Construction Junction, What's Your Function?

Yesterday, Shaun and I went to Lawrenceville to check out some shops. I've been dying to get inside Fresh Heirlooms and Divertido, especially, and I figured there would be some others once we arrived there. However, much to my dismay, the entire street seems to be closed on Mondays. Well, except for the coffee houses and Dozen. Even Piccolo Forno, the restaurant about which I was amateur-foodie-lusting, was closed.

So we went on up Penn Ave. to Bloomfield, and struck gold. I have never seen Construction Junction so packed full of good stuff. I also did not know - because I haven't been there in a long while - that they started a discount price program, with a percentage off of merchandise based on how long it's been sitting there.

The only problem is how to get things home. I don't have money to buy a bunch of stuff right now anyway, but I can dream. Even if I had the money to buy all the stuff I wanted yesterday, I couldn't get it home. Well, without a big truck.

Fish that got away included: old square bar tables with colorful tops, probably from some restaurant for $30 each; a weird, old metal cupboard with no top on it for $2.50; 2 old library tables, about 10 feet long by 3.5 feet wide, which were not priced; several old doors that I fell in love with among the hundreds that were almost as cool along the back wall for $25 and up (one was almost $200); a huge display platform on wheels from a luggage store for $25; and these huge cornerstone pylons with flower design on them for $125 each.

I did get these treasures, though:

4 gallons of paint to repaint the front room of our shop for $5/gallon.

1 old dresser, appropriately and charmingly aged and weathered, and missing only one handle, for $15.

& 1 Vintage metal World Book Encyclopedia book cart, $5.

All of this had to fit in my car, in which my mother left four lawn chairs. But Shaun squeezed everything in somehow. Then, when we were on our way back down Penn toward the heart of the city again, we noticed several big heaps of stuff. Anyone who knows Shaun knows that he would, under normal circumstances, be adverse to picking through trash on Penn Avenue in the middle of the day, but he came up with a plan. I dropped him off at the corner, and he ran up the street and got ready. Then I waited for a lull in the traffic, and drove slowly down the street with my emergency flashers on, and pulled over. He shoved the following things in the backseat between the lawn chairs, the dresser, the book cart, and all the normal things (books and stuff) that I carry around with me:

This old, green metal cabinet drawer, out of which I have already planned a really cool shadow box.

2 wood drawers. One of them is definitely cooler (older vintage, completely solid wood) than the other (modern and made of pressed wood, probably mid-to-late 20th century).

The metal drawer had a label on it that said "programs" and I think that the drawers in general may have come from some kind of teacher's home office. Maybe they retired. It doesn't account for all the sawdust that was in them, but it's a thought.

We went to Legends of the North Shore for dinner, which was incredible. We both had wedding soup, which was probably the best wedding soup I've ever eaten. We also had an appetizer of Mozzerella, which was cut and breaded in-house. I have never eated a fried Mozzerella that good, and the difference has to be that it wasn't frozen in a box for a month before eating. Shaun had a lemon-chicken Rotolo with veggies and mashed potatoes, and I (unusually, but because I wanted the Mama's Gravy) had chicken parmesano, but with the chicken grilled instead of breaded and pan-fried. To my surprise - and delight - the pasta was homemade, too. I will definitely go back there again and again.

I didn't get to do anything in Lawrenceville but window shop, and I didn't get to go to Piccolo Forno, but the day was a good one. August is off to a fabulous start.