The FOUND building in Mesa is the most inspiring and creative place in town, a vintage brick beauty where a furniture shop, interior designer, family photographer, framer and architect all live in happy, help-each-other symbiosis. You will leave wanting to get married and have children to put in pretty frames on your pretty wallpaper in your pretty house.
There’s a new shop in the mix: Design*Lab by DeCesare Design Group, which opens today. I went for a preview last night and overheard someone say this: “I just walked into my wet dream.”
Friends, I can’t say it better than that. There are nautical pillows, piles of black and white stationery, bins of ribbon, Pantone toothbrushes, vintage chairs, adult school supplies, frames and boxes and vases galore, even funny party bits like gum that says, “I kissed a Republican.”
We were in Mesa, and the reporter in me noted that the “I kissed a Democrat gum” sold out.
You’ll need to get there today. Cindy and I got so excited walking around that shop that we had to step out, take a slow walk, and start again. Shop owner Caroline DeCesare is one of Arizona’s most celebrated designers — a very big, very published deal. This diabolical genius decided to open Design*Lab just 60 days ago. (She designs rooms like this.)
Behold, the fripperies:
Fill-your-own candy containers:
Angela Dawn Karp, this is meant for you:
This alphabet wall had my heart, and is soon to be the most copied idea in all of blogland/Pinterestdom:
Caroline DeCesare shares my alphabet issues. Heaven help us both.
Caroline and me: she thanked me for dressing to match her store.
After this photo, I went into the “must-see” bathroom and came out and called Caroline a bad name. Look:
That is wallpaper, and inside those frames are iconic mini chairs.
Design*Lab is at 166 W. Main St., in Mesa. Grand opening today and tomorrow, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
And while you’re there, don’t forget to visit FOUND:
And the awesome frame shop Matage:
And the studio of photographer, artist and storyteller Allison Tyler Jones:
Again, the building is at 166 W. Main Street in Mesa. Opening hours this Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m to 6 p.m.
**All good photos in the above post are courtesy of Allison Tyler Jones. Bad photos are courtesy of me.