Searching for Love in the Hardware Aisle

You’re checking items off your weekend project list in the local home and garden store when it suddenly hits you: Monday is Valentine’s Day. Your sweetheart--who prefers pulling weeds and the smell of sawdust to receiving flowers and the aroma of chocolate--expects something romantic, original and creative. Using Elizabeth Barrett Browing’s classic poem as a brainstorming blueprint, we matched 14 home improvement items pictured with a word from each line of the sonnet.

Sonnets from the Portuguese, XLIII

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life !--and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

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Sources: Veronica Montean and Skip Luke, Home Depot of Orange

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times