So long, Beverly Center

With hustling, bustling, warehouse-style stores and fewer places to park your wagon, shopping downtown is a more rugged adventure than on the mild, mild Westside. For design pros and dedicated do-it-yourselfers, however, the selection and savings on tabletop items, fine fabrics and all the trimmings are worth the trip.

At Anzen Hardware (309 E. 1st St.), a Little Tokyo institution since 1957, you can find a variety of elegant kitchen utensils and household products or rummage through a bin of 30-cents-each tin furniture medallions and hinges. To turn your garden into a Zen den, there are bamboo tools and small fences for edging flower beds ($17.50 per section), along with other decorative accents.

FOR THE RECORD
Leather price — A caption accompanying the Wanted column in Thursday’s Home section incorrectly stated that a leather hide embossed with a crocodile pattern costs $440 a yard at Michael Levine fabric store in downtown Los Angeles. The price is for a hide that is approximately 55 square feet.

Looking for upholstery fabric that’s new, unusual or so old it’s new again? Prowl through the rolls and racks at Michael Levine in the heart of the Fashion District at 919 S. Maple Ave. In addition to buttery chenilles and ultrasuedes and new reproductions of mid-century florals and abstracts, the massive but easily navigated emporium offers luxurious silks and brocades, fine leathers, crisp cotton toile and fabrics suitable for furniture and window treatments in every décor theme. If you cannot live without a curtain swag with a tassel as big as a grapefruit, check out the trim department. The store also sells beautiful bedding sets (silk duvet covers and shams from $400).

For a fiesta of colorful cups, plates and bowls that are cheaper by the dozen (from $11.99, $34.99 and $59.99, respectively) try the busy, dusty Dish Factory at 310 S. Los Angeles St., where you also can find stainless-steel cookware and kitchen equipment and a variety of cafe chairs. To finish dressing your table, pick up fresh blooms at the Flower Market on Wall Street and make a stop at Moskatel’s (733 S. San Julian St.), a cavernous space stocked with glass goblets, porcelain planters, silk flowers and such seasonal specialties as a pumpkin patch filled with glitter-dusted gourds and horn-of-plenty baskets.