A bit of deja vu at Winslow Home

Published 8:00 pm Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Mary Hall and Ken Schuricht open a new retail storefront.

Although the brightly colored dishes and rugs are pleasing to the eye, there are also cleaning supplies, brooms and mops and a practicality to the store – not surprising, from former hardware store owners.

“Philosophically, one of the things I wanted to achieve with this store was to sell things people actually use in their home,” Winslow Home Co. co-owner Mary Hall said, “and some discretionary things people would buy as gifts.

“We thought we wanted to rediscover the hardware.”

Hall and her husband, Ken Schuricht, owned Winslow Hardware in downtown Winslow for more than a decade until it closed earlier this year, but they kept Winslow Paint Co. on Hildebrand Lane.

When the space next door opened up, they decided to bring back elements of the hardware store’s mercantile section as Winslow Home, which opened in mid-October.

Before closing the hardware store, the pair had visited the New York Gift Show looking for goods that they would sell in the mercantile section of the store.

“We had previously thought to downsize the hardware and open another store (in the Winslow Way space), but decided it was too much work,” Hall said. “When this space became available, we thought of the wonderful things we used to sell that we use at home.”

All the elements seemed to fall into place. The hardware store’s former mercantile buyer, Margaret Kirk, who had stayed on at the paint store, became Winslow Home’s manager. And when Bill McKnight’s store closed in Winlsow Green, Hall and Schuricht were ready buyers for the fixtures.

Inside Winslow Paint, a long wool rug in vibrant reds and oranges leads to the new home store. A nostalgic sign above the doorway reads, “The mercantile at Winslow Hardware.”

The shop’s logo pays homage to the old Winslow Hardware logo. The center ampersand was updated with a with a pineapple, which symbolizes hospitality.

Step through the doorway and it looks as if the colors of the paint store had spilled through the door, turning into bright and warmly colored ceramic dishes and woolen area rugs in patterns of multicolored concentric circles and diamonds.

“Everyone in the paint store is about color, color, color,” Hall said. “That’s what paint’s all about, and we’re trying to bring that here.

“At one point, I thought (the merchandise) would be more monochromatic, but I find I’m drawn to really nice colors.”

Many products in Winslow Home will be familiar, with lines including Caldrea cleaning supplies in lavender, citrus, green tea and other scents; citrus-based furniture polish; natural light spectrum lightbulbs; Merida natural fiber flooring as mats or for wall-to-wall treatments made of seagrasses, sisal or jute; and chairs and ottomans by Chicago Textile, which the hardware store used to ship to dorm rooms all over the country.

“We’re trying to do hard goods that people need but can’t find at outlets, while also having fun with home care products,” Kirk said.

New items include Scandinavian-designed dishware in the bright reds, blues and oranges of island homes in Panama.

Tastefully woven wastepaper baskets and storage boxes can hide files. A water-resistant, fabric-patterned polyvinal floor application discreetly protects floors against the seasonal elements.

The lineup should evolve with customers’ needs. So far, the colorful items have garnered good response from customers, Kirk said.

“If you’re going to buy something, it’s nice to buy something that is good color, made well and pleasing to the eye,” Hall said.

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A burst of color

Winslow Home Company is located at 937 Hildebrand Lane, Suite 103. The store is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and is closed Sunday. Call 842-3101 for more information.