Saturday morning we grabbed McFood and headed out to a few suppliers. First stop was the Design Marketplace on the east side towards the airport. It has various home supplier showrooms to browse. We coveted hardware from the hundreds of styles on display at the first showroom. Then we visited the Columbus Wood Products showroom and perused moldings and doors. We finished with the flooring guys and myriad stone/tile/wood options. We also hit Hamilton Parker (right across the road) to check out their gazillion tiling options. It was all fun, but entirely hypothetical at this point.
Next stop was Habitat for Humanity's Build it Again Center on Westerville Road. We've been donating our old fixtures here (from our kitchen remodel in our current house to the ceiling fans in the new one). They re-sell them, you get a tax deduction and it helps a good cause. It's a great place to scout home stuff for cheap, but it is very hit or miss and requires a lot of digging. We hit a home run on this visit! First, we found an awesome old screen door in excellent condition, albeit filthy. The screen was in perfect shape, and inset on removeable hinges plus it's a solid old wood door. Of course, we didn't KNOW we'd be looking for stuff, so we had no measurements and NO CLUE if it would fit at the house. Well, it's only $10 bucks, so we're willing to take the chance. Next we stumbled upon a HUGE stainless steel work sink for a STEAL ($45). I kept calling it EIGHT FEET long, but it's likely no more than six! We took our prizes home and rejoiced when the screen door looks like it's almost a perfect match for the back door. The sink required much wrangling and turning on its side and lifting up one end and lowering the other, but it finally made it all the way down the basement stairs and into a back room where it will probably reside later when we've got real plumbing. We were feeling mighty.
We decided to drive to Chillicothe where a fireplace dealer was advertising HUGE SAVINGS on their ENTIRE INVENTORY REDUCTION of wood stoves. Eric has done a little research on stoves and fireplaces and such. Wood stoves actually heat your house where other options tend to draw the heat out of it. We thought a wood stove would be a good option for one of the places on the first floor to add both heat and coziness. It was lovely unseasonal 60 degrees outside so the trip was an easy one. McCloud Fireplace is just off route 23 in a little house/showroom. All of their wood-burning stove inventory seemed a little more geared towards heating entire farmhouses vs. adding ambience and heat to our smaller bungalow. That and the HUGE SAVINGS was a mere 10% off the list price. We didn't find anything suitable, but our consolation prize was the offer to take 10% off anything we ordered through them (thanks, but we'll probably continue our search closer to home). Eric did find an awesome stamped cast iron register plate. We'll probably use to cover an old windowless cellar window that is directly on the front of the house and stuffed with insulation.
We headed back north and decided to stop at the Southland Expo for final kicks and giggles (and more shopping). The Expo was once the Southland Mall. It's been converted into a giant indoor flea market, but the back half is an antiques and collectibles consignment mall. I sold a lot of "Transformations" inventory there when I went out of business. Our first find was a gorgeous arts and crafts style heavy old mirror for under thirty bucks. It was too heavy to carry so we left it next to the checkout desk. Walking through the booths we learned that Bob Evans had bought the building and were taking it over. Everybody had until December 31st to clear out. A couple of dealers were pretty contentious about this, but that meant lots of SALES and 25-50% off at various booths. Next I found an old Westinghouse fan. I am a HUGE collector of old metal fans. From the iron ones of the 20s to the vintage modern sleeker styles, I love em all. And I have about 30 on a shelf in the basement. But this one was just FIVE BUCKS and my grandfather used to work for Westinghouse so it was also sentimental, so I proceeded to haul it around until I found an outlet to confirm that it worked. It did and went to the front of the store to what was to become "the pile." To "the pile" we ultimately added an old cast iron fireplace insert ($18 and currently spray-painted gold, but that will change), a round 50's table ($5), a mod schoolhouse chair ($7), a steamer trunk ($25), and how are we gonna get this all to the car? How about that Radio Flyer wagon ($7)? We loaded up the wagon and didn't make it to the front door before buying a solid old coal shovel ($2) and an old mitre-box ($1) for our trim-trimming future! We decided we'd spent enough cash and ought to get to work on creating a place to use all this stuff!
Next stop was Habitat for Humanity's Build it Again Center on Westerville Road. We've been donating our old fixtures here (from our kitchen remodel in our current house to the ceiling fans in the new one). They re-sell them, you get a tax deduction and it helps a good cause. It's a great place to scout home stuff for cheap, but it is very hit or miss and requires a lot of digging. We hit a home run on this visit! First, we found an awesome old screen door in excellent condition, albeit filthy. The screen was in perfect shape, and inset on removeable hinges plus it's a solid old wood door. Of course, we didn't KNOW we'd be looking for stuff, so we had no measurements and NO CLUE if it would fit at the house. Well, it's only $10 bucks, so we're willing to take the chance. Next we stumbled upon a HUGE stainless steel work sink for a STEAL ($45). I kept calling it EIGHT FEET long, but it's likely no more than six! We took our prizes home and rejoiced when the screen door looks like it's almost a perfect match for the back door. The sink required much wrangling and turning on its side and lifting up one end and lowering the other, but it finally made it all the way down the basement stairs and into a back room where it will probably reside later when we've got real plumbing. We were feeling mighty.
We decided to drive to Chillicothe where a fireplace dealer was advertising HUGE SAVINGS on their ENTIRE INVENTORY REDUCTION of wood stoves. Eric has done a little research on stoves and fireplaces and such. Wood stoves actually heat your house where other options tend to draw the heat out of it. We thought a wood stove would be a good option for one of the places on the first floor to add both heat and coziness. It was lovely unseasonal 60 degrees outside so the trip was an easy one. McCloud Fireplace is just off route 23 in a little house/showroom. All of their wood-burning stove inventory seemed a little more geared towards heating entire farmhouses vs. adding ambience and heat to our smaller bungalow. That and the HUGE SAVINGS was a mere 10% off the list price. We didn't find anything suitable, but our consolation prize was the offer to take 10% off anything we ordered through them (thanks, but we'll probably continue our search closer to home). Eric did find an awesome stamped cast iron register plate. We'll probably use to cover an old windowless cellar window that is directly on the front of the house and stuffed with insulation.
We headed back north and decided to stop at the Southland Expo for final kicks and giggles (and more shopping). The Expo was once the Southland Mall. It's been converted into a giant indoor flea market, but the back half is an antiques and collectibles consignment mall. I sold a lot of "Transformations" inventory there when I went out of business. Our first find was a gorgeous arts and crafts style heavy old mirror for under thirty bucks. It was too heavy to carry so we left it next to the checkout desk. Walking through the booths we learned that Bob Evans had bought the building and were taking it over. Everybody had until December 31st to clear out. A couple of dealers were pretty contentious about this, but that meant lots of SALES and 25-50% off at various booths. Next I found an old Westinghouse fan. I am a HUGE collector of old metal fans. From the iron ones of the 20s to the vintage modern sleeker styles, I love em all. And I have about 30 on a shelf in the basement. But this one was just FIVE BUCKS and my grandfather used to work for Westinghouse so it was also sentimental, so I proceeded to haul it around until I found an outlet to confirm that it worked. It did and went to the front of the store to what was to become "the pile." To "the pile" we ultimately added an old cast iron fireplace insert ($18 and currently spray-painted gold, but that will change), a round 50's table ($5), a mod schoolhouse chair ($7), a steamer trunk ($25), and how are we gonna get this all to the car? How about that Radio Flyer wagon ($7)? We loaded up the wagon and didn't make it to the front door before buying a solid old coal shovel ($2) and an old mitre-box ($1) for our trim-trimming future! We decided we'd spent enough cash and ought to get to work on creating a place to use all this stuff!
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