OXFORD – The irony of the two big old calendars on the wall near the cash register wasn’t lost Wednesday on Don and Claire Dechene, owners of Kall-Us Antiques.

Both were 60s-era, from A.R. Wright Co., a Portland coal dealer. At the bottom were the words, “Everything to Burn.”

Next to the calendar was a print of a desolate-looking cafe, titled “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

Claire Dechene pointed them out, then smiled ruefully.

“All in all, we were lucky,” she said.

But even though the former hay barn that houses their business was saved by firefighters, the adjoining ell, run as the Cozy Cat Country Store, was a complete loss.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

The owners of the property, siblings Darrell, Dana and Diane Knightly, had the option to have the store portion removed, and make the necessary upgrades to allow electricity to be restored to the antique store and an undamaged part of the ell sublet by Dechene to another antiques dealer, Richard Shaffer.

But according to Dechene, they have decided to have the entire facility condemned.

So the Dechenes have to go. On Wednesday, they began an inventory liquidation sale. They want to find a smaller space along Route 26, and need to reduce their inventory.

Shaffer said he is planning to move to a building across the street once run as a locksmith business.

Don Dechene said he has been in the antiques business on Route 26 for 24 years, with the last 15 at the former hay barn after it was renovated for use as a clothing store.

The business for years has closed or reduced its hours in winter, when the Dechenes do their antique dealing in Florida.

“We buy up here in summer, and sell down there in winter,” he said.

The Dechenes had what they said was “a good deal” on their rental space, and Don Dechene is not sure the couple will want to pay today’s rental space prices to stay on Route 26. But he’s unwilling to go anywhere else than the highway, he said.

“Before we were here in this barn, we were in the Abattoir, then the Miniature Golf Place, then the Candle Place,” he said.

[email protected]