Menards

[Deleted]

Many times you have heard me talk about how cool Menards is, and how they still have the best ceiling fan selection and display. I promised a while back I would take pictures of the ceiling fan department at Menards. Enjoy! The last picture is where the fans used to be before they remodeled.

[Ben C.]

I think the 54" midtown looks cool with the blue shades. I hate the 42" hugger with slot vents and the one with the oval blades. When did you take these pics and when did the remodel? The Sears(es) near me used to have a display like that for ceiling fans when I was a little kid. My dad would lift me up and let me pull on the chains so they would run. One of them wobbled a lot and we thought that it was going to fall down so we got out of there fast. It didn't though. They took them out in the late 90s though. Miss them a lot.

[Deleted]

They certainly dont have cool fans like they used to. According to Matthew, here is a list of brands Menards used to carry, current as of 2004:

matthew said:

SMC 1981-1996
Nutone 1981-1988 (later came back in 1994)
Evergo/Envirofan 1981-1984
Moss/Toastmaster 1982-1989
Emerson 1985-1990
Encon 1988-1998
Hunter 1985-present
Turn of the Century- 1990-present
Heritage 1990-1998
Nutone 1994-1997
Royal Pacific 1997-1998
Sheridan classics 1998-2000
Design Craft 2000-2001
Westinghouse 1999-present
Bradford 2003-2004 (recently discontuned)
Litex 2003-present
Nicor 2004-present

Some of their light kit selection is still very cool, even by 80s-fan standards.

I dont remember Sears ever having a big display like that. We had a pretty large Sears here, in the mid-80s they had maybe 5 or so fans out of the catalog hanging not powered, in the late 90s they built a bigger display that held 20 or so fans operating.

[Fanman]

Menards looks nice to me. 9 aisles of fans! Wow! They sure seem to have good light kits. I like that they seem to have a wide selection of traditional fans like that white 5 blader. I've never heard of Turn of the Century.

We've had 2 Sears. One just appliances and the other is a full store. No fan display though.

[Deleted]

Turn of the Century is Menards store brand of fans and light kits. They perform well for the cheap fans that they are.

[Ben C.]

I have 2 Sears near me. One of them had 5 aisles of fans but that was packed. The other had 6 or 7 but they were long aisles. They took them out of both stores though.

[Deleted]

I've never seen a Sears with a huge fan display. The two Sears here in the 80s, one had a floor-mounted fan display with 5 inoperable fans overlapping. The other had a ceiling-hung "fan cloud" with maybe 10 or 20 fans, and another section for lights, all hooked up. Pretty cool but nowhere near this Menards.

[Deleted]

This Menards is remodeling and expanding . . . the entire store is becoming much larger, but the lighting and ceiling fan displays are specifically, they will now take up the entire second level. All the brown beams are currently being painted white to match the new editions.

Speaking of cool ceiling fan displays, I was reminded of the Tara lumberyard. Originally their fan display was freestanding in the center of the store, then moved to the back left corner under the rear-most corner of the balcony (that part was remodeled and blocked off in the pictures) and was pretty impressive compared to any fan displays today, but was fairly standard in the 80s. HOWEVER this lumberyard had a second location which was much larger. In the case of the Tara location, the balcony went over the front of the store (over the cash registers) and along the left wall of the store, and had two stairwells, one in front next to the register, the other center in the left wall with the Tara over it. In the other location, the balcony covered all four walls of the store. The front and and right walls were both offices, and the left wall was MUCH larger than the left wall Tara balcony, and had a full selection of furniture for sale. But the full length of the back balcony was the ceiling fan display!

The stairwells were in the front of the store near the registers, and in the very center of the back balcony. The back stairwell was very dark, with wood paneling, it came up in the center of the fan display, and over it was a 6 blade Design House on a long downrod with a 5 light beveled glass light kit. All the fans surrounding it were lit and running, filling the full width of the balcony, the front row of fans right over the railing on the edge. On the far left end of the balcony there was a separate cloud of fans, not energized. One of these was a white TPI/Carroway industrial and it was the first time I had ever seen an industrial for sale in a store. The cloud cornered the left balcony with all the furniture, in the center of the furniture, where the Tara would have been had this balcony been like the other store, was a 52" AB/stencil Design House hugger, the same fan my grandma had in her dining room. One time I was there with my dad and he turned it on for me.

Some of the offices on the right balcony, which you had to walk past if you went up the front stairwell, had fans installed. Most of these were 42" 6 blade Design Houses.

I went to look for this second location a few years ago, it had been turned into a factory of some sort. None of the balconies or fans remained.

[John "Rockin" Reed]

Menards sure has some neat fans/lights on display...Thanks for taking the pics, Dan

[Deleted]

I'll take more pictures if the display changes drastically (for the better) after the remodel.

[parkering]

hey if anyone goes to menards could they look to see the price on the antler lightkits in the pictures Dan took if they still make them

[Deleted]

I'll look this week if I remember.

[thefanman84 "Elder Moss"]

i like that midtown!!!

[Deleted]

Havent been to Menards yet. I havent forgotten.

[bigclayingers]

Nice Pics Dan!