Hardware Stores

Liz Gordon can look at a Victorian sideboard and know instantly what kind of drawer pulls it needs. Or a Spanish Colonial door and suggest the appropriate pulls, latches and hinges. She can tell you what kind of switch plates belong on your 1930s kitchen walls or the correct slipper shade for your Deco light fixture. The peppery Gordon can answer almost any question about home restoration hardware, and then she can probably sell you the right item.

Sears Roebuck & Co. has decided against converting its 250 hardware stores nationwide to Orchard Hardware & Garden outlets after a test run in Ohio flopped. Customers of Sears' 10 Columbus-area hardware stores preferred the Sears name and product line, company spokesman Chuck Merydith said. Executives had hoped the Orchard format would attract more female shoppers, but that didn't happen, he said.

Just weeks after settling a bitter legal dispute over control of its home store division, St. John Knits Inc. said Monday it is closing three of its struggling Amen Wardy Home stores. The upscale women's clothier will continue to operate home stores--which on Monday were renamed St. John Home--in Costa Mesa and Scottsdale, Ariz., said Roger Ruppert, the Irvine company's chief financial officer. The home stores have been at the center of a dispute between the Gray family that heads St.

Holidays getting too close for comfort? If you're like most people, you've bought a few gifts but most of your shopping remains undone. If you have someone on your list who likes to tinker around the house, here is a selection of gift ideas to get him or her to start fixing things or at least look good trying: * Telescopic Magnet, $6 at Rancho Lumber in Westminster and other hardware outlets.

What does Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian actress made famous in the 1940s for her banana headdress and songs like "Chica Chica Boom Chick," have in common with the Wolze brothers, Roy and Ray, two guys who founded a landmark hardware store on the Eastside? Very little, of course. Both, however, share the distinction of having small patches of Los Angeles concrete and asphalt named after them.

Daniel A. McKenzie, a longtime Ventura resident and hardware store owner, died Wednesday following a lengthy illness. He was 82. McKenzie was born to Grace and Charles McKenzie on March 4, 1916, in Quincy, Ill. A 65-year resident of Ventura, McKenzie owned and operated Hess' Hardware Store in Ventura for 52 years, his family said. When he first moved to Ventura, he lived with an aunt and uncle while attending what is now Ventura College. McKenzie served in the armed forces from 1941-46.

Prosecutors wrapped up their case Monday against former Glendale fire-captain-turned-arsonist John Leonard Orr, arguing that he described in a manuscript for a novel just how he set a South Pasadena hardware store ablaze, killing three adults and a 2-year-old boy. Revisiting five weeks of evidence and testimony relating to fires that broke out from the South Bay to the San Joaquin Valley, Deputy Dist. Atty.

HomeBase Inc. said Wednesday it expects to report a fiscal fourth-quarter loss of 9 cents to 11 cents a share on slower-than-expected sales stemming from a store remodeling project. The retailer reported a loss of 1 cent a share for the year-earlier period. The company is remodeling 16 stores. HomeBase stock fell 12%, or 94 cents a share, to $6.94, on the New York Stock Exchange. More than 1.3 million shares changed hands, more than four times the average daily volume.

The little man stands there with the shovel from hell, the spade seemingly used to unearth a thousand graves, dig too many ditches--its wobbly handle badly taped, its metal edge jagged, rusted and harelip curled. He shoots a dead-serious stare at Tom Baumgartner, the floor manager at B & B Hardware, this tough customer with his dirty blond hair, dust caked in the squint cracks around his eyes and a tan that suggests years of hard work under an unforgiving sun.

Not everyone is thrilled that Home Depot plans to build 61 new stores in California over the next three years. Yes, the 10,000 new jobs generated by the Atlanta-based chain will be good for the state's economy. But how many jobs will be eliminated at the smaller mom-and-pop hardware stores that Home Depot is likely to drive out of business? That is one of the issues at the heart of a movement that bills itself as Sprawl Busters, a Greenfield, Mass., outfit founded by activist Al Norman.