JENNIFER BROTHERTON
In the summer of 1999, I went for a five week backpacking trip to Europe with my best friend Karen. Our first stop was to stay with her friend Rik in England. And that is how I met my future husband. Four years later and after many years of friendship, phone calls, and e-mails, Rik and I married in the Lake District in England in 2003 and moved to Olympia to be closer to my family.
As luck would have it, Rik was able to continue working for his flooring company in the U.S. While this was a great job, he was away from home quite a bit and spending many hours sandwiched between eighteen wheelers on the I-5. His absence became more difficult when our daughter Lucy was born in 2005 and our son Jack in January of 2007. We realized that a great deal of our valuable family time was spent with Rik in his car and not at home. Rik sacrificed a great deal coming to live in America and one of the biggest transitions was moving from his small, close-knit village in the North of England. He missed being part of a community and that, in addition to his gridlock frustration, is where the idea for 510 Interiors originated. We wanted to become more a part of the Olympia community by opening a business downtown and wanted to give back to the environment by providing eco-friendly options for people in our area.
I have the great fortune of living in the same city as my two sisters and my parents. Watching my children grow up around their cousins in invaluable. I haven’t given up trying to get my brother to move from Missoula, Mt. to be closer, but can’t blame him when he says he is happy where he is. We also have the amazing luxury of having a dutiful set of grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins in England who come to visit us and we them. It is still shocking that my children at such young ages have not one passport, but two. But that is what it is all about, isn’t it?--- providing as great, if not a better life for your own children. And in a small way, that is what 510 Interiors is all about—providing people with great quality interiors that are healthy, safe for their children, and good for our environment.
I remember listening to Rik conversing with someone when this idea was just beginning to germinate and when asked why we were going to focus on “green” interiors, He replied, “It’s just the right thing to do, isn’t it?” I couldn’t agree more.