Their little cottage in need of repair, Wayde Dunley and his wife, Chelsea, submitted their final audition tape for Channel 7 renovation show House Rules in July 2017. With his landscaping skills and her passion for interior design, they dreamed of turning their tiny slice of NSW South Coast into their “dream home”.
“Wayde and I had always joked about going on [the show] before we even bought the house that really needed renovating,” Chelsea told Now to Love.
“We only bought a two-bedroom miner’s cottage that was 110 years old so it needed a lot of love and obviously it was quite small, so once we had our daughter Koa [in 2016], that was the thing that gave us a push.”
But the following day, with their tape filed, a tragedy shattered that dream.
After finding out about Chelsea’s story, House Rules organised for final three teams of the 2018 season to renovate her two-bedroom Woonona cottage, just as she and her husband had planned.
Chelsea told Now to Love she is thrilled with the result of the makeover, which aired on Sunday night. In each corner she notices touches that remind her of her husband, and that she will use to tell her now 17-month-old daughter about her “wonderful” dad.
“She was seven months old when he died and it was only a week later she started crawling,” she said. “So all these milestones have just been shared between her and I but there are photos everywhere in the house, I show her videos, we talk about Dad, so she obviously knows who he is.
“Everything that’s happened, hopefully it will be beneficial to Koa, and it’ll show just how in love her parents were and always will be.”