My friend looked at me with a mixture of exasperation and admiration. "Can't you ever just buy a move-in ready place?" she asked. I carefully walked across the room, sidestepping a loose floorboard and avoiding the dust-covered wall. "What do you mean?" I asked with a smile, "I could live here!" It was a phrase I had said many times before, one that did not come as a surprise to me or my friend. For years my husband and I have been restoring things. It started with vehicles and furniture, then it moved onto houses, and now our latest project - a commercial building we're turning into a place for families to connect with each other and the world around them. We can't help but see the potential, the beauty. It's like getting back to the heart of something when it was created. We love pulling back the layers, refreshing the old, and imagining what new can take place there.
It's a little like people too, isn't it? That's probably why we're so drawn to the act of restoration. We see the ways we've ourselves been restored - how in some ways we're always going back to who we were as kids, what we wanted for our lives, and how we can interact with those around us for the good of our world. Refinishing someone's kitchen so they can cook meals with their family does that. And taking an empty building from the nineteenth century and filling it with families of today does that too.
"I could live here." My husband and I took that sentiment and ran with it when we came to this area four short years ago. In building Wonder, we are just two parents looking for continual restoration within our own small family of four, as well as beyond into the community around us. What new connections will happen within these walls? What relationships will be restored, and what new ones will form here? We can't wait to find out.
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