The East Bank District - some 39 blocks on the east bank of the Willamette River - was hot in the 1900s as Portland's industrial center. Now it's a major draw for homeowners in search of a gritty, shop-among-the-loading-docks day.


A PATTERNED LANGUAGE
The flocked as frock? Why not! Some of the more than 1,000 wallpaper books at MILLER PAINT (317 S.E. Grand Ave., 503-233-4491) are stylish enough to wrap around your shoulders and stroll into you next event a la Dona White (right), the manager of the department, who is a wallpaper aficionado. "This is my dining room," she coos, pausing on Egremont Mustard Historic in the Brunschwig & Fig wallpaper book, which features pink cows and pink dogs (right). "People who come to dinner at my house think I'm really crazy!" Other papers flying out of the store are Designers Guild flocked flowers on fields of turquoise or green ($95 a roll).


FIRST AT SECONDS
Want to see people with expectation in their eyes? Duck into PRATT & LARSON TILE AND STONE'S SECONDS ROOM (1204 S.E. Water Ave., 503-230-0641), where simple shelves hold boxes of tile, delivered daily, that are sold at a discount." Some regulars come in every week," says Susanne Cavicchi, the marketing director of Pratt & Larson. "The thing about seconds is that they could be damaged or the color could be a little off." We saw field tile ($5 a square foot here; $26 a square foot regularly), circles, decorative tile and trim tile all at bargain prices.


TORSOS PLUS
Don't underestimate how much time you can spend in a store-supply shop such as PORTLAND STORE FIXTURES INC. (1101 S.E. Main St., 503-232-4878): We clocked about 30 minutes in this 36,000-square-foot emporium filled to its sklights with everything from mannequins—where else can you nab a man for $12!—to library ladders out of a Waldenbooks store in Hawaii ($350) to glass cubes for storage ($103 for a 9-cube system, unassembled) to a gorgeous National Cash Register piece that looks like it came out of a turn-of-the-century general store. "Some of these mannequins hate standing around naked all the time,"says Cat Schom, the owner of the store, as she steps over shop dogs Briar, a 126-pound malamute-mix and Kila, a malamute puppy. "The dogs are part of our stress-reduction program."