About 12 years ago whilst working for a busy kitchen design company I had the realisation that for me personally, working in this industry while trying to create a family /work-life balance would be incredibly challenging. I was also acutely aware I had the skills and drive to work for myself. So simply put, that is what I did. I set myself up with a company name, a logo, a simple website, bloody gst registration and some solid support from my partner and existing relationships in the trade. Off I went and set about doing what I really love. All the while knowing, when the time came if kids were to come along, I’d have the flexibility to schedule work on my terms and work from home to create that balance.
What a ride that has been! I think over the years I have worked on around 500 interior projects, close to 200 of these under my own brand. I’ll try not to get too nostalgic, if you know me, you know I love a good old deep and meaningful chat. But I will say, I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve achieved. I have nurtured my business like it was an actual child. Any small business owner, I’m sure, would agree that running a small business is challenging. Yes, the perks of being self-employed are up there, but the number of hats one must wear in a day is a mind-boggling juggle. And often this doesn’t stop at 5pm or on the weekend.
Celebrated and award winning interior design completed under the trading name In Haus Design.
2012 – 2018 I traded under the name In Haus Design. The joinery company I used at the time allowed me to set myself up with a high-end kitchen showroom at their factory. To this day I am so grateful for this opportunity and the years I spent working with them. This kitchen was then relocated to a showroom in Petone and was eventually sold in 2014 and installed in a lovely home in Hataitai as I awaited the birth of my daughter. 2014 – 2018 were spent juggling what it means to be a partner, a homeowner, a woman who loves her job and now a woman who has a child that she loves like nothing she’s ever loved before, what a mind bend. If you were raised around the 80’s you were no doubt raised and educated to believe that you’re a woman (ROAR!!!), you can do anything and be anything you want to be, but still be all the other things that society says you need to be too. OK, no pressure!
This is a side note and probably a conversation for another day! But there’s more than a cluster of women I know out there who are successful, smart, driven, and high functioning that have fallen into old fashioned, traditional societal norms. They take on far more than 50% of the mental, emotional and day to day load of the family and household as well as trying to uphold their careers. To the men reading this, this is not a slight at you by any stretch, as equally, I think there’s more than a cluster of men who because of the way they were brought up, feel a bit lost as to where they fit with their careers, wanting to provide, as well as wanting to be an equal contributor to the parenting / household balance and not really having the tools to navigate this. But for the purposes of this piece, I’m talking from my own personal perspective.
You are a woman; you can have it all. Go on, have your cake, and eat it too. Let them all eat cake! I don’t know about you, but currently, I have had my cake and I am not fat and happy. I am f**king exhausted.
In 2017 I had a couple of life altering experiences, one much cooler than the other. In a nutshell, the not so cool experience goes as follows. I was trying to be superwoman and do all the things, be all the things, and eat all the cake. A common cold that I ignored manifested into an ear infection then very quickly into bacterial meningitis. It started to affect my brain and I ended up in a coma in ICU at Wellington hospital, unsure what the outcome would be when I woke. Thankfully I am all OK now! Minus a twitch or two 😉. One revelation I had because of this scare is, you CANNOT do it all. Trying to have your cake and eat it too leaves you in a hot sweaty stressed-out mess with indigestion and heartburn. It isn’t pretty. You don’t have to achieve everything all at once.
A kitchen renovation completed during covid in 2022. Hello Home Interiors.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
The cool life altering experience I had though, was this! You can meet people who want to collaborate and join your wild party and come along for the ride. Whilst chatting in the sandpit at our local playcentre I met Brenda (we were with our children, not just two ladies hanging out building sandcastles), she’d just renovated her bathroom and done a bit of a DIY job, I looked at the pics and cast a sideways glance at her and thought, sheesh this lady has some skillzzzz and some style! I asked if she’d like to work with me and from 2017 – 2023 that is what we have done and we have had a bloody blast.
In 2018 came the next collaboration. A vision that with the right people we can achieve many things! Teamwork makes the dream work. This included the reconnection with an old work colleague and friend Hannah and the rebrand to our current name Hello Home Interiors. One skilled lady ready to re-enter the workforce after having her son. We joined forces and became business partners and set out to tackle our huge to do list laced with hopes, dreams and spreadsheets! All whilst working part-time, juggling family life and the household. Hashtag, legends. LOL.
2019 – 2023 – what a ride.
This chapter of Hello Home has been a wild time. And I’ll not do it justice from having to keep it brief. We experienced some incredible highs during this time. Did I mention, all whilst working part time hours around our kids…..#legends 😉
From 3 of us around my dining room table with laptops to 4 of us in a small office in Petone. Enter Morgan in 2021 our talented graduate with an eye for detail, mad rendering, and drafting skills and just a general wise old soul.
Render of a soon to be complete project, by the ever-talented Morgan. Hello Home Interiors.
In a short space of time, we now had a collaborative working environment where Hannah and I could utilise our experience in the industry to develop and manage the business, facilitate and oversee the design work. And Morgan and Brenda could focus on what they love most, being creative and putting together beautiful interiors.
Of course, just as we were starting to gain momentum Covid hit, and we were thrown in and out of lockdowns for what seemed like an eternity. But as we know Covid was good to our industry in many ways (I’m going to completely ignore the shitstorm we all had to deal with). People spent time at home, realised the value and importance of their home environment. They assessed what worked and what didn’t, couldn’t travel or escape their homes so they decided to renovate. Cue a string of amazing projects we were able to work on.
Finishes to reflect the Wellington waterfront view in this apartment renovation. Hello Home Interiors.
At the end of 2021 Hannah and her family received news of an amazing opportunity too good to decline. An international posting to Bangkok with her partner’s job, departing Jan 2022. We are nimble, we are flexible and we are a small but well oiled machine of women dedicated to doing a good job and we can manage this. This was our mantra.
And this is the attitude we embraced throughout 2022. There are definitely some benefits to an integral member of your team working remotely in a different time zone. Hannah had the ability to work predominantly ‘on’ the business and tweak so many of our processes, strategies, spreadsheets 😉 (Hannah loves an excel spready), website, social media, marketing, brand identity, brand guidelines, KPI’s, cashflow, budgeting etc etc this is literally just naming a few things. She is a machine. We were able to schedule video meetings and brief Hannah on designs so she could edit working drawings during her working day, and we’d wake up and like magic a days work was done while we were sleeping. We made the best of a less than ideal situation.
But without lying, 2022 is a year I will quite happily put behind me. A massive change in my personal life and the departure of Hannah to Bangkok meant I spent most of the year operating in survival mode. We delivered some of our most beautiful projects to date during this year and we are really proud of our work. I will forever be grateful for the support I received from my team during a tricky time in my life. They worked hard and gave 110% every day in an industry that appears glamourous on the surface but in reality is super stressful, often working outside their comfort zones. Residential renovations are such a personal, intimate space to operate in, but I’ll not get into that this time.
Which brings me to 2023 and the very complex difficult decision Hannah and I decided to make earlier this year. We love this industry and are very passionate about what we do but we are tired and we need a break. We value our mental and personal well-being and we’d like to take creative leave from operating a small busy business.
Our clients embraced the colour palette and aesthetic we presented for their iconic penthouse apartment. Hello Home Interiors.
To all our industry peers – thank-you for all your endless inspiration and friendships. To all our suppliers, it’s been a blast! Thank-you for all your help, technical advice, and tenacity over the last few years. To the NKBA, thank-you for providing tools, education, networking opportunities and a good sounding platform during a turbulent time in our industry. To our joiner and all our trades, you are machines! Thank-you for doing the hard yards and making our designs a reality. To our clients, thank-you for putting your trust in our experience and expertise, and allowing us to critique your homes and transform them. And lastly to my amazing team. Sheesh this is emotional. Thank-you for challenging me over the last 5yrs, the depth of personal and professional growth is immeasurable, and you have all played a large part in this. Love you ladies.
So, at Hello Home. We are not taking on any new work for the foreseeable future. Hannah continues to reside in Bangkok, Morgan and Brenda will always be part of our family and have found new opportunities. And Joneen, that’s me! I’m winding up all our existing projects and come the end of August this year, I’ll be looking for new and exciting opportunities!
Over and Out. Thanks for all the laughs, and the hard yards.
Joneen and Hannah