A Sydney-based design studio is proving that bringing children into a home does not require sacrificing aesthetic integrity. Through thoughtful curation and uncompromising craftsmanship, Nuage Interiors is rewriting the rules of modern family living.
It started, as many domestic revolutions do, with a search for a chair.
When Najah Baroudi was pregnant with her first son, she set out to find a specific piece of furniture for the impending nursery: a bouclé rocking chair. She did not want a generic, overly padded recliner that screamed "baby store," nor did she want something purely rigid and architectural that would punish a sleep-deprived parent at 3:00 AM. She wanted a piece sophisticated enough to belong seamlessly in the home she and her partner had spent years carefully curating.
She couldn’t find it.
The marketplace, she quickly realized, operated under a rigid, unspoken segregation. On one side were adult-centric, high-design interiors defined by clean lines, rich textures, and sophisticated palettes. On the other side was the world of children’s furniture: primary-colored plastics, whimsical shapes engineered for a fleeting developmental window, and practical utility that utterly ignored visual harmony. It seemed the market had decided that "nursery" and "home" were two entirely different languages, forcing new parents to choose fluency in only one.
That frustration morphed into a conviction, and that conviction eventually became Nuage Interiors.
Main Facts: The Genesis and Philosophy of Nuage
Founded initially in Adelaide in 2021 before relocating its operations to Sydney, Nuage Interiors is a design studio built on a radical premise: family-friendly design should never require aesthetic compromise.
The studio’s name, Nuage—French for "cloud"—is a direct nod to this ethos. It evokes softness, comfort, and lightness, yet it must hold up against the chaotic, high-impact reality of raising young children.
The enterprise is spearheaded by the husband-and-wife duo Najah Baroudi and Fares Al-Sarawi. Their operational division of labor is the kind of complementary pairing that frequently underpins successful boutique design brands:
Najah Baroudi: With a background in media and years spent traveling and absorbing diverse global architectural spaces and ways of living, Najah serves as the creative compass. She brings the aesthetic vision, the intuitive eye, and the curatorial filter.
Fares Al-Sarawi: Trained in pharmacy, Fares found his true operational stride in logistics, business structure, and execution. He turns the abstract creative vision into tangible, deliverable reality.
Behind the scenes, the couple also serves as parents to two young boys—Malik, nearly five, and Hadi, eighteen months. In their own words, their children double as the studio’s most rigorous, unsparing product testers. Every item released by Nuage must pass a singular, uncompromising filter: Does this belong in a home I love?
Chronology: From Adelaide Outpost to Sydney Design Force
To understand how Nuage reached its current standing in the Australian design landscape, it is necessary to trace the trajectory of its founders and the evolving demands of modern parenting spaces.
Pre-2021 (The Conception): Najah Baroudi navigates her first pregnancy, experiencing firsthand the aesthetic disconnect of the juvenile furniture market. Years of international travel and exposure to thoughtful spatial design inform her belief that interiors should evolve with families, not alienate them.
2021 (The Launch in Adelaide): Baroudi and Al-Sarawi officially establish Nuage Interiors in Adelaide. The brand launches with a tightly edited collection aimed at bridging the gap between adult interior design and child-friendly functionality.
2022–2023 (Refining the Craft): The studio develops its signature approach, focusing on materiality, organic shapes, and multi-functional silhouettes. Word-of-mouth spreads rapidly among design-conscious parents weary of temporary plastic furniture.
The Relocation to Sydney: To support a growing operational footprint and tap into Australia’s wider design hub, the studio moves its base to Sydney. Here, the brand scales its output while maintaining a boutique, highly curated ethos.
Present Day: Nuage stands as a beacon for modern family interior styling, heavily anchored by hero pieces like the Arca Table Set, capturing the attention of architectural and lifestyle publications alike.
Supporting Data & The Anatomy of the Arca Table Set
The philosophy of Nuage Interiors is distilled most clearly into a single, masterclass object: The Arca Table Set.
At first glance, the Arca Table Set appears to be a piece of modern minimalist sculpture. Crafted from warm, tactile oak veneer, it consists of a smooth, circular table paired with three curved chairs. However, its true brilliance lies in its spatial efficiency: when playtime, snack time, or art sessions conclude, the three curved chairs slide seamlessly into the frame of the table, entirely disappearing into its silhouette.
The set collapses into a single, clean geometric form, effectively erasing the visual clutter typically introduced by children’s furniture.
Specifications at a Glance:
Material: Premium Oak Veneer with smooth, natural finishes and rounded safety edges.
Configuration: One round table and three nesting chairs.
Target Age Group: 18 months and older.
Dimensions: 468mm (Height) × 970mm (Diameter).
Versatility in the Wild: Customer reviews frequently highlight the table’s dual life. One owner famously uses it as a low-profile living room coffee table, noting that guests routinely fail to realize it doubles as a children’s activity set until it is pointed out.
This is the exact magic trick Nuage set out to perform: creating objects that serve children secondarily, but belong to the room primarily—without either fact undermining the other.
Official Responses and Creative Statements
The cultural resonance of Nuage’s mission is best captured in the voices of its founders, who routinely challenge the outdated paradigms of interior design for growing families.
Reflecting on the psychological turning point that many expecting parents face, Najah Baroudi notes:
"There’s a moment when you’re expecting your first child and the world suggests you choose between a beautiful home and a functional one. We refused that."
This refusal forms the ideological backbone of every piece produced by the studio. According to Baroudi, the ultimate validation does not come from design awards or press features, but from the quiet, lived-in realization of their clients.
When a client steps into their newly styled home and remarks that a Nuage piece "feels like it was always meant to be there," Baroudi’s response is immediate:
"That’s everything. That’s the whole point."
Rather than forcing parents to close the nursery door when guests arrive—hiding away the chaotic visual noise of childhood—Nuage aims to create spaces that remain cohesive, calm, and deeply personal as the family expands.
Implications: The Future of Family-Centric Interior Design
The emergence of studios like Nuage Interiors signals a broader cultural shift in how we view the domestic sphere. For decades, the standard trajectory of home design assumed a linear path: minimalist and sophisticated for young couples, chaotic and compromised for families with children, and eventually refined again once children leave the nest.
Nuage’s success proves that this paradigm is obsolete. Today’s parents—particularly millennials and younger demographics who prioritize intentional living, biophilic design, and sustainable consumption—are unwilling to discard their aesthetic identities the moment they have children.
Key Implications for the Industry:
The Rise of Multi-Functional Micro-Architecture: Furniture like the Arca Table Set demonstrates that children’s items do not need to be disposable or visually loud. By integrating nesting mechanics and sophisticated materials, designers can eliminate spatial clutter.
Material Honesty and Longevity: Moving away from brightly colored plastics and laminated boards toward natural oak veneers, bouclé, and tactile textiles ensures that pieces age gracefully alongside the children who use them.
Parenthood as an Aesthetic Evolution, Not a Retreat: The old narrative dictated that having kids meant hiding your taste behind baby gates and storage bins. Nuage’s philosophy suggests that a home can—and should—accommodate the messy reality of life without sacrificing its soul.
As Nuage Interiors continues to grow from its Sydney base, it offers an inspiring blueprint for makers and designers worldwide. A home does not have to change its identity when a family grows; it simply needs to expand its capacity to hold beauty, function, and life all at once.