Field Trip

On Saturday Charles and I enjoyed a trip up to Toledo.  We got our Christmas shopping about half finished.  But the highlight for me was our first stop - Toledo Architectural Artifacts.  AA is an architectual salvage business located in an old downtown warehouse.  I've spent many hours on their website drooling, and the place is just as unbelievable in person. 

The collection of vintage bathroom fixtures was one of the 'funnest' areas:

There were more sinks behind me when I took the above picture (as well as toilets in the same range of colors). 

Although AA has items contemporary to our house, in general the late nineteenth century through the mid twentieth century dominate their inventory.  Oodles of Victorian, Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, and a healthy dose of the purely eclectic, too.

We brought with us the one remaning sash from our springhouse windows, but left without finding any matching six pane sash.  I also intended to scour AA's inventory of interior hooks hoping to find some to match our remaining hooks from the boards along the walls in our two front bedrooms and upstairs hall.  This would have been much easier if I hadn't absent-mindedly left the bag with our hooks on the Einsel House kitchen counter. 

I'll be emailing the pictures below to AA to see if they have anything that matches.

(I obviously raided the kids' block basket for that last picture.)  I haven't taken an exact count, but I believe we need around 15 of the top hook and 6 or 7 of the bottom one.  I realize that odds of finding a perfect match for either of these hooks are not great - and the odds of finding 15, or 6 or 7, perfect matches are downright poor.  But that won't stop me from trying!

Here are some of the top style hooks at work in our bedroom:

The ribbons are holding up some new artwork.  There's a third picture that will hang on the left, but I need to get more ribbon before I can hang it.

I suspect at least a few readers are scrunching up their foreheads in puzzlement about the bluebird, or more particularly, about the ribbon holding up the bluebird.  My own forehead was rather scrunched up while hanging the picture.  The problem is that the existing spacing for the hooks is too close for the size of the pictures.  If I put the bluebird ribbon solely on the left hook the two pictures bump into each other.  If I put the bluebird ribbon solely on the right hook the two pictures are just too far apart.  So I split the difference.  Well...straddled the difference I guess. 

I suppose I could drill new bird-picture-appropriate-spaced holes for the hooks, but I'm hesitant for several reasons.  First, I'm always loath to put new holes/cuts/marks of any kind in the Einsel House woodwork.  Second, respacing the hooks would require sanding the wood clean, measuring for and drilling the new holes, filling the old holes, more sanding, and finally refinishing the wood.  (In other words, you could replace that last sentence with 'Second, I'm feeling lazy at the moment.' and that would be true as well.)  And third, I suspect I might actually like my creative ribbonwork.  I'll have to hang the third picture up before I completely make up my mind.