Hayley & Andrea
“Powerhouse women” and best friends, Hayley and Andrea spend every day hatching up schemes of escaping the mundane and dream of their new “Women’s Retreat” chateau in the sun.
About Hayley & Andrea
Andrea was born and raised in Leeds. Volunteering and giving back has always been incredibly important to her and she is a qualified counsellor.
Hayley grew up in the Northeast but is now based in Leeds with her family. She studied event management at university and has been self-employed ever since. 7 years ago she invested in converting a horse box into a prosecco van, and the business has snowballed since then. She now has several food & drink stalls and works at festivals all over the UK—experience which will come in handy when putting on events in their own chateau!
The pair met through their kids going to the same school. After initially being scared of each other, Hayley knew about Andrea’s DIY skills and asked for help in renovating her prosecco van, and the friendship blossomed from there!
They are now inseparable, love doing CrossFit together and are always laughing and encouraging one another to take on new challenges. Their partners say they are a bad influence on each other!
Their DIY journey
Hayley and Andrea are no strangers when it comes to DIY, and are always getting their hands dirty. Hayley is in the process of renovating her Victorian terrace with her husband, and this is the 3rd property they’ve tackled together.
Andrea utilises her skills on a daily basis through her work, as she is part of the renovation team for LATCH (Leeds Action to Create Homes)—a charity that refits and refurbs rundown properties for people in need. Andrea is completely self-taught and initially joined LATCH as a volunteer, but when they saw how good she was, they hired her full-time!
Her spare time is also taken over by DIY, and she is currently making tiles for her bathroom, and renovating her son’s new home—free labour, as she puts it!
Together, the best friends have worked on converting Hayley’s horse boxes into food & drink stalls, and Andrea is always helping out in Hayley’s house when needed.
The Dream
When discussing this opportunity, Hayley and Andrea both separately said “where do I sign?!” They are extremely aspirational people, see the opportunity in everything and thrive off challenges. Every day they egg each other on and dream about “going global by lunchtime.”
Hayley and Andrea are always sending each other links to properties abroad, and dream about having their own to renovate together and for their powerhouse women to come and stay.
They want to host Women’s Retreats at the chateau, having a space where women who are in the middle stages of their careers, with children, looking for their next adventure, can come and enjoy.