A shop of household things · Hollis

One kettle. We tried eleven.

Everything here spent six weeks in one of our own kitchens before it earned a shelf. The reason we chose it is written next to the price.

See all twelve things or call (555) 555-0173

Open Wednesday to Sunday 22 Prentice Street Flat $9 shipping

The kettle, 1.2 L Brushed stainless. Tsubame-Sanjo, Japan.

$148 Buy

Three we sell every week

Restocked most Thursdays. The rest of the shelf is on the shop page.

A wide ash-glazed stoneware bowl seen from above on a flat neutral background

Everyday bowl, 17 cm

Ash-glazed stoneware, thrown eleven blocks from here. Soup, cereal, the last of the pasta.

$36 Buy

Six pressed-glass tumblers arranged in two rows on a flat neutral background

Pressed tumbler, set of six

Belgian pressed glass. It stacks, it survives the dishwasher, and it costs nine dollars to replace one.

$54 Buy

Four stonewashed linen napkins folded in a loose stack on a flat neutral background

Linen napkins, set of four

European flax, washed soft before it ships. They get better for about three years, then they stop changing.

$58 Buy

The whole shop, twelve things, with prices

How we choose

Six weeks in our own kitchens, then a shelf.

Sundry is Ines Karr and Tobias Fenn. Ines spent nine years buying for restaurant kitchens, which is where you learn what breaks. Tobias repaired appliances for a living and can re-tin a copper pan at the bench in the back. We opened on Prentice Street in 2021 with about forty things. There are sixty now. That number goes up slowly on purpose.

We use it first

Everything on the shelf spent at least six weeks in one of our kitchens. Roughly a third of what we try never makes it into the shop, and we do not write about those.

It has to be fixable

If a part wears out, we want to be able to order that part. The copper gets re-tinned. The kettle gasket is two dollars and we keep a drawer of them.

We name the maker

Every label says who made it and in what town. If a supplier will not tell us where a thing was made, that is an answer, and we pass on it.

A bright morning kitchen counter with the kettle on the hob, a copper pan, a stack of linen napkins and a bowl of lemons

Everything in this photograph is on the shelf Prentice Street, Hollis

Why this one

Three things we argue about with customers, happily, most weeks.

A tin-lined copper saucepan with an iron handle photographed on a flat putty-grey background

Object 01

The copper saucepan, 16 cm

Copper is the most responsive metal you can cook in and the most annoying to own. This one is 2 mm thick from Villedieu, where they have been hammering pans since the fourteenth century, and it is lined with tin rather than steel. Tin is soft, sticks less, and can be redone. When the lining wears through in eight or ten years you send it back and it comes home for about seventy dollars. Tobias has had his since 2014 and has done it once.

Material2 mm copper, hand-wiped tin lining
MakerFourth-generation atelier, Villedieu, France
Weight1.3 kg, iron handle, riveted

$232 Buy

A steam-bent ash step stool photographed from a low angle against a flat neutral background

Object 02

The ash step stool

Every kitchen needs one thing to stand on, and most people use a chair, which is how people fall. This is steam-bent ash from a two-person shop in the Carolinas, oiled, no hardware except four screws you can reach with an ordinary driver. It holds 250 pounds, weighs six, and is good-looking enough to leave out where you can see it. That is the whole argument: a stool in a cupboard never gets used.

MaterialSteam-bent white ash, hardwax oil
MakerTwo-person shop, Sylva, North Carolina
Size44 cm tall, 6 lb, holds 250 lb

$245 Buy

Plate 03 · drawn, not photographed. It is in the case by the window.

Object 03

The nakiri, 165 mm

A straight-edged vegetable knife. It goes down rather than forward, so the board does the work instead of your wrist, and a cabbage stops being a chore. Blue steel core clad in stainless, forged in Miki. It will rust if you leave it wet, which is the trade you make for an edge that comes back in ten seconds on a stone. We sharpen anything bought here for free, for as long as you own it. Bring it in on a Saturday.

MaterialBlue steel no. 2 core, stainless clad
MakerThird-generation forge, Miki, Japan
HandleOctagonal walnut, replaceable

$186 Buy

Shipping, returns, packaging

Stated plainly, because everyone reads this part before they buy.

Shipping

Flat $9 anywhere in the contiguous states, free over $150. Orders placed before noon leave the same afternoon, everything else the next working day. Local pickup is free: choose it at checkout and we hold it for a week.

Returns

Thirty days, unused, in the box it arrived in. If we described something badly, we pay the postage both ways. If you simply did not love it, the postage home is yours. There is no restocking fee here and there never will be.

Packaging

Paper tape, shredded kraft, no plastic pillows. Knives ship in a cardboard scabbard we fold at the counter. Glass goes double-boxed and still breaks once or twice a year: tell us and a replacement leaves that day.

Ships within two working days Free over $150 Thirty-day returns Free sharpening, forever

The list

There is no signup box on this page.

We send one letter a month and it is usually about a single object: why we bought it, what we paid, what it does badly. To get it, email us the word list. We add people by hand, and one of us will probably write back.

hello@sundry.example Twelve letters a year, no more. Reply with the word stop and you are off it the same day.

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