interior design, North Adelaide

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    Rooms on this page are shown by suburb only. The samples are grown in your browser from a seed; the colour room is worked out for an illustrative room.