Great Spaces: Jamie Metrick of the Elte clan raided the store’s showroom to decorate his condo
Jamie Metrick loves rugs. As the head of the rugs department at the venerable furniture store Elte—which his great-grandfather founded in 1919—he spends all day every day thinking about them. It’s no surprise, then, that his two-bedroom condo at Spadina and Dupont is full of rugs—which, it turns out, are the only things in the place he picked out himself and among the only proper furnishings he had when he moved in four years ago.
The space stayed mostly bare for two years, until he finally enlisted the help of his mother and brother, who together run the furniture side of the family business. They helped him pick pieces from the showroom floor and arranged them to get the most out of his space. Jamie doesn’t cook—his fridge usually contains a couple of bottles of white wine and a lonely jar of jam—and he rarely eats at home, so he filled his dining area with a foosball table that his brother found in Vietnam. He does, however, enjoy hosting parties, so he gave a hotel wine rack pride of place. And his mother and brother made sure to keep the floor and wall space uncluttered: all the better to make room for his rugs.
