Our physical home is located in the “suburbs of Toad Hop,” just a hop, skip and a jump (get it?) from West Terre Haute, Indiana, and across the river from the original Sin City of the Midwest, Terre Haute. And while Terre Haute (NOT pronounced "Terry Hut," by the way) has had its share of mentions on big and small screens* alike, among Toad Hop’s claim(s) to fame is a nod in the nationally-syndicated cartoon “Frank & Ernest.” As if that isn't enough, just down the road and within sight of the lone stop sign in town, hidden in a tangled mass of weeds, trees and vines, is a brick outhouse.** Cool, huh? Interesting as that may be, however, let's get on to why you're really here.

I’m thinking it's because you’re interested in custom ironwork, right? You want something unique...one-of-a-kind, shall we say? (Which is basically what "unique" means, isn't it?) Well, I'm here to tell you that you’ve come to the right place: just check out the gate I'm making for my own yard at right. First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Elaine and after many years working in commercial printing and publishing as a graphic artist, I finally came up with the perfect business venture: combine three of my passions (flowers, interior decorating and old houses) with a not-to-be-denied creative streak to make old-fashioned ornamental ironwork for the garden and home. Each piece is designed and handcrafted by me, and I’ve got the hands to prove it. Oh, alright, at times I need to enlist the help (read: muscles) of my husband, Jan. (Thus the “J” in J’laine. He can hardly refuse me if he gets his name on the business, now can he?) But I digress; let's get back to how this process works.

After long days of drawing and erasing and drawing again and longer nights tossing and turning while I re-think everything down to the smallest detail... building it in my mind and re-building it until it's perfect... I finally begin bending and twisting the metal... arranging and rearranging the components on my work table...enlarging this scroll here... adding a rosette there... until voila!... I end up with a completely different design than the one I started. I weld it and paint it, wondering all the while why I ever thought this would be a relaxing pursuit... swearing I’ll never make another piece again as long as I live... until the magical moment comes when I step back and say, “Yes! That's what I was after!” Then as I’m gathering up the discarded sketches a piece of scrollwork I’ve thrown on the floor catches my eye... I slowly pick it up, turning it this way and that, thinking to myself maybe I can use this for something... and the next thing I know I’m off to the next project. I do this because I have no short-term memory (obviously) and I've already forgotten how miserable I've been over the past few days. Anywho, feel free to browse through the online catalog and see the results of all this madness. It’s mostly garden items right now but I’ll be adding home decor as time goes on; there are also a couple of railings I've thrown in for good measure, as well as a really cool custom piece that I'm especially proud of. Sincerely, though, I hope you’ll enjoy these pieces as much as I’ve loved creating them (self-imposed agony aside). Thanks, Elaine *Just off the top of my head, the movies Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and A Christmas Story, in which they mispronounced it but strictly for comedic reasons I'm sure. If I remember correctly the oldest daughter in TV's Family Affair also called it Terry Hut, and in a 2000 episode of Law and Order the last thing the murderer said about her victim was, "She didn't have a life...she was from Terre Haute, Indiana." At least she pronounced it correctly. **Tragically, for me anyway, I have been informed that the building in question is not an outhouse but a pumphouse. Whatever. For the sake of poetic license, I'm leaving my story as is.

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