Introducing Domison, the latest in Toronto's custom furniture game (Image: Carole Park)
The place: Across the street from St. Lawrence Market in a cluster of furniture shops is a glass storefront that invites pedestrians to peer inside a 3,500-square-foot showroom by award-winning interior design firm Blazysgerard. To break up the stark-white open space, designers Alexandre Blazys and Benoit Gérard placed black metal columns as contrasting graphic inserts.
The stuff: Domison offers contemporary pieces from its own line, with highlights that include the “Laurent” sofa-and-chaise combo ($2,750), “Capri” sideboard storage unit ($1,580) and, for a pop of colour, the “Landscape” turquoise upholstered bench ($1,850). Domison’s custom-design approach allows shoppers to tweak designs and offers made-to-measure creations for those with something more specific in mind. Smaller Canadian design studios like Fumi, Looolo and Bipède are also represented in the space.
The shoppers: Trendy professionals and families looking for affordable modern pieces of furniture that will outlast the “Karlstad” sofa from IKEA.
Our favourite thing: We love the eye-catching chartreuse “Toledo” sectional, configured to snake around the floor of the show room. Domison allows buyers to adjust the angles of each section, so it can zig and zag as they desire (sold by section, $900-$1,850). Harry Potter enthusiasts should note that one type of zigzag formation is a lighting bolt.
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[caption id="attachment_65719" align="aligncenter" width="656" caption="Introducing Domison, the latest in Toronto's custom furniture game (Image: Carole Park)"][/caption]
The place: Across the street from St. Lawrence Market in a cluster of furniture shops is a glass storefront that invites pedestrians to peer inside a 3,500-square-foot showroom by award-winning interior design firm Blazysgerard. To break up the stark-white open space, designers Alexandre Blazys and Benoit Gérard placed black metal columns as contrasting graphic inserts.
The stuff: Domison offers contemporary pieces from its own line, with highlights that include the “Laurent” sofa-and-chaise combo ($2,750), “Capri” sideboard storage unit ($1,580) and, for a pop of colour, the “Landscape” turquoise upholstered bench ($1,850). Domison’s custom-design approach allows shoppers to tweak designs and offers made-to-measure creations for those with something more specific in mind. Smaller Canadian design studios like Fumi, Looolo and Bipède are also represented in the space.
The shoppers: Trendy professionals and families looking for affordable modern pieces of furniture that will outlast the “Karlstad” sofa from IKEA.
Our favourite thing: We love the eye-catching chartreuse “Toledo” sectional, configured to snake around the floor of the show room. Domison allows buyers to adjust the angles of each section, so it can zig and zag as they desire (sold by section, $900-$1,850). Harry Potter enthusiasts should note that one type of zigzag formation is a lighting bolt.
Domison, 35 Jarvis St., domison.com
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Affordable, Canadian made furniture ! Great idea !
While I support the idea, and the furniture is lovely, affordable it is not.
Toronto Life is increasingly becoming irrelevant to 90% of Toronto because they are completely unrealistic about what is affordable.
Join us in the real world Toronto Life and I might start buying your mag again !
Affordable?! Are you kidding me?! Please, what is it that you consider ‘unaffordable’? Or for Toronto Life, is nothing out of reach? When you start writing down to earh articles for the average condo-owning $51,000 a year earning person, I’ll pay attention again.
I could not agree more with Kathleen and Katie, I think they summed up the sentiments of most Torontonians who stumble upon your articles online because we are no longer buying them. As a Realtor and City lover I find again and again that your “finds” and “recommendations” do not speak to a majority audience.
Toronto Life has generally catered to a middle- to upper-middle-class reader for the four years I’ve been reading it. I don’t think that’s likely to change anytime soon.
I’ll take a look at this store actually, I’m furnishing a condo over the summer so this will be on my list. Thanks TL
Sure these are not Ikea prices, but if you know anything about furniture design it would not come as a surprise that some people spend 5-10k or more on a couch for example. In this context, yes it is “affordable”, not cheap. If you are looking for a good quality custom item I think these prices are reasonable.
That said I’ve looked at the Domison collection online, I think you would all agree that the pieces are simple, timeless and beautifully designed. High quality furniture items with an attention to detail (and which are not made of wood veneer and particle board) will always cost more.
black metal columns as contrasting graphic inserts
I think some of you are forgetting, before the era of IKEA, people typically spent a little more (as percentage of their income) on their furniture and then kept it for at least a decade or more (mostly because unlike IKEA) it lasted. Furniture was an investment and still is for some of us.