New Stock Arrives Daily

We have had a couple of shipments of new furniture delayed, so instead we brought in lots and lots of antiques over the last couple of weeks. New antique arrivals include: portable singer sewing machine, 4 chandeliers including a nice bronze and crystal chandelier, 2 oak wall phones, nice crockery butter churn, treadle sewing machine, 5 piece bowl & pitcher set, reproduction oak bowl & pitcher stand with bowl & pitcher, a bunch of silver plate holloware including 6 piece tea set, crocks, bottles, sad irons, spinning wheel, 2 washboards, 3 planters painted red, unusual brown Bakelite wall phone, cement birdbath, Grundig Classic shortwave radio, reproduction tabletop Victrola, large needlepoint picture, 3 oil on canvas paintings, 2 small cast iron planters, Art Deco table mirror, 8′ step ladder, assorted mirrors, a collection of copper pans & pots & kettles-a photo is attached, and lots of assorted smalls.

Antique furniture new arrivals included: a nice drafting table-a photos is below, 6 foot pine leather top desk, oak school desk, pair of mahogany corner chairs, 6 foot Victorian mahogany sideboard, exceptional Victorian needlepoint rocking chair, square oak coffee table, walnut china cabinet, tall & narrow pine kitchen cabinet, redone steamer trunk, and assorted chairs.

We also got in new iron plantstands in black and white. As well as a huge batch of garden gnomes. We now have 16 different garden gnomes in stock, for all your gnomey needs.

If you have been in The Barn over the last couple of weeks you may have noticed that things look a little different than normal. There are a lot more sold pieces than normal and even a few empty spaces. We always have lots of extra inventory to bring in at The Barn, and as items leave we bring in new ones, that’s why The Barn is always packed. But safety measures we have in place for covid19 and the prolonged heatwave have slowed us down a bit, things are taking a little longer than normal. We have had an incredibly busy month of July and we are having a little trouble keeping up with demand. Sales have been much higher than we expected since we reopened. We are not complaining, with so many businesses struggling right now it’s a wonderful problem to have. Be assured we are getting the sold pieces out and bringing new items in as quickly as we can. The Barn will be packed again soon. The good news is that there will be lots of new arrivals in the weeks to come.

Quarantine Series: The Long Kiss Goodnight

This is a follow up to our recent post about the movie business. I wrote about renting and selling to to movie business, but I left something out. I thought I would do a post about what happens when things go wrong. 99% of the time everything operates smoothly with the movie folks, but not always.

These days the movie folks mostly buy rather than rent. Rentals still happen, a show called Nurses rented a few things things this past week. But every year we are getting fewer and fewer rentals and more and more purchases from the movie folks. This change has happened for two main reasons. First, the movie folks mostly come to us for antique pieces and antiques used to be so expensive they couldn’t afford to buy them, they had to rent. They would even work out shooting schedules so that they would only have to pay one week rental instead of two. Second, movies made for theatres used to be the main thing. They often had short shooting schedules and than the production would shut down. Now the main thing is TV series often for streaming services, so productions often go on for years. Renting items for years doesn’t make sense. Rentals are great for us, but they have caused some problems over the years.

A couple of years back we had a magnificent Victorian dinning room table and eight chairs. Murdoch Mysteries wanted to rent just four of the chairs. The whole set wasn’t within their budget. They used to get a budget for a block of episodes and sometimes by the time they got to the last couple of episodes in a block, money got tight. They were such good customers and we knew they could be trusted to take care of the chairs so we agreed. The problem occurred when somebody stole the truck that had the chairs and a few more of our items inside. The police found the truck about a week later but its contents were long gone.

Another one that didn’t work out so well was a Benjamin Moore paint commercial from decades ago. They had rented a bunch of expensive reproduction Canadianna pine pieces that could be easily damaged. The items we rent more than 80% of the time are antique pieces. So a minor scratch from time to time doesn’t make much of a difference. However sometimes they want to rent new pieces. We always warn new customers in advance that they have to return items in the same condition as they receive them. Otherwise they have to buy the pieces or pay for the repairs. The Benjamin Moore folks said they understood and that the pieces were going to be lightly used so it wouldn’t be a problem.

When the pieces came back, they looked like they had been through a war. I particularly remember a large dinning room table that had deep gouges the entire length of the table. What’s more they tried to tell us that this was the same condition in which they had received the pieces.

The funny part of the story is that a few months later I was watching TV one night and saw the Benjamin Moore paint commercial with our furniture in it. Not only did they drag paint cans across the table in the commercial. But they also had dogs run across the table. And a child crash into a sideboard while driving a toy car. And there was paint spilling everywhere. The commercial was about painting in a chaotic house. Basically saying if your painting project gets messed up by the chaos, we can fix it. Lightly used!

The worst situation we ever had was a movie called The Long Kiss Goodnight staring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. In 1996 when the movie was shot, it was the biggest budget production that had ever come to Canada. They rented an entire cube van full of expensive antiques including an enormous French bedroom suite, which I remember for some reason. This was before the collapse of the antique market when prices were high.

They picked everything up late one day, just as we were closing. The next morning I’m driving into work and I hear on the radio that the historic 127 year old Windermere House in the Muskoka’s had burned to the ground during the filming of a movie called The Long Kiss Goodnight. We knew our furniture was going to the Windermere House. But we thought they didn’t have time to get the furniture up there and unload before the fire. It turns out that was exactly what happened. They unloaded everything just in time for it to burn.

Movie companies are responsible to pay for lost or damaged or destroyed items and they knew that. The problem arose because this was an American production and they informed us that they were going to pay in U.S. dollars at an exchanged rate that was very favorable to their insurance company and not to us. We eventually got paid in Canadian dollars, but it took ten weeks.

What we found out later was that The Windermere House resort had an iron clad insurance contract with the production and they had to pay to have everything rebuilt brick by brick. We were told that it cost the insurance company eight million dollars for the restoration.

Normally we get set decoration buyers for the movies in The Barn nearly every day this time of year, and they always snap up some hard to find items right away. But with the movie business just getting up and running again we have items in stock that we normally wouldn’t. So grab them while you can!

Check out a few photos below of some of this week’s new arrivals.

This past week a shipment of reclaimed wood furniture arrived from Vancouver. The Settler sundried lingerie chest is back in stock, a photo is attached. We also restocked much of our Provence line including the Provence sideboard which had been sold out for some time. Check out our Reproductions page for more photos.

Antique arrivals from the past two weeks included: a nice pair of Louis XVI gilt arm chairs-a photo is attached, pine armoire, two very different oak fireplace mantels[one quarter cut oak, and one Arts & Crafts], a heavily carved rocking chair-a photo is attached, 3piece walnut Peppler bedroom suite, sap buckets, rocking chair painted blue, umbrella stand painted red, crystal chandelier with purple prisms, mahogany corner chair, small French marble top commode, 7 & 1/2 foot high Canadianna flatback, pair of bar height leather arm chairs, industrial sewing machine base, brass floor lamp, pair of gold floor lamps, fancy pair of brass fire dogs, ornate bevelled gilt mirror, a few paintings including a nice ornately framed painting, mahogany sofa table in perfect condition, wicker night stand, and more.

A quick note for those who read last week’s article on the movie business. I wrote that hopefully movie business would resume shortly. Well it has! The set decoration buyers started showing up at The Barn again last week. Fittingly Murdoch Mysteries was the first production to make a purchase since all productions shut down in March. We were told that none of the really big productions were up and running yet, they are still figuring out how to operate in our new normal, but they are working on it. It’s great to see another industry getting back to work.

Quarantine Series: Film & Television

One of the most fun things we do at The Barn is supply film and television productions with furniture, props, household goods, and lots more. We’ve been working with the film industry for so long we don’t even know how it started. We do know it started sometime in the 1970’s. Let’s just call it the movie business because film and television production is a mouthful. Plus it’s not just movies and tv, its also commercials, and content created for dozens of online platforms. Plus they don’t often use film these days.

Like most industries the movie business has changed tremendously over the years. Today, before the recent Covid19 shutdown the movie business was booming in southern Ontario. Its been booming for a long time now. Toronto is always in the top five of North American cities with the most productions every year. Before production shutdown in March there was over 100 productions of various sizes on the go in Southern Ontario. Everyone wants new content for their platforms these days. The movie business employs 30 000 people in Toronto and is worth two billion annually to the economy.

In the 70’s and 80’s the industry was smaller and not as well established. That was great for us because the studios didn’t yet have well stocked prop warehouses. They needed just about everything and we were happy to supply them. Back then it was a big deal for TV shows to get to 100 episodes because that meant they could go into syndication. One day a show we had been working with for years showed up with a fleet of trucks and rented approximately a quarter of our inventory. They told us that they needed three more shows to get to 100 and syndication. They were going to shoot all three in one week before the production ran out of money.

These days production companies have their own permanent prop warehouses. Many long running shows even have their own permanent prop warehouses. But they still show up at The Barn looking for new items and things that are hard to find. Murdoch Mysteries was probably our best customer for many years. But now that they are thirteen seasons in they are showing up less. But they still need new items even as their prop warehouse has grown. A set decoration buyer once told us that he guessed that half of the of their prop warehouse was purchased from The Barn over the years.

We rent and sell to the movie business. It depends on the production and how long they will be needing the items. In the old days the majority of the productions were movies, so rentals were more common. These days TV shows represent the majority of productions, so they mostly buy. Also antique prices have dropped so much over the years that they can now buy most pieces for less than it used to cost to rent them.

The people we deal with are called set decoration buyers. They move from production to production searching for the pieces they need to fill out their sets. Many of them have become friends over the years. The way in usually works is they come in and take a lot of photos. They show the photos to a set decorator or production designer or director. Then they email us all the photos of the pieces they want to buy or rent. Sometimes they just grab what they want right away because they are trusted and don’t need to get approval. If you have ever been in The Barn and seen someone walking around taking an enormous quantity of photos, they probably work in the movie business.

Because we know so many set decoration buyers, and they know that we have a large inventory that is not on display. We often get phone calls asking for specific, hard to find items. One such memorable phone call from last year went something like this: “I need a chair that can be used to torture someone in an asylum circa 1850.”. I thought about it for a couple of seconds and said “Yeah we got that.”. “Great” she said and came in the next day a bought the chair I had in mind. This is a common occurrence. And more often than you would think we get asked for torture devises.

We have supplied more horror movies than I can count. The Saw movie franchise as well as The Friday the Thirteen movie franchise were both terrific customers. A horror movie called The Marsh was particularly memorable because they took all our antique garden tools. We were told they were going to be dropped from the roof of a barn to murder people in the film. They also turned an old carousel horse into a demonic rocking horse. We’ve also supplied a pile of Stephen King movies and TV shows over the years.

We like to be as environmentally friendly as possible at The Barn and the movie business comes in handy there too. We often buy out large estates and have to take everything, even some items we don’t want. We donate what we can and often items that would otherwise have gone to landfill we give to set decoration buyers. We had a piles and piles of old bundled up newspapers that we were going to recycle. Instead we gave them to the hit remake of Stephen King’s It from a few years ago. We’ve given lots of damaged pieces of furniture to post apocalyptic productions over the years, including the TV show 12 Monkeys. Ann of green gables even took the ashes out of our fireplace.

When we do the math, average number of movie productions we supply every year, times the number of years we have been supplying the movies. We come up with a number that is well over a thousand. Before I started writing this I sat down and wrote out the names of some of the more memorable productions we have supplied over the years. I stopped writing when the page was full. Here is a list of a few of the movies that came to mind: The Fly, Chicago[yes it was filmed in Toronto], Cinderella Man, the Resident Evil series, The Virgin Suicides, John Q, Twister, Death to Smoochy[a truly horrible film], Scanners, Existenz, Exotica, the Police Academy series, American Psycho, Canadian Bacon, The F Word, Capote, Blizzard, X-Men, A Map of the World, The Recruit, Red, Shazam, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Owning Mahowny, Pacific Rim, A History of Violence, Chloe, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Shape of Water, to name a few.

The Shape of Water is one of my favorites. Not only is it a great movie that won the Oscar for best picture in 2018. It also won for best production design. In his acceptance speech the fellow who accepted the award thanked a bunch of our favorite set decoration buyers. We couldn’t have been happier for them, they are lovely hard working people who are very good at their jobs.

Some of the TV shows we have supplied that came to mind were: Night Heat[ a Canadian Law & Order before there was Law & Order], Degrassi, The Strain, The Handmaid’s Tale, Shitt’s Creek, American Gods, Bitten, What we do in the Shadows, Bomb Girls, Being Erica, Beauty and the Beast, Traders, Nikita, Hannibal, Counterstrike, Lost Girl, Frankie Drake Mysteries, Mary Kills People, Due South, Flashpoint, Shadow Hunters, King of Kensington, Rookie Blue, Ann of Green Gables[ too many different versions to count], Locke & Key, Star Trek: Discovery, The Umbrella Academy, Orphan Black, See, Workin Moms and Little Mosque on the Prairie, to name a few. I started watching Hannibal because they kept renting piles and piles of our table pads and I wanted to see what they were doing with them. That was a mistake, that show was too graphic for me. It turns out they were using stacks of table pads to look like stacks of antique binders.

An old friend of mine who is an actress told me once that when she watches TV she often gets distracted from what she is watching because she sees all her friends on the screen. Well if I spend an evening flipping through the channels I will sometimes notice all of the furniture from The Barn. Not the same as seeing your friends on the screen, but it keeps me amused. I can never make it through a dozen scenes before I spot something that came from The Barn. Of course I know which shows to choose.

Hopefully movie production will resume shortly in southern Ontario. They are allowed to start up again as part of the stage two reopening. But I imagine starting up major productions after so much down time is not easy. There have been a lot of people out of work for too long due to covid19, so we are pulling for them. I’m sure they will find ways to operate safely. After all they are used to finding creative solutions to complicated problems, its a big part of their job.

One of the things that has returned to a regular schedule is our shipments of reclaimed wood furniture from Vancouver. We get shipments twice a month, so orders are arriving quickly again. This past shipment was mostly special orders for customers who are enjoying shopping from home. However we did restock some of the items from our Irish Coast line, including both sizes of media units. Since nearly everyone seems to be spending more time in front of screens these days, why not do it in style!

We also managed to restock six of our smaller garden gnomes that had sold out. A photo is attached. The medium gnomes are still sold out, but we do have the large bobbleheads in stock. We also got in a few sample outdoor pieces: plant stands and a peacock chair. We have sold out of the yellow butterfly benches for the season, so we figured, why not peacocks?

Antique arrivals from the last few weeks included: Louis XV style loveseat in nice condition, two cast iron gates-a photo is below, Buisson flatina, Ne Plus Ultra accordion, metal elephant bench, printer’s tray, cedar chest, trunk with leather straps, pine cradle, ornate oval Victorian parlour table, oak draw leaf pub table, full walnut Chippendale style secretary desk, pair of large fiberglass planters, working 1950’s electric lawnmower, nice brass slipper box, floral design card table, reupholstered Duncan Phyfe sofa, ornate marble top credenza with lots of ormolu-a photo is below, brass floor lamp, 2 fire axes, firebox from a firetruck, shabby sheik bench, new batch of hand saws, 4 miniature oil lamps, assorted odd chairs and a few pairs of chairs, pine hall table, pine lift bench, nice backbar cabinet, small drop leaf end table, and more.

We’ve also been unpacking lots of boxes of smalls. So the curios and china cabinets are filled up. As is the green wardrobe. All you regulars should know about all the goodies hidden in the green wardrobe by now. Stay cool and safe everyone, its hot!

Quarantine Series: Reproductions

Quarantine Series: Outdoor/Garden Items

It’s already been three and a half weeks since we reopened and things have gone better than we expected. We want to thank our customers for wearing masks and respecting social distancing. However, we would like to ask everyone to please bring a mask or face covering with them when visiting the Barn for everyone’s safety. We due have disposable masks in store if you forget yours. However we have already gone through hundreds of masks and not only is this costly but it is also environmentally unfriendly. Masks are required for everyone visiting the Barn with no exceptions. Many costumers have told us that they don’t have a mask. You can use a scarf or bandana or face shield of any type. We don’t want to have to start charging customers for masks as many stores are doing. So please help us out on this one and come prepared.

We will be sticking with our current schedule for the summer months. We are open our regular hours 10am to 5pm Thursday through Sunday, by chance or appointment Monday and Tuesday, and closed on Wednesdays. New arrivals aren’t as fast and furious as they were before the shutdown due to lack of space in the building from the shutdown. However we have still brought in lots of new items over the last few weeks. As we continue to make space in the Barn we will continue to bring in new items. Our warehouses are packed with antiques and our supplier’s of newly made items are all up and running again as of last week. Below is an update on new arrivals. The Quarantine Series will return next week.

We received the first shipment of a new line of RCMP items. Metal signs and wine barrel décor, a photo is below, great for a man cave. Don’t worry we have lots of signs for a woman cave as well. We also got in a batch of the very popular cast iron book ends, as well as some new cast iron school bells. The kinetic wind spinners which we usually bring in as soon as the ground thaws in the spring have arrived. Eight different models are in stock [boats around a lighthouse, airplane, dual leaf, gyro, painted disks, fan, tractor, maple leaf] our best sellers from last year as well as a couple of new models. Some unusual outdoor iron planters and crab baskets came in as well.

New antique arrivals included: a terrific pair of black marble top tables with lots of decorative ormolu-a photo is below, recently redone Victorian/Empire settee, small marble top console table, 3piece outdoor iron & aluminum set [3 seater settee, arm chair, & platform rocker], small bedroom settee painted gold, inlaid 6 legged parlour table, 1960’s Art Deco chest/wardrobe painted mauve, nice solid oak parlour table on wheels, 43 piece set of Foley china, large cast iron candle holder, set of 4 oak spoon back chairs, early 1800’s dropleaf dinning/games table, and assorted smalls. We also brought in a new batch of barnboard in case you are in need of a project. 

Quarantine Series: The History Of The Barn

We get asked all the time about the history of the Barn. We usually just tell everyone that the Barn is coming up on its 100th anniversary as an antique store and offer a brief history. But since we have some time we thought we would give a more detailed history. Some dates and facts we know for certain because we have the historical and legal documents as well as old advertisements and newspaper articles to back them up. And some of the history is from stories that have been past down.

The Barn is actually two attached buildings as you can see from the photographs that are at the bottom of this article. The larger two story  building is “The Barn”. The other building was an addition we now call “the front room”. The Barn is believed to have been built in 1827. That is the date attached to the photos in the region of Peel archives. But who built it, its original location and exact age are unknown.

The building was about 90 years old when it was purchased by Sydney Preston in 1917. It was moved to Clarkson road and Lakeshore road and operated as the Clarkson Fruit Market. Fun fact: Clarkson was once known as the strawberry capital of Ontario. The Barn was moved for a second time a few years later, to its current location. About 30 years ago we bought some antiques from an elderly gentleman who told us that when he was a young man he had helped move the Barn to its current location. He said it was pulled by horses and rolled on logs. His job was to take the logs from behind the barn and run them up to the front of the barn so that it could continue to roll. He of course was a part of a team of young men who did this. I’m sure it was quite the undertaking.

Grace Fairbairn began working with Sydney Preston and started using part of the barn to sell antiques. We believe this stared in 1918 as Clarkson Market Antiques. If that date is accurate the Barn has already passed its 100 year anniversary as an antique store. There is an advertisement in the 1923 Highways and Byways of Ontario Automobile Road Guide which states: “This building is now the central clearing house for the antique treasures of rural Ontario, filled with the things that give joy to lovers of the artistic and useful. Mahogany and walnut, from the massive four-poster to the dainty tea-caddies, old china, brass, Sheffield plate; also Canadian handcrafted pottery, metal work, home hand-braided rugs, and original decorative work. Visitors welcomed.”. The amazing thing is that aside from hand-braided rugs we still carry all those items 97 years later. Although I wonder what Grace Fairbairn would think of the bobblehead garden gnomes and pink flamingos which we also sell?

What we no for certain is that the Clarkson market sold fresh fruit and vegetables as well as antiques. The business grew quickly and attracted collectors from across Canada and the United States. Hear is a link to an amazing article about the Clarkson Market and Miss Grace Fairbairn from Maclean’s in 1924.
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1924/11/1/mixing-human-nature-and-business;-making-a-real-success-of-it

In 1931 Grace Fairbairn purchased the barn from the estate of Sydney Preston. We recently discovered from tax records that the current “front room” was built in 1932. We had long believed that it was built in the 1920’s. Grace and her sister Agnes ran The Clarkson Antique Market into the 1960’s. In their later years the sisters lived across the street and would sit on their porch. If they had a customer they would walk across the street.

Alice Millar bought the building in 1966 and ran the business as Heritage House Antiques. She was not as successful as the Fairbairn sisters. The building was divided up into individual booths and was similar to how many antique markets are laid out today. The business soon closed and had been shuttered for some time when Frank came into the picture in 1969.

Frank is the current owner of The Barn. He goes just by Frank because no one ever pronounced his last name correctly so he just gave up and went with Frank. In 1963 Frank was 20 years old and trying to make money to put himself through university. Having the entrepreneurial spirit he rented out a farm and decided to turn the farmhouse into a rooming house. He figured if he rented rooms by the week he could make more money than if he rented by the month. Two or three extra days every month would make a big difference to the bottom line.

Frank needed cheap furniture to furnish his rooming house and came across a junk store at the corner of George Street and Randal street in Oakville. For reasons that have never been clear the owner of the store asked Frank if he wanted to buy the store. Frank has always liked buying more than selling and he agreed to buy the store. In 1963 “The Nook” of Oakville began. Frank quickly realized that antique dealers, store owners, and auctioneers would buy more product than retail customers. So the business became predominantly wholesale, and Frank quickly developed a large clientele among antique dealers and auctioneers. Frank preferred selling on low margins with high volume, that is still how we do things today. Frank couldn’t find enough antiques locally to keep up with demand, so he began to travel in search of product.

By 1969 Frank had outgrown “The Nook” and it was closed. Because his business was predominantly wholesale he didn’t need a retail location that was open most days. What he needed was a warehouse, and in 1969 Frank began renting the Barn as a warehouse. He travelled as far west as California, as far east as Newfoundland, and he spent about half of 1969 in Texas. If you get him on a good day he will tell stories about cowboy boots and snakes from his Texas days. When he had acquired enough inventory he would call his wholesale clientele and they would come to the Barn to buy.

By some point in 1970 Frank had developed a schedule and a network of suppliers in the United States and began opening up The Barn three days a week, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The business was called A & A Antiques Fine Furniture and Antiques, to be first in the phone book. That was very important at the time. But everyone just called the place The Barn, for obvious reasons.

Frank’s schedule was brutal. He would hit the road Sunday night around midnight, drive to New York, or Philadelphia, or Cleveland most weeks. He would drive a 40 foot semi truck, and buy enough to fill the trailer. He would pack the trailer himself, he got so much practise over the years that he became the world’s greatest packer. He would drive back, and unload Thursday night. On Friday morning he would meet all the antique dealers and auctioneers for breakfast at a dinner that used to be across the street from The Barn. He would sell as much as possible on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Than hit the road again Sunday at midnight. He did this nearly every week for 19 years. He developed such a good network of buyers in Cleveland that some weeks he would go there twice. The most trips he ever did in a year was 66. This schedule took a tool and after 19 years Frank decided to get off the road. He had had enough of hotel rooms. And to this day he still hates to travel. But it paid off, after many years of renting Frank managed to buy The Barn.

During this time the business did have retail customers and film and television production customers, but the focus was wholesale and volume. The business just wasn’t geared to retail. For one thing there was no price tags on anything, there wasn’t time. The turnover was too quick. Frank would just do the math in his head when someone wanted a price. There was often four to six trucks outside each one belonging to a customer who was buying dozens or hundreds of pieces, so there just wasn’t time to spend on retail customers who only wanted to buy one or a few pieces. The Barn was extremely busy in those days, it was controlled chaos. And like during Grace Fairbairn’s time customers started coming from all over Canada and the United States and even further. We have had customers come from as far as Tokyo Japan and Aqaba Jordan.

It wasn’t just antiques, Frank always sold new items or reproductions as well. I will talk more about reproductions in future posts. After Frank got off the road we started carrying more reproductions. Buying more direct from the public locally. We bought an endless number of estates. Frank always did like buying in quantity. And we started importing containers. Over the years we’ve imported containers of new and antique product from England, Scotland, Romania, Hungary, Vietnam, and China. There may have been more, those are just the one’s we can remember. Over the years we’ve also made deals with lots of different business partners to acquire products and containers from dozens of countries.

Over the last forty years the business has changed a lot. Free trade and the collapse of the antique market changed things tremendously. We were open 7 days a week for many years, now 6 days. And now we predominantly sell to retail and film and television production customers. However we still do sell to the trade. Antique dealers show up almost everyday at The Barn. Or they did until Covid19 came to town. These days antique dealers rarely show up with trucks wanting large quantities of antique furniture, though that does still happen occasionally. These days the remaining antique dealers are mostly looking for smaller items like sterling silver, or bronzes, or cups and saucers, etc..

We used to often ask Frank when he was going to retire. But we gave up on that years ago. He likes to work. The part of the story that I have yet to mention is that for a few years in the 1960’s Frank was operating The Nook in Oakville, and the Fairbairn sisters were still operating The Clarkson Antique Market[The Barn]. Frank actually bought some antique pieces from the Fairbairn sisters. He said they wouldn’t let him in unless he took his boots off. They didn’t want him tracking mud around. They provided him with little booties he could wear. Frank still shakes his head when the occasional customer wonders aloud why they aren’t allowed in The Barn with their coffee cups. The Fairbairn sisters would have been aghast. If you ever happen to mention this article to Frank he probably won’t know what you’re talking about. He will probably never read this. These days he tolerates certain aspects of the business like having a website, but he doesn’t pay any attention to them. He still likes buying and selling antiques though.

This week we decided to take a break from the “Quarantine Series” to write about what we used to exclusively write about in this space, new arrivals! Next week we will post a new article on the history of The Barn. We did a little research and found some things we didn’t even know about the history of The Barn including an article about the Barn in Maclean’s magazine from 1924.

We always bring in lots of new items for spring, and when we had to shut down mid March lots of our spring merchandise was already enroute. Here is a brief summary of what arrived between when we shut down mid March until just before we reopened 11 days ago. Some scheduled shipments we were able to stop in March before they shipped. But as things are starting to move again we are beginning to receive those shipments as well. In a couple of weeks we will post an update about all the new arrivals since we reopened. This was a lot simpler before the pandemic, but wasn’t everything?

First, several shipments of reclaimed wood furniture arrived. We restocked many pieces in our Irish Coast line. We also received some long awaited new items in our Provence line. I’ve attached photos of the Provence Hall Seat, as well as the Provence Small Bookcases. More details are available on our Reproductions page.

Two days before we closed in March we received a shipment from our Nature Form line. That shipment has now been sorted and is out on display. The bulk of the shipment was the very popular stump vases. Two floor model sizes arrived as did four table top sizes including doubles. Some other highlights from that shipment included: assorted child’s animal stools, large teak hand carved bowls, canoe bookcases, Corona boat paddles[the beer Corona not the virus], buddhas, croakers, 26” Harley motorbike[a photo is attached], and assorted wooden animal figures. More photos can be seen on our Reproductions page.

A large shipment of bobblehead garden gnomes arrived. As did three piece cast iron outdoor bistro sets in two colours. And more metal birds for our ever growing aviary.

Antique arrivals included: a terrific Moorcroft vase, lots of great cups and saucers[Paragon, Aynsley, Shelley, Royal Albert, etc.], a collection of Dresden figurines, Duncan Phyfe oval nest of tables, pair of Queen Anne end tables, small wall cabinet, two piece French mahogany curio cabinet with ormolu accents, a collection of wood planes, rosewood corner chair, Oriental style nest of tables and 4 panel screen, 2 inlaid folding tables, nice dropleaf sewing table, oval folding table, a lot of china florals, 1950’s bake table, extremely rare Honderich cedar chest with very unusual design[we have never seen one like it before], large four glass sided store display cabinet, an unusually narrow quarter cut oak Art’s & Craft’s style barrister’s bookcase, a collection of brass candle holders, Canadianna jam cupboard painted white, unusual folding chalkboard, Victorian loveseat, and assorted small tables & odd chairs. We also put out on display about a dozen new chandeliers in various styles.

COVID19 UPDATE: Our reopening went well and we are confident that we have everything in place to operate safely, so we will be expanding our hours. The Barn will be open during our regular business hours 10am to 5pm, Thursday through Sunday. We will also be open by appointment only Monday and Tuesday, and closed on Wednesdays. If you would like an appointment please email us and include your phone number as well as your preferred appointment time. We will contact you to arrange an appointment time. We will continue to severely limit the number of people allowed in the store at one time. Also we are requiring all customers to wear a mask or face covering. Please stay safe and healthy everyone.

Quarantine Series: Springwater Woodcraft

This week as a follow up to changing styles, we thought we would talk about changes in manufacturing. Or more specifically changes in where the products we sell are manufactured. By highlighting one of our oldest business partners, Springwater Woodcraft. The Barn has always carried antique and new products. This post is all about the new end of our business.

NAFTA and other trade deals have had a tremendous impact on our business. These trade deals have kept new furniture prices low. But they have also done major damage to Canadian manufacturing. Twenty-five years ago approximately 80% of the new products we carried were made in Canada. Today it has reversed and the majority are imported. If you would have walked into the Barn in 1992, a good year [Blue Jays first world series]. You would have seen pieces on display from all kinds of local Ontario manufactures. We had people making furniture for us in Midland, Owen Sound, Hamilton, Shelburne, and Port Credit to just name a few. It was great, if you wanted a custom made piece you could get whatever you wanted at a very reasonable price. But one by one most of those shops were put out of business because they just couldn’t compete with cheap labour overseas. A few found a way to survive by pivoting to what was once the norm and now has become high end custom work. And some new companies started up, and found a niche.

In the 90’s reproduction pine furniture was all the rage. Martha Stewart and some of her cohorts convinced everyone that painting or finishing furniture yourself was the thing to do. Unfinished pine furniture shops sprung up everywhere. I remember driving through the business district in Oakville and counted four unfinished pine furniture stores on Lakeshore road. Seriously, they outnumbered Tim Horton’s.

White Rose garden centers was a big chain of nurseries at the time, and they sold simple unfinished pine furniture made by Springwater Woodcraft. When White Rose got into financial trouble, Springwater lost their business. White Rose was their biggest customer at the time. So Springwater sent out representatives to try and find some new customers.

The Barn never got into the unfinished furniture trend. At the time we were more focused on higher end Canadianna reproductions which were extremely popular as well. The most popular finish was dubbed “Barn colour” by on of our suppliers because we ordered so much of it. It was a combination of equal parts “golden oak” and “early American” Minwax stains. This is important later in the story.

So one day a Springwater representative wandered into the Barn to show us samples. They had just started offering some painted furniture options. They only had three or four colour options to start. We told him that we didn’t want to carry unfinished furniture, it wasn’t our kind of thing. We had enough going on and we thought the unfinished furniture trend would not last long. But we got to talking and they were open to new ideas. So we told them about Barn colour and how popular it was. They soon came up with a similar version which they called “classic stain clearcoat”. Today it is still their most popular stain, but no longer their most popular finish. They now have dozens of finishes and colours to choose from.

As they were trying to come up with some new items that would sell, we designed a few pieces for them. More then 20 years later two of them are still in their catalogue. #515 Small Hall Table, is a multifunctional little table that used to be a big seller. It still is for them. Our best selling Springwater item these days is #439 Ladder Shelf. We also designed #418 Acadian Cabinet to fit a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s. Yes there was a time before the internet when people would have a set of encyclopedia’s in their house. Incase they wanted to look something up without going to the library. Feeling old anyone? The Acadian Cabinet is still a great little two door bookcase even though no one buys them for encyclopedias anymore. We have one on display in the Barn right now. It’s a piece that looks great in lots of different colours. The Acadian Cabinet, Ladder shelves, and a bunch more Springwater pieces can be seen in the photos below.

We soon found out that Springwater Woodcraft was and is a family run business. Grant, Tricia, and Simon Lloyd are still running things even as they have grown across Canada. They have always cared about the environment. They switched to non-toxic water based finishes long before most companies did. They only use only solid North American white pine from sustainably managed forests. No MDF or particleboard is ever used.

Today they have a fantastic catalogue with dozens of finishes. A few years ago they started doing distressed hand rubbed finishes they call Vintage. They are by far their best selling and best looking finishes. Even better than Barn colour we must admit.

We generally have between forty to sixty Springwater pieces in stock in a variety of colours and finishes. However sometimes things sellout faster than we can restock them. You can order anything in their catalogue through the Barn. We have their catalogue and a large supply of colour samples available to see at the Barn anytime. And of course we always have the lowest Springwater prices. For now you can check out the Springwater section on our Reproductions page. Or you can go directly to their site www.springwaterwoodcraft.com. After all its a great time to support a local small business, still located in Springwater Ontario. Hopefully they will be up and running again soon.