March 14, 2008

JUNE 29, 2007

Explore country living in New Milford The Primitive Home shop sells antique gifts, home furnishings

NEW MILFORD -- The aroma of homemade scented oils in the cozy, country living room-style space at The Primitive Home on Route 7 is an olfactory treat that beckons customers to explore the shop's traditional wares. In a far corner, just past the store's top-selling farm bench table, is an 1870s steamer trunk showcasing various styles of woven rugs under custom-stenciled wood signs. Across the room is a small country cabinet with shelves filled with antique bottles and tins, and an original 1940s bar of Ivory soap. Throughout this gift and home furnishings store inside the Red Barn building at the intersection of Lanesville Road, there are potted evergreens with hand-crafted seasonal ornaments -- be they for Christmas or Fourth of July. There are also Goatboy soaps, body fragrances, reed diffusers -- room fresheners made from fresh reeds and homemade scented oil -- apple pie and chocolate chip designer candles in cast-iron skillets, stuffed dolls, even a crocheted and stuffed snowman. On every wall are signs with clever quotes and sayings mixed with farm tools transformed into home decorations. An assortment of small and large Americana furniture is draped with soft wool and quilted blankets or covered with brownstone pottery. Even an old farm ladder has been revived into a wall decoration with boughs of holly, dried flowers and tree branches. All things are homespun and reminiscent of colonial farm life, complete with owner Holly Zaborowski's engaging hospitality. She said she has people who come in to buy a simple gift and end up sitting with her at the farm table and chatting for two hours. "And we've never even met before," Zaborowski said. She bought the business a year ago. Part of the charm the shop exudes comes from the hand-crafted merchandise Zaborowski and her mother, Gail Noyes of Georgia, make exclusively for the store. From her mother's hand-stitched ornaments and crocheted decorations to Zaborowski's hand-woven pillows, custom-stenciled signs, and her own brand of no-fuss, environmentally friendly laundry soap, she aims to offer her customers items that can be found nowhere else. She will also hunt down antiques or specialty merchandise a customer wants but has not been able to find. Indeed, where else might one find an antique tin of roach pellets or an original container of castor oil, complete with dropper? She will even find things that do not fit the primitive home style. A customer wanted a French country rabbit weather vane. She found it. "I want to make people happy," said Zaborowski, the 29-year-old mother of three -- Morgan, 12, Cody, 12, and Sierra, 8 -- who left her job as an assistant project manager for a Danbury roofing company to open the store. "I roll out the red carpet for my customers. It's good to be nice," she said. Mayor Patricia Murphy said she bought a large metal star at the store to decorate the exterior of her barn. "I thought it was cute," Murphy said of the shop, which is located next to Quilter's Corner, a business she frequents. "It's a very cute store," said Becky Frazer, who owns Quilter's Corner. "We always say we should get a door in between us, so our customers can go back and forth." One of the furniture pieces Frazer said she absolutely adored was a kitchen island that was just the right height to make into a quilter's cutting table. She said she is eager for the next one to arrive. Prices in The Primitive Home run from $2.99 for a small trinket to a few thousand dollars for wood furniture decorated with Americana scenes. The one downside for both Frazer and Zaborowski has been the Route 7 construction, which is still active outside the main entrance to the Red Barn building, making it difficult for drive-by customers to stop, Frazer said. But Zaborowski said she refuses to become discouraged by the construction. Instead, she and her husband, Pete, who owns Monro Muffler, have taken their wares to various area fairs on weekends. She said that has made her a number of new customers, who after the shows come to the shop to see what else she has to offer. Despite the construction hassles, Zaborowski said, she's had a "really good, fun year." "Everything happens when you least expect it," she added. "You don't succeed if you don't take risks." The Primitive Home is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Customers can also shop online at primitivehomect.com.