The Design Files Talks

Leigh McKeown is the co-founder of Australian furniture and homewares brand ELLISON STUDIOS. In this episode, he reveals the origin story behind the business, and how their pieces have dominated the internet, without ever opening a retail store.

Kicking off a new mini-series interviewing the creatives behind our favourite local brands, today we speak to the founders of much-loved towelling brand, Baina. Best friends and founders Bailey Meredith and Anna Fahey share how they bought a fashion-minded approach to elevate the everyday ritual of bathing.

Engineer, inventor, author and Rewiring Australia founder Saul Griffith is on a mission to ‘electrify everything’ from our homes to our cars, and even entire suburbs. Find out why he says this is the key to urgently reducing our emissions, and how it’ll save the average household money every year.

Tamara DiMattina hasn’t bought anything new for more than 20 years. Instead, she’s been shopping for her clothing, shoes, furniture, and literally everything else, second hand! In this episode, we hear from the founder of Buy Nothing New Month about her sustainability series, The New Joneses, and all her advice for changing your attitude towards excessive consumption.

Landscape architects Joel Barker and Hannah Pannell built their sustainable Perth family home on the smallest possible footprint — in order to save most of their block for the garden of their dreams. Hear why the resulting 110-square-metre home is one of the most energy-efficient properties we’ve ever featured, and how why building small was worth it.

Georgia Frances King and Mete Erdogan are first-time renovators restoring an original 1970s brick veneer home in Melbourne’s north. In this episode, they share the updates they’ve made so far, what they’ve learned from YouTube tutorials alone, and how much it’s all cost!

Melbourne couple Patrick and Ruby Shields bought their first home in Mount Evelyn in 2018. Since then the carpenter and interior designer have landed new jobs, gotten married, but they're still working on their renovation — five years later! Hear why they bought the house when it was essentially a building site, their love of second-hand furniture and why it's taken them so long to complete.

We're back with more renovating stories, and today's episode reveals how TDF Talks host Lucy Feagins and her husband Gordy Johnson transformed their family's Blairgowrie beach shack with a hands-on approach. They speak to producer Christina Karras about the biggest costs, challenges and how they navigated working together on the project as a married couple.

Melbourne organisation Finding Infinity are on a mission to make Melbourne a self-sufficient, sustainable city with its own power, water, and zero waste by 2030. Environmental consultant Will Young tells us how this vision could become a reality!

We kick off our new four-part series on sustainability with this episode featuring Breathe Architecture and Nightingale Housing's Jeremy McLeod! Hear the leading architect's tips for getting into the property market, why affordability and sustainability go 'hand in hand', and so much more.

Listen to our chat with Leigh Ellwood, an experienced renovator and Melbourne interior designer behind some of our favourite home tours — including an apartment in the iconic Beverley Hills building, and a dreamy timber beach house! She shares the words of wisdom she’s picked up after completing 10 renovations in the past 24 years.

The Design Files founder and host Lucy Feagins talks with our art director Annie Portelli about how she ‘accidentally’ ended up renovating her home with a DIY approach and all the lessons she learned along the way.

The Byron Bay-based creative talks to host Lucy Feagins about making the leap from stylist to designer, the value of being an assistant + living in an Instagram world.