Award winning Cullours

Lisa Cull, a Victorian interior designer and the driving force behind Mornington-based company Cullours Interior Design, has building in her blood and a passion for kitchens and bathrooms.

This passion recently secured her the 2007 HIA Kitchen Project of the Year award in her home state of Victoria, and made her a finalist in HIA’s National Housing Awards.

According to Lisa, winning the award has had a hugely positive effect on her business. ‘I have had a lot more enquiries as a result and winning has given me a lot of credibility amongst architects and my peers when leading me to prospective clients,’ she says.

Fuelled in part through growing up with a father in the building industry, Lisa’s passion for the housing industry was realised when she studied interior design as a mature-age student. Since then her career has gone from strength to strength.

‘I worked for a construction company, Marklew Constructions (headed by Brian Marklew, a former president of HIA Victoria) for 15 years and in that time I was also studying marketing and
management,’ Lisa explains. ‘I ended up becoming general manager of Marklew Construction before going out on my own and starting my business.’

In her one-person business, Lisa is busy working on around 15 projects each year, most of which involve kitchen designs. She also continues to work as a consultant for Marklew Constructions, designing around 30 kitchens and bathrooms each year for her former employer. ‘I love doing
kitchens and bathrooms,’ says Lisa. ‘I guess it’s because you can see great results and I love the detail aspect of them – I enjoy being able to detail them and put in special inclusions.’

Her enthusiasm for her work is evident as she speaks easily about the trends she believes are emerging in kitchen design. ‘The biggest change I’m seeing with my clients is a trend towards the old-fashioned butler’s pantry,’ she says. The advantage of this, she adds, is that it is still part of the kitchen but is something clients can close the door on and hide the mess behind.

Lisa attributes this trend to the popularity of the island bench and more people combining their kitchen and casual dining spaces. ‘People tend to have sinks in their island benches and this normally means clutter,’ she explains. ‘When you’re entertaining, the idea of having another sink and being able to shut it away behind doors is appealing to a lot of people.’

Lisa’s kitchens combine convenience and practicality with style and flair through clever use of colours and textures. As demonstrated in her award winning kitchen, Lisa believes a successful kitchen needs an excellent working triangle, plenty of clear bench space and has everyday appliances and equipment within arm’s reach. Most of all, kitchens should be an appealing addition because, as Lisa says, ‘Who wants to cook if you don’t feel compelled to go into your kitchen?’

A signature style of Lisa’s kitchen designs is the use of colours and textures. ‘I use a lot of different textures and I’m not afraid of colour. I like to incorporate the strength of colour to give the kitchen some appeal in the home and I like to mix the textures of perhaps timbers and high gloss in bright finishes to give the warmth of furniture while retaining the cleanliness and sparkle a kitchen should have.’

Like most designers, Lisa enjoys dealing with her clients throughout the design process to ultimately create for them the kitchen of their dreams, but she is conscious of her role in keeping a client’s dream kitchen functional. ‘Most of my customers are focused on style and the overall appearance, and it’s my job to ensure the practical side, while retaining their style,’ she says.

While her award-winning kitchen exudes an effortless feel, Lisa admits that it was difficult to create a kitchen to suit the townhouse’s combined kitchen, living and dining areas. ‘I guess the
biggest challenge when designing this kitchen was to try and make it blend into that area without it looking toocommercial, while ensuring it still looked striking,’ she says. ‘The residents have beautiful views of the water and the kitchen placement and design also work
so that the chef has an outlook to the view virtually the whole time they’re in
the kitchen.’

Lisa plans to open a kitchen and bathroom business of her own with a shopfront and showroom, and to branch out from the interior design work she currently undertakes from her home office. Driving her designs is her love of a challenge. ‘I strive to produce striking results that are going to be convenient and easy for my clients to live with,’ Lisa says, ‘and I plan to challenge the industry all the time with new ideas and designs.’