Tackling furniture poverty, one home at a time 🏠

Emily Wheeler combined her background in social work and interior design to found Furnishing Futures, a charity supporting women and children escaping situations of domestic violence.

By teaming up with her network of interiors stylists, designers and brands, Emily sources donations of household items to furnish social housing and temporary accommodation, primarily in East London. It's the wholesome sense of style and heart that's invested into each home — the kind you'd invest in your own — that makes this charity's work so special 🏠💕

Emily Wheeler, Founder of Furnishing Futures, in the new HQ in Leyton

Starting out three years ago with just a flat full of second hand furniture, Emily outgrew her space and rented out a small storage unit. Flashforward to present day, Emily has upgraded to a spacious warehouse in Leyton, East London – just down the road from Plank Hardware's HQ. If that doesn’t show the immense support her charity has received, then we don’t know what does.

We had to make Emily feel welcome, so we popped over for a chat about how it all began, her core learnings and the ups and downs along the way ☕

Emily receives donations from interiors stylists, designers and brands 📦

Finding community in Leyton

“It was a real challenge not having any premises for so long, so having a warehouse is a total game changer! We've been here a few weeks now and are busy building racks for the donations, and getting the space organised so that we can then help more families, host fundraising events and warehouse sales. 

It's lovely to be in the heart of a supportive and creative community, because there are so many brilliant businesses here that are keen to get involved, including framers, upholsterers, artists and furniture companies. It was important to me that we found somewhere accessible in the heart of the community, where volunteers could visit and where we could easily manage our logistics from. It's perfect and I'm over the moon, plus my house is much tidier!”

The mission: To create better homes for women and children escaping domestic violence.

Help raise funds 🤝

“Funding for tiny charities like us is an enormous challenge, particularly at the moment while costs are soaring and demand for support is increasing. It took me the best part of a year to raise the funds to secure the warehouse and now we have to ensure we can continue to pay for it, as well as build a team and cover our other core costs so that we can increase our impact. 

We are incredibly grateful to anyone who raises vital funds for us, whether that is through setting up a monthly Just Giving donation via our website; fundraising for us; sponsoring a room bundle through our online shop; donating a percentage of profits from their business or coming and buying something at our warehouse sales, which we hope to make a regular event.”

5 core elements of home 🏡

“I trained in interior design at KLC School of Design in 2009 and spent several years as a magazine stylist and journalist, as well as doing small design projects. I definitely wouldn't have been able to found the charity without having both the social work and the interior design skills. It's given me a unique perspective on the importance of having a home that ensures safety, wellbeing and meets practical needs.

The five key elements of transforming a house into a home are:

1. Ensuring your practical needs are met by your home. This means making sure your home works for you on a practical level, where you can cook a meal, sleep well, bathe, be with friends and family and look after your children.

2. Creating comfort, which includes practical flooring and window coverings, plenty of soft furnishings, a working kitchen and bathroom, good lighting and enough bed linen, towels and kitchenware. Having an orderly, well designed home also helps us to feel calmer and more in control. Even adding living plants helps soothe the nervous system.

3. Ensuring safety and privacy, which is particularly important for the women and children we support, having often experienced domestic abuse and multiple disadvantages. Homes need to feel safe and secure, which means making sure you have secure locks on your doors and windows; good blinds, curtains and lighting. 

4. Research also shows that to feel happy within your home, you need to feel that you have control and autonomy over your space and choices. We always work in partnership with the women and children we support, empowering them to have choice over the furniture they receive and the design of their home, within the constraints of the donations we have available. Often, if a family prefers an item that isn’t available as a donation, we go to great lengths to get ahold of the item. to make sure the family feels listened to and valued.

5. Creating a home that is personal to you and reflects your likes and dislikes, interests, culture and personality is essential. Our homes are where we can express our true selves and so we always make sure we frame family photographs for the women we support, ask them what their children are into and make sure the space feels personal to them so that they feel a sense of pride in their home.”

The Furnishing Futures warehouse is an Aladdin’s cave of household treasures 💎

Wooden skis, anyone? ⛷️

“When I was starting out, I had lots of unusual things donated by brands from shoots that I wouldn't really take now, as they don't get used in families' homes. I still have a pair of antique wooden skis, some vintage polo sticks and a Victorian sewing machine that were donated as props from commercials – they somehow snuck in with all the lovely furniture that was donated!

Those items will be used to raise funds instead, by featuring in our first warehouse sale on 3rd and 4th December. I also have some amazing mid-century furniture that was recently donated from the set of the Netflix production by the creators of Black Mirror, called ‘Red Book’. I even have cushions that were used in Ronan Keating's home for a shoot with Hello! magazine. They will all go to the homes of families in need.”

A rewarding challenge ✨

“Just keeping going has been the greatest challenge. When I started three years ago, I was working full time in a frontline child protection social work role. I also have two young children, so I was working every evening and weekend for the first couple of years, doing all the homes myself – probably working a 60 hour week on average. It was exhausting and there were times I didn't know if I would ever get to the point where we had the funding to make it a viable charity.

Knowing how much this charity is needed and seeing the positive impact it had on the lives of women and children was the greatest reward and really kept me going. It really does change these families' lives to have a safe and comfortable home after the trauma they have experienced, and it is such a privilege to be able to do this for them and to know we've made a difference.”

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Thanks to Emily for joining us for a TEA BREAK ☕ Be sure to give the charity a follow on Instagram.