Geelong Interior Designer | Greer Mayberry

Greer Mayberry is a Geelong interior designer known for truly understanding what her clients need and delivering spaces that go further than they thought possible. Warm, collaborative, and with over 20 years of design experience, she works with residential and commercial clients across Geelong, the Surf Coast, and Melbourne.

Wherever I go, a restaurant, a hotel, a bar, I love checking out the bathroom.

The way the bathroom is designed tells me everything I need to know about a place. Whether the tiles were actually chosen or just ordered. Whether the basin is interesting or just there. Whether there are proper hand towels or paper towels from a dispenser. Whether the mirror does something.

For me it's about whether someone thought about the whole experience: not just the front of house, but every part of it. That's what I try to bring to every project. The parts you don't always notice, but you always feel.

I'm also, for the record, a hugger!

How I Got Here

For as long as I can remember, I've been interested in the way a space looks, feels and speaks to you. Even as a kid, re-styling my mother's bookcase over and over, setting the table just right at a friend's dinner party. It was just me. You know that feeling where you walk into a room and your eyes are just so nourished by everything around you that you want to sit down and stay there? That's the feeling I've always been chasing.

I worked in visual merchandising for over 20 years. I'm RMIT trained and spent a long time working across some big Australian retailers. I loved it. And then my son came along, and I found myself looking at everything differently. What did I actually want to be doing? What did I want my work to feel like?

It took a lot of courage, honestly. It's scary to step back from something established. But I completed my Diploma of Interior Design through IDI Australia while he was little, and I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.

My very first project came from a conversation I wasn't expecting. I was getting my makeup done at Blush Bar in Geelong, and the owner stopped and looked at me: "Greer, what are you doing with yourself?" I told her honestly: I wanted to be an interior designer, but I didn't know how to run a business. I didn't even know where to start. And she said, without pausing: "I've got your first project for you."

I'll never forget that moment. Someone just believed in me before I fully believed in myself. And from that first project, I built one client at a time.

What It's Like Working with Me

The first thing I do on any project is listen. Really listen, to what you want, why you want it, how you actually live or work in your space, what matters to you. I want to understand your lifestyle, your family, the way you move through your home, the things that drive you crazy about it right now.

You can come to me with half formed ideas, a big mix of inspiration you can't quite pull together, or honestly no idea where to start at all. I find that's actually really common, and it's completely fine. I love working through it together until things start to click into place.

What a lot of people don't realise until we're into a project is how much goes into it. Every single decision, every single space. The layout of the kitchen, yes, but also where every power point goes, the cabinetry heights, the way the hallway feels when you first walk in the door, the sight line from the couch. I've drawn AutoCAD layouts directly on the wall so the builder and sparky know exactly what needs to go where. On one project I noticed the laundry was positioned in a way that meant walking through the courtyard to get to the clothesline, so we moved it to the other end of the house, freed up the space, and it became a genuinely useful part of the home. It seems like a small thing, but that kind of thinking runs through everything I do.

One of my clients put it really well: "I didn't know how much goes into this." And I think that's it: there are a lot of hours and a lot of decisions that people never see. But that's exactly what takes a project from something that just looks nice to something that really works for your life. And feels like you.

I think that's what my clients appreciate most. They feel heard. They feel like the space we've created together is genuinely theirs, not something I've imposed on them. Because it isn't. It's always theirs. I just help take it further than they might have gotten on their own.

Qualifications and Experience

  • Diploma of Interior Design - IDI Australia

  • Visual Merchandising - RMIT Melbourne

  • 20+ years of professional design experience across visual merchandising and interior design

  • Based in Geelong; working across Geelong, the Surf Coast (Torquay, Barwon Heads, Ocean Grove, Anglesea), and Melbourne

  • Residential renovations, new home builds, whole home redesigns, and commercial spaces (retail, hospitality, offices)

"I had so many different styles and looks in my mind, but I was so utterly confused as to how to narrow things down or where to even start. Yet she calmly takes it all on board, and somehow worked out exactly what I wanted. Without Greer, I would most definitely have made costly purchase mistakes."

— Karyn de Been


Interested in working together? View my projects or get in touch to discuss yours.

info@greermayberrydesign.com | 0439 666 386