At home with .the.finders

Fleur - My dad was an antique dealer so this is where my passion originated from but I mainly started with second hand clothes and then when I started to travel I also started collecting things from all over (including crazy things like a baby bath from the 1800’s which freaked Gareth out when he first saw it!) I would always think what an incredible way to be reminded everyday of the places I have seen.

Couples in the love club //

These two are some of my favourite people in the world, they were kind enough to let me in one Saturday morning and get an insight into life with the.finders - Jessie

On how they met....

"after a few too many espresso martinis, lunch turned into a dinner that turned into Karaoke at Family Bar on a Wednesday night…. after a poor attempt of a duet to Eminem it really was love at first sight" - the.finders

Tell us a bit about you and what exactly the.finders is?
Our biggest love in life (aside from each other & the boys , Lachy 5 and Olly 4) is to have as many experiences as we can! Travel is a huge part of this. Not only do you get to see and experience different cultures, scenes and people but you also get to take a bit of that feeling away with you from each destination.
We love places off the beaten path, but Barcelona would have to be our favourite city for treasure hunting.
Gareth - My love of collecting came at a very young age when my Nan encouraged my interest in collecting stamps, that lead to a number of other collections later down the track.
We are hugely passionate about sustainability and keeping our footprint as small as possible to give my kids the kind of lives we had growing up in this world.
When we met, it was like I had found my ultimate 'finding' buddy (but she has way better taste than I do).

Where did this all begin?
Fleur - Our inspiration for starting the.finders had a bit of a practical beginning. My obsession for bringing things home from the op shops/vintage shops never seemed to cease and it was quickly filling up our home.
We do love to go vintage shopping together so we thought that rather than leave behind all these amazing finds, it was better to share them with others. Whenever I’m in a grumpy mood Gareth always seems to know and usually whisks me off to a second hand shop for some second hand retail therapy :).
We love to try and recycle and reuse as much as possible and I guess we have a bit of an obsession with trying not to use plastic, it's not easy but Auckland is definitely upping its game with stores like ‘Good For’ and ‘The Source’.
Long term we would love to get fully off the grid so we are putting plans in place to one day make our dream a reality.

Can you share with us one of your favourite spots for finding hidden gems?
We absolutely love Molloy's Mega Antique Centre in Takapuna, it's a bit hidden away and we source some really interesting and unique finds there.
Our favourite piece thus far would have to be the Javanese puppets we found in Molloys, they are from the 1930’s and are pretty creepy but this hasn’t stopped us from putting them as the centrepiece on our biggest wall. My second would be in Melbourne, The Ball and Chain in Prahran - I could spend hours there!

On working together…

"Be flexible and compromise and by all means if things get too hard just drop everything you're doing and go do something for 'just the two of you'. That always seems to give us new focus."

On their Dream Wedding ...
Make a weekend of it with our beautiful friends and family with a remote/simple/scenery. The aesthetics for us is not a priority so just keeping it simple with all vintage-second hand goodies to make it ours. Definitely keeping it small and spend most of the budget on FOOD and wine with lots of laughs.

Current Recipe on repeat?
Haha, we are on a bit of a crazy diet (not by choice!) at the moment so blackened broccoli with apple cider, avocado, quinoa and salmon is pretty much our everyday breakfast - looking forward to eating a greater variety of food again very soon!