With Dave and I being far enough away from our furniture shopping hell experience, it occurs to me now that our adventures weren’t 100 percent bad. There was one bright spot in our travels around the Valley and that’s the Nazareth Furniture Store.

Located at 75 S. Main St., Nazareth, PA, the store is housed in what was once the Nazareth Inn. Built in 1771, the building looks no worse for wear and oozes charm throughout. Their furniture and accessories collection is high end and one-of-a-kind, and that makes them pricier than most other places. It’s also the reason we didn’t buy anything from them, unfortunately. While we loved so many pieces and did consider buying a couple tables, we just couldn’t justify their cost.

What makes the store so fun to browse is that each of the former hotel rooms is furnished and decorated uniquely with its own style and personality. As you weave in and out of each room, creaking and cracking over thick wooden floor boards, you find yourself going back in time. I imagined back when it was a hotel and guests milled about. In the intense heat, though, I also wondered how they managed without air conditioning. When we got to the fifth floor, I just couldn’t take it anymore in the mid-August heat. God, we’re so spoiled.

One other major plus here is the laissez-faire attitude the owners take when you shop. Imagine our surprise when we browsed for a full thirty minutes without seeing even one sales person. They really let you explore on your own and for that we were intensely grateful. When we did run into one floor person, he was gracious and helpful, not pressuring us in any way. We almost wanted to buy something – anything – as a simple thank you for not jumping on us. Our experience at most every other store was the complete opposite, so it was refreshing to be treated more as guests in someone’s home than off-the-street strangers.

So hats off to the Nazareth Furniture Store. You know, we still need new lamps, so we might just take another trip. If we don’t find anything, it’ll still be a fun visit. This place is a real gem!

Blogger’s Note: If you read my blog regularly, you know by now I’m cranky about a lot of stuff. This post is proof that I don’t actually hate everything. Yeah, you’ll still find me complaining about poor customer service, tech support headaches, idiots in general and how badly the English language gets butchered. But I’ll try to sprinkle some kudos around in the future. Stay tuned for more stuff I don’t hate!

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