Cache rewards

You have expended hrs at the shop, seeking for that one special product to give your house decor a one of a kind touch.

And then you detect that nearly everybody in the checkout has 1, too. Even worse, when you get it in your dwelling space, your neighbors and friends join in a rousing chorus of "oh, yeah, I have one particular just like it at family home."

Maybe it is time to store off the beaten route, a tactic that can be creatively exhilarating -- and even help save you profit.

We have scouted the territory and arrive up with some out-of-the-way sites to inspire you. Our searches turned up green clawfoot tubs, virtually new purple sinks and fashionable kitchen counter tops at four bucks a foot.

Use them for their meant objective or, even far better, invent one thing new out of others' discarded junk. Chosen window casings as image frames. Aged doors for desk tops. Wrought iron for wall hangings. Army missile cones for planters. Permit your creativeness be your guidebook.

And completely happy hunting.

DECORATING ON A DIME

701 County Line Road

Palmer Lake

559-1220

This 4-year-older organization is the place to come for designer- excellent furniture and equipment at beneath-retail total price.

Operator Karen Jones, who decorates model residences and has won a variety of awards for her perform with the Parade of Properties, states she can have very low charges simply because the lease on the warehouselike space is so low-cost. She started out the shop in her basement for her very own purchasers and inevitably opened this model for the public.

Client Suzanne Drumm was there fairly recently, "poking approximately to see what is new." She and a good friend have been right here at least a dozen times and have acquired a leather sofa, chair and custom drapes. "I've found the merchandise fabulous and price ranges cheaper than the Springs," Drumm explained.

At minimum she found it. The problem would-be customers consult Jones most generally by means of telephone is: "Exactly where the heck are you?" Even MapQuest has the shop pinpointed on the mistaken facet of I-25, Jones says.

The least complicated route is to just take exit 163 off I-25 and go west two.2 miles to the gigantic green 701 County Line Street sign. Turn left into the parking ton. If you cross the railroads tracks, you've gone also far.

Park in the dirt ton, then pick up a clipboard and a card at the door to create down your choices.

The warehouse is set up like a showroom, crammed with luscious Tuscany and French region furnishings, and uncommon knickknacks.

We spied an ornate Asianstyle lamp for $eighty, a dazzling sunflower print for $524 ($75 a lot less than the total price marketed in a trendy catalog) wrought iron grates converted to wall hangings for $sixty a six-foot-tall by 6-foot-extensive oak show circumstance for $718 a aspect table with a checkerboard printed on top notch for $70 and rustic candle holders for $8.

ReSTORE

411 S. Wahsatch Ave.

Colorado Springs

667-0840

You might probably not be as lucky as the guy who bought a great, heart- formed spa and trucked it to his house in Mexico, but there is usually some thing enjoyable or advantageous to be had here.

The save, which opened a yr ago, is run by Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit group that uses donated merchandise and volunteers to build residences for the needy.

The keep raises funds for Habitat assignments by promoting donated and overstocked products for the house. On any day you can locate house owners and contractors shopping for nails, paint or light fixtures.

On a modern day, purchaser Don Schmalz was trying for tin to correct up a horse trailer. "I arrive right here a good deal. I like the price tags and the odds and ends."

That day, the 12,000-square-foot warehouse had shelves stocked with Olympic paint for $five a gallon, doorknobs for $2.fifty, 8-foot items of molding for fifty cents, wallpaper for $three a roll, electric light plates for 15 cents and antiquelike glass tulip light fly- strikes for 50 cents.

Manager John Veteto is commonly stunned at the objects that are donated. His popular is four comprehensive, packaged solar sizzling water heating devices.

USE All over again Building Resources

506 W. Cucharras St.

473-2150

In an company cozily heated by a wood stove, you are likely to come across supervisor Rick -- who makes use of only his very first name, even on his organization cards. He'll assist if you are looking for a little something distinctive.

But in actual fact, you would not ought a lot direction. For a salvage property, this just one has the flotsam nicely organized.

"If you are unable to unearth it, I can not promote it," Rick says.

Rows and rows of toilets are lined up like operates of art, and there's a designated lumber lawn had been put into use wood in superb affliction can provide for significantly less than 50 percent of retail. There have been sliding glass windows for $5 outdated pedestal sinks, $125 a green clawfoot bathtub, $300 countertops, $four a foot toilet tank tops, $ten and the proverbial kitchen sink, $seventy five.

The quickest way to uncover the spot is to just take Colorado Avenue west from downtown, flip left on Walnut Street and make a appropriate on Cucharras. The salvage yard is on the suitable.

Just one word of help and advice: Be careful not to trip around the appropriately scruffy junkyard dogs and cats lazing all-around.

HILLSIDE ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE

1006 S. Institute

209-1366 or 520-9463

You will find an impressive array of salable salvage scattered across the four acres of this demonstration garden middle. But the military missiles fashioned into tiki torches and the rocket nozzles that serve as planters essentially stand out.

They signify the clever facet of owner Larry Ash and his household, who see other people's junk as prospective objets d'art for the back lawn.

Not all sorts of things here is for sale. You cannot pay for the rusted tin alligator or the humorous green crocodile sculpture or the dancing muses, no issue how a whole lot you covet them. Ash refuses to part with them given that they include ambience to the cafe and grounds.

But never ever fright. There is loads of other things you can lug family home to establish your personal piece of garden heaven.

The day we visited, we observed cast iron sinks that make great planters, an assortment of tractor and other farm equipment wheels, cogs, spindles, old pots, wind chimes, tree grates, slabs of rock and balusters. In warmer weather, you can stroll through the themed demonstration gardens and obtain a wide variety of native and strange vegetation.

ALLIED RESTAURANT & BAR Provide

120 W. Cucharras St.

578-8668

You don't have to possess a restaurant to shop right here. If you have a kitchen, you're coming to the perfect site.

"There's a treasure trove here," clerk Doug Dawson states.

Who would not want 1 of these expert roller stuff that retains scorching dogs turning as they cook? Or a single counter seat in glowing purple? Or a large, glistening, pearlized pink clam bowl, optimal to fill with ice and shrimp? Or it's possible one of people twirling pie situation holders that you could fill with granny's apple pies or your knickknacks.

"The only thing we do not have are left-handed spoons," Dawson says.

The shelves groan with a great many new items as effectively as put to use kitchen area equipment from eating places that threw in the towel, and from chefs who wanted newer cookware. A swift inventory not too long ago turned up Chinese dragon motif plates, espresso grinders, butcher tops, earthy wanting brown mugs for a buck, assorted spoons ($4 a dozen), classic restaurant saucepans, 24-count muffin tins ($12) and bakers racks.

Out back again is exactly where you can come across the larger appliances: sizeable restaurant freezers, specialist stoves with twelve burners, ice makers significant ample to rest in and more modestly sized refrigerators that could squeeze into most place kitchens. The price tags for some of the behemoth appliances can be 1000's of dollars, but still about half of retail amount, relying on issue.

KIM'S OLDE JUNQUE AND

Things

504 E. Pikes Peak

219-0733

Kim Martin commenced this internet business in 1993 out of sheer desperation.

"All time I finished cleaning up my home, my husband would bring some way more junk house," she says with a chuckle.

Now she has 7,020 square ft of space for "junque and things," like a provide of a hundred-yr-aged bricks likely for 75cents apiece, an arty tree stump, glass blocks, screening, glass shower doors and brass hanging fixtures covered with splattered paint.

Don Aguilar was rummaging approximately with his tape measure not too long ago in lookup of screens and heater vents for a rental apartment. "I'm a regular buyer," he says. "You will find all kinds of outstanding things right here."

Writer: CAROL McGRAW THE GAZETTE