We're doing this as we're starting a business along with a friend of ours, an awesome designer.
We live in this amazing little open-plan studio apartment in one of the grooviest streets of one of the funkiest areas of one of the coolest cities in Australia - Fitzroy St, St Kilda, Melbourne - a street of bars, restaurants, clubs, cafe's and other groovy stores. Our apartment block is not like your average residential units - I have no idea how old it is, but it was apparently once the French Embassy. You enter between a cool little bookstore and a cafe, through these incredible iron gates, through the body of the old embassy itself and into a paved, quiet oasis of green - the central courtyard. The noise of the street dies instantly, allowing you privacy and peace - right in the heart of the action.
Some of our Neighbours were already very cool, and Jus and I are almost certainly the poorest people in the place. Our next-door neighbour John is actually our landlord, although we all pretend like none of us know it - we go through an agency for everything and never hassle him with issues. He's always been willing to help us our with little neighbourly things and is an extremely friendly and cool guy. He's this massively fit American who's a high-flying ad agency exec and has an incredible sense of dress.
Also in there is Rob, a doctor with an exquisite taste in art, and just as friendly as John, although quieter. Our remaining neighbours are friendly, but not particularly outgoing.
Both Rob and John know about Jus and I starting the business - and they've seen us outside for the last week building those desks. John even encouraged us to come in off the street where we were doing all of our work, and to continue in the courtyard as no-one had a right to complain if we were doing it during the day.
Yesterday we complted construction on desk three, and totally finished all work on desks one & two. We've got to wait a few days for desk three to dry, so we put them all into place along our back wall which as you can see is this groovy rendered-brick thing. We also totally re-arranged the apartment to accomodate the new desks.
We invited both Rob and John in at separate times to take a look. Bear in mind John, our landlord, knows we've been storing the unfinished desks, wood and tools on his gorgeous timber floor.
Finally, I get to the point:
They've been so amazingly supportive, I feel more touched by what happened yesterday than almost anything in my life.
When Rob came in, we mentioned that now that the desks are there, the back wall looks kind of bare. I joked about an art company that's been hassling me to buy some investment art that I can't afford - let's face it, I'm having to build my own desks!
About an hour later Rob came back with two amazing pieces of art, one of which is by a well-known and respected artist. He gave us both because he no longer has the space for them and thought we might like them. This guy is just a neighbour we say hello to and have the occasional conversation with. We've always liked him, but that's all. We were both utterly floored by how generous he was and couldn't thank him enough.
While showing John our new arrangement, he asked what else we were needing for our setup. We didn't think anything of it at the time, but again, he also came back later in the day with two amazing funky orange leather chairs for the office which he wasn't using and thought would match the hardwood panels of the desks. They're on indefinite loan until either of us move, and he asked if there was anything else we needed...
We're so touched and humbled by their support and generosity. We've all been good neighbours to each-other, but nothing could have prepared us for such giving-ness.
It's made us determined to succeed at our little venture, but also to keep in mind how we started, where we've come from and to ensure that when we have the opportunity - to be as generous, gracious and giving as these two guys have been to us.
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