Q&A: Journey Home Interior Design founder, Nadine Neilson

When Nadine Neilson enters a restaurant she takes in the design, ambience and atmosphere before even looking at the menu. Her passion for design keeps her constantly on the lookout for inspiration.

Nadine is the founder of Journey Home Interior Design, a Canberra-based design agency specialising in timeless interiors.

Originally from Queensland, Nadine lived in Madrid for two years where she honed in her interior and furniture design skills. She says the abundance of gold in the Spanish capital is a great inspiration. 

We sat down with Nadine to get the low-down on all things home style and inspiration.

What are your favourite styles to work with?  

Journey Home specialises in residential designs, we specialise in classic, timeless interiors. People aren’t coming to us and using words like “Scandi” – they are using words like Hamptons and French Provincial. They’re typically wanting something that isn’t going to date and is quite classic.

Tell me a little bit about your career?

I’ve just come back from Madrid. I previously lived there for 12 years. I originally went to university to do accounting and marketing because I was good at economics. However, my father was a builder and my mother was a decorator so it has always been in my blood.

When I came back from Spain, my mum started a trade business for designers so I started with that and ended up being a buyer and designer of furniture and putting ranges together for designers so it just seemed like a natural progression.

Even in the traditional classic genre there are little trends and ebbs and flows within that. Fabrics change and there’s colour shifts even within timeless designs – it doesn’t have to look old and dated but I think if you do it well and you do it right it lasts longer than if you just swap and change with the trends all the time. Because no matter what you do it is going to date eventually.

• Related: Festive table design with Megan Morton
• Related: Q&A: top3 creator Terri Winter
• Related: Q&A: Residential building designer of the year Adam Hobill
   

What are some of your favourite concepts to work with?

Back when I was in my furniture days I was doing industrial style and Hamptons style furniture. I like a more authentic Hamptons style not like the modernised Australian version of it. For me, Hamptons is a very high-end, luxury look with quality furniture and quality fabrics and there’s embellishments.

How do you approach designing housing interiors?

You have to combine what the house is telling you with the plan. My philosophy is if the home has character features run with that.