Strange Closets

I stopped in at Mecox Gardens the other day, intent on buying a new design book. I’m attracted to homes with lots of books, and I especially love to see piles of huge hardback design books all over – on tables, mantels, even stacked on the floor; they somehow override my anti-clutter, OCD gene.

While covering River North last week, I came upon a store that I’d never seen before, Raul Carrasco. With stores in Miami and Chicago, Raul Carrasco offers custom furniture, a wide array of accessories (including many collected from Raul’s global expeditions) and lighting.

Calling Golden Triangle a store is like calling Chicago a village or Disney, a carnival. Yes, the furniture, sculpture and accessories are stunning on their own, but like living cells, they serve as building blocks of a more complex organism. Doug VanTress, one of Golden Triangle’s owners, believes that design (whether it be the wood [...]

Mecox is a few short blocks of my office, and apparently near enough that my terrestrial body has been ensnared by its gravitational field; every couple of weeks, I skip lunch, opting rather to embrace the shop’s pull. The 2 level, River North space is packed full of beautiful objects that quickly cycle in and [...]

I pass Svenska Mobler, a Swedish antique showroom in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, every morning on my way to work. Passing the store is so very difficult on a normal day, but when they change the window display or add a new piece, it’s akin to torture . . .