Home Craft Decor, having moved one door east into the former space of macFAB fabrics at Queen and Bathurst is a fun, mishmash of furniture and design styles, certain to thrill anyone on the hunt or in the mood to browse. With tables, chairs and tables arranged and stacked in a hodgepodge manner, the showroom has a bit of a flea market feel to it.

The institutional lighting overhead does nothing to the ambience, but shopping at Home Craft Decor is kind of fun. Some pieces are ugly, some pieces are blah, but some pieces are really great - and at great prices, it's the digging and discovering that make places like Home Craft Decor totally worth it.

It's impossible to pin down the design aesthetic, because this store has bits and pieces of everything. I saw sleek leather couches, overstuffed Italian side chairs, antique armoires and buffets, and modern minimalist bed frames and dining tables.

I liked the bar-height dining table for four with glass top for $860 and the chic glass top writing desk with metal legs at $595, marked down from $890. Many of the items are practical and while some are a bit cheap looking, there are a lot of gems in this pile of furniture, so there is a payoff to keep looking.

Something about dining tables in furniture stores always stand out to me, so I was pleased that they have the same random selection of tables as they do everything else. Some tables would fit in perfectly with my Grandma and her canasta-playing friends. Other tables look so sophisticated that I would be too intimidated to eat at them.

Some of my favourites included a $799 handsome, dark wood dining table for six and a $695, wooden round table. Of course, Home Craft Decor isn't the type of store that has specific inventory, so these might be gone in the next visit.

Downstairs, the basement goes quite deep and has even more of a sampling of assorted furniture and design styles. There are lots of mirrors and artwork too, so in theory I could decorate my entire home from this place - I wouldn't, of course, because this type of random design aesthetic would likely look a lot less charming in my home than in the showroom.

I also had to laugh at some of the original design and accent pieces sprinkled throughout the store. Clearly, somebody has a thing for ceramic animals. I noted a sheep, monkey, lion, cat and alligator throughout the store. If the store wasn't random - and enjoyable - enough, somebody had to go sprinkle decorative animals all over everything. I loved it. The alligator, by the way, is $475.

Photos by Dennis Marciniak