Our architect’s first recommendation was to have a structural engineer evaluate the building in its current condition, which we have just finished doing. Residential and commercial buildings have different code requirements, so before we can make any big decisions, we need to understand what each path would require.

It’s fascinating because those two options create two completely different identities for the building.

And lately, I’ve realized I’ve been asking myself a similar question.

Not “residential or commercial?” but...

Who am I outside of the things I own and the roles I play?

Part of me is deeply “residential.” I love homemaking. I love cooking/baking, decorating, hosting friends, arranging flowers, and creating a peaceful place for my family.

The other part of me is undeniably “commercial.” I love building businesses, dreaming up ideas, creating community, and working toward something bigger than myself.

Those two sides have always coexisted.

Recently, though, something unexpected challenged how I saw myself.

Earlier this year I sold my car.

It had reached the point where the repairs simply weren’t worth it, and with the schoolhouse becoming our biggest investment, buying another vehicle wasn’t in the budget.

So instead...

I started driving our Ford Transit staging van.

From a practical standpoint, it’s perfect. Most of my driving is between Camano and Stanwood. I’m constantly hauling furniture, boxes, merchandise, flowers, or supplies between our businesses. The van actually makes my life easier.

But if I’m honest...

It has messed with my identity more than I expected.

I’ve always loved my cars—not because they were luxury items, but because every one represented a season of my life.

My first car was a 1988 Honda Civic that my parents bought for me when I was sixteen. It wasn’t fancy, but it represented freedom. Independence. Trust. Countless memories with friends.

After college, I bought my first brand-new car—a Volkswagen Golf. It symbolized everything I’d worked toward: my first real career, financial independence, and adulthood.

That car carried me through meeting my husband, getting married, and our first years together. When it was totaled by a drunk driver, I was heartbroken. I carried the key in my purse for nearly a year before finally burying it with a few close friends as a way of saying goodbye to that chapter.

Afterward, we couldn’t quite afford another car, so we made a decision that felt completely out of the box.

We moved to downtown Seattle.

We walked to work and used Zipcar whenever we needed a vehicle. One weekend we drove a Mini Cooper. Another time it was a truck for an IKEA run. Sometimes a convertible.

That season taught me something I’ll never forget.

The car wasn’t the identity.

It was simply the tool we needed for that particular day.

Years later came the BMW sedan—the ambitious career season.

Then the BMW SUV—the real estate season, the future mom season.

Eventually it became the car that brought our adopted son home from the airport after we became parents.

Looking back, every vehicle reminds me of a different chapter.

Now I’m driving a work van.

A vehicle that hauls displays, furniture, tote bins, and dreams.

At first it felt strange because it didn’t match the image I’d built in my mind of who I was supposed to be.

Then I realized...

Maybe this season doesn’t need to look impressive.

Maybe it just needs to move us toward where we’re going.

Every dollar that isn’t spent on another vehicle is another dollar invested into our family’s future, our businesses, and the schoolhouse.

The van may not represent success in the way my younger self imagined.

But it represents something even better.

Purpose.

Which brings me back to the schoolhouse.

Do we help it become a home? Potentially for our family or to host as an AIRBNB?

Or do we help it become a gathering place for the community? An events space?

Residential or commercial.

We’re still researching both possibilities.

But I’ve realized something through this process.

Identity isn’t determined by the label on the building.

Or the vehicle we drive.

Or the title on the business card.

Those things are simply tools for the season we’re in.

The real question isn’t what we’re driving or what the building becomes.

The real question is whether we’re becoming the people we’re meant to be while we’re on the journey.

Sometimes the most meaningful chapters of our lives don’t look the way we imagined.

Sometimes they look like an old schoolhouse waiting for its future...

...and a Ford Transit in the pick up line at school.

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Lately, one thought keeps sticking with me.

Everything around us—literally everything—was once just an idea.

Electricity. Your favorite restaurant. Post-it Notes. This old schoolhouse I’m writing about.

None of these things existed until someone imagined them first.

Someone decided to move an idea from their imagination into the real world.

That thought has been incredibly encouraging to me because building something new is never easy. If you ask almost anyone who has created a business, written a book, invented a product, or started a movement, they’ll usually tell you the same thing:

“If I had known how hard it would be, I’m not sure I would have done it.”

Yet because they kept going, the rest of us get to enjoy what they created.

Sometimes I think certain dreams are simply willed into existence.

An idea takes hold of someone, and they become relentless about seeing it through. What makes a person willingly endure years of uncertainty, setbacks, criticism, and failure just to create something that didn’t exist before?

For me, it starts with God.

I believe He wired each of us differently. Our interests, experiences, personalities, and the way we naturally see the world are all part of His design. Some people are gifted at caring for others. Some love details, organization, and spreadsheets. Others naturally build community.

And some of us are idea people.

I’ve always been one of those people.

Ever since I was little, my mind has constantly been swirling with possibilities. I can seem like a loner at times, but honestly, I love spending quiet time thinking through ideas.

When I was young, I was always drawing.

Paper dolls.

Fashion sketches.

Little stories that only existed in my imagination.

If you asked my classmates to describe me, they probably would have said, “Melissa? She’s always drawing.”

Looking back, it makes perfect sense that I eventually found myself in fashion design.

For thirteen years, I had what felt like the perfect creative job. Every season started with a color palette and a mood board. Every three months, we were given permission to dream up something entirely new and then bring it to life.

I’ll never forget the excitement of opening a shipment of new samples.

Something that had only existed in my brain/heart was suddenly hanging on a rack.

An idea had become something tangible.

Those years taught me one of the greatest lessons of my career: ideas become real through action.

The difference, though, was that I had an entire company behind me. Systems. Teams. Manufacturing. Brand recognition. Resources.

I wasn’t building alone.

And it’s easy to forget that even Tommy Bahama started exactly the same way—as an idea. Three friends dreamed together and decided to create something that didn’t exist.

As a young designer, I watched those founders live out their vision, and somewhere deep inside I quietly thought,

“If they can build something from nothing... maybe someday I can too.”

By my mid-thirties, I couldn’t ignore that feeling anymore.

Gerald had already been building his real estate business, and I could see how entrepreneurship was changing him. He was growing—not just professionally, but personally.

I wanted that kind of growth too.

So I left the comfort of Tommy Bahama, took a short break, earned my real estate license, and stepped into an entirely different world.

A world I never imagined I’d be part of.

Looking back, it wasn’t really about real estate.

It was about becoming someone willing to build.

I’ve learned that the hardest part of almost anything is simply beginning.

Dreaming is easy.

Being inspired is easy.

Actually starting?

That’s terrifying.

We want to be good immediately. We don’t want people to judge us. We don’t want to waste time, money, or energy on something that might fail.

So we wait.

We tell ourselves, “Someday...”

But if you’re someone who was created to make things, those ideas rarely leave you alone.

They quietly follow you.

I’ve learned that motion is always better than waiting for perfection.

Take the smallest step.

Accept that it will be messy.

Expect mistakes.

Keep moving anyway.

Crawling is still forward motion.

The Camano Shop is proof of that.

When we opened, only half of the house was even a shop. I imagined it would mostly be home décor with a little clothing mixed in.

Today?

Nearly every room is open, and clothing has become our strongest category by far.

Recently, while digging through our sales numbers, I realized our best-selling products are all apparel.

Of course they are.

Fashion has always been my first love.

But I never would have discovered that if I had waited until I had the “perfect” business plan.

Sometimes the only way to discover the right path is to start walking.

The destination often changes as you go.

And that’s exactly how I feel about the Schoolhouse.

We started.

Actually... we started really big.

We bought the property.

Plan A failed.

Plan B failed.

For a while, that felt discouraging.

But failure doesn’t mean the dream is over.

It simply means we’re learning what this place was always meant to become.

So we’ll keep moving.

We’ll use what we have.

We’ll adjust.

We’ll stay faithful.

We’ll keep showing up.

Maybe that’s what willing something into existence really looks like.

Not one giant leap.

But thousands of small decisions to keep moving forward.

Even if, for today, that simply means writing about the dream.

Because every beautiful thing someone has ever built once began as an idea.

And the only way an idea becomes reality...

is through motion forward.

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This newsletter has been over a year in the making.

Last summer, we purchased the Old Silvana Schoolhouse with the hope of opening a second store location. Fast forward one year, and the building still sits empty.

It’s something I haven’t really felt comfortable talking about publicly, yet I know it’s something the community wants to know about.

So here’s to transparency.

Here’s to sharing the difficult path of chasing a dream.

This newsletter is for the people who truly want to know our story. For the community members rooting for us and wanting to follow the journey firsthand. It’s also for those outside our little corner of the world who are curious about what happens when a project doesn’t go according to plan, yet you keep moving forward anyway.

We’re going to talk about disappointment, permitting, design, dreams, collaborations, local history, fundraising, restoration, and all the unexpected twists that come with owning a 119-year-old schoolhouse.

In my next newsletter, I’ll share more about what led us to this point.

But first, a little background.

Like many of you, I have a deep love for old buildings, local history, and spaces that bring people together. I grew up in Silvana on a dairy farm started by my grandparents in the 1960s. The house I spent my first 7 years in was an old farmhouse - and we found lots of treasures in the attic - old newspapers, dishes, and linens. As a young adult, I moved to Seattle for art school (fashion design) and career opportunities, but eventually found my way back home.

Today, I live on Camano Island with my husband, Gerald, and our son. Together, we’ve become caretakers of several historic properties, including The Camano Shop which is an a 1911 farmhouse, a lake cottage vacation rental built in 1915, and now the 1907 Silvana Schoolhouse—which has proven to be quite the adventure.

The truth is, we weren’t planning on buying a schoolhouse.

When the property came on the market, there were multiple interested buyers. My husband and I felt an immediate pull toward it. Within 24 hours, we found ourselves in a bidding war with very little time to fully evaluate what we were getting into.

There was no feasibility study - we just didn’t have the luxury of time due to the interest in the property.

Just a dream, a sense of possibility, and a deep belief that this historic building mattered.

We moved investments around, put together a down payment, and took the leap.

Today, we’re paying a mortgage, maintaining the building, caring for two acres of property, and investing in repairs—with no income coming from the Schoolhouse.

For an entire year.

I guess you could say we’re all in.

As Tim Gunn would say, “make it work.”

What many people don’t know is that the dream we originally had for the property quickly unraveled. The vision we purchased it for wasn’t possible due to many limitations discovered while working more closely with county.

That reality was difficult to accept.

For more than a year, this property has been tied to one of the most emotional chapters of my professional life.

For a long time, I wasn’t quite sure how to talk about it. People would ask about the Schoolhouse, and while I appreciated their interest, I often found it difficult to explain where we had been, where we are now, and where we might be headed.

Because the story is complicated.

It’s about business, but it’s also about disappointment.

It’s about preserving history, but it’s also about figuring out what comes next when your original plan doesn’t work out.

And most of all, it’s about trying to do the right thing with a building that matters.

Today, we find ourselves asking different questions:

If it can’t become what we originally envisioned, what can it become?

How do we preserve it?

How do we honor its history?

How do we fund the current expenses?

How do we comply with county requirements?

How do we ensure it remains a meaningful part of our community for generations to come?

Those questions are what led me to create this newsletter.

I wanted a place where I could share the full story—not just the polished updates, but the real journey. The permits. The repairs. The setbacks. The victories. The design decisions. The financial realities. The emotional ups and downs of moving forward.

Most importantly, I wanted a place where I could communicate more openly than I do on social media.

And if this project matters to you, this newsletter creates a simple way for our community to help support the ongoing preservation of the Schoolhouse. By subscribing, you’re helping fund the resources required to care for this historic property while joining us behind the scenes as the story unfolds.

I don’t have all the answers.

I don’t know exactly what the future of the Schoolhouse will look like.

I hope there is a happy ending.

What I do know is that this building is worth saving.

We’ve come too far to stop now.

Little by little, we’re picking up the pieces, putting in the work, and figuring it out.

And despite all the challenges, we feel incredibly grateful. Sometimes it almost feels as though we were chosen to steward this property through its next chapter.

What an opportunity.

Thank you for being here and for joining us on the journey.

— Melissa