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Design Blogger

Love a canary-yellow lacquered side table? Then you’ll love Matt Heincker, an up-and-coming interior designer who blogs several times a week on trends like urban craft decor and the modern-classic mix, always with photographic aids. The 29-year-old also has been known to play the role of local shopping scout, alerting readers when he runs across something in a store here that’s a budget version of a high-end trend, a principle and frequent blog topic that he calls “Copy Cat Chic.” heinckerdesign.wordpress.com

Custom Mattresses

In the new Holder Mattress showroom at the Indiana Design Center, tasteful room vignettes display 30 models that range in price from $550 to $3,300 for a queen set. Options such as surface feel, handles for flipping the mattress, and even hinges for folding it expand the options exponentially. Got an antique bed or RV? Holder happily fulfills requests for special sizes, too, and every standard-size mattress is made in Kokomo in three or four days. Indiana Design Center, 848-2939

Landscaping Stones

Most people come for the 300-foot-long “Great Wall” of building-stone samples, but the Stone Center of Indiana also sells boulders ranging from weathered limestone to Indiana granite. Staffers will load them into your truck or deliver them to your home. Rolling those 500-pound monsters into place is up to you. 5272 E. 65th St., 849-9100

Nightlights

The blue glow of your cell-phone screen is no substitute for Elvie Zell lights at The Bungalow. Plug into something more special with one of these miniature lampshades, covered with dachshunds, French poodles frolicking against an Eiffel Tower print, a Warhol-style corgi portrait, or lazy tuxedo kitties stretched out for a cat nap. 924 E. Westfield Blvd., 253-5028

Contractor

Whom do you call when you have a renovation plan in hand but need someone to bring to life what’s on paper? Chris Wright, owner of the award-winning remodeling company WrightWorks, has built a business executing the visions of the city’s best designers and residential architects. Whether carving out storage space in a period home or bringing a bathroom into the 21st century, Wright’s signature is impeccable workmanship, down to the last glass tile. 925-7106, wrightworks.net

Bed Pillows

Choosy snoozers have so many options at Scandia Down—starting with six quality levels of down and three fill powers—that selecting a pillow might mean sleeping on the decision for a while. Prices range from $115 for standard sizes to $4,675 for a custom model filled with down from the nests of Siberian Eider ducks. A 30-day adjustment policy means you won’t lose sleep over your purchase, and plumping services are available, too. 487 Union Chapel Rd., 205-9620

New Home Store

Indonesian teak beds, stylish iPod docks, and exotic-patterned floor poufs keep you fascinated through both levels of Chatham Home, set just off Mass Ave in an old building with exposed industrial bones. An East Coast furniture dealer in the owners’ family sends along soulful cabinets made of reclaimed wood, and the  low-priced impulse buys are just as inspired. Take home a cast-iron hand that could hold jewelry or change in its palm for $31.99, or a paper fan printed with “yay” on one side and “nay” on the other for just $5.99. 517 E. Walnut St., 917-8550

Remodeler’s Website

Don’t let the animated bobble-head on Steve Gray Renovations’ website fool you. The site is packed with serious tools to help navigate a remodel, and the before-and-after videos have top-notch production value. It’s no wonder, considering Gray’s side job: blogging for Remodeling magazine. stevegrayrenovations.com, 596-0948

Kitchen Decor

Statuesque cake stands, glamorous pendant lights, black earthenware pots, and gourmet cookbooks aren’t merely props at the Kitchens by Design showroom, where the vignettes serve as examples of the work produced by some of the city’s most in-demand custom-kitchen designers. You can take home those furnishings and accessories that capture their style, like an apple-green sideboard studded with nail heads. 1530 E. 86th St., 815-8880

Whimsies

Those who go to the Accent Shop for staples like placemats, table settings, and party supplies inevitably stumble upon dozens of little delights strewn about the store. The best are back in the kitchenware section, where you might find cupcake-shaped rubber spatulas, a funny piranha pizza-cutter, fancifully engraved measuring spoons, and Chemex coffeemakers designed like a chemistry beaker. The handful of unexplained oddities—yes, that is a small gong—make it impossible to stop browsing and buying. 4527 E. 82nd St., 570-6007

Upholstery Class

At SoBro’s ModHomeEc, pro upholsterer Shelly Leer guides your hand while you turn a grungy garage-sale chair into your new pride and joy. After six sessions, take home a newly reupholstered perch and perhaps enough know-how to make your next project DIY. 1101 E. 54th ST., Studio D, modhomeec.com

Photography by Tony Valainis.

This article originally appeared in the December 2011 issue.