Resident of Seddon, your classic tradie, husband, dog lover and needs a new passport.
Travelling, and discovering the inner west
Simone and I met at the local nightclub in Berwick around 2005. After dating for a few years, she gave me an ultimatum – get married or get out. We got married at a pretty young age of 24 and bought a house in Berwick. We renovated the house, fostered a dog short term and had an epiphany.
‘Is this us? We’re not suited to a normal suburban life.’
We didn’t want the standard two-and-a-half kids in the suburbs just now. One day, it may happen but we didn’t want to settle down just yet. We decided to rent out the house and move in with Simone’s mum to save some cash then decided to travel the world. Simone and I have been to 60 countries, but our first stop was London.
For five years, we travelled the world from London. We’d work for a few months then travel for a few months. We’ve been all over Europe, backpacked through every country in Central America, all over Asia, North America and can speak traveller’s French and Spanish. I can order breakfast in those languages! Deux caés s’il vous plait?
Prior to our trip, I was tiling, I did my apprenticeship and have been working since finishing high school. When we were in Europe, I continued tiling. I worked a few weeks in Spain and France, and one of my highlights was working on a bathroom in a 14th Century chateau just outside Bordeaux.
Some of the things I look back on from our adventures overseas are the friendships we made. We got a whole new friendship circle; coincidentally a lot of them are Australian, and many from Melbourne. The biggest highlight was the lifelong relationships we made.
We came back to Melbourne in 2015. We couldn’t handle living out in the suburbs and the daily commute so decided to move nearer to the city. We knew Richmond and surrounds, purely just from our pub-crawling days. Simone was working in Hawthorn at the time, so we decided to move to Hawthorn. From Hawthorn, we really got to know inner Melbourne and realised how similar it is to a lot of large European cities and we fell in love with it.
When our lease ended, we were open to moving to all parts of Melbourne. Moving to Yarraville – or the West – was more about affordability, but also an opportunity to discover a part of Melbourne we didn’t know about. I grew up in Berwick, which is a completely different part of Melbourne. In fact, I wouldn’t even call it part of Melbourne!
One weekend, we dropped over to Yarraville to meet friends of ours and had breakfast at the Cornershop. While we were there, we saw the kids playing in the gardens, noticed people bringing drinks to the garden and got the vibe of the village. It was a sunny day as well, and breakfast turned to lunch. We were hooked, so the house hunting began. It’s so different from Hawthorn. A big thing about the West is the multiculturalism, and it’s proud of its working-class past.
I’m a Richmond supporter and have enjoyed an amazing last 18 months and in doing so have read up all about the premiership and history. It got me thinking about when the Bulldogs won the Premiership, so I began reading up about the Bulldogs, Footscray, about the community, and the people working and living here.
The inner west gives you the family feel without being out in suburbia. We moved to Seddon and rented in one of the new townhouses to get a feel of the area. We thought, even if we didn’t like the area, at least the house was nice. It’s situated in one of those back alleys in Seddon, and it had a grungy feel to it. When we felt comfortable and at home, we moved to a new rental, an old weatherboard that was directly across the road!
When we decided to buy, we looked around Seddon and it was crazy money. When we looked at Kingsville, we realised the different postcode made it a little cheaper. We ended up buying a 70s townhouse along Geelong Road and renovated it ourselves. We were going to move into it, but we thought it was too small and decided to rent it out, and stayed in our place in Seddon.
We’ve been lucky with landlords, who allow us to have dogs. We have two dogs – a Westie named Thistle and a miniature schnauzer called Ludwig.
Bespoke and the colour pink
Since we moved into the inner west, my brother and his girlfriend, Tom and Jayde – who were living in Brighton – have moved to Newport. We’ve had friends moving from Elwood to West Footscray, and others living in the East finding a home in the West. We are all people in our mid-30s, looking to start a family.
Simone and I have been trying to have a family but without any success. We were trying for nearly two years then discovered she has endometriosis, after a visit to the specialists, she’s since had two surgeries recently, to try and address this.
Bespoke Bathrooms started in 2015 when I was still in Hawthorn. A lot of my work was and still is located there. I started the business before we went to Europe, and it was the right thing to do.
I had been with my previous employer for seven years and was sick of making him look good. I was training up all his apprentices and running a lot of the jobs. Although I was getting paid a wage, I thought “Why not do it myself?” At least everything I do is for me.
I also get a sense of pride in everything I do. People know it’s me, and I make sure I spend the time to do it. I’d rather do that than being told to ‘go to another job!’. When you work for other people, you can’t really spend 45 minutes chatting about the weekend with clients but in my business, getting to know the client helps me to understand exactly what their needs are. The business is at the stage where I’m busy all the time – I’m booked up for the rest of the year.
Why Bespoke? Bespoke means ‘Tailor made or made to order’ It’s about creating the exact product to meet the clients’ needs. Bespoke is a word I heard often in London. It was bespoke everything! That, and the word penultimate. Everyone in London uses it. Grand Designs bought it to Australia and now they use it on The Block.
The pink on the logo was a complete accident. Originally it was supposed to be a salmon colour, but when the graphic designer printed out the logo, they didn’t have the colour. I had styled the logo based on the tiles that line the streets of Barcelona, and when it came out in this shade of pink, I thought ‘It is what it is’ and I love it.
I realized the pink stands out against the black, and when I stop at the traffic lights, people would take a photo or ask for a business card. My van is the best advertising.
My parents were divorced when I was 15. I lived with my brother and my dad, and I think that’s where I got my work ethic from. Dad was from Sunshine and moved out to the south-east when he met mum.
Living with dad and my brother, we had to learn how to cook and understand the value of hard work. My brother and I are best mates have been since young, and we’ve gotten closer as we got older. His girlfriend and Simone are best friends too, and she would take credit for introducing them.
I remember playing footy when I was younger but stopped in Year 11 or 12 when footy was getting in the way of my weekend partying. In high school, I wanted to be an art teacher and actually won a studio art school award. I’ve always enjoyed using my hands to create things. As I finished high school, a lot of mates got their plumbing apprenticeships, but I didn’t find it creative enough and I didn’t like the idea of digging up poo either. When I discovered tiling, I realised how visual it was, and I could draw on my love of fine arts to complete my projects.
I’ve been putting it off, but I’ve always wanted to commence a fine arts class and start drawing and painting. I did life drawing in London and really enjoyed it.
I have projects all over the city, but my goal is to focus my work on the inner west. I love working on houses that I want to buy, especially period bathrooms! I don’t want to do display homes and would do something brave and fun. The job I’m doing now is full of colour, and I’m excited when I work on the project.
The inner west reminds Simone and me of London. It’s such a melting pot of cultures and within 10 blocks of our house, we can get any type of cuisine any night of the week. We like our smashed avo from Fig & Walnut, our coffee from The Little Man Cafe, and a beer at the Victoria Hotel.
