Hi, I’m Michelle. My husband Randy and I have been together since 1993. I grew up in the Kansas City area and still have family there, then moved to California when I was a teenager. Randy grew up in California. Shane is our son; he was born in California in 1993.
We started Randy’s Computer thanks to the gift of a building on Main St, Cumberland in 2016. In 2019, we built a second location in Griswold. We kept both locations until 2021, when we had the opportunity to expand again to Atlantic. At the same time, we were able to pass the Cumberland building on to the Cumberland Fitness Center. So we focused our sights on keeping the Griswold location healthy and building up the Atlantic location. Randy worked out of Atlantic, I worked out of Griswold.
But something happened we hadn’t expected: Our Griswold clients started coming to us in Atlantic. It was more convenient for them to drop off their computers while already in town to do shopping or keep appointments than it was to make a trip to us in Griswold. Not all of them, of course, but most of them. Atlantic started getting too busy for Randy to run alone, and while he was spending his days rushing around trying to fix computers and mind the counter, I was spending most of my time alone playing Solitaire. So we came to the heartbreaking decision to close Griswold and sell the building.
But then something else unexpected happened: we couldn’t find a buyer we liked. Everyone who was seriously interested in the building had plans for it that we didn’t think would work well with the community, or would be appropriate for Main Street in Griswold.
In the meantime, our son announced he was marrying his girlfriend, and would have a wedding with a Nordic (Viking) theme. This required crafts. Luckily, our son’s stepmother was right in her element, and one night when we had over 100 small slices of walnut that needed to be stained and then left somewhere to cure, she took us to what’s called a Maker Space. We walked in and instantly knew what we were going to do with our building.
Create It Space is our newest and most fun venture. Come see what it’s all about!