When Deanne Jolly’s 14-year marriage to former AFL player Darren Jolly ended in 2019, the interior designer went into retreat.
The break-up of the former contestants on The Block was covered widely in the media, leading Jolly to reassess the meaning and direction of her whole life.
But, akin to a phoenix rising from the ashes, the interior designer is grateful to have come out the other side stronger and happier.
“I think when you go through tough times, it definitely helps you figure out what matters to you, what your values are, who you are as a person,” Jolly says.
“I’ve learnt a lot about myself and so I see lots of silver linings and positive things out of it.”
She says though the past few years have been hard for her, with the divorce – not to mention dealing with the challenges of COVID while parenting daughters Scarlett, 16, and Lily, 14 – the support and love of her girls has helped her find her way back to happiness.
“They’re very supportive of me as a person and they just love seeing me out there living my best life and feeling passionate about what I’m doing. My oldest daughter has said that she finds it inspiring to see me out there creating a new life for myself and on my own terms,” she says.
“It was certainly wanting to show my girls that we all have different iterations or chapters in our lives. When one chapter ends that doesn’t mean that your life is over. It’s exciting. It means that you get to start something new and really figure out what you want it to look like, and they’ve definitely bought into that whole thing.”
Since her marriage breakdown, Jolly has also made a foray into the real estate industry, something she says has been a long time coming.
“I feel like everything that I’ve done in my life up to this point has been an evolution that has led me to this. I’ve done The Block, I’ve got my interior design business, but prior to all of that I had a national sales manager role,” Jolly says.
“Making friends with people, building relationships with people, and talking about houses all day does not feel like work to me. It also felt like a good way for me to be providing for my kids.”
Jolly studied real estate during the 2020 lockdowns and qualified as an agent in March last year. Further lockdowns and restrictions in 2021 meant she didn’t pick up listings until early this year.
“The real estate industry was not really able to work through COVID. So I pretty much hit the ground running as soon as we opened up in January and it’s been pretty quick actually for somebody who’s new to the industry,” she says.
Jolly says she brings a unique skill set to her role at Hawthorn East agency Bekdon Richards, having designed and developed many of her own projects and advised others through her interior design business, Muster Studio, of which she remains creative director.
“I’m able to help vendors maximise the potential in their property, to get it to the level that they want to get it to and the result that they want to get. And I spend a lot of time talking to people about what they could do if they purchase a house,” she says.
Surviving some of the darkest moments in her life has emboldened Jolly to reach outside her comfort zone and beyond.
“I fully believe that we’re given challenges because of those things that we need to learn, and I think that’s what’s happened for me.
“I’ve taken that with both hands and run with it and instead of being negative or feeling upset or angry or blaming or any of that, I have completely gone in the other direction and embraced it.”