Donielle & Blair’s Blissful, Sunlit Home
Tucked amongst the trees in a distinguished suburb on Auckland’s picturesque North Shore is where you’ll find the home of Donielle Brooke, founder and Creative Director of Designer Wardrobe, and partner Blair Konik, residential Real Estate Agent at Harcourts Cooper and Co.
Credits
Finding your perfect home is no walk in the park, more often than not it takes hard work, dedication and perseverance. For first-time home buyers Donielle and Blair, the journey involved six long months of online searching and open-homes, coupled with scrupulous saving and “living off $5 soups”. With their sights and hearts set on the North Shore, the couple’s search eventually paid off when they found their “perfect home”, a sunlit, comfortable two-bedroom unit overlooking a large, leafy backyard. While petite, the home ticked all the boxes for the young couple.
"Rather than moving to another part of Auckland for a bigger home, we downsized and found our (small) dream home. If location is important, don't be afraid to downsize. Everyone is different but we feel like we made the best choice, we love that our unit is surrounded by bush and a walk away from the beach and loved ones."
No stranger to hard work and dedication, Donielle founded Designer Wardrobe in 2013, while taking time off work to fight thyroid cancer. What initially started as a Facebook group, grew to become a leading online marketplace for women to buy, sell and rent clothing. Donielle’s impeccable style and flair for design (she is Creative Director for Designer Wardrobe and oversees all art direction for the business), permeates through all elements of her home. The light-reflecting colours, muted tones, soft textures and white oak finishes all pay testament to the entrepreneur’s love of elevated yet minimalist interior design. “Beachy tones and textures make the heart sing,” says Donielle. The couple have added their personal touches to the property, creating a home that’s small yet intentional, and filled with treasured keepsakes, “We have a mix of furnishings; things I owned while flatting, things we purchased new, some furniture that was kindly given to us by friends and family, plus a few amazing gifted items from brands we’ve partnered with, like our new cabinet,” Donielle shares with us, reflecting on how her unique decorating style has evolved. To complement the decor scheme in their living area, the couple purchased a Nebraska Rug in Natural White from Flooring Xtra for their home.
Despite initial plans to keep renovations to a minimum, one of the first upgrades the couple made to the property was to replace the old, worn-out carpet in the bedrooms with fresh new Wools of New Zealand Fernvale carpet from Flooring Xtra.
"I landed on Wools of New Zealand Fernvale carpet in the colour 'Glenquoich'... The colour is softer and more lustrous than our old carpet, while still practical for every day. It's also 100% wool, so it feels lovely and warm."
"I'm a big supporter of shopping local and I love that both Wools of New Zealand and Flooring Xtra are New Zealand owned brands. I've also resolved to make more positive shopping choices with less harmful impacts on our people and the planet - aside from having a great range of products, part of the reason why I chose Wools of New Zealand carpet was due to their commitment to seeing their wool produced with low environmental impacts. They have numerous programmes in place to ensure accountability, traceability and animal welfare which is so important. Plus I love that my carpet's been grown here in New Zealand."
With their new carpet down and the bedrooms finished off, Donielle and Blair were content and well-settled into their home. That was until one evening, when fate intervened and following a small flood, the couple realised they had to replace the existing flooring throughout the main living areas. “The flood occurred in our bathroom and unfortunately spilled into our hallway, where it damaged the floor. It was going to be near impossible to match new flooring for the hallway to our existing flooring in the lounge and dining areas, so we decided to replace the flooring throughout instead.”
The main challenge for the couple was finding a laminate floor that was both practical and hard-wearing (a water-proof surface was also a must), while also comparable in style, tone and design to their previous flooring, which Donielle had fallen in love with. Cue a trip to Flooring Xtra North Shore, where Donielle collected samples and spoke to the team about her situation, and what products to consider. After weeks of deliberation, comparing samples to her existing flooring, her furnishings, at different times of day and under different light sources, Donielle found the perfect solution in Quick-Step Perspective Nature laminate in Brushed Oak Natural “We really wanted something that wasn’t too cool or too warm. This flooring was the best tone for that – sometimes the sun hits it, and it warms up, and other times it looks quite ashy… I enjoy seeing it in all lights and times of day.”
"While it was stressful at the time, once it was complete we felt it was a blessing in disguise as our new flooring is so beautiful."
How did Flooring Xtra help you during this process?
From the moment we reached out to Flooring Xtra we felt so looked after. It started when we went into the store and picked out the colours and flooring we liked - the sales team were so well educated on each type of product and also very honest. From there, we had home visits where they gave us further helpful advice, such as the suggestion to remove the tiles in our kitchen so the laminate could flow throughout. Before installation day they sent us all the information we needed, so we could prepare and plan (my dad is a builder and installed the flooring for us). We couldn't be happier with the process.
Has your new flooring changed your home and if so, how?
Yes! It has made a HUGE difference. Our home looks more high-end, stylish - it has given us the look we wanted. We couldn't have imagined such a difference.
What are your favourite things about your home?
We love that our home sits amongst beautiful trees, it's very sheltered and private. It feels calm and relaxing, like a little sanctuary. We decided to style it with this feeling in mind. It's our little place of peace close to the beach and our loved ones.
Where do you shop for your homewares?
I love Danske Mobler, Ornament, Superette home, Citta Design, and Kindred Road.
What’s next in store for your home and do you have any future projects in the pipeline?
We’ve finished renovations on the inside of our home, so the next step is to focus on the outside. We have a huge backyard and parts of it are not that glam, so we want to add value there. We are getting married this year so that is our main focus… But with both of us having builders for Dads and tradies in the family, we’re hopeful we can make it happen!
