Antique Furniture Restoration Toronto
Years after opening in the Junction, Smash is still the city's favourite destination for salvage items, thanks to a pitch-perfect mix of reclaimed industrial furniture and irreverent design finds like "men at work" signs, vintage mugshot posters and light-up electric Jesuses.
Reclaimed doors are just an entry point to this shop in the Castlefield Design District. (See what I did there?) Hardware is also a specialty, with all manner of knobs, handles, pulls and brackets available - in addition to a smattering of vintage oddities like taxidermied animal heads and espresso machines.
Post & Beam Reclamation
In the market for some nicely-battered hardwood fragments? Perhaps a galvanized-steel washbasin or an embroidered map of the United States? You'll find it all at this shop in the Junction, where vintage details and fragments of reclaimed architecture rule the day.
Metropolis Living (Castlefield)
After a couple of moves, this vintage design shop has settled in the Castlefield Design District, where they stand out nicely from the decidedly modern competition. On top of reclaimed items like shelving and signing, they also do custom work using salvaged items (think lighting fixtures made of chicken feeders, or tables fashioned from vintage machinery).
Urban Tree Salvage specializes in furniture made from rustic live-edge slabs of wood. If you don't want yours pre-made into a coffee table, you can also pick up some barnboard or log rounds for your next DIY project.
If you're looking for a milk crate, some pendant lighting made from old jars, or benches crafted from 150-year-old barn wood, you'll probably find it at Darius Armstrong's tucked-away basement shop in Cabbagetown. (Note that they keep unusual hours - Armstrong still manages a restaurant during the day to fund his pet project.)
This shop in East Chinatown is the perfect place to shop for things you didn't even know you wanted. Mixed in with folk-art tchotchkes from around Canada and all over the globe are industrial and farmhouse-style pieces that will lend your place the perfect rustic touch (without it feeling sterile).
Canadian Salvaged Timber
Where do trees go when they're struck by lightning? If they're lucky, it's this lumber depot on Dufferin, where felled trees and torn-down barns are transformed by commission into bars, bed frames and tables for the store's residential and commercial clients.
At this Junction shop, owner Martin Scott transforms reclaimed wood, salvaged doors, and even old church pews into commanding dining room tables and elegant benches. But even if you're not in the market for a custom piece, the shop, piled high with pieces in various stages of transformation, is a feast for the eyes.
You'll find a few splashy, oddball antiques at this huge Scarborough shop, which sprawls over a whopping four retail spaces - but salvaged hardware items are the real specialty. If your home DIY project needs a doorknob, a hook or a hanger, or your place needs a vintage lighting fixture or an old mantelpiece, head here.
Designer Jason Stroud has brought an element of "sleek decay" to restaurant interiors around Toronto, and at his Liberty Village showroom, you can get a piece of that aesthetic for yourself. Along with vintage finds and a few elements of twisted kitsch, you'll find elegant dining furniture built from reclaimed materials.
Head out to East York to plumb the Barn Board Store's trove of reclaimed barn wood in rich grey, red and brown tones, as well as beams and live-edge slabs. Grab boards to make your own project at home, or get the staff to transform it into a stunning piece.
This store in the Junction is a repository of all things old and nifty - from ancient lamps, typewriters, sewing machines and table fans to salvaged industrial signs, doors, mantels and moulding. Next up is their own line of industrial furniture using their trove of reclaimed materials.
Rounding out the Junction's reclaimed-furniture offerings is this whimsical little shop, which injects a sense of fun into their reworked salvage. Where else are you going to find Singer sewing tables revamped with striped wood tops and benches with butt grooves cut into them? (Just because it's old doesn't mean it has to be dignified.)
