New Antique, Décor Store Opened by Madison Resident

Karen D'Addario loves the Borough of Madison. She lives in Madison, as she has for 17 years. She sends her three children (14-year-old triplets) to school in Madison. And when she was looking for a location to open up her new antique and home décor store, she was willing to wait for a storefront location in Madison. But there's one place where Madison has shown up that she never meant it to.

"I sent in my paperwork to the town with the title of the store saying 'Maison Décor,'" she said, "and when it came back, someone had written the 'd' in."

Surrounded as the store is by Rose City this and Madison that, a cursory glance inside D'Addario's store at 36 Main St. makes it clear that the title was not idly decided on. The greeting "Bon Jour" is painted on the wall; Fleur-de-lis and Eiffel Towers hang from the walls and decorate pillows; and a few miniature portraits of Marie Antoinette sit on top of dressers and tables. D'Addario is clearly a French enthusiast, one who uses her colleagues in France to stay ahead of home decorating and design fashions in America.

She also looks for ideas closer to home as well, mixing Southern Georgian styles with Baroque and 1960's-type items, such as the garden chandelier which currently hangs in the top left of the front window. Mostly, D'Addario says, she looks for anything that catches her eye, anything unique or interesting.

"I have a lot of handmade items here, a lot of artists from around the country that I work with. I have a lot of hand-sewn pillows, and all of the signs in the shop are hand-made."

These signs vary from the kitchen-appropriate "Let Them Eat Cake" to the popular "Dodger Country."

The store is currently organized into three distinct areas, with a walkway along the left side of the store. The first area which people walk into in the store related to gardening, and contains such unique finds as garden labels made of flattened spoons, lavender potpourri and a gardening table made from a Singer sewing machine. Behind the garden area is the living room, complete with a fireplace and a bright yellow sofa adorned with floral cushions. In the back of the store is the kitchen area, containing as well as crystal bowls, glasses and decanters.

The store reflects D'Addario's decorating rules, of which she has two cardinal ones. The first, she says, is to "always have an eclectic mix." The store contains mismatched furniture, since D'Addario admits, "I'm not really big on matching sets of anything, whether it's end tables or nightstands or anything. I think it's nice to mix."

And mix she does, not just with furniture and decorating periods (French, Georgian and Southern being her favorites) but also with numerous accessories, which brings her to her second rule: always use a lot of accessories.

"Accessories can make a home," she said. "You can have the most expensive furniture, but if you don't have any personal touches on the walls or on the bookcases, it just doesn't fly."

Some of the accessories on display in Maison Décor include bookmarks made from antique pins, magnetic message boards covered in linen which can be custom-made, decorative keys ("Keys are very big now, since Tiffany's came out with a key necklace," D'Addario says) , and a set of toothpicks in the style of swords and rapiers, similar to a set that D'Addario's parents used to have.

"I remember my mother would wash them and count them to make sure one hadn't gotten thrown away," she said.

Though D'Addario is still working to correct the inadvertent typo in her paperwork, she says the people of Madison have been nothing but supportive since her store opened on April 6.

"People have been very nice, really kind and everyone's been very complimentary. You never know how it's going to work or not," she said of the store, but so far, "it's been really well received."