Cool couple Alana Broadhead and Warren Fryer, with Buddy Broadhead-Fryer (age 3, Jack Russell Terrier), run the successful ‘Sunday’ home and lifestyle retail store in Waihi Beach. Alana is the talent behind one of New Zealand’s foremost interior blogs, The New. With this same discerning eye, the most beautiful, quality pieces are curated at Sunday, making it one of our favourite home stores to shop at. When expanding into their bigger showroom, new flooring was required for the fit out. Here we follow along on the journey to create the new space.

01 — How would you best describe Sunday?

Through our retail store at Waihi Beach and our online store we share ‘goods for good living’ – aesthetically beautiful homeware and lifestyle products that elevate the everyday. We stock some of our favourite international brands, but our focus is on New Zealand designers and makers – because some of the world’s best contemporary design comes from right here at home. We also produce our own inhouse products, and collaborate on Sunday exclusives.

02 — What was the vision for your store fit out?

Our brand is about designing a home - and a life – that brings the pace, beauty, and vibe of a Sunday into your everyday, so I wanted our space to reflect this, with a feeling of lightness and simplicity, and a sense that time has slowed down when you step inside the store. The overall look of the space needed to reflect the Sunday brand – which is refined, but relaxed.

03 — Why was it important to create a design led experience for your clients?

One of the underpinning values of Sunday is our belief in the power of design to elevate your life. We believe that what you choose to surround yourself with can make all the difference to how you live, and how you feel. We also believe in slowing down and simplifying. And for quality over quantity - less, but better. So we want to give our customers a little taste of that ethos when they’re spending time in our store.

04 — How did you come to select the flooring for your new store?

We knew right off the bat that we wanted laminate – it’s the next best thing compared to real timber floorboards, but delivers lots of other practical pluses, too – including being scratch resistant, which is hugely important for a retail space with high footfall. I zeroed in on the oak-style options (of which Flooring Xtra have loads) and then narrowed those down to the ‘beach blondes’ that had a balance of being light, yet warm. I didn’t want to go so light that the floor was ashy or grey… nor too warm that it had a golden hue. The Quick-Step Creo in Virginia Oak Natural was one of the lightest oaks, but it has this very lovely subtle undertone of pink.

We painted a piece of MDF with our store interior colour (Dulux Okarito) and took that into our local Flooring Xtra, so we could see the flooring swatches butted up against the actual wall colour we’d be using. I also moved them around the showroom including right in the doorway - to see how everything looked under LED lights versus in natural sunlight. I also took photos of all those scenarios, so I could re-visit them later, with fresh eyes.

Credits
Who: Sunday Homestore
Where: Waihi Beach, Bay of Plenty
Instagram: @sundayhomestore
Photographer: Olivia Pitcher