Scandi living room – perfect for work and play

A beautiful and functional space for a busy mum running an online business from home

Amanda was already a self-confessed interior design junkie but she’d always thought traditional interior designers seemed impractical and expensive. Luckily for Amanda, Designbx’s mission is to eliminate those barriers. Amanda bonded with her favourite designer, Donna Vercoe, who found stunning feature items and brought the whole concept together to create Amanda’s dream space. 

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We recently moved and I wasn’t really sure what to do with the space so I got the Designbx team to help me out.
My first impressions were genius. I love the set fee for the process, hourly rates make me a bit nervous, I kind of feel like an interior designer might just be strolling around a design centre and just picking up things and I would be paying for it. Whereas this one was just a flat rate and I knew what I was getting at the beginning.
I did the style quiz on the design box website and it turns out I like a style called Scandi. I’d never really knew much about that but I thought that it was fun to identify with something and every image I looked at that was Scandi i went ‘oh that is perfect that is exactly me’.
Using the website was really easy. I took some photos and uploaded them and then the most amazing thing happened. interior designers sent me ideas and incredible layouts of my space and we ended up having about 5 interior designers all with completely different ideas submitting concepts. I might be out shopping and my phone would go beep beep and I would have a notification that we had a new offer or new experience come through from design box about my space. So that was really exciting.
Choosing one of them was really difficult because there were 2 or 3 designs out of the 5 that I loved.
In the end the one that I decided on was a wonderful local lady called Donna and she submitted an image that had some incredible chairs that really caught my eye I looked at it and went I love everything in there and it really speaks to me and it was really my style. Everything she suggested was just bang on.
When an idea came through sometimes I sat with it for a week or a few days. I would have been under a bit of pressure had she been in the room and asking questions I would have gone ‘ooh yes/no’ and made a snap decision.
And there were a few nights I sat on the couch with the pictures and imagined things and having the time and the space of online I just don’t know why you would do it any other way.
I could just check my emails or respond to the team at a time that suited me
The personal shopper service I think it’s an add on service but I don’t think it should be.You couldn’t possibly go out and find these pieces yourself. I looked up online once the pieces were selected and they were much more expensive at a couple of other places that I found with huge lead times. so the shopper service I think was integral to the process so yes definitely tick that box.
I walk in and go ‘it looks like a proper lounge room a really beautiful space’ instead of there just being some isolated pieces of furniture that I just couldn’t bring together. that makes me go wow every time I come in here.
I think the online solution for interior design is so much better than working 1 on 1. It’s innovative because it’s better and I think it’s absolutely where interior design is heading. Why would you pick 1 person when you can have a handful of people all giving you fantastic ideas? It’s a no brainer for me.

"My first impressions were: genius! I took some photos and uploaded them and then interior designers sent me incredible layouts of my space. The Personal Shopper service, I think it’s an add-on service but I don’t think it should be. You couldn’t possibly go out and find these pieces yourself. The online solution for interior design is so much better. Why would you pick one person when you can have a handful of people all giving you fantastic ideas?" — Amanda

A beautiful transformation:

Before:

After:

Project details:

Budget$1,000 - $2,999
Location Mona Vale, Sydney
Styles Coast, Scandi
Package Lounge - $399

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