In the fall of 2011, in a twist of fate, our lives changed again. Earlier that year Judy's mother Virginia was looking to purchase a property in or around Concord, to help our son start a thrift store type business. A piece of property came available a quarter mile from our house. The property consisted of a very small store, a 1,400 sq. ft. wood frame duplex and a vacant lot. The store was way too small for a quilt shop, but would do for our son's thrift shop. The duplex, built in 1927 had seen better days. The front apartment had been vacant for a while and the back apartment was recently vacated so there were no tenants to evict. Unfortunately, the recently departed tenant apparently smoked like a chimney and let her cats run amok. Your eyes would water from the smell of cat urine and second hand smoke. Rumor was that she had died there, but with the smell in the apartment she could have laid there weeks with no one noticing. Neither apartment had air conditioning and the heat was provided by big gas heaters that were vented into the two fireplaces and extended 5 feet into the rooms. There was one parking space for each apartment - on gravel.
Virginia and Judy worked out a deal, but the negotiations weren't easy. Judy never intended to open a brick-and-mortar quilt shop. She had owned a Stained Glass Studio and knew what a time commitment that was. She just "didn't want to have to be someplace every day." Plus, we had to figure out the best way to finance the renovation. Calling HGTV to do a show on renovating the building didn't seem realistic.
Nevertheless, there were compelling reasons to take the deal. First, I wasn't getting any younger. I had an "expiration date" on my ability to schlep our merchandise around the country, set up and tear down quilt booths. In August, 2011 I saw a suspicious bulge in my lower abdomen which turned out to be a hernia. I have a cardiac pacemaker and am a cancer survivor, so this was a real wake up call. Most importantly though, if we could pull this off we'd have a nice piece of commercial property and a base of operations which could allow us to develop a long term clientele and a business with greater intrinsic value. Throw in the ability to walk to work and it was a no brainer.
We took the deal. After all, how hard could it be to renovate the building?
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