My career started as a fashion designer at 20 and I travelled the world - Paris, London, New York and in doing so learnt to evaluate what was the best from all on offer. While it was work hard, play hard - it was great training as hard work always is. I also became a world class schmoozer.
I married and soon became a Mum at 25. I was introduced to the building industry through my husband who had been in the building trade for many years and had built up a successful business. I soon gave up the cocktail parties (which was hard) but decided a new tact was required to be able to do something whilst being closer to the family, while still satisfying my creative flair but with a bit more bash and crash.
It started in creating custom made French styled furniture (before it was popular) and sold the designs to retail shops. In the midst of two more babies, I began renovating and design work for friends which turned into a business after so many great referrals.
There was a time on a building site in Mosman, pregnant with No. 2, in the King Gee overalls and being so morning sick that every pocket was stuffed with Milk Arrowroot biscuits to stop me from throwing up on the job. A big macho builder insisted the wall was not crooked, but despite my foot stature, and being sick and pregnant, he did not succeed in intimidating me and I told him in no uncertain terms that the whole wall was coming down and he was re-doing it from scratch, and this time he was doing it right.
While always being involved in things that people haven’t tried before or have occurred as too hard for others it never really seemed to put me off. I once did a floor in one of my own homes inspired from a trip overseas I was convinced I could do a mosaic with my favourite colours of marble. So I crushed up her favourite marble into small bits and proceeded to lay an incredible mosaic bathroom floor in swirls with a deco/nouveau pattern which looked fabulous.
As with all things in life, just when you think you’ve got your life set and organised, things change. My perfect dream house that I had always wanted in Sydney with a perfect large garden and chooks was not meant to be and at 34 I did the dutiful wife thing and followed my husband to support him in a business venture in Brisbane.
I cried for 2 weeks beforehand and 6 months after I got there to leave friends and family, but I loved the country life and wanted to wear the big coulee hat and not get my legs waxed. I had also become a passionate landscape designer and saw it as an opportunity to create on a much larger scale.
We found the 10 acres outside of Brisbane with a really ugly two bedroom shack on it. We moved in with the view to create the dream – “Paradou.” The shack was 5m by 20m. The best part was the verandah we put on, which doubled the size of the house. The kids were 9, 6 and 4. I had this stupid idea that we would spend all of our time outside in the beautiful weather and it would be warm and balmy and tropical and lush, the reality was that you couldn’t sit outside because it was so hot and all the bugs and moths would breed and attack you. The temp in the hot months meant all the food would go off fast and the condensation would drip from the windows. Spotting the family dog that had just swallowed a cane toad, we would down a glass of red and run over to shove a hose down its mouth to wash out the poison.
When I needed to frock up I still had the best collection from my days in the rag trade. I remember tiptoeing across the paddock to the big metal shed which housed my evening wear collection and some very expensive Feragamo shoes. When I opened the drawer where they were, first thing was the smell that hit me – the pungent smell of rat urine. As I looked into the drawer, I noticed all the tissue paper was fluffy and as I moved the box there were these little pink baby rats nestled amongst my shoes. Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot left of my shoes. But, there’s always a bright side to any story, and my daughter Francesca, loving the country life insisted on bringing them into our shack of a home where she made special Barbie beds for them (in pink, of course) and made little blankets so they would stay warm. I really couldn’t believe that after a week, with no food or water, those things were still alive. One day after school they had “gone” and my story was that they had gone to live a lovely life out in the countryside.
Upon reflection, that time living in the shed with the isolation, no corner shop, few stylish options and being right on top of each other, it was a great time to be together as a family and instil our values into our children. We led a really simple life living in the compound” as we called it. The children had to make their own fun and actually get along with each other. Our time in the country is what we as a family reminisce about the most.
The dream started with our building of our French farm house about 2 years later. It began with a very large “Drott” on the site to do the earthworks and I created all the levels for the landscaping and the house keeping my vision in mind. After 8 months in building and hearing the words “no worries” a million times, it was finished. Quite different to everything in Queensland I had painted the timber windows and had no built in kitchen cabinets and everyone thought I was mad. I had worked with Qld cement to colour the concrete slab which looked fabulous and became a feature that looked like antique stone floors. All the internal walls were rendered concrete but we added coloured oxides, and the “red room” as we called it, I did by throwing in raw oxide while the guys trowelled it onto the walls. The men were completely red at the end of each day. The end result gave the look of red velvet and was my favourite room.
So here I am digging potatoes from my veggie garden, having chook eggs hatch on the kitchen bench before the school run, having a wonderful time driving the little Kobodo tractor – when things changed. My husband had built such a good business, that we became the target of a takeover which unscrupulously starved us of sales over a two year period until we could no longer meet our debts. We then had to sell to another leading Australian company for a fraction the business’ value. In the process, we lost our dream home.
Out on the street, what to do? Stay in Qld where it’s cheaper, or return to our friends and family in Sydney even though the cost of living was so much higher? My decision was really based around the fact that I really needed friends and family for support and even after 5 years I still felt very alone in Queensland and still hadn’t found a girlfriend that I could vent to.
Determined to protect the kids, nothing was said. I flew down to Sydney to see what our housing options were. With the support of family and fabulous friends we licked our wounds for 2 years whilst launching our new businesses. We lived in a rented house in Sydney where the ceiling leaked over the stove, but we were together as a family. Our parents helped out with the school fees and the kids didn’t think about it too much and as long as they were happy, things seemed OK. I remember looking at properties to buy with my youngest who was about 9 or 10 and we looked at this really ugly red brick house (with lots of potential) and as we got back into the car he said, “Mum, are we poor? Nobody told me!” I just said that we had been a bit flasher in the past.
I launched Max Your Home originally as an interior design and property styling business – you know, one of those crazy girls who does a makeover in a day. I featured on a few TV shows and went on to open my first retail shop and show room in Hunter’s Hill NSW, specialising in everything from made to order French furniture and eclectic items, a treasure trove really. So now after the many different hats that I have worn and the wealth of information that I have been able to gather I have established the unique directory called www.maxyourhome.com.au which is my little black book of the best goods, suppliers and services in the country. This allows me to share efficiently who the best people in the business are in my experience. It’s also a great way of helping our readers with expert advice about products and design and building solutions. It’s like reading a glossy magazine and seeing amazing things but also being able to buy the goods and have them delivered to your door! No more looking up stockists. We even run teleconferences where you can phone in and ask and receive advice about all sorts of topics. How can I ?…
I felt a great need to build a trusted community and felt that people and services should assist and support each other instead of locking it away as a trade secret. I want Max Your Home to continue to grow with people assisting me by sharing with me their own special people who supply them fabulous goods or services.
Every day I feel so good when I discover another person who supplies something brilliant and I have finally found a special niche where I can help people.
During that last few years I have been actively involved in using my skills for property investments and Reno’s, I have travelled to small country towns and had the opportunity to meet salt of the earth people. My last project was a block of 4 units that we did over in 4 weeks new kitchens and bathrooms, pretty much new everything for under $25K each. They previously rented at $110 each and now return $300 each, not bad for a purchase price of $250 K. Hard work but also a lot of fun and great financial returns. It can be done, like everything if you know how!
I am a truly fortunate woman to have so many opportunities and to now have the skills, confidence and knowledge to move forward doing what I am passionate about and to meet amazing people.
Finally I am a wealthy woman
