The dreamy Balmain cottage that's full of surprises

When Nina Maya was engaged by a travel-loving couple to revamp their multistorey Balmain cottage at the height of Sydney’s first pandemic lockdown in 2020, the Paddington interior designer seized the chance to help them get away. Without leaving the house.

“Everyone had that feeling of being grounded without knowing when we could travel overseas again,” Maya says. “That was very much the impetus to design a resort-style feel at home.”

The main bedroom upstairs was the starting point for the project.

In fact, the couple, unsure what value interior designers could add, initially approached Maya only to review their sleeping quarters.

But they signed her up for the whole house the minute they saw her design: a porous, resort-like bedroom suite with a bathroom, a walk-in wardrobe and a balcony with views of the pool and garden.

“They saw how the design totally transformed the space and added significant value,” Maya says. “We wanted to recreate the luxurious feeling of walking into the vast suite of a beautiful five-star hotel with a spectacular outlook. It was that resort feel that then informed the rest of the house.”

It helped, too, that the couple chose to add an underground recreational third level to their sandstone cottage, excavating beneath the two-car garage. It included a gym and steam room, cinema, billiards room and laundry.

Having established the mood and tone she wanted, Maya produced a materials palette to match: restrained, minimal, neutral and tactile, very much her signature style.

“We wanted to generate this highly calming, Zen-like retreat aura,” she explains.

Materials included a light-coloured Italian travertine, white oak, patina bronze and marmorino plaster. In fact, some of the materials are so close in tone – like the calacatta marble and Venetian plaster, oak and travertine – it isn’t immediately obvious where one starts and another finishes.

“We’re trying to create a sense of space and openness,” Maya says, in the same way she designed the “see-through, ethereal” staircase to work as a light well.

Maya admits the materiality is more monochromatic than usual, but there’s a reason: “There are no stunning vistas and sweeping grounds, so we need to work hard to create that resort feeling within the interiors themselves.”

It also explains her motivation in employing huge numbers of curves, which help to break up “the monotony of the linear interiors” and soften the rooms.

They’re everywhere: the kitchen island bench and rangehood; floating marble vanities, mirrors and tapware in the bathrooms; timber joinery and scalloped cladding; light fittings, bedhead and numerous pieces of furniture and soft furnishings.

Maya acknowledges that, as a smaller house with a compact garden, each area needed to work hard to draw the most from it.

For example, the kitchen was designed for casual family meals, formal dining or entertaining. Bronze screens for a beautifully detailed bar could be opened or closed to suit different occasions.

Maya also maintained the same soft, minimal palette for the furniture and furnishings.

SOLD - $8,000,000

1 Carieville Street, Balmain NSW 2041

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“Nothing jars or is high contrast,” she says. “Everything is relaxing and harmonious.”

Nevertheless, as a fashion designer before transitioning to interiors, Maya has dressed the house with pops of colour in the same way she once used jewellery, handbags and shoes to accessorise an outfit. Bar stools upholstered in a deep green, a velvet bedhead in sage green, and a green table light gently contrast with the natural materials, while vibrant artwork and Draga & Aurel Joy lamps are light-hearted.

“I always saw fashion accessories as the finishing pieces,” Maya says. “It’s similar to interiors.”