Two women named Sophie
A chat with Sophie and Sophie from Highly Enthused on new homes, motherhood, grief, and a good kitchen.
I don’t know exactly when or how I discovered the
podcast, but it must have been towards the end of 2019. I’d listen to Sophie and Sophie on my rides to and from work, and when COVID was in full swing, they’d accompany me on my walks through the forest near Mum’s place.Hearing their voices for 45 minutes every other week made Australia, which felt so out of reach at the time, feel that little bit closer. And the recipes and books and films and hats and knitwear they shared always gave me something new to delight in — a valuable thing in a time when delight was in short supply.
Such was their influence that anchovies began to feature in almost all of my pasta dishes, and since their toast episode back in season one, my peanut butter and banana toast has never gone without a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper and sea salt on top.
The podcast has since evolved into a newsletter and both Sophies’ lives have taken new shapes too. So that’s what we spoke about in this lovely chat — finding new homes, how life changes with children, moving through grief, having a functional kitchen, and where their work together will go next.
Thanks so much, Sophie and Sophie for sharing your time and wisdom with me — what a treat it was to hear your voices again and feel like we were recording our very own podcast together.
The best place to start before we get into the juicy stuff is probably to introduce yourselves!
(SoRo) — I’m Sophie, I’m a former, maybe continual podcaster, a newsletter writer, and my full-time job is UX Designer. I work for a big software company designing software for the logistics industry — the least sexy description in the entire world — but I manage a team of people there which is fun. I live in Sydney, am 35.I feel like the logistics industry needs as much help as they can get, so it’s probably good that you’re helping them.
SoRo — You have no idea how true that is. It’s amazing that anything arrives. Every time I get a parcel now I’m like, “Good job guys.”
(SoMo) — I am Sophie McComas, I live in Sydney, I’m 35. I run a content agency for food and drinks brands called Buffet. I’m married and have an almost 3-year-old and a new baby coming in January, and I’m currently living with my parents for a while.That’s a good segue into houses and homes because I feel like you have both had a lot of upheaval lately. SoMo, what’s your situation at the moment?
SoMo — We had a little apartment in Dulwich Hill, which is where Sophie Roberts has just moved to, two blocks from my old place. So devastating, I can’t even talk about it.
But I spent all lockdown there and it was a beautiful little apartment where we had our first baby, Ned, and spent the whole of COVID. We bought it right before the pandemic, literally March 2020, and we just started feeling like it was time for a bit more space — and there were also some fucked up dynamics in the building which were driving us both insane — so we sold it and moved back in with my parents while we were looking for a new place. Very lucky to have Mum and Dad’s place to land here in Sydney.
We were looking all around that same area, we love the inner-west of Sydney, there’s so much culture there and so much diversity, a great community vibe, but we just couldn’t afford it.
We couldn’t find anything that we loved for the right price and it was so competitive and nothing felt like it was worth the money, so we ended up looking way further out into South Sydney in a suburb called Mascot, which everyone knows from the airport.
We found a free-standing house that’s on a big block with wild character and insane detail that I found very hilarious. When we moved in there was a decal on one of the walls that said, “Give a girl the right shoes and she can achieve anything!”.
It had crazy chandeliers in every room, there was a random blue wall, and every level of the house had slightly different heights. It needed a lot of work but it just had this nice feeling to it — it’s filled with light, it has so much sun — it’s almost a bit too sunny inside — but we just got a really good feeling.
I think when we were looking, feeling was so important. You’ve got all these boxes you want to tick when finding a house and you can tick all those boxes, but if you walk in and it feels wrong, then it’s wrong, or if it feels right, then it’s right! And this did. It felt friendly and warm and light and spacious enough that we could grow into it.
That being said, it was in quite bad condition, the walls were bright orange wood that hadn’t been treated in so long, the tiles were all cracked, and the bathroom was moldy. I opened a cupboard in the kitchen and it just fell off in my hand. It needed a lot of work and we have started to do the renovations, which we truly never wanted to do — we are not DIY people, we don’t work that well together when it’s a project that takes physical activity, and we said at the beginning that we don’t think this will be good for us, we should just find a place that we love and don’t need to touch. Then obviously it worked out the way it did, so we’ve enlisted people who know what they are doing and it’s all been ripped out and we are back with Mum and Dad.
That’s so nice!
SoMo — Yeah it is really nice. I had this whole idea about it being ready before the baby. I kept saying it has to be ready and I want to be in the house when the baby comes and it all needs to be done. And I think everyone says that with renovations, you have this hard deadline in your mind and it’s just never possible to hit that deadline.
As soon as we moved in here with Mum and Dad, I just totally didn’t care about that anymore. It’s so nice here and I’m really enjoying living with them. I just feel like the intergenerational household is so underrated. My parents get to spend so much time with our son and I get to spend so much time with them.
We don’t hang out that much socially because they are half here and half in the country, whereas Sophie spends so much time with her family, just catching up and doing dinners. We don’t really do that as a family, so it’s nice to have that incidental time together, have dinner together, mum helps with the laundry and we’ll cook dinner for everyone, and it’s a really nice feeling.
I guess it’s a reminder that we didn’t always live in these little units with two parents, two babies, and nobody else. People lived with the support of their families for so long and it’s actually a great way to live.
SoMo — It is! I read this article about the Editor of The Cut, Stella Bugby. During the pandemic, she moved back in with her family and then never left because it was so nice to live in this house with her mum and dad and all her kids and her husband, and they just found this awesome balance of life together. It’s been a nice opportunity, so I’m kind of relishing it, but at the same time, hoping that the renovations don’t take too long or all our money!
So, other Sophie, what about you?
SoRo — I’m in Dulwich Hill now, two blocks from where Sophie used to live. It’s like she’s the ice-breaker: she came in, made Dulwich Hill cool, and now I’ve moved in and she’s left, and she’s off making Mascot cool now. Honestly though, Soph, it’s so funny that you say that because my mum would trade every dinner if she could just be living with us all the time.
SoMo — I was having this conversation with your mum! She was like, “We’re going to buy a block of flats, and each of the girls is going to live in a flat and we’ll live in one too,” and she was dead serious about it.
SoRo — To be honest, my sister and I were like, “It’s not the worst idea!”.
But now you’ve moved into a beautiful house…
SoRo — Yeah we got really lucky. Last year, my partner and I had been dating for just over a year and we’d been talking about moving in together. Then his housemate bought a place so that sped the timeline up.
I was living in Coogee, in the flat that my late husband and I had bought, so I rented that out and we were so nomadic last year. We house-sat for three months in Summer Hill, went away for a month, lived with my parents for a month, and then found a place to rent. So, last year I lived in four different places. It was quite all over the place.
Then at the beginning of this year, we started talking about buying a place. I’m 35 and my partner Andrew is 38, so everything speeds up. When you start dating in your mid-20s, you feel like you’ve got plenty of time to figure things out, but when you meet in your mid-30s, within two years you’re like, “Should we buy a house together?”
As part of that process, we decided to sell my apartment in Coogee, so that was quite emotional, but it was the right decision and was why we were able to buy our place. We were living in Newtown and I love it there and would have happily stayed more central and bought a smaller place in Redfern, Darlington, Newtown, but there’s no parking, they are super expensive, and you don’t get a backyard. If you get a third bedroom it’s tiny and used to be a linen cupboard.
We started looking and the place we ended up buying was this crazy scenario where the agent was the owner — she was selling her own house and had lived there for 40 years, so we thought she must really care about who buys this place, otherwise why would you sell your own house?
Unless you’re really emotionally invested, you’d be quite hands-off and let the professionals deal with it and get the most money, but she was super hands-on and during all the inspections she would tell us all these stories about the house and her kids and her life there.
We were the under-bidder before the auction but my partner wrote a letter talking about how we wanted to steward the house through its next 40 years, or as my friend said, we out-baby boomered the baby boomers. The letter swayed her and we negotiated a little bit but she accepted a lower offer because she wanted to sell it to us, which is pretty amazing. It’s a dream house, we got so lucky and had lots of help from Andrew’s family. We definitely did not do it by ourselves. And now we’re just kind of settling into the house.
A really fun implication when you're a couple in your 30s buying a four-bedroom house is that people, like one of my colleagues, will ask “Oh, is there another announcement coming soon?” I was like, “JC, you’re not the first person I’d tell, this isn’t how I would tell you, and even if I was pregnant, you wouldn’t be the one I’d be texting!”
That is so funny.
SoRo — I joke that we are either going to have kids or we’re going to start an artist’s commune. Those are the two options. Start renting rooms out to struggling artists for no money. We threw a big house party and that was really fun. It’s really starting to feel like home now, which is nice.
Gosh, that’s so nice. And it seems like you two are building something so beautiful together, just from Instagram, it seems like a nice process.
SoMo — I’ve seen them fight over art. It’s not all dreamy.
SoRo — Look, he is wonderful and he can’t hear me right now so I can say this but we are very similar in ways that mean we both always think we are right and that we both have the better taste. I often use the argument, “Andrew, I literally had a podcast where people came to find out about my taste.” He doesn’t give a shit, but I feel good about it.
I feel like for both of you the kitchen would be such an important part — having space to cook and bring friends together.
SoRo — Definitely. I’m missing a kitchen island, desperately. I need something on wheels to add more bench space. The kitchen I have in this house looks nice but it was definitely designed by people who never cook. It isn’t very functional. I had the exact same thing the other day where I opened a cupboard and it just fell off. So it’s not as functional as I would like.
This house has definitely been a part of settling down and feeling at home, but I really noticed last year when we were moving around so much that food and cooking was sort of how I feel grounded wherever I am. Even now, we’re down at the coast in this little serviced house, and as soon as you get here, one of the first things you do is figure out what you’re doing for dinner and you cook a meal. I brought half my kitchen down with me — my microplane and my whisk and my tongs and my metal bowls.
You can’t be dealing with blunt knives!
SoRo — Yep, I brought my knife and my microplane, I cannot live without either of them. That immediately makes anywhere you’re staying more like home. It’s like work, you’re immediately working in it, creating something in it, you’re feeding people, and you get so much pleasure out of it, so just the act of cooking somewhere always makes it feel more like home for me.
Yes, for sure. And back to you, SoMo, do you feel like since becoming a mum, your approach to home is a bit different?
SoMo — Totally. As Ned has gotten older, I’ve realized that how you use space when you have children is so different. Our old place was cool because it had two levels — the bedroom, dining, and kitchen were upstairs, and then downstairs was a big lounge that opened onto a courtyard. But I couldn’t cook and have Ned play because he would be downstairs and I would be upstairs, or I would do that and would have to be like, “You ok down there?” And make sure that he was safe from a distance.
Since then, I have wanted one level of openness that you can spread out in and have more room because especially with Ned, he’s a really active little boy who is climbing on everything and running around and he’s got his scooter and cars everywhere and he’s carrying his Teepee from one end of the house to another which has giant sticks in it. There’s got to be room for it, and obviously, it’s such a privilege to have space and people live in tiny places with children and are totally fine, but I think I am now looking at things that can withstand all of that. Things that have a lot more longevity, that aren’t as delicate.
It’s a bit sad because I do love little corners, decorating a mantelpiece with beautiful items, or having ceramics out, but that’s just not the stage we’re at at the moment. It’s more about storage and how to keep things clean, and light and air and things like that so that you don’t feel so hemmed in. It’s exciting to have enough space for people to have their own area throughout the house and not be so on top of each other.
In terms of the kitchen, having it be really central. Not having that disconnect between places where people are living and spending time and playing, and where you’re spending so much time preparing food. Ease of use is such a privilege and a joy to have. You don’t want to be worried that things are going to get broken or people are going to fall over steps and things like that.
I guess you’ve really got to think about the practical side rather than the aesthetic side for a little while.
SoMo — Yeah, which sucks. We were going through the designs with our designer and she put these beautiful fabric covers on the lower cabinetry in the lounge. It looked so nice but I could just see sticky hands going across it and ruining it. I would love it in any other house, just not this one. It has to be wipeable!
But I still really want to work at making it look considered. I still want to love and feel proud of the space. I don’t want to compromise too hard on it, because it brings real energy to a space when you feel like you’re proud of it and enjoy spending time there.
Definitely. As a final question, I wanted to ask, as friends and co-owners of this shared project together, what comes next for you guys?
SoMo — I’m excited about where we are at with it right now. We had this shift at the end of the last season and I think a lot of that was from the massive changes I was having with my availability, time, brain space, and motivation for other projects. Since we’ve re-tooled the newsletter and re-launched it with a format that’s more similar to what we were doing with the podcast, it’s been great because it feels like that old excitement is back. We’re just bubbling over with enthusiasm again. I’m excited for this next phase of Highly Enthused and, of course, working closely with Sophie on it has been such a joy. It’s been cool to be able to evolve it together. I do feel a bit guilty that we’re not recording. If it were up to Sophie, we would be!
SoRo — Yeah, but I don’t have kids — it is what it is! I think what’s been great is that the concept that we care about, which is sharing the things we love and are enthusiastic about, is elastic. It worked really well in lockdown when we were both bored out of our brains and needing to connect, and we used it to share those things. It also strengthened our friendship, which was really nice.
We started it in 2019, which was just after my husband died and it was a huge thing for me because grief can make you very self-focused and very inward-looking, so the podcast was such a gift because it forced me to look outwards, always. In lockdown it was the same thing — I could just watch the same thing all the time and get depressed and scroll on my phone, but I knew I had to come up with stuff to tell people, so I’d watch that new show or buy some fun treat.
It’s always been a project of Bower Bird gathering things to show and share with people and to project outwards. I’ve loved realizing that that can continue with the newsletter. We don’t always have as much time as we’d like, so we can just fill the space that we have.
My day-to-day work is probably not as creatively fulfilling as Soph’s and the projects that she gets to work on in her career are super exciting and fun and outward-facing, so I’ve definitely been reflecting on ways I can bring some of that flavour to other projects. I don’t really have anything planned now, but that’s definitely floating around in my mind, whether it’s a personal newsletter or something else. But I’ve been really grateful to see how flexible the concept of Highly Enthused is and how much it can stretch and change as we need it to.
And as a consumer of all things Highly Enthused, I can tell you that I am really grateful that you went outwards and found all those gorgeous things to share because it brought a lot of joy in a time of a lot of anguish, so thank you for that.
SoMo — It’s been so nice to meet so many people online who are just overjoyed to connect over something like a snack or a recipe or a cardigan. People message all the time about things that they’ve bought or ideas we’ve given them for gifts and it’s been so nice to be able to share that with a community of such like-minded people. And the London contingent is strong! We get so many messages when we record being like, “I can hear the cockatoos and it’s making me so homesick!” It’s just so nice to hear, so I’m glad it brought people together and reminded them of home.
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See you in the next one,
Annabel
Loved this interview as a fellow Highly Enthused fan 💛
Thanks so much for this generous interview Annabel! Loved talking about home with you xox