MELBOURNE INNER WEST INTERIOR DESIGN
I'm Mary. I still read a builder's quote the way I used to read a financial plan.
You've got the folder of saved ideas, the strong opinions, and a growing list of decisions nobody's taught you how to make.
That's exactly where we start.
I spent twenty years in financial advice, not design. The job was making sure nobody's biggest financial decision fell over once the ink was dry. The pull toward design had been there since I was choosing paint colours over homework, and it never really left. Eventually something had to give. It was never going to be the design.
So I retrained properly, no shortcuts on the part that matters most, and started taking on full renovations and new builds. The real shift happened once I was standing inside people's half-finished homes. I kept meeting the same person: sharp and decisive at work, and completely out of their depth on the biggest financial call of their life. Same dread every time. A $700k decision, signed off on a plan nobody had properly checked.
Mary O’Loughlin, Founder
Turns out a renovation like that is a financial decision first, and a design decision second.
You already know how "simple" a renovation is supposed to sound. In practice it's relentless: three quotes that turn out to be quoting three different jobs, a folder of saved images that never quite resolves into a plan, a "quick question" text landing at nine at night, a running total nobody is actually keeping.
I've read the quote that looks fine until you check what it doesn't include. On one project, five different builders quoted the exact same job, and not one of the quotes was comparable. Different formats, different exclusions, provisional sums buried in the footnotes. My job was to pull them apart until the numbers actually meant something, so my client could make a real decision instead of a guess.
That's the gap the whole process is built to close. Fixtures, finishes and dimensions get settled before a builder is ever called, not worked out as allowances once the trades are already on site. The expensive decisions get made early, while they're still cheap to change, and every number you're handed can finally be compared to the one beside it.
Design and delivery stay one job here, from first sketch through to the final handover. Nothing gets lost in translation between the drawing and what actually gets built.
You didn't start this to lose your Saturdays in showrooms with nothing decided at the end of them. You started it for the home you already know how it should feel: the character kept, the way you actually live now finally designed around. You just need someone to make it real, and to check the numbers on the way there.
What Clients say
While we're here, the name.
I wanted something that actually said what the studio is for. Lúrae is Irish, so am I. Lú is for light and the mastery of a craft. Rae is for a ray of light. Light you can plan around, and light you can feel when you walk in.
OFF THE CLOCK
In a dance class in Yarraville, Tuesday nights, non-negotiable.
On a reformer, pretending Pilates is relaxing.
Back at a plan by morning, because the good stuff never really switches off.
