Ballard Now Covers Secondhand Shopping, Tool Borrowing and Repair

"If we can't fix it, we'll point you toward someone who can." Ashley Zaworska and David Nebert said that in the press release for We Fix Old Stuff, the repair shop they opened on Friday, Oct. 2 at 4818 14th Ave NW. The same morning, a few blocks west, Ballard's first Vintage & Secondhand Crawl started its three-day run. Both happened on the same day, and together they show that Ballard now covers the whole cycle of buying used, keeping things working and fixing them when they break. You can do all of it without leaving the neighborhood.

The crawl ended today. The passports, the 60% off rack and the Saturday DJ won't be back next weekend. The shops will.

How a book crawl led to a vintage crawl

The vintage crawl followed an earlier event. Ballard's bookstores held their own crawl in the spring and drew a strong response. At a later Ballard Alliance meeting, other groups of shops were encouraged to try the same idea. Allison from Simple & Just and Thread Hunter co-owners Elissa Pemberton and Melissa McLennan took it to the neighborhood's vintage and secondhand stores and organized the October weekend. Visit Ballard listed it as free, running from 11 a.m. Oct. 2 through 7 p.m. Oct. 4.

The crawl also made a good map. My Ballard's August announcement named nine shops. By the Sept. 30 preview the count was 10, and that preview's named list adds two more, Space Oddity Vintage and Lucky Dry Goods, for 11 storefronts in all. Put on a map, those addresses fall into a few tight clusters.

The circuit, block by block

Five of the shops sit within three blocks of Ballard Ave NW, between the 5200 and 5400 blocks. That stretch is one walk. The 22nd and 20th Avenue group is a second loop just north of Market. Rotations, on 54th, and Soft Goods, down on Leary, are the two that need a short detour.

A few of these shops bring more to the circuit than their racks:

• Barn Owl Vintage A to Z is a return. Owner Josh Dand first opened Barn Owl in 2021 in a roughly 700-square-foot space at the back of Sparklebarn. He outgrew it, moved operations to 6012 12th Ave S in Georgetown and kept looking for a bigger Ballard storefront. When Tactics closed in February 2026, he took over its Ballard Avenue space and opened on July 10. Barn Owl's own website still lists the Georgetown address, so search for 5209 Ballard Ave NW instead.
• Rotations is the newest shop on the list. Ballard residents Crystal and Alex opened it this summer, and its vintage dishware and decor are also available as rentals.
• Simple & Just puts its proceeds toward supporting at-risk youth and women, according to the organization.
• Bon Voyage Vintage warns that another website using its name has no connection to the shop. The real one is therealbonvoyagevintage.com.

The crawl's four food and drink stops fit the same map, so they work for an ordinary Saturday too. King's Hardware is at 5225 Ballard Ave NW, right between Simple & Just and Bon Voyage. Kiss Cafe is at 2817 NW Market St, next door to Rhaay. Kangaroo & Kiwi is at 2026 NW Market St, and Artemis is at 5507 17th Ave NW.

Where the county's repair calendar stops

Buying secondhand covers only part of the cycle. The rest is keeping things working, and that's where the seasons change things. King County runs free community repair events from March through September. In 2026 it held 11, its most in a year since 2019. The last one was in White Center on Sept. 19. The county expects to resume in March 2027.

None of those 11 events was in Ballard. The 2026 stops ran from Renton and Tukwila to Sammamish, Bellevue and Mercer Island. Even in season, the program has limits. It doesn't accept cell phones, tablets, microwaves or anything that runs on gasoline. It doesn't sharpen knives or tools, and it doesn't take on long reconstructive repairs. Items have to be clean, and each person's first item is handled before any second one.

So from now until March, repair in Ballard falls to three local options, each filling a different role.

Three places to fix things between now and March

We Fix Old Stuff, 4818 14th Ave NW. The shop shares a building with Moon Moon Lighting Co., the founders' custom lighting company, and lighting is its specialty. That means rewiring, socket replacement, fixture customization, electrification, finish work and restoration. Simpler jobs include replacing lamp cords chewed by puppies, fixing flickering fixtures and adding dimmers to lamps. Recent bigger projects include reassembling a shattered heirloom ceramic platter, restoring a fire-damaged chandelier brought down from Alaska, adapting European sconces for American homes, and arranging a 3D scan and recast of a vintage refrigerator handle that couldn't be replaced. Before opening, the founders tested the repair business for six months at a Seattle Restored storefront in Lake City. Pre-opening coverage listed pickup and drop-off hours as Fridays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and weekends 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed daily from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., with weekday visits by appointment. Those hours were announced before the doors opened, so call ahead.

Ballard Tool Library, 7549B 15th Ave NW. Volunteers from the neighborhood have run it as a Sustainable Ballard project since 2018. It's open Mondays and Thursdays from 5 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. Membership costs $35 to $100, and rentals run $1 to $20 per tool per week. The library describes its collection as one meant to represent "Ballard's artists, craftspeople, gardeners, mariners, and putterers." It also asks why you'd buy a tile saw you'll use twice when you can borrow one next door. If a dresser from Space Oddity needs a drawer reglued, this is where to get the clamps.

PNA Fixers Collective, Greenwood Hardware, 7201 Greenwood Ave N. Just over the line in Greenwood, the Phinney Neighborhood Association offers free help repairing small household items on the first Wednesday of each month, 3 to 6 p.m. The remaining 2026 dates are Oct. 7, Nov. 4 and Dec. 2. It's the one free repair event still running nearby, and King County lists it among the non-county options in the area.

For anything outside those three, King County keeps a directory of paid repair businesses in 20 categories.

A Saturday that uses all of it

Put together, the crawl map and the repair options make a full Saturday route without a single event on the calendar:

1. Drop a flickering lamp at We Fix Old Stuff on 14th Ave NW when it opens at 10 a.m.
2. Walk west to Ballard Ave NW and work through Barn Owl, Simple & Just, Bon Voyage, The Stray Fox and Lucky Dry Goods.
3. Stop at King's Hardware in the middle of the block.
4. Head north for Space Oddity and Thread Hunter on 22nd, then V.Allure on 20th.
5. If a furniture find needs work, stop at the Ballard Tool Library on 15th Ave NW, keeping in mind its Saturday window closes at 11 a.m. Do that stop first if you need it.

The organizers haven't announced a second crawl yet. The August announcement pointed readers to Thread Hunter's social channels for updates. For more on the neighborhood, see our Ballard neighborhood guide.

A rewired lamp, a restored chandelier or an original fixture is often what gives an older Ballard home its character, and keeping those details is part of how Michael Green prepares character homes for market. If you're weighing what to restore before you sell, take a look at our seller approach. Let's Talk Today.