Episode Details

Send us your feedback, thoughts or comments!

Helen Lynch and Karyn McRae, co-founders of McRae & Lynch Design, have been in business together for thirty years. They met on the first day of design school, started taking on projects while they were still studying, and have since built one of Sydney's most quietly enduring interior design practices, spanning residential, medical, hospitality, and even cruise ship interiors for Carnival.

In this episode of Build Beautiful, Helen and Karyn share what three decades of partnership has taught them about resilience, reinvention, and charging your worth. It is a conversation about friendship as foundation, the unglamorous parts of building a creative business, and what it really means to design for the long game.

In this episode, we explore:

• How a chance hand wave on the first day of design school became a thirty-year creative partnership
• Helen's path from primary school teaching into interior design, and Karyn's beginnings in architectural drafting at Inscand Design
• What makes a design partnership actually work, and why mutual respect, shared values and morning therapy sessions matter more than rigid role descriptions
• Designing cruise ships for Carnival across five years: dry dock, IMO certification, boiler suits, and being the only women on the ship
• Why they had to rebuild the business from scratch after the cruise ship era ended, and what that humility taught them
• The reinvention behind going back to study during COVID to become registered building designers, and why interior designers still fight for recognition in Australia
• The two-year nudge from their business coach into podcasting, the imposter syndrome that nearly stopped them, and the moment they realised authenticity outperforms polish
• Going on Aussie Build for Channel 9 Life, finding sponsors in six weeks, and what television taught them about being themselves on camera
• Charging your worth: the spreadsheet that changed everything, the twenty percent contingency rule, and why a one hundred percent strike rate means you are undercharging
• What 'build beautiful' means when you have spent thirty years designing for other people's lives, and why the goal is shoulders dropping at the front door

Why this conversation matters

In an industry obsessed with overnight success and polished feeds, Helen and Karyn offer something quieter and rarer: a thirty-year case study in patience, partnership and reinvention. Their story matters now because the path they walked, slow growth, hard pivots, going back to study late, learning to charge what you are worth, is the one most creative business owners are actually on, even if no one talks about it.

About the guests

Helen Lynch and Karyn McRae are the co-founders of McRae & Lynch Design, a Sydney-based interior design and building design practice they have run together for thirty years. Their work spans high-end residential, medical and dental fit-outs, hospitality and clubs, and a five-year body of cruise ship interior work for Carnival. They are also the hosts of Two Gins in a Designer's Perspective, which won Best Design Podcast at the 2025 Australian Podcast Awards, and recently appeared as the design duo on Aussie Build for Channel 9 Life. Both are newly registered building designers, certified to work on Class 2 buildings, an accreditation few interior designers in Australia hold.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

McRae & Lynch Design: mcraelynchdesign.com.au

Instagram: @mcraelynchdesign

Two Gins in a Designer's Perspective podcast (Best Design Podcast, 2025)

Aussie Build, Channel 9 LifeDesign Centre Enmore (formerly the Randwick design school referenced in the episode)

Design Institute