byhayleyjohnston

byhayleyjohnston Hi, I’m Hayley - Interior Designer & Founder.

I work with busy professionals undertaking full-home renovations who want a clear, considered outcome, without managing the process themselves.

11/06/2026

By the time your slab is down, your design is already locked in.

Most clients think the exciting decisions come later; the kitchen, the bathrooms, the finishes. And they do. But the decisions that actually determine whether your home works? Those happen before anyone pours concrete.

Your slab locks in where your plumbing goes. Which means your kitchen is where it is, your bathrooms are where they are, and your toilets are not moving, not without tearing things up at enormous cost. Your structural walls are set, which means your room proportions, your flow, your light are all determined. The layout you’re going to live with for the next 20 years is already done.

The clients who get the best outcomes aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones who brought a designer in early enough to ask the right questions before anything was locked in. Where should the kitchen actually sit relative to how you live? Does the main bathroom need to be there, or is that just where it’s always been on the plan? Is the light going to move through this space the way you think it will once the walls go up?

These aren’t questions you can answer standing on a concrete slab. They’re questions for months before that.

Strategic design isn’t a luxury. It’s what makes the build worth doing properly.

09/06/2026

Don’t let your electrician design your lighting plan. And I say this with love as my partner is an electrician 💗

Electricians are excellent at what they do. Cables, compliance, load calculations, making sure your house doesn’t burn down an all very critical, all theirs. But lighting design is not their job, and most of them will tell you that themselves.

Here’s what I’ve noticed working alongside trades on renovations: electricians source almost exclusively from wholesalers. That’s where the industry runs. And wholesalers carry what installs efficiently, your whites, blacks and chromes - standard specs. No decorative pendants, no considered wall lights, nothing that makes a room feel like someone actually thought about it. Not because electricians don’t care, but because that’s not the supply chain they work in.

More importantly, they’re not on site asking how you want to use your space, they’re not thinking about zoning, or whether your artwork deserves to be lit. They’re planning an efficient install, which is exactly what you want them to do.

Lighting should be designed before the electrician is even booked. It affects ceiling structure, joinery, cabinetry heights, wall placement. Get it wrong in the planning stage and you’re either living with it or cutting into freshly plastered walls.

The homes that feel expensive aren’t just well-built. They’re well-lit. And that’s a design decision, not an electrical one.

07/06/2026

When should you hire a designer? Before the builder. Every time.

I get brought in at the wrong stage more than I’d like to admit. The plans are drawn, the builder is quoted, sometimes the contract is already signed, and then someone realises the kitchen isn’t quite right, the positioning of the laundry hasn’t been properly considered, and the layout they’ve approved isn’t actually how they want to live.

At that point, fixing it is expensive. Not just financially, though it is that too, but in time, in stress, and in the compromises you end up making because changing something mid-build costs three times what it would have cost to get it right before anyone broke ground.

A builder’s job is to execute a plan. My job is to make sure the plan is worth executing.

That means before you talk to a builder, someone should be asking: does this floor plan actually suit how you live? Is the kitchen in the right position? Do you get enough natural light coming through? Where does the joinery go, and does that change where the plumbing needs to be? These aren’t finishing touches, they’re important decisions, and once they’re locked in, they’re expensive to undo.

Good design informs the build. The build doesn’t inform the design.

If you’re planning a renovation and you haven’t spoken to a designer yet, that’s where to start.

🔗 Link in bio to book your consultation

RUSHCUTTERS BAY APT - A 55sqm deceased estate, completely reimagined.This one started with a 1937 apartment that hadn’t ...
07/06/2026

RUSHCUTTERS BAY APT - A 55sqm deceased estate, completely reimagined.

This one started with a 1937 apartment that hadn’t been touched in decades. Small, compartmentalised, and laid out the way apartments were laid out in 1937, which is safe to say, not for the way anyone actually wants lives today.

The brief wasn’t just to renovate. It was to rethink. We moved the kitchen out of its original room and into the hallway, relocated the bathroom, and added an in house laundry that the floorplan had never accounted for. Fifty-five square metres doesn’t give you much room to work with, which means every decision has to be deliberate.

The result is an apartment that feels twice the size it is. Open, functional, and designed around how someone actually lives in it.

This is what a full-service interior design project looks like from concept to completion - spatial planning, selections, and every detail in between.

If you’re sitting on a property that isn’t working and don’t know where to start, this is what’s possible.

🔗 Book your consultation via the link in bio

06/06/2026

The biggest mistakes I see in high end renovations aren’t usually about taste. They’re timing errors.

Most clients don’t know what they don’t know, and by the time they realise, it’s often too late (or very expensive) to fix.

Because no one told them they needed to finalise the tapware early due to long lead times.
Or confirm underfloor heating before the screed goes down.
Or allow for an in-wall cistern before framing is complete.
Or finalise artwork, lighting and furniture to ensure coordination throughout

And don’t even get me started on power locations.

Floor boxes for home offices.
Charging drawers in joinery.
Power inside bathroom cabinets.
Integrated lighting within cabinetry.
Motorised curtains and blinds

These are the details that can completely enhance how a home functions, but they only work when someone is thinking about them early enough.

A builder’s role is to build.
My role is to think ahead.

To understand how you’ll actually live in the home, anticipate problems before they happen and coordinate hundreds of moving parts before construction reaches the point of no return. Because you don’t get second chances on rough-ins.

And the clients with the smoothest renovations are usually the ones making these decisions long before they feel “ready” to.

Here’s exactly what happens when you book a consultation with us.No discovery calls. No back and forth. You book directl...
05/06/2026

Here’s exactly what happens when you book a consultation with us.

No discovery calls. No back and forth. You book directly through my website, I come to you.

I work with clients across the Eastern Suburbs and inner city, and I always meet at the project site, because there’s no substitute for actually being in the space. We walk through it together. You tell me what’s not working, what you want to change, and what you’re trying to create. I ask a lot of questions. It’s also a chance for us to work out if we’re the right fit, that part matters as much to me as it does to you.

After our meeting I put together a fee proposal tailored to exactly what we discussed. No ballpark figures, no surprises. Just a clear scope and a clear path forward.

If you’re renovating in Sydney and you’re not sure where to start, this is where you start! Book your initial design consultation via the link in my bio.

03/06/2026

Don’t trust your builder to design your kitchen.

Builders are excellent at what they do. But what they do is build, not design.

When I renovated my own apartment in Rushcutters Bay, the first question wasn’t what goes in the kitchen. It was whether the kitchen was even in the right place. It had been sitting in a poky little room since 1937, because that’s where kitchens went in 1937. We moved it into the hallway, opened up the floor plan, and created space for a built in dining banquette that genuinely changed how the apartment felt to live in. A builder working from an existing plan would never have raised that question. That’s not a criticism, it’s just not their job.

And that’s exactly the problem when builders are left to “handle” the kitchen design.

No one is asking how you actually cook. Whether you host dinner parties or eat at the island bench. Whether you need a second sink or just think you do. Whether the island you’ve always wanted will actually make the kitchen harder to move through. A builder’s job is to execute and they’ll execute beautifully. But if the brief is wrong, the kitchen will be wrong, and you won’t realise it until you’re living in it.

The kitchens I see that don’t work aren’t ugly. They just haven’t been thought through. There’s nowhere logical for the things you use every day. Small frustrations that compound over time and by the time you notice them, everything is already built.

These aren’t building problems. They’re design problems and they need to be solved before anyone picks up a tool.

Get a designer first. Then let your builder do what they’re brilliant at.

Hi, I’m Hayley 👋I’m an interior designer based in Sydney, running my own studio, By Hayley Johnston.Most of my clients, ...
03/06/2026

Hi, I’m Hayley 👋

I’m an interior designer based in Sydney, running my own studio, By Hayley Johnston.

Most of my clients, renovating or building, want someone who actually knows what they’re doing to take the reins. People who are time-poor, overwhelmed by decisions and just don’t want to get it wrong.

I’m currently renovating my own home so when I say I understand what you’re going through, I mean it.

I offer full service interior design for Sydney based clients, plus online services including floor plan reviews, lighting reviews, and selections reviews if you’re not in Sydney or just need a second opinion.

If you’re about to start a renovation and want someone in your corner from the beginning, send me a DM and I’ll send you more information about how we can work together.

22/05/2026

SAMPLE SELECTION | Early finish selections for our renovation.

One of the most important parts of the design process is seeing how materials, tones and textures work together in real life. A finish can look beautiful individually, but the magic is in how everything relates together within the space.

21/05/2026

LAST NIGHT WITH | Good showroom design actually helps clients make better decisions.

We visited the new Reece showroom opening in Rosebery last night and what really stood out to me was the central maker’s studio space. It was designed so designers and clients could come together to pull finishes, tapware, vanity colours and materials all in one place and properly workshop a bathroom.

It felt much more collaborative and interactive than a traditional showroom experience, which I think is incredibly important when clients are trying to confidently make selections for their home.

Seeing products in person will always matter. Finishes, texture, colour and scale read completely differently in real life compared to online, and having the ability to physically compare materials together makes the design process so much easier to navigate.

I also grew up in Rosebery, so it’s really nice seeing new life brought back into these old warehouse spaces.

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Rosebery, NSW
2018

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