This building (not so pretty now...) will soon hold a dream of mine I have had for a long time-a scrapbooking store. A scrapbooking store owned by me. And really, it all happened so fast. About 3 weeks ago, Carisa (my cousin and friend who owns a photography business) saw the "Price Reduced" sign, inqured about it, and just a few weeks later, well...we OWN it! In fact, we just closed on it Friday. This is something we have talked about for years. Now, it is finally a reality.
It is a good sized building-about 2400 square feet. It is built in 2 sections-the larger back section will hold Carisa's photography studio and my crop space, and the front room will be the store. It needs a LOT of work-it has been sitting empty for many years. We are in the process of hiring a roofer to fix the roof (lots of leaks, etc) and it will take off from there. Carisa's husband will do a good portion of the work to fix it up (he is an electrician, but is very handy in all areas). Me and Carisa plan to get our hands dirty as well, we want to do as much by ourselves as we can. It is going to be a fun, but hard process as we work to get the building in good working order.
While it happened very fast, I have been spending a TON of time thinking about how this will change my life and the life of my family. The comforting thing is that the building is literally ONE block from my house. We plan to have a little sectioned off area for the kids to hang out/play/do homework, etc. so I foresee my girls spending a lot of time with me at the store. If that were not the case, I would not be embarking on this at this point in my life. Because I want to cherish this time with my kids as much as possible. Then-the question about opening a store in such a small town (rather than Hastings)-it isn't ideal from a retail point of view, but I plan on having a lot of scheduled activities/crops/classes, etc that (I hope) will bring people here. I am also going to do an online store, so the two together will hopefully move inventory.
It is all very risky and every other day brings about a new doubt or reason to be nervous, but then I remember-if I don't do it now, I may never do it. When will I get a chance again to purchase some real estate at such a low cost? And if it doesn't work, either financially or with my family's schedule, I can always sell it or close it...and try again later in life.
I will be posting photos of the 'fix-up' process on my Memories~To~Cherish Facebook page. You can be a Fan and have access to the page if you want to see them. I will also try to update regularly on here too.
Here's to a new adventure!!! 8 )
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