Design Anatomy
Welcome to Design Anatomy, where we examine the world of interiors and design. With a shared passion for joyful, colour-filled, and lived-in spaces, Bree Banfield and Lauren Li are excited to share their insights and inspiration with you.
YouTube channel launching soon.
Design Anatomy
Design Myths You Must Break for a Home You Actually Love
Your home shouldn’t feel like a decision you regret every time you sit down. Lauren goes solo to unpack the biggest myths that keep spaces cold, hesitant, and half-finished—and shares practical moves that make a room feel welcoming without a renovation. From tackling open plan confusion to choosing colours that turn shadow into mood, this conversation is a clear-eyed guide to building a home that behaves.
We start with the pain points we all face: decision fatigue after a big build, guests hovering because zones aren’t clear, and the fear of spending on the wrong thing. Lauren breaks down why white paint rarely helps small, low-light rooms and how deep greens, blues, or terracottas can create an inviting cocoon. She explains why larger rugs anchor a living area and visually expand space, how layered lighting signals where to gather, and the simple storage choices that tame daily clutter before you commit to custom joinery.
We also dig into the truth about grout lines, tile drench bathrooms, and the divisive charm of tiled benchtops. Lauren makes the case for mixing colours from room to room while keeping a consistent style language across the home. There’s a frank take on electric fireplaces that don’t quite sell the illusion, plus realistic paths to great design on a budget through focused consultations, marketplace finds, and vintage pieces with soul.
If you’re ready to swap hesitation for a plan, this episode will help you prioritise the moves that matter most. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s stuck on their lounge layout, and leave a five-star review to help others find the show. Then tell us: which design myth are you breaking first?
Bree is now offering a 90-minute online design consult to help you tackle key challenges like colour selection, furniture curation, layout, and styling. Get tailored one-on-one advice and a detailed follow-up report with actionable recommendations—all without a full-service commitment.
Bookings now open - Book now
Join Lauren online for a workshop to help break down the Design steps to run your project & business a little smoother with the Design Process MasterClass, opening 15th October!
For more info see below
Welcome to Design Anatomy, the Interior Design Podcast hosted by friends and fellow designers, me, Lauren Li, and Bree Banfield. Unfortunately, the very glamorous Bree is not joining me today. She is not well. But I have something I want to talk to you about. People don't believe me when I say these things. Now I've got over 20 years' experience in interior design, but still I find there's a few things that I really uh struggle to convey to people. Like, believe me when I tell you. So I want to go through some of these things. But before I start, um, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. We are pretty blown away by seeing our podcast ranking right up there in the charts against some pretty big names. So thank you so much for tuning in. Bree and I have got some really great guests in the pipeline that we are really excited to chat with. And before I start about the things that people don't believe, is I just wanted to remind you that if you have any questions or interior design dilemmas in your home, you can um reach out to me. I would love to help. Bree and I both do our own um interior design consultations. I spoke to a really cool, lovely person yesterday over in Perth. We got a lot done and I felt really, really happy that she had really lovely feedback. She felt really positive and we, you know, being able to dive into some of those things that were really stressing her out and really couldn't make a decision. So we were able to move forward on that. So she's over in Perth. I'm in Melbourne, um helping people all around the place. I can meet you in person if you're in Melbourne. I actually just got back from a consultation just now. The main things that I find people get stuck on is the whole decision fatigue. This uh lovely client that I met this morning, she had built this brand new house six years ago. And I think that there are just so many decisions you need to make that when it came to the interiors, like she was just tapped out, she couldn't decide on anything more. They had it was just paralyzing. So I guess when you're feeling like that, you don't decide on anything. So everything ends up being a white, just quite empty. Like um, her home looked great, but there were just some things that she really didn't uh feel satisfied with. And she said it was literally keeping her up at night. I know the feeling. Um, you know, things about not knowing how to lay out the space. And I mean, to tell you the truth, it's really tough because when you have a brand new home, open plan, is this the dining or is this the living? Or let's swap them over. Like she was quite confused about the best way to put it because, you know, there are no walls that really clearly define these areas. So um she sort of kept rearranging until it sort of felt right. She felt like the whole the the home felt cold and uninviting. You know, when people came over, they kind of just like stood in the middle of the space. They didn't really feel like they could sit down at the dining, or do they sit down at the island bench, or they didn't really feel like they could sit down in the living area. So we're trying to make it feel a lot more inviting. The storage wasn't working, you know, kids, shoes, things, appliances, cords, dog toys, all of that. But to commit to built-in cabinetry, it's really expensive, and you just want to make sure that you are making the right decision before you push go. I totally get that. And sometimes there's just too many colours, tones, different timbers that feel like they don't match. So it just doesn't feel cohesive. A big one is lighting. The lighting feels wrong. So uh what we want to work on with it with this lady I met uh this morning was just creating sort of zones in the space using lighting, some statement pendants, some wall lights, like it will just make such a world of difference. But she really felt like the house doesn't reflect who she was, and she's actually struggled with that since they built it. And it's hard, like it it doesn't just come together by magic. Like it really takes quite a bit of work, and I could tell she had done a lot in the house, moved things around, tried this, sold that, bought this, but she wasn't getting it to feel like the way she wanted to feel it that reflects her. She's some really cool artwork, so I wanted to really encourage her to bring some of those colours and just make the space feel a whole lot more lively. Anyway, I guess the main thing is it's just fear of spending a lot of money on the wrong thing. So that's where these, you know, 90-minute consultations are really great because we can get a lot done. I can give you some sometimes it's confirmation, reassurance. Sometimes it's like, wow, that's a lot. Maybe we want to, you know, pick and choose what we want to spend on. I probably wouldn't spend it on this, but maybe spend it on that, that kind of feedback. So when you're sort of uh confused about what to spend money on, then you just don't do anything. And it just creates this hesitation and delays that they go on for years. So, you know, it's very, very common. So if you're feeling like, oh my god, I can't believe it's been so long and I still haven't had my home the way I want it to be, don't worry, everyone that I meet is in the same boat. It's very common. So if you want to get in touch with me, you can just shoot me an email, drop me an Instagram DM, and we can work out how we want to work together. Sometimes I will meet somebody for a consultation and they'll want to they will want to engage in more of a full service, which means that ongoing support, putting together a really solid master plan. But it depends. I'm happy to help. So I've been a designer for 20 plus years, and still people don't believe me when I say that painting a small room white will not make it feel bigger. I repeat, painting a small room white will not make it feel bigger. I think that there's this perception that if you have a small room, you want to make it feel bigger. Okay, I challenge you to think about why do you want to make it feel better, bigger? What is it that makes a big room better? If it's a small room, why not lean in to the coziness of it being a small room? And actually, you know, even talking to this about this client that I met, the spaces were almost too big. That was the problem. It made it really hard to feel welcoming and cozy. So sometimes a small room, not always, but sometimes it can be better because you can feel cocooned, you can feel safe, you can feel secure, you can feel super cozy, and it's just enough. Sometimes when a room is too massive, every little piece of furniture just looks tiny and it just looks disjointed and bitsy. So when you can kind of bring everything into a smaller space, sometimes that's that's a good thing too. Um, often we don't get to choose, do we? How big the space is. So if you have a small room, say a guest room, for instance, and you want to make it feel bigger, why not lean in to making it feel inviting and beautiful and cozy? A white room that doesn't get a lot of natural light, it actually won't feel bigger because it creates a lot of grey shadowing on the walls. So when you go in for a color, say like a green or a blue or something, you don't get those shadowy effects as much. It's more mood. It feels atmospheric. It feels so much better when it's a colour. So that's the main one. I will die on that hill. I'm pretty sure Bree would agree. Small rooms, when they're painted white, they're always going to be a small room. It'll just feel pokey, shadowy, and it will never feel bigger. My second one is people don't believe me when I say that grout lines won't kill you. You will be okay. It will be fine. Now, what are we talking about? We're talking about there's a time and a place for smaller tiles. I wouldn't really go for a penny round tile or a really small mosaic in a shower on a shower floor. I don't want to give myself all of that extra cleaning because it will kind of discolor the grout from the floor up. But you know, you could go for a 10 by 10 centimeter tile. Do you know what I mean? Like a small tile, a smaller format. It just looks great. I would recommend doing a full tile drench throughout a whole bathroom. We're not really seeing the feature wall thing happening anymore with large format porcelain on the floor and then on all of the walls and then just one feature mosaic or something. That's not really what we're seeing. We're we're seeing this full tile drench where it's, you know, you might have your larger format porcelain on the floor, to be fair. That is very practical. And then go for a smaller format on all of the walls. One tile. So grout lines won't kill you. And you know, we've talked about it before. Tiled bench tops. I'm here for it. I know it's divisive, but it just adds a really great texture to a room, and tiles are super hard wearing. This is nothing new. Tiles have been used for centuries, right? Okay, people don't believe me when I say always go for the larger rug to visually expand the space. Now, rugs are a whole thing, aren't they? Because it's a pricing thing, you know, they they get quite expensive the larger that you go. You will not regret a rug where all of your furniture sits on top of the rug. That's ideally what we want to do. And you know, in an open plan space, a smaller rug, it just doesn't feel inviting. It doesn't, it doesn't create that zone in the space. It's just uh this little kind of postage stamp floating in the furniture. It doesn't look right. So we're always going for the larger rug and it really visually expands the space. It won't make the space feel smaller having a big rug. In fact, I would sort of say that for furniture in general. If you have a small space, it's tempting to go for a small sofa, small coffee table, small side table, small arm chair, small, small, small. It can feel small and bitsy. If you go for sort of a larger, almost like a modular sofa, it actually visually expands the space. Now, another thing that people don't believe me when I say that electric fireplaces aren't fooling anyone. I know it's always one of those things. Gas fireplaces aren't what they used to be. That was kind of replacing a timber, a wood burning fireplace for a gas. Now gas isn't always connected or people don't want to have gas. So the next option is electric fireplaces, but they're really, I would just not even bother with a fireplace at all because they're just not fooling anyone. So unless you can go for a wood bar burning one, I think we're a bit stuck with fireplaces at the moment. But tell me, tell me what I'm if if I'm missing something, write me a little note. Tell me I want to be proven wrong on that because it's a bit, it's a bit of a hard one. Another thing people don't believe me when I say is that rooms can be painted different colors. You don't have to have one color scheme throughout your whole home. In fact, I would say don't do that. You want to create a different feeling, a different mood, a different function in different rooms. So you can use different colours. I would say though, don't choose different styles for different rooms. Like you don't want to have a room that feels, I don't know, beachy and Hamptons, and then go into a living room that has a mid-century vibe. Like, do you know what I mean? Like that feels like you're going into a theme park or something. But you can paint rooms different colors, and I encourage that. And don't be afraid of doing that. And I'm talking about across the spectrum. You can have a front room in a terracotta color. You could have a bedroom in a deep blue color. I think as long as the the overall style is kind of working together, then you're you're good. Another thing that people don't believe me when I say that interior design is only for the wealthy. It isn't. Interior design is not just for the elite. And I mean, this is something I've really struggled with because when you in employ an interior design professional, it's like I've said before, it's like ordering a wedding dress. Okay. A wedding dress is you choose the style, you choose the fabric. It is fit to suit your body. And one person or a team of people, they make that wedding dress just for you. They can't then resell that wedding dress for the next person that comes in. Do you know what I mean? It's a bespoke thing for you. So anything that you're paying for that it's just made only for you and can't be resold on, that's gonna cost more money. And I've really struggled with that because I want everybody to enjoy their home and love where they live. I'm I'm really passionate about that because I know it can really affect the way that you feel. And in the past six months or so, that's why I've leaned into doing these consultations because I would meet these cool people, these cool clients, and they just didn't have the budget to engage me on a full service capacity. And I have to say, I don't really see a lot of other designers doing consultations. And I I feel I feel I find it really fulfilling actually being able to give advice to people and then off they go on their merry way with a bit of a roadmap and they can get their home close to how that reflects their own personality and they can do that in their own time. So interior design is not just for the wealthy, and also we have amazing resources. I mean, Facebook Marketplace for one, I have to say, I also found an amazing um lounge chair that was made in Australia on the side of the road the other day. So I think if you've got this stuff on your radar and you just keep keep a lookout, look at Leonard Joel vintage sellers, look at markets. Um, it doesn't all have to be expensive, it doesn't all have to be brand new. In fact, I think that every space needs something old and with character. So there are a couple of things that I feel like people don't believe me when I say, but I I have to I have to stand by that. So, okay, guys, I'm going to finish up now. Uh, I have to say, I had the most amazing chat to somebody in France the other day, and he gave me some great tips. And we are going to we're creating this incredible tour for the guys that are coming on our Paris and Milan trip. I have to say, as we were talking about places to go and things to see, I was really emotional. Oh my god, Paris, Milan, it's just the best. So we are busy planning the trip for April. Now, if you want to get on the wait list, try to put a link there. I have to see if I can update that wait list because we've had such a great response and I think every year it's going to get better and better. So that's something that Bree and I are sort of working on behind the scenes as well. All right, well, over and out. Have a beautiful week and thanks again for listening. And if you feel so inclined, tap and give us a five-star review. Thanks. We've got the utmost respect for the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. They're the OG custodians of this unceded land and its waters, where we set up shop, create, and call home and come to you from this podcast today. A big shout out to all of the amazing elders who have walked before us, those leading the way in the present, and the emerging leaders who will carry the torch into the future. We're just lucky to be on this journey together.