A building and a dream

Today I was going to an appointment and it caused me to drive by a place I dream about, the warehouse.   I have lived in this small town for over 5 years and have seen this old run down building before but it was not until I started growing my business that I really saw it and what it could be.  I have never seen the doors open, or even anyone around the outside of the building for that fact. Today was different. 

Today the front doors were open.  My mouth dropped open, I slowed down and I glanced at the time. I was not running late, not early either but I kept on driving.  I was so tempted to stop, to have a peek inside but I just kept driving. 

I know nothing of the history of the building other than who currently owns it.  I know nothing about the inside of the building either. There is a business behind the warehouse and they are the owners and have been for years. The windows are broken out and boarded up so I could not tell you if it has power or if the roof is caving in.  

I only know what I see on the outside and for that fact I only know what the front and part of the sides look like.  I could not tell you how big the warehouse is, what the back looks like, how tall it is inside, if it is a big open space or if it has rooms.  I could not tell you if it is being used by the owners for storage or if it is empty.  I could not even tell you when the building was built or what it was in the very beginning.  I do know that at one time a fireworks company used it because part of their sign is still on the building.  I do not know for how long or even when, although I do believe it was before we moved here in 2015. 

There are not many physical details I could list, but what I can tell you is that I want the warehouse, that I dream about it.  I have ideas of how I would set it up inside if it is a big open space, how I would set up the windows in front and ideas of what I would like to do with the front of the building.  

You may ask why I have not researched more or went to the owners and asked about it.  The mayor of our town is very knowledgeable and I am sure he even knows the history of the warehouse, but I have not asked.  There are only a handful of people that even know how I feel about this warehouse.  My husband, our daughters, a close friend, and a stranger know because I told them about it or they saw the photo of it on my home screen of my phone and asked.  I did post about it on Instagram but it has had only a few views.  I talk about it mostly to my husband and tell him about the ideas I have for it.  How I believe it may have been a grocery store at one time.  I am just guessing of course but sometimes you can look at the design of a building and get an idea of what it may have been at one time.  You do not need to see the Captain D’s sign to know that that building you pass is a Captain D’s or Burger King, etc.

When I left my appointment, I of course, had to go back to the warehouse. As I got closer I slowed down to see if the doors were still open. When I pulled up in front of the building the doors were closed and my chance to see inside gone.  Now I know that I could go around to the owners and ask about the building.  Surely they will know what's inside, if they use it for anything or if it's empty. A building like this I am sure that they would use for storage and not let it just stay empty, but in this day and age you never know. 

Then you have to ask, well if it's empty why would they have opened the doors today? Maybe someone was going in it to move something or get something or do something. In all the years that we've lived here and drove by I've never seen anyone out front and I've never seen the doors open. Why today?

Today was a missed opportunity. So why didn't I stop?  I had time, I wasn't running late.  I do like to be early to places but still I had time. I believe one of the reasons why I didn't stop is because I am worried about what I will find out.  Right now this warehouse is just a building in a dream. Because I don't have details on what's inside or if it's for sale or possibly for rent or even if the roof is caving in, it's just a dream with a very wide net.  I sometimes feel that I don't have a very active imagination when it comes to good things.  When it comes to bad things my imagination can run wild. So right now this warehouse is full of good thoughts and opportunities. 

At this very moment I am sitting in my truck, staring at this beautiful building. The first door off to my right is in a corner section of the building.

The first time I really looked at this building I saw this door. It sits at an angle and I thought that it was the front door.  It is a single metal door with no real character, but I love how the window next to it makes it look like a little storefront.  I thought when looking at it that to just have a little shop in that little section and use the rest of the building as a warehouse would be perfect. 

Our town is very small and we are outside of the city limits, so I don't see many people coming to shop here but I still thought that it would be nice to have a little store front in that section. I also thought that I could have other small businesses set up their items kind of like a pop up shop. 

It was not until my next drive by that I realized that the front doors are more in the center of the building.  These are the two wooden doors that I am sitting in front of now. We will come back to these doors.  Now further down the building there are two more plain metal doors and it looks like they lead into the main part of the warehouse. 

There is also a smaller single wooden door that leads more into the heart of the warehouse.

Now back to the true front doors.  These wooden double doors have so much character, along with the two huge windows on each side and the smaller 4 windows above the doors. They make me wonder even more what this warehouse originally was.  With windows like that you know they wanted to show off what was inside.

All in total not including the little windows above the doors there are 6 huge windows.  You don't build a building like this simply for it to be a storage area. 

So what was this building for when it was originally built? My thinking is that it was some kind of grocery store.  I don't know what it is about it but that's what it reminds me of. If it was not a grocery store then it was most definitely some type of retail store.  These windows are well over half of the height of the building.

One of the ideas that I had for this building was to find out what its original purpose was and then to have someone paint that on the front of the building. So that the memories of this building, the people of the original dream are not forgotten and that legacy will still go on. 

So the next major question is how do you go about purchasing or even just renting a building when you don't have the money to do so?  When you don't have the money to pay an electricity bill? When you don't have the money to restore it to its former glory?  Maybe that's the reason why I didn't stop when the doors were open. Because right now it's just a dream and it's the shell of a dream because I don't know what's inside.  I'm able to fill it with my ideas,  my dreams, my hopes and if I was to see the inside of it then my heart could fall.    Have you ever had a dream, a hope, an idea but you knew that it was safe not to have all of the details in place because there was nothing that you could do about it? That's where I am at right now.  I have this dream, this hope, this idea but I think that if I find out all the details, good or bad, it would hurt.  Because I can't do anything about it right now.  I think it would hurt too much to know more than the shell of the idea that I have right now.  

Sometimes it is easier to play it safe than it is to have hope dashed out. What is something you have hope for that you may not have all of the details?

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