Ella looked up at the building. ‘Thoughts so far? What is it saying to you?’
Nina raised her eyebrows. ‘Work!’
‘Oh yes, there’s plenty of that. It’s a bit on the tatty side, if I’m honest. I’ve got to say, though, I think you’re going to fall in love in the next ten minutes. It is oozing potential, if I say so myself. As soon as I walked in I thought this is the one for you. Blimey, we’ve looked at enough, right?’
‘We have indeed. I feel like I’ll never find something that combines an office and a residential bit, too.’
Ella shook her head. ‘Until now. You are currently looking at it.’
Nina followed around the back of the building and scanned the details of the old fishing shed's exterior. They reached a small, sturdy door at the back. Ella fumbled with a large keyring as she tried to locate the correct key.
‘Here we go,’ Ella said, putting the key into the lock, turning it and unlocking the door. It creaked open, revealing a dim interior that smelt of wood, dust and history.
Nina followed Ella as she stepped inside, her eyes adjusted to the change in light and took in an expansive warehouse-feel room with high ceilings and, despite the murky light and dank smell, a sense of openness. Old wooden beams crisscrossed overhead, huge industrial pendant lamps hung through the centre, and the walls were lined with remnants of its past life – rusted hooks, a few nets here and there, old maritime charts, and faded photographs of fishermen with their catch.
Nina wasn’t sure what to think. ‘Hmm, right. It's got character, that's for sure,’ she remarked. Her voice echoed slightly in the large space.
Ella grinned. ‘You can say that again. Imagine what you could do with this space. Office, workshop, retail – you name it. Sure, there’s a lot to clean up, but if you look closely, most of it iscosmetic, really.’ Ella pointed at the dusty walls and beamed ceilings that looked as if they had seen better days. ‘For example, look at that there; no mould, no signs of damp, and built to last. These places will go on forever. I sold one years ago down the other end, they’re thriving.’
Nina nodded, taking in Ella's words as she walked further in. Her steps echoed on the wooden floor. Ella wasn’t wrong. She attempted to envision the place after one of her mammoth clearouts, much effort and a lot of paint. ‘You're right,’ Nina said as she turned around to take in the full scope of the room. ‘There's so much potential here.’
Ella gestured to the back. ‘You could use this for storage for your business and even partition that bit there for a desk and that sort of thing. I know it’s a total mess at the moment, but it’s there if you look for it.’
Nina thought about how she currently ran her new business from her phone and how it would be life-changing to have somewhere to sit at a desk and keep all her stuff in order. ‘Yes, it’s made for it.’
Ella led the way to a super narrow, super steep staircase at the far end. Her heels clipped on the floor. ‘Let’s go upstairs. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, that’s if I don’t kill myself in these shoes. I meant to change them when I got in the car. Another reason I hate being late is it always ends up in me being disorganised.’
As Nina followed Ella up the creaky, steep timber stairs to the second floor, she wasn’t sure where to look first. The staircase alone was lovely. Each tread felt as if it came with its very own sound and the open woodwork on the clad walls housed shelving as far as the eye could see.
Once they got to the second floor, Ella carefully picked her heels over extremely dusty floorboards and swept her hand around and over towards the large windows that Nina had seenfrom outside. The windows were filthy, a broken blind obscured the light, and a rolled-up rug leaning beside them looked as if it needed to make its way to the dump. ‘This is it. Your name is all over it if you ask me. I thought that right away.’
Nina took a few steps over towards the window and pulled back the horrid old metal blind. Dust flew up into the air, and she coughed as she peered out the window. The sea view was mesmerising and took her breath away for a second. It offered a sweeping panorama of Lovely Bay, the bustling harbour, and the river snaking off in the distance. She could see the Lovely Bay church spires and the lighthouse as she looked the other way. Her stomach fluttered; the view alone was right up her alley. ‘Wow.’ Nina's heart skipped a beat; the panorama from the window was worth any amount of work the building needed.
Ella raised her eyebrows. ‘Yeah, totally. Wow is the word. You just don’t realise what these places look over until you get up here.’
‘It’s amazing. It really is.’
‘This could be a great space,’ Ella suggested, walking over to the window. ‘Open-plan living, you’ve already got the kitchen area over there. All of it finished off with that view!’
Nina followed Ella to the kitchen area. She started to chuckle as she looked around. ‘Are we calling this a kitchen?’ A small run of old timber units had been wedged onto the far side of the room. The same pendant lights as the ones downstairs hung from the rafters, horrid black and white chequered flooring was coming away from the floorboards in the kitchen area, and an old cooker had lost a foot and looked as if it had possibly had a few too many.
Nina nodded as she walked around. In light of the state of the place, especially the kitchen, she couldn’t quite picture herself living and working in it, but she could get used to waking up to the sight of the sun glittering on the water and the rhythmicsound of the sea and waves just outside the window. That in itself was worth its weight in gold as far as she was concerned.
Ella turned around. ‘Okay, follow me up to the next floor. It’s, umm, well, I’ll let you see for yourself.’
They continued up an even steeper set of stairs, akin really to a ladder, to the third floor. Clean it was not. It stunk of years of neglect. Absolutely packed to the rafters with fishing paraphernalia, Ella squeezed under the sloped ceiling between old fishing nets, oars, and what looked like part of a boat towards the dormer windows at the front. It was dusty, dirty, full of junk, and with an attic-like feel, but to Nina, it somehow felt intimate and secluded. As if as they’d climbed up, they’d left the actual world and moved into a quieter one where the sound was different, and everything felt a bit muffled.
There was barely enough room for Nina to stand beside Ella between the junk, but as the two of them stood by the dormer windows surrounded by maritime paraphernalia, neither of them said anything for a bit as they looked out over the water. The sun glistened, a swoop of birds went past the window, and below in the harbour, a fishing boat started on its way out to sea.
‘I thought bed up here…’ Ella trailed off almost as if she was talking to herself. ‘Imagine this in the morning as the sun’s coming up. I reckon it’s magical.’
‘Mmm,’ Nina said, turning around and attempting to look past the junk.
Ella pointed to a rickety old door with a lifebuoy wedged on the back of it. ‘Bathroom in there.’ She winced a little bit. ‘I feel slightly apprehensive about calling it a bathroom, but it has a toilet and a bath, so…’
Nina squeezed past the door and the lifebuoy. An old toilet was so dirty that green mould grew in the pan. The same thing was happening with a ring going around the tub. The roof sloped, and another dormer window looked out over the back.Nina let out a whoosh of air as Ella tried to sneakily hold her hand over her mouth at the stench coming from the toilet.
‘It needs a lot of work and it stinks. Nice. I’d have zero budget for anything like that.’
