Inside the crazy, colourful home of designer, author and artist Rachel Burke

Under a cascading display of ribbons, Rachel Burke is stitching together an outfit of neon tulle. The designer, author, artist and self-confessed “craft-aholic” juggles her personal creations with equally fantastic client projects – along with her six-year-old son’s school drop-offs and pick-ups.

“I’m all over the shop, always spinning around,” she says. “Years ago, I saw a psychic in New York and she said to me, ‘Oh my gosh, you like to do all the things, and you probably can just do them all,’ and I was like, ‘Thank you!’”

Burke has dressed Harry Styles, Cate Blanchett and Beyonce’s children, written craft books and kids’ books (and then turned the latter into musical theatre), and travelled extensively with Airbnb as a stylist and decorator.

Each eye-catching garment, plot-line and mood board has been conceived in her bowerbird nest of a studio on the ground floor of a Queenslander in Brisbane’s Gordon Park.

“I often get an email saying, ‘Can we get in touch with Rachel Burke’s team?’ and I’m like, ‘I am the team!’” she says, laughing.

“Or they’ll be like, ‘Where is your LA showroom?’ And I just love the cheekery of this suburban home studio where all this stuff is happening and it’s just me working away.”

There are occupational hazards, though. The garage is “completely non-functional” thanks to Burke’s “larger sculptural works”, and she did turn one of the bedrooms into a (now, bursting) wardrobe.

That said, she is well aware that the “hoarder’s paradise vibe” of the ground floor doesn’t bode so well for family life upstairs.

“I’m a big personality and I love my colour,” she says. “But I’m really conscious that I live with my husband Tom and my kiddo, and I don’t want to be ramming my aesthetic at them.

The family moved to the 100-year-old house in 2021 under what Burke suggests were serendipitous circumstances. Her mum had seen the place online and texted through the details and, fortuitously, it was a five-minute drive from their home, and the open for inspection was about to start.

“It was a raw canvas and maybe not to everybody’s taste,” Burke says. “But as soon as I walked in, I was like, ‘Oh my God, high ceilings, character, vibe,’ and I loved that it had been owned by an artist. I was just like, ‘This is our house; this is it.’”

The layout, with its cosy, semi-connected rooms, suited the family well, with a sunroom entrance at the front flowing easily through to the living and dining area and then the kitchen at the back.

The three bedrooms and music room (where the family band Trumpet now rock out) could be made private via lovely period glass doors. Burke had them moving in already.

So, it came as a shock when the family didn’t land the property during agent negotiations.

“I couldn’t wrap my head around it,” Burke says. “I feel like a very intuitive person, a bit ‘woo-woo’, and I just had this feeling it was our house.”

In the days that followed, on the way to school or when running errands, Burke would wriggle her “curse fingers” at the house just as she did when jinxing her sister in childhood games of Monopoly. When Monday morning rolled around, the agent called back.

“I got a call saying that the other people’s financing hadn’t worked out, which all sounded a bit mysterious,” Burke says gleefully. “My magical work had succeeded in my real-life Monopoly game, too!”

Burke says the focus of the last few years has been “boring but real-life stuff” like rewiring and reroofing the old house. “Now, finally, it feels like a luxury to start to think, ‘Do we want a paprika [coloured] kitchen?’”

For now, the interior has been neutralised and brightened with white paint, providing an almost gallery-like backdrop for her many collected trinkets, treasures and artworks.

“I don’t want to counteract the charm of the house by forcing it or giving it some sort of fun house energy,” Burke says. “Being a bit of a bowerbird, I find that having a neutral base allows me curate these little bits – no matchy-matchy equals harmony.”

Pops of colour abound. Among the many delightful articles are her son’s novelty car collection, framed photos of the couple’s auras, an orange vase by resin artist Kate Rohde and paintings by Amalia Keefer and Minna Gilligan.

Kids’ drawings sit alongside professional works and keepsakes from family travels.

“I’m a real believer in not forcing a collection of art,” Burke says. “Our living room has a real collection that is ever getting added to from our holidays, our son’s art and pieces we fall in love with.”

It would be remiss not to mention other special collections, although Burke jokes she considered hiding the stuffed toys that swamp the window seat in the main bedroom before Domain came to visit.

“I was like, ‘Should we get rid of this because it’s going to make us look insane?’” she laughs. “They are all the toys that we have won in claw machines, because we’ve got very good at it over the years!”

Other “unhinged” items worthy of note are her various spooky dolls and an immense collection of miniature ceramic dogs, which are being hoarded for her upcoming musical fashion show.

“I really believe if you have a studio, you must build little shrines to the things you love as inspiration,” she explains.

It’s here, surrounded by an army of goggle-eyed creatures, the glint of tinsel and a kaleidoscope of swatches, that Burke starts her day keeping a journal with much-loved sausage dogs Heide and Juno by her side.

When she’s off duty, you will find Burke in her local cafe sipping coffee or champagne, depending on the hour, or down at the local BMX track with her son.

Whatever the occasion, you can bet there will be colour, and likely polka dots and ribbons on full display.

“At the end of the day, I’m still a mum in suburbia, but I like subverting that through the things I make – the mundane can be magical, and we hold that power.”