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The Home Market
By Jenn Danko
Posted: Sept. 14, 2006
Woven baskets dot the floors of Kate Barrette's home-centric "grocery store." Each brims with rich-scent olive soaps, iridescent clams and matchboxes embossed with insects.
"It's a lot like a one-stop shop - like a grocery store where you can get everything you need for your home," said Barrette, owner of the new Home Market in the Third Ward.
The shop, which opened July 28, is an airy space buzzing with accents of elegance and antiquity. Cream City brick creates a rustic backdrop against rows of crystal glasses. Inside the 1,700-square-foot store, Barrette specializes in selling custom slipcover furniture and unique home accessories, including rugs, candles and apothecary. Much of the furniture pieces sport a not-so-perfect sheen that makes its modernity all the more stunning.
The market's most visible niche is its selection of slipcover furniture, which averages between $3,000 and $4,500 per piece. Customers buy a white chair or sofa and select a custom-designed cover from the store's swatch book.
"Down the road if you want to completely change the look of your house, all you need to do is change your slipcovers," Barrette said.
Barrette is no stranger to change. The 29-year-old Beaver Dam native graduated from UW-Madison to become the director of national retail sales for Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic home furnishing franchise on both the coasts. Managing $11 million in combined sales across the country, she learned what it took to turn a weather-designed aesthetic into beauty.
"I got a lot of ideas of what I wanted to bring to my own store when I was working in Los Angeles and New York," Barrette said. "I wanted to open up my business in the Third Ward because it's a very up-and-coming area."
With lots of foot traffic, too. On a recent Saturday afternoon, The Home Market was taken over by solo shoppers and a group in the planning stages of a wedding. Some plucked green-tinted glassware from the shelves, while others perused over rows of tea lights shaped like sea urchins.
Many of the home accessories range anywhere from $2 to $150, Barrette said. "You won't find anything else over that."
Barrette hopes her prices will be right enough to cater to the growing number of 30-something condo dwellers in the area. The Home Market is a short walk from the growing number of doorways.
"I'm going for this fusion of design . . . almost like antique boutique with clean lines. Really modern and fresh," she said.
A luxe, chocolate shawl effortlessly draped over a white, weathered chair says enough.
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