Pale & Interesting: Light, Bright, & Textural Home Goods Store Profile

Specialty: Shabby chic decor

Price Range: ($$$) High-End

As much as we love color, there's something intriguing about a simple palette of pales. Instead of the loud statement of brights, you get the subtle song of texture and detail. With that in mind, husband and wife team Dave Coote and Atlanta Bartlett bring their signature shabby chic style to their own shop.

Pale & Interesting is a boutique that highlights covetable home goods from across the pond. From worn cupboards to fuzzy mohair throws and mercury glass pendants, a warm and welcoming home comes from things that invite touch. With Atlanta's stylist experience and Dave's eye for furniture design, their easy and distressed look translates to create wonderfully collected spaces. As you browse the site, you may recognize some pieces; much of the inventory can be seen in the pair's style book of the same name. Whether you're a pale perfectionist or just looking to add some interest to a room, Pale & Interesting is worth a peek.

For more about Pale & Interesting, visit their store page over at Marketplace.

Images: Pale & Interesting

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Introducing the Ikea "Manland": An Ikea store in Sydney, Australia,...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, September 15, 2011, by Sally Kuchar

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Room Juice: Custom Online Interior Design Store Profile

Specialty: Affordable online interior design services

Price Range: ($) Budget

Ever wish you could get just a little design help? Assistance in selecting the right paint color, ideas on how to accessorize your room, or advice on what the best furniture layout would be for your space? Nothing too involved... just a little guidance from a professional to get you on the right track...

Enter Room Juice, an affordable online design service that lets you choose the plan that works best for you. You provide measurements and pictures of your space, and Room Juice provides exactly the assistance you need - at the budget you specify. Want a $400 modern Moroccan facelift for your bedroom? You betcha! How about $2000 overall of your living room? Absolutely! With Room Juice, you call the shots. Services range from paint selection, to furniture layout, to accessories, to a total makeover. Prices start at $49, and results for all services (except a complete makeover) are delivered within a week.

For more about Room Juice, visit their store page over at Marketplace.

Image via Room Juice

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Video Interlude: This Exists: Totally Insane, Totally Fake Ikea Store Copycat

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, August 2, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

The city of Kunming, nestled in the Yunnan Province in Southwest China, has garnered a lot of media attention of late for its impressively deceptive lineup of fake Apple stores. Now Sky News brings word that the country's knockoff-retail industry has a footing within the home sphere in the shape of 11 Furniture. From the blue-and-yellow shopping bags, massive 10,000-square-foot layout, and cafeteria (that sells not meatballs but "Chinese-style braised minced pork and eggs") to room vignettes, rocking chair designs, and stack of pencils made available to roving customers, everything about 11 Furniture screams Ikea. Meanwhile, nine actual Ikea stores exist in China and "protecting Ikea's intellectual property rights is crucial," according to a company rep. About the brouhaha, one unaffiliated branding expert has this to say: "What we are seeing with the Apple and the IKEA stores is that they are 'lookie-likies', they are not actually fakes." Additionally, flat-pack furniture, that which essentially defines the Swedish chain, is nowhere to be found. Still, the news report on the Chinese copycat is absolutely worth watching. One word for these guys: cajones!

Video: China's Fake Ikea:

· There Are at Least Three Fake Apple Stores in Kunming, China [Racked National]
· Ikea added to fake-shops list in China [YouTube]
· LookallIKEA: 'Fake' Furniture Store in China [Sky via Racked National]

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Spruce Up: Upcycled Vintage Furniture Store Profile

Ginger and Matt Summers sell their unique line of upcycled vintage furniture and accessories at their etsy store, appropriately called Spruce Up.

I hesitate to call what this Cincinnati couple do with furniture "upcycling" because it's so much more than that. As they say in their etsy profile, the couple "creates warm yet modern environments by blending styles such as mid-century modern, vintage industrial and hollywood regency."

Take that dresser in the third photo, for instance – after stripping and painting the base of the cabinet, the couple cut apart old shutters and applied them to the drawer fronts, piece by piece, to create that breathtaking herringbone pattern. And that floor lamp? It's made from an old surveyor's tripod and a vintage lamp shade! Love it!

Visit the Shop: Spruce Up

Images: Spruce Up

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