Ready or Not (Spoiler: We Weren't)

If you've ever bought an old building full of decades of someone else's stuff, you know what came next: cleaning. So. Much. Cleaning.

The first eight months were a blur of sorting, organizing, hauling, arranging rooms, rearranging those same rooms, and then arranging them again because we'd thought of a better way. Every corner held another box of church, another stack of Sunday school lessons, another mystery closet full of things we couldn't quite identify but definitely needed to deal with. What do we do with the Sticky Sin Slime? What exactly even is Sticky Sin Slime?

We got the parking lot seal coated—because first impressions matter, even if the inside was still a work in progress. We started bringing over some of our tools and supplies, watching our home workshop slowly migrate to its new home. We bought a big Cricut and, in true maker fashion, redid all the building signage ourselves. Why pay someone when you can learn to do it yourself, right?

Our son Andrew came to help. Our friends Nikki and Rob came to help. Slowly, the space started to feel less like a church and more like... something. We weren't quite sure what yet, but it was becoming ours.

As we worked, we started inviting people to walk through. And we listened. Really listened. Someone would mention, "You know what would be great here?" and we'd add it to the list. Another person would ask, "Have you thought about...?" and suddenly we were thinking about it. People brought us things. Lots of things. Old projects, supplies, and equipment.

We decided to test the event space idea with an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party. We curtained off the stage—that mysterious stage we'd kept without knowing why—and created a black light, uranium glass "through the looking glass" section. Watching people's faces light up as they stepped behind that curtain reminded us why we were doing this. Magic doesn't follow a business plan.

We built a website. Set up social media accounts. Researched pricing and resources at other makerspaces across the country, trying to figure out what made sense for our community. We had some area makers come by to kick the tires. One of them 3D printed an entire full-size Fallout Halloween costume using our equipment. Watching that costume come together piece by piece felt like proof of concept.

We started thinking more seriously about what we wanted this space to be. Not just the practical "makerspace with tools" part, but the deeper purpose. Who did we want to serve? What kind of community did we want to build?

We met neighbors who were curious about the activity at the old church. We connected with other area makers who were hungry for a space like this. We hosted some local group events and craft nights, testing out the event side of things. We threw a Halloween Witches Night Out that had people talking for weeks afterward. We started building our game collection.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People were excited. They wanted memberships. They wanted classes. They wanted to be part of whatever this was becoming.

So we made plans to open for members officially.

But were we really ready?

The honest answer? No. Not completely. There were still rooms we hadn't fully figured out. Systems we needed to set up. Policies we hadn't written. A thousand small details that would only reveal themselves once people actually started using the space regularly.

But we'd learned something important during those eight months: you're never truly "ready." There's no perfect moment when every detail is sorted, and every question has an answer. At some point, you just have to open the doors and trust that you'll figure it out together with the community you're building.

We'd cleaned, organized, tested, hosted events, gathered feedback, and built relationships. We had tools, enthusiasm, and a growing network of people who believed in what we were creating.

Ready or not, it was time.