I am going to share with you one of my best interior designer secrets … Home Hardware.
Often times I need to find a very specific item for a Client – not a glamorous light fixture or a stunning piece of furniture – I mean little things like an ironing board rack for a laundry room or special tape for an art installation. All of these ‘little things’ seem like they would be easy to find. In fact, these are the things that you certainly see around all the time and that you therefore believe can just be picked up in a jiffy. No.
When looking for the aforementioned ironing board rack (a basic rack for securing your ironing board that also holds the iron itself) I went to no less than four … FOUR … different home organization and hardware stores without finding it. The same thing happened when I tried to find a specifically-sized recycling bin for a client.
Enter Home Hardware.
I literally feel like Ariel in her cave of wonders when I walk into this place. Isle upon isle of stuff … gadgets and gizmos of plenty, whos-its and whats-its galore. You want thing-a-ma-bobs? They’ve got twenty …
Sorry.
The point is that this store has EVERYTHING. Ironing board rack? Yup. Recycling bin of appropriate dimensions? Yup. Every type of glue, tape, fastener, cord, and sticky stuff you could need for any installation? Check, check, check and … check! Now, is the store well merchandised, making your shopping experience a breeze? You be the judge:
Yyyyyyyeah. Not quite. It takes many years of living with a father who threw nothing away to appreciate the chaos of most HH stores (and potentially a person with her own hoarding problem to hum the Little Mermaid soundtrack while skipping down the aisles). Which is why your first order of business is to make a friend in your local HH associate!
This is the staff of Wiener’s Home Hardware in Toronto. The guy on the left would by my choice of in-store buddy for two reasons: 1) he’s the oldest (agist yes, but also accurate) and 2) he has a pocket knife on his belt. That’s dedication to industriousness.
Did you know that all Home Hardware’s are individually owned and operated? Meaning that your neighbourhood likely has it’s own version with a fantastic cast of characters and their own special offering of things that you never knew you needed. Be-friend the key-cutting guy or the stock boy or the lovely old gentleman/gentlewoman who owns the place because they know exactly where everything is in there. There’s some sort of specialized dewy decimal system at play here, I’m sure of it. I personally like to seek out the most crotchety of the red-polo-shirted gang – if you play your cards right they will unleash some amazing knowledge on you!
So stop thinking of Home Hardware as the Danny DeVito to Home Depot’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. Get on it there and see what you can find. I guarantee you’ll leave with something to improve your home.
PS: The title image is not my local HH store, it’s a store in Trail Bay, BC but it looks just like I remember my home-town version as a kid.