Testimonials

Nicola worked tirelessly with us to help transform our rather old and run down kitchen into one that is modern, functional and well suited to the needs of a growing family. We had a reasonably small area to work with and fairly firm ideas on the look and feel from the outset.

Nicola listened to all of our requirements and threw a few brilliant ideas of her own into the mix, resulting in a warm and contemporary feel and a layout which maximizes the available space. She was so easy to communicate with and seemed to ‘get’ what we were after. Nicola’s attention to detail is a real asset and her vast experience meant that she was adept at managing our expectations through the design, build and installation processes.

We absolutely love our new kitchen and are more than happy to recommend Nicola to our friends, family and beyond.

Nicola has helped us to transform our kitchen, not once, but twice! Both times she has listened carefully to our requirements and offered great ideas which maximised the available space and maintained the ‘feel’ we were after. In both instances Nicola worked well with the architects and builders, and helped us to navigate our way through the process without any major hiccups. We would thoroughly recommend Nicola to our friends, family and beyond.

Nicola was so approachable and nothing ever seemed to be a problem for her, from changing appointments to changing designs! She listened to my brief, needs and how our family operated and she worked within those parameters, while still contributing innovative design suggestions.

I absolutely love my kitchen and never look at another and wish I had that. It functions extremely well and there isn’t anything I would consider a design fault or impractical. There are features in the kitchen I would never have thought of and an attention to detail which has realty made a difference in the final product.

With Nicola I was able to explore many different design options until we settled on the one that worked best in the space and would function for our family. As we have a character home I was quite specific about some things and I think the result was fantastic and reasonably timeless.

A huge thank you to Nicola who was a major part of the final outcome.

Our brief to Nicola was for a kitchen that suited our new build, a large shed in a paddock surrounded by native bush.

The interiors were to be dark, industrial and with a bit of glamour. It was to be different from the contemporary suburban kitchen and living space she had designed for us some years earlier.

Nicola’s initial concept plan was right on track. The combination of wood, black steel and mesh were perfect for the look we wished to achieve. The hanging cupboards were immediately recognised as a way of bringing the nature outside, in.

Having worked with Nicola before we knew the kitchen would function well so the challenge was to retain what we liked about the look within cabinetry building constraints and products available, the stage she calls a process and evolution.

We love all aspects of our kitchen especially the way ambient and installed lighting changes the look throughout the day and night.

We engaged Nicola to design the kitchen and scullery for our new home on the North Shore. Throughout the process Nicola showed an unfailing commitment to our project and to us as clients. She patiently worked with us on our ideas and honestly shared her opinion and feedback. Nicola was incredibly methodical and her attention to every element of our plans was meticulous. Her involvement in the early stages of our build meant any issues affecting the kitchen dimensions were identified early and resolved easily.

Nicola brought our plans to life through her well established manufacturing and supplier relationships. She ensured quality, in terms of the materials and final product, was never compromised. We have an incredibly functional kitchen that is a real pleasure to be in. It is also a kitchen that visually complements the open plan design of our house.

Nicola always delivered on time and with full communication throughout the project. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Nicola and would be delighted to work with her again should the opportunity arise.

Nicola’s professional expertise has been invaluable with our recent kitchen renovation.

She produced an innovative design, was meticulous in her functional detail and ever patient in incorporating our preferences in the process.

Her diligence and skill created a kitchen that we are extremely happy with.

We have no hesitation in recommending Nicola.

Having worked with Nicola on my first kitchen renovation, I was delighted to hear that she had returned from overseas when I came to do my second.

I had some ideas of the general look – granite type, cupboard style etc. Nicola listens and refines problem areas while suggesting things I would never have thought of. For example – for the initial conceptual layout plans she drew the way I had imagined it would be, and also came back with a radically different layout.  We went with her layout and I am delighted and very pleased I did. She achieved a timeless but modern and graceful kitchen which is very practical and suits the style of the house beautifully.

Nicola is lovely to work with and very professional, and I have no hesitation in recommending her.

I am delighted with the end result of my kitchen. Nicola’s design blends into our classical home. It is sophisticated and extremely functional.

Nicola is a warm, friendly, interested designer who listens to the client and has great ideas to assist with the overall outcome.

I am very happy to recommend Nicola as a top designer. The project went very smoothly with Nicola’s assistance.She has done an excellent job.

I would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to Nicola for the wonderful job she did for us in making sure our Kitchen in our new home was what we wanted and expected.

After having some concept plans of the kitchen drawn up by our Architect, as part of our new home plans, I sat down with Nicola to work out what design and plan would best suit our needs and look good at the same time.  She was very thorough on knowing what works best in a kitchen layout and listened to what our requirements were.

The style and finish of the Cabinetry was a very important part for me and the results we achieved were excellent.  Nicola was very accommodating to find the particular handles that I wanted for the cabinetry  and  her suggesting to have a White Gloss Laquer finish,  was the best decision I made.  I was also mindful of having a certain finish on the cabinetry,  so that look would be timeless and not date quickly.  Which I think we have achieved .

Our kitchen is very much the focal point in our living spaces and after always wanting a large kitchen, with a large island for everyone to sit around, that is what we got, thanks to Nicola.

We love our kitchen and would not hesitate to ask Nicola again in the future, for her help and expertise to design  another kitchen.

We are very happy with our new kitchen and the design you came up with for us. It has transformed our quite basic kitchen to a kitchen that has the wow factor.  When our friends come around they are just amazed with the transformation.

We appreciate the time and effort you spent with us, and in particular your patience working in with me as I am one that cannot visualise the end result. I can truly say the end result is fantastic and would be happy to recommend you to any of our friends thinking of a new kitchen.

Nicola McCormack from Designs by Nicola came to us by recommendation and we would not hesitate to recommend her to others.

Our kitchen, in the very centre of our home, needed form and function supporting two amateur but enthusiastic cooks and two complacent teenagers.

In our first meeting Nicola listened and answered questions (arguably the most sought after attributes in any designer). She returned days later with a progression of her thoughts in draughtsman detail, each in keeping with the original brief and each with considered options that could be explored. She solicited feedback and offered recommendations and insight where it was asked for and needed.

She then worked through preliminary plans with elevations before finalising a kitchen with us that captured our practical needs as well as our love for timeless design.

The result is a kitchen that really works for us and is the envy of our friends. The spaces are workable and storage ingenious. The materials and look are exactly in keeping with the pictures we had in our heads at the beginning, but are so much better.

Through Nicola we have achieved a kitchen we could not possibly have accomplished on our own.

We attribute that to her communication, openness to change, design expertise, fastidious attention to detail and complete accuracy in measurement and planning.

Nicola coordinated the whole process from concept to completion, sourcing quotes for construction from which we could choose and conduction quality audits through the process.

She was professional, caring, empathetic and supportive.

We would not hesitate to work with her again and are extremely confident in recommending her to others for the design and build of a quality, timeless, functional and great looking kitchen.

Nicola, like so many highly capable designers prefers pencil when developing her designs. Being from design backgrounds ourselves we naturally expected our kitchen designer to come up with ideas a step ahead of those which we ourselves might think of.

Our brief was for a design that gave plenty of space for three people to prepare food and ample space for laying out a large buffet. These requirements turned out to be a challenge, particularly as our existing kitchen features windows on two walls, some floor to ceiling, which appeared to limit design options. A further requirement was for a contemporary design with visual impact to blend with the character of our architect-designed ‘70s home.

Nicola was resourceful and responsive to all the points we raised which made for productive and enjoyable sessions all along. The design we agreed features a generous island unit that we at first thought there was insufficient space for, but following Nicola’s calm insistence, we went ahead and are thrilled to this day how workable it is. Our visitors gasp at the sheer clean lines, and three years on we are still enjoying how well the entire space functions.

Nicola McCormack proved an excellent choice as a person to assist us in developing a plan for renovating our kitchen. She initially listened carefully to our needs and understood the financial resources available for the project. She responded quickly with a number of potential plans indicating pros and cons for each option. We had some tricky constraints but Nicola guided us towards a solution with quotes from two kitchen makers. Once decisions were made we noted the excellent rapport she demonstrated with the kitchen suppliers and their cabinet makers which resulted in a streamlined process and the high quality kitchen we hoped for.

Nicola was attentive to every detail, organized appointments and was present for all the major choices that we needed to make. She was generous with her time, always open to questions and challenges and with her quiet, measured and thoughtful responses was able to move gently persuade us towards a very pleasing outcome.

Our new, modernized kitchen is lighter, less cluttered, more efficient and its timeless simplicity fits extremely well with our more than 100 years old villa.

We have no hesitation in recommending Nicola McCormack.

When we first approached Nicola we had a very definite design for our kitchen in mind. Whilst Nicola drew this she also provided an alternative option for us to consider. This was so clearly a better way to proceed that we quickly abandoned our original plan and went with her design. Nicola incorporated all our requirements and came up with a design that made the best use of the somewhat tricky space available.

Our new kitchen delivers all the things on  our wishlist. It has loads of storage and working space (both lacking in our previous kitchen) and punches above its weight in terms of floor space available. Nicola is very approachable and listened to and incorporated our ideas into the kitchen, whilst adding her design flair and experience. It still feels very much like ‘our kitchen’ that reflects our style and practical needs, but Nicola has enhanced the space and incorporated some really practical and functional features. She was always calm and things were sorted with no bother. She kept in touch with us and we always knew what was happening through-out the design and installation process.

We now have a kitchen that is a real pleasure to work in. There is a place for everything and the storage and other features all have purpose and work seamlessly. The kitchen looks exactly as we hoped it would and suits our house perfectly. We would have no hesitation in recommending Nicola.