Rented space: Inside the shopfront and dwelling of Flos. Botanical Studio

Vivien Hollingsworth and David Suter rent a combined shopfront and dwelling in Abbotsford.

This space is the couple’s home as well as the site of Hollingsworth’s business, Flos. Botanical Studio. The nature of Hollingsworth’s work is highly conducive to a shopfront, allowing her to sell directly to the public with the added space to create installations and host workshops.

Suter is a civil engineer who also manages the bookkeeping side of Flos. “For us, being able to have Viv’s workspace and home in one was the dream. There is little division between work and personal time and this space reflects how the two bleed into each other,” Suter says.

Before this property, Hollingsworth’s business was operating out of several share houses.

“I was trying to make arrangements on the communal kitchen table and my house mates were understandably less than excited about it,” she recalls.

Having the bed so close to work is also a wonderful luxury of this space, given that Hollingsworth’s work requires at least one 3am flower market visit a week.

“I’m home by about 5am usually, so I just dump the car out the front and go upstairs and back to bed until about 8am,” she says.

Hollingsworth and Suter first heard about this property when it was advertised on Gumtree as a lease transfer. Because commercial leases are normally at least three years, a shorter lease transfer arrangement proved the ideal testing ground.

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“I’d always liked the idea of living above a shop and having the shop front as a workspace, but I always assumed it would be a little while longer before we could make it happen,” Hollingsworth says.

“But when we came and looked at the place and it was great, we decided to take the plunge and do it.”

The couple love the property’s many quirks and evidence of its former tenants, such as written instructions explaining how to turn on lights and the oven hoisted up on a shelf in the pink bathroom.

Most of the home’s furniture has been inherited from friends and family, with the shop fitted out on a minuscule budget.

“Nothing new and nothing expensive,” Hollingsworth says.

While this space is most likely home for the next couple of years, the couple have their sights set on moving to the country.