Home Craft Decor Toronto on M6j 1e3

Home Craft Décor, a fixture at Queen and Bathurst, is filled with inventive, fun home furnishings, including faux animal heads starting from $75.

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Home Craft Décor a menagerie of style

Home Craft Décor: "Residential, Commercial, Rental," is located at a rather dodgy corner of Bathurst and Queen, near the hangout for disaffected youth who congregate outside smoking. They are uncharacteristically excited this particular afternoon about spotting George Stroumboulopoulos, his girlfriend and his dog passing by.

The chairs outside Home Craft Décor are chained up — and they're only plastic. Inside is a menagerie. Clearly, when I need to top up my herd of (faux) reindeer heads, I now know to head here. There are walls of deer and moose heads, starting from $75 to $850 for hand-carved full-body wooden deer, plus the ubiquitous chandelier made of wooden antlers.

There are also full-sized metal sheep and pig figures — but at $1,450, the latter is a lot of bacon. Though not exactly Old MacDonald's Farm, it's a ton of fun, with walls painted bright egg-yolk yellow and quirky items like clocks with dog faces and a cool stool made from a tin bucket with lettering on the side and a leather seat on the top for $150.

The accessories totally rock — like intricate model airplanes and a model ship that looks like the Titanic. Storage cubes don't have to be utilitarian and boring; here they're made of metal with studs or covered in Union Jacks. And if happiness is a warm gun, what about a gun that doubles as a table lamp and is available in both gold and silver?

Other fun pieces include wooden kitchen chairs with curved backs in Crayola colours from slime lime to peacock blue for $150.

I am a sucker for inventive light fixtures and glom onto one made of industrial pipes fitted with incandescent light bulbs for $650. It would go perfectly with the killer desk emblazoned with "HOME" in big, white block letters and made of distressed wood to mimic metal.

At 10,000 square feet over two floors, Home Craft Décor readily accommodates moms with strollers shopping for dining-room tables. And they have a lot of them, including one in walnut, made in Canada and left in primitive mode.

The place is huge, but it's quiet as a library, especially downstairs. There is no soundtrack. No Adele singing "Rolling in the Deep" in the background.

Downstairs has more traditional pieces, like sectional couches and a perforated bench that Granny might like. Overall, the artwork is rather cliché including renderings of The Beatles and Marilyn Monroe, galloping horses and New York taxi cabs. Really? Though I do love the framed collection of plates upstairs. They're signed, but I can't read the signature.

Prices may be moderate, but there are very few stickers so you need to ferret out staffers to keep asking the cost. The lovely young woman working way back in the bowels of downstairs is lovely, but doesn't know many prices.

I am loathe to make her trek all the way upstairs to ask, so I lumber there myself. Next time, maybe I'll hire one of the youths outside as a runner.

Home Craft Décor, 600/604 Queen St. W.

Intimidation factor: Minimal. It's like a barn with furniture and accessories. The only intimidating thing is its size, a whopping 10,000 square feet. I need moving sidewalks.

Number of salespeople on floor: Three, two upstairs and one down.

Response time: Immediate. The two staffers at the front look up from their desk with a greeting.

Vibe: Furniture warehouse meets CB2.

Price range: From $49 for acrylic baby ghost chairs to $2,699 for a sectional couch.

Rating: Three-and-a-half metallic life-sized pigs out of four.

Home Craft Decor Toronto on M6j 1e3

Source: https://www.thestar.com/life/fashion_style/2014/10/29/home_craft_dcor_a_menagerie_of_style.html

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