Store Guide: Elte Market, the trendier, more affordable offshoot of high-end home store Elte

Store Guide: Elte Market, the trendier, more affordable offshoot of high-end home store Elte

(Images: Jenna Marie Wakani)

Name: Elte Market
Sells: Furniture and home accessories
Contact info: 1381 Castlefield Ave., 416-789-0800, elte.com
Hours: M-Sa 9:30-5:30, Su 12-5

The family-owned business behind home stores Elte and Ginger’s has just opened a new shop called Elte Market. Housed in an enormous industrial complex, the store’s modern decor items are designed to appeal to a younger, trendier clientele. Store buyers Jamie and Andrew Metrick, part of the family’s fourth generation, spend three months a year in places like India and Indonesia, sourcing materials and looking for design inspiration. The stuff they bring back is funkier than what’s sold down the street at Elte. Says Jamie, the self-proclaimed “rug guy”: “We have a bunch of Moroccan prints and patterns that wouldn’t really fit in over there.”

Since the location’s not exactly downtown, it’s designed to be a one-stop-shop for new homeowners. The inventory list includes 1,600 rugs, over 80 sofas, cool lighting fixtures, organic-cotton sheet sets and lots of wall hangings. Plus, furniture on the floor is always in stock, so shoppers will never have to wait six weeks for a couch to arrive. Prices are more affordable than Elte, but definitely not super-cheap: sofas start at $895, rugs at $700 and beds at $995.