Among the stuccoed corporate-chain home-improvement monoliths—you know, the ones that suck up vast stretches of acreage just for parked cars—there are still a few homegrown, family-manned (and -womanned) hardware stores dotting the OC landscape. Bay Hardware, owned by David and Cynthia Brunjes and run by their peppy, beach-blond daughter Diana, shines like a sheet of aluminum siding in the sun, welcoming Seal Beach residents through its general-store doors for all of their staining, painting, building, screening and key-cutting needs. They also carry a lot of things you can't find at the Orwellian mega-stores and even some novelty kitsch items—like those awesome rubber-band-propelled balsa wood planes and gliders! Open seven days a week with competitive prices and an almost Stepford Wife-friendly staff, Bay Hardware is the only place we get our locks lubed and A-frames hammered.
