Feeling over formula.

Her own apartment is a case study in that philosophy. Set within a 1920s Spanish Missionary-style building, the space had sat on the market for months, close to being withdrawn altogether - its layout was the problem. McElroy's solution was structural: the kitchen moved to the front, a compact bedroom carved from the leftover space, a new bathroom, and a living, dining and kitchen area unified into one generous room. The bones of the building - the high ceilings, the Haussmannian proportions - were leaned into, not fought against.

Lighting, for McElroy, is where a space either works or doesn't. "We don't want to have to put on a downlight," she explains - the aim, always, is something closer to a moody bar than a lit room; glowy, considered, alive at any hour.

That sensibility, she says, is shaped by the city itself. Sydney's topography, its light, its appetite for indoor-outdoor living - all of it filters into how she designs. "Everything's possible in Sydney."

But it's the personal layer that finishes a home, in McElroy's view: scent, florals, the books stacked on a table that mean something to the person who chose them. "A welcoming apartment needs - layers of things that feel like the person that lives there." It's a fitting note to end on, in a home that feels, unmistakably, like hers.

Discover more from Smac Studio, at smacstudio.com.au.