Raleigh home improvement stores

I've spent a lot of time at Lowes and Home Depot recently -- and I'll continue to do so -- but two other hardware stores are climbing my list: the Ace Hardware store in North Raleigh and Briggs Hardware. For local history buffs, Briggs Hardware might sound familiar. Here's why.

Briggs has some cool stuff; they took a corner of their Atlantic Avenue store and turned it into a old-time country store. My local Ace store has offered great customer service each time I shopped there. Hopefully you can say the same about yours.

With both stores, it's nice to avoid the crush of traffic that invariably finds its way to a big-box store.