If there’s one thing that sets Nikki Brown’s heart on fire it’s home interiors.
Struggling to find the minimal and muted interiors she desperately desired for her own property renovation, Nikki and her husband Mark were inspired to launch their own interiors business.
From Paris to Stockholm and everywhere in between, the couple scour the world for the best home interiors and then sell them on to homeowners looking for that something a little off-piste.
Here Nikki tells Rosemary Lowne about her journey into the world of interiors.
Westholme Interiors
Who: Nikki Brown
What: Westholme Interiors
Where: Wellington Business Park, Aberdeen
As told to Rosemary Lowne
“I’ve always loved interiors but I’m by no means an interior designer, I just have an eye for shopping and buying nice things. I was always arty at school but I ended up working as an accountant for a global IT company and Mark worked in the oil and gas industry. On the side we got into property developing and I loved working on the interiors. We set up an Instagram account to show people our finished properties and we also shared our own home renovation journey and that’s when Westholme Interiors was born.
It was during our own home renovation that I realised how difficult it was to source the interiors that I liked. I wouldn’t say my taste was Scandi or Nordic but I liked minimal and muted pieces which I found hard to source in the UK. So I would just contact these brands directly and I’d end up paying a fortune to ship them over. That’s when we came up with the idea that we could expand our property business into the interior accessory side of things and it snowballed from there.
In the space of five years, we’ve outgrown our base in Whitemyres in Mastrick and we’ve just moved into our new shop and warehouse at Wellington Business Park where people can see some of the beautiful interiors we’ve sourced. We have everything from ceramics, candle holders and home fragrances to kitchenware, soft furnishings and children’s interiors.
Dani Dyer, the actor Danny Dyer’s daughter, actually bought some of our interiors for her newborn baby twin’s nursery. She bought canopies we sourced from an American brand called Spinkies and her interior designer emailed to say she loved them.
Our children’s interiors were actually inspired after I had my little girl Amara last summer. When I was looking for interiors for her nursery, I found it hard to source them so we decided to expand into that.
We travel to trade shows across Europe so we have interior brands like Cooee Design from Sweden and Specktrum, a Danish brand as well as Coming Home, an interior brand from Norway. We’ve also started layering in some London brands so our bathroom home fragrance range is from Sevin London and we also stock candles by Fyg, a London designer. We also have Isle of Skye candles as we like to support Scottish designers.
Myself and Mark both love what we do, we’re living the dream and we’ve got so many loyal customers now which is lovely.
We’ve got so many exciting interior events planned so it’s going to be a busy over the next few months.
For more information on Westholme Interiors check out their Instagram page @westholmeproperty
Conversation