It's India!

The cavernous show room at the rustic furniture store in Escondido dwarfs the proprietor, an Indian man whose phone never stops ringing. "It's India" he said as the ring interrupted our conversation for the fourth or fifth time." It's India" he said, the sixth time. "Family?", I asked. "No - business" he replied. It was none of my business, but you could hardly ignore either the ringing or the loud conversation.  I was hoping my phone would ring so I could say, "Fallbrook" and then turn away and shout into the phone.

Wagon wheels, iron gates, iron pot racks and huge light fixtures hung ponderously over head. Everything in the store is covered with layers of dust; cobwebs loop and twist around furniture and objet. What would happen if there was an earthquake?  

Though the light was murky, there was enough for me to see that Mr. India had particularly beautiful blue-grey eyes. While I was admiring his eyes, he told me he spends much of his time traveling around  Indonesia, primarily Jakarta; in Thailand and in Spain, searching out furniture, antiques and home decor items to sell retail and wholesale. Spain is his source for old doors.  He has the feral look of a skilled treasure hunter, who buys low and sells high. I'm sure at some point he would sidle up and whisper a lower number in my ear.

The store is dark with the lights wired on a sensor of some kind  - they turn on as you walk further and further back into the bowels of the place. Visually sorting through the sea of darkish looking antiques is difficult for me. The beauty in each individual piece is lost as everything is crammed together. You can't see the legs on the tables, or appreciate the lines of the chairs.  

In my humble opinion, I think he would benefit from hiring a stylist to stage some of that furniture in the front of the store. If it were lit well and set up in tableaux, he'd probably sell more. 

I liked a long, authentically antique, sturdy looking elm dining table that he told me he would re-stain to match whatever sample I brought in. The table was close to what I want, but expensive and hard to see properly because it's buried in a sea of other tables and chairs. I probably won't go back.