Hi everyone and thanks for stopping along Moolman Lane!
We Johan & Marissa Moolman and are beyond excited to share our passion for design, lifestyle, decor and home renovation with you. For 7 years we had the privilege of working together on cruise ships as destination and luxury goods specialist and today we have taken our world of travel and used it to grown Moolman Designs.
Our work gave us the opportunity to travel all over the world from Africa to Europe, South America to North America and we got to share in the unique experience that each continent had to offer. With such a vast world out there we managed to capture inspiration and creativity that each and every city offers and apply it towards our future business. In 2014 we decided to settle down in Florida (as we had spent many years based out of Florida due to the fact that it is the capital destination for cruise ships).
Needless to say “land life” is a bit different than “cruise life” – we knew we wanted to do something similar to what we loved doing last 7 years, BUT… where on land do you find something that will match what we’ve done, something that will fulfill that same passion we had for luxury and design. After living on a ship for 7 years we couldn’t wait to buy our first house and right from the get go we jumped in and started to renovate. The first project was the master bathroom followed by a few small projects and our love for all things home design really sparked from there. Both of us decided then & there that we want to be in the design and rebuild space.
Our flipping/renovating career was kick started when a Bank owned property came up for sale about 45min away from where we live and we decided to put an offer in. With only our master bathroom renovation under the belt we decided to tackle a monster 6 bedroom / 4 bathroom house boasting 5000 sqft. It was a HUGE house, and to be honest knowing now what we know what the renovation business we probably would have never bought that house to begin with. However being inexperienced we dove in full force. Looking back now so much could’ve gone wrong but it thankfully … it didn’t and we managed to renovate the house just under a month and it got sold within two months. Not bad for a first flip and simple to say …we were addicted.
Once our first flip was sold we took the money that we made and bought another house in the downtown area. All these homes in the historical district are older homes built in the 1940’s. Needless to say the second house was a complete gut … that is the progression right?!?! After a first flip why not buy another one and take it down to the studs LOL… you might as well call house #2 a rebuild. From that experience we learned SOOO much, from scheduling to timelines to material accumulation to selecting the right style and furniture to make the house sell fast in the area it was located. It was a hit our first BIG hit and we fell in love with the down town area filled with unique homes built in the 1940s and to this day we still specialize in the historic downtown area. We tend to do two renovations at a time, between 8 and 10 houses per year and are very hands on with our projects. Our goal is to create something that is unique and filled with personality, to transform an unlivable outdated space to a place someone can love and call “HOME.”
Our life is crazy right now and who would’ve thought from living out of a suite case traveling to world to now living the “domesticated.” On May 27th 2017 (our 6 year wedding anniversary) we gave birth to our son Kaden Lane turning our littel family of 2 into 3 (or 5 if you count our two fur babies). Life is busy and fast but we’re having fun every step of the way.
Four years ago we lived a different kinda crazy life. The days of our past consisted of glamorously traveling from luxury cruise-liner to cruise-liner to and spending days off running to the train station in Livorno to catch the train to Florence just to catch a glimpse of the statue of David and pick up our favorite Italian leather pieces. Today consists of days at the park, stroller pushing weekends spent house hunting and decor shopping. From days that were spent talking about Turkish carpets and the finest swiss timepieces are now spent changing diapers and covered in drywall. No iPhone or camera can capture the smells, sounds and energy of the city and culture, no, you just have to sit back and take it in, absorb as much as you can, appreciate architecture, style and the way of life and lock it in your heart. We are so blessed to be able to take pieces of our world travel and past and implement it in our lives today, a new life and a new story one of family and growing our dream business.
We feel privileged and honored to share our stories, journey and lifestyle with you and thank you again for following our journey down Moolman Lane.
Moolman Lane 