Extraordinary Mondays: Anyone out there with a few spare grand?

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For months now, we have been avoiding the morning jam on the freeway by driving down an alternate route and this route takes us by the beautiful little narrow slice of yesteryears shown in the google maps above. Every morning and evening as we drive by it, I would dream of one day owning the shop and its attached cottage. I can just imagine the shop restored to its former simplicity with a cute display in the window and the shop stocked with my line of homesware and children clothes. The attached cottage would be converted into a bookcafe with a backyard where parents would bring their kids for story time in the shade of peppermint gum.

Can't you just see it? A little bell tinkles as you push the entry door of the narrow shop. You are greeted by a friendly smile and allowed to browse to the beat of Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald. The wares on sale are beautifully simple with clean lines and a certain calmness. As you walk further into the narrow shop, you begin to hear kids laughing and smell freshly baked bread and cakes. (The shop was originally a bakery). You are drawn into the backyard of the bookcafe where kids are gathered around a man dressed in tails with a top hat telling a story about the silly antics the circus animals have been up to. You buy a freshly baked muffin, order a cup of coffee and settle down in a comfy rattan chair in the bookcafe with that book of softies your friends have been raving on about.

I wish I had the guts AND money to jump in and take the risk to offer the owner an offer she can't refuse. My sources inform me that the building probably isn't going to be for very much longer unless someone saves it from forced demolition. The place needs serious restoration BUT can't you see and share my vision?