This page was exported from Shelburne Free Press [ https://shelburnefreepress.ca ] Export date:Fri Apr 19 17:45:09 2024 / +0000 GMT ___________________________________________________ Title: Dufferin antique store to celebrate grand opening --------------------------------------------------- Written By Sam Odrowski Antique lovers in Dufferin and the surrounding area have lots to be happy about. The building that formerly housed Orangeville Flowers (78 John Street, Orangeville) has been converted into a massive antique store, featuring a wide variety of collecti-bles and mint condition items from the past. Dufferin realtor, David Maguire took over the property in late August of this year, open-ing under the name “Past Glories from Toad's Hollow & Company”, and has since been preparing for its official grand opening, which runs from Nov. 25 to 28.  Attendees of the grand opening can expect live music on the Saturday (Nov. 27) and plenty of inventory to pick from and admire.  “The Toad will be a great place to beat the winter blahs, come on down to our tropical greenhouses,” said Lou Pinto, who's a ceramic artist, coffee roaster, and local musi-cian with the band Tinker, Bang & Blow. Pinto will be performing with his band at the grand opening throughout the weekend and hopes to have a pancake jam on Sunday. The stage is being set to look like a Louisiana blues porch and is being dubbed “The Gumball” featuring a 90-year-old Willis player piano. Maguire also has roughly 1,000 to 2,000 records currently on display, being a big fan of music himself. The newly opened antique store is broken up into three sections, with the main area selling Maguire's items. He has a passion for old toys, especially ones that are coin operated, such as pinball games or juke boxes. Maguire also has a Madsen World War Two submarine cannon (deck gun), lots of antique furniture, primitives, and around 1,000 books. “The books will be a bit more of a classical nature, but also reference books and things like that,” said Maguire. “I've always collected books, that's one of my passions – all my life.” Toad Hollow also offers vintage clothing and vintage jewellery, with items that appeal more to a female customer base, according to Magurie. Meanwhile, Pinto's section specializes in pottery, since he's a ceramic artist. He's also recently restored a 100-year-old coffee grinder and has been selling freshly made, hand roasted coffee by the cup. The secret to great tasting coffee, Pinto says, is timing. “You've got about a five-day window of freshness after you roast and a 15-minute win-dow after you grind,” he noted. When looking at Maguire's background, he's well versed in the antique world, operat-ing a successful store on Queen Street in Toronto from 1978 to 1985.  His journey started in Downsview, Toronto, where he was working with the Canadian Armed Forces, living out of the barracks there.  Maguire said he loved it, but didn't make very much money, and was desperate to get his own apartment. Not long after he found one, but didn't have much furniture to fill it with. At that time, Maguire heard that if he goes to an auction sale, he could get quality furni-ture at a better price. “You could buy an old crappy dresser or you could buy something solid oak that's 100 years old and the oak stuff was almost cheaper then,” he said. “I started refinishing and since then I've always had that bug.” Maguire added that at that time, he was renovating Victorian houses in Toronto for work, so his passion for antiques and restoring them tied in perfectly to his day job at the time. He said he's largely drawn in by the craftsmanship and materials used in antiques. “It's not particleboard, it's not manufactured. This is solid oak or maple or cherry wood, and in another 100-200 years, it'll still be there,” Maguire remarked. “The IKEA type of thing, at the end of the day, in three years, four years, It's on the curb… I mean, it fills a need, but it's very temporary, it's very disposable.” Looking at antiques can be a bit like visiting a museum, according to Maguire. He said a lot of the kids who come to the shop have never seen a dial up phone before or vin-tage toys.  Throughout life, Maguire has always attended antique auctions and held inventory.  While he closed his antique store in Toronto in 1985 to begin selling real estate with his wife in Dufferin County, he always kept a collection of antiques and sold them where he could.  Maguire said he'd set up a booth at various events and about 10 years ago, Fred's Tires in Orangeville came up for sale so he purchased it to store his antiques, as well as rent out certain sections to businesses.  During the summer months, he would have antique garage sales out of his storage unit, which he's done for the past eight years.  Then, the opportunity to operate an antique store in Orangeville presented itself. In March, Orangeville Flowers was purchased by Northridge Homes, who will eventu-ally build condominiums and town houses on the property. The developer told Maguire that he won't be looking at building anything for five years, so they came to an agreement where he could rent it out as an antique store until that time. This means antique lovers from Dufferin County don't have much time to waste if they want to do antique shopping close to home. To learn more about Past Glories from Toad's Hollow & Company, which is located at 78 John Street, all 519-216-0138 or visit their website: pastgloriesoftoadhollow.ca --------------------------------------------------- Images: --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Post date: 2021-11-18 12:49:05 Post date GMT: 2021-11-18 17:49:05 Post modified date: 2021-11-18 12:52:38 Post modified date GMT: 2021-11-18 17:52:38 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Export of Post and Page as text file has been powered by [ Universal Post Manager ] plugin from www.gconverters.com