Sound Oak Restoration
MEANING IN THE NAME
It all began with a dream of renovating a historic house, not necessarily in North Carolina, but somewhere. Since we now call Wilmington our home, this became the launching point for Sound Oak Restoration.
Throughout our marriage, we have immersed ourselves in varying levels of home projects. We are now living in our fourth home, and I’m sure it won’t be our last. All our houses represent a period in our lives; since life is always changing, likely our home will too.
The name of our ‘business’ stems from a combination of who we are. I love to find the root and meaning of words and names, so our business name is very significant to me.
The first part of our Surname is Sund, which in Norwegian means a sound or a strait. The first part of my maiden name is Eik, which in Norwegian means oak. It goes further than that, at least in my mind. Having been raised on Long Island, Long Island Sound has deep meaning since we spent many days on or in the water. Oak trees are a predominant tree in New York, offering shade in the spring and summer, colorful leaves in the fall to admire and eventually rake. Oak trees have taken on new meaning here in the South. Live Oaks are everywhere with their intricate form and eternal beauty. I could go even deeper into the symbolism of water and trees, but I’ll leave it there.
We have a name and our first project pictured above.
You might wonder, why would we buy and save this house? Well, the price was right, and we saw the potential. With an abundance of grit and time, we are restoring this two-apartment house in downtown Wilmington. I’ll walk you through the progress and share a little history along the way.
One other aspect of our name, which I failed to mention, is the word restoration. We are not a construction company, and we don’t plan on doing renovations. We’re restoring life to old, worn-out properties in our hometown. We’re certainly not alone in this field, and many are doing it better than we are, but our approach stems from a different vantage point. This project is not our career, at least not for now, but it’s more than a hobby, that is for sure. We’re slow and deliberate. We’ll restore one house at a time and see where we land. Perhaps we should have started with a smaller, single-family-house, but we’re leaping in feet first. We learn and grow with each decision and hope that one day we’ll return a profit. At least for now, we’re preserving a piece of history and improving the property value of our neighbors, which isn’t a bad thing.
Here’s a current article from Salt Magazine that will fill you in on where we are as a city. It’s pretty exciting to see that the future for Wilmington looks very promising, which makes our investment secure.