KAPA‘A — Tucked behind a little fruit stand on the side of Kuhio Highway, Holly Schunk and Mona Ahloo have been expanding the furniture consignment shop Comforts of Home, inside Keiki Kottage. The shop is set up in little scenes.
KAPA‘A — Tucked behind a little fruit stand on the side of Kuhio Highway, Holly Schunk and Mona Ahloo have been expanding the furniture consignment shop Comforts of Home, inside Keiki Kottage.
The shop is set up in little scenes. There’s a little princesses tea party to the right, a sitting area with grandma’s china to the left, antique armoires and Mexican tables. A Caribbean-inspired room is displayed in the back corner.
“It was something we talked about doing for a while,” said Schunk. “I’m just a collector. I love to pick up things and little treasures from all around. The whole theme for the store is shabby chic. It’s all sorts of different things for the different rooms in the home.”
The idea to start Comforts of Home came to Schunk a little more than a year ago when Schunk invited a Feng Shui specialist to evaluate the space.
“She said the middle area was a health area and my area was this huge unorganized mess, so as soon as she left, I got on it immediately,” she said. “I started cleaning the clutter. Then at that point, furniture part was slowly evolving.”
The store now has more than 100 consignors bringing in their furniture or home accessories.
“These are pieces of other people’s lives in here,” Ahloo said. “Somebody had these things in his home and he’s bringing them in, maybe not because they’re old, but it could be that his taste has changed. We try to bring in these pieces that bring the home together.”
But a traffic accident nearly put a halt to the store’s expansion.
On July 7, 2005, Schunk was on her way to work to help Ahloo close the store when she was rear-ended by a speeding car. She suffered traumatic brain injury.
“I’d been having health problems even before that, but with this brain injury, I’d been in and out of surgery,” Schunk said. “The doctors had been telling me that my brain had been thrown back and forth inside my head, much like the shaken baby syndrome.”
Schunk is frequently dizzy and nauseous and suffers some cognitive problems.
There are times when Schunk just can’t eat. Sometimes she has to cut conversations short because she gets tired easily.
But even so, she still works on the shop.
“She’s my muse,” Ahloo said. “She has amazed me time after time. Even before the accident, she’s had so many health problems. She’s had back problems, allergies with catastrophic effects and is chemically sensitive. But she shares her stories in hopes that she can help someone who is in the same situation as her.”
Schunk communicates with Ahloo from her home and still collects items for the shop.
“She’s always still working,” Ahloo said. “She hasn’t been able to make it to the shop that often, but her spirit is here. Holly has impeccable taste. When I’m designing a scene I think, ‘what would Holly enjoy?’”
Schunk enjoys the idea of consignment of furniture because she feels it’s just a smart thing to do.
“It’s really a win-win here,” she said. “It’s a way to make money by bringing things in. You save money by shopping consignment and it’s better for the environment because you’re recycling and reusing,” Schunk said.
Right now, Comforts of Home and Keiki Kottage are under one roof.
“I’ve got to do this and enlarge it and turn the entire store into Comforts of Home,” Schunk said. “My goal is to have two separate stores.”
• Lanaly Cabalo, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or lcabalo@kauaipubco.com.
