Casalife

So you've shopped around everywhere and couldn't find "it". It's too bad you didn't think to come out to Liberty Village first, because in this once-abandoned and isolated ex-factory strip, there are a few yummy morsels to be properly digested.

Actually, the area is well on its way to becoming if not actually hot then at least densely populated. The cranes never stop lifting concrete slabs and the dust never settles in this newest of old downtown redevelopment projects. Condos go up by the hour. Pioneer businesses are staking claim to the future. Casalife is one of them, owned by Robert Whitfield, one of these (very) brave pioneers. And he aims to sell you what you're looking for.

When Casalife first opened, Whitfield says, "you could almost see the tumbleweeds blowing down the street." Except that the "street" wasn't even paved and ready until this summer. He used to have to kick the crackheads out of the parking lot. Only since the Dominion went in and the other shops opened has the area become lively. Which is why his promotional strategy is pretty shocking. He doesn't advertise. He didn't even have a sign up until last year. Word of mouth and trade shows are his basic tools.

Casalife became more of a small-space specialist in a city driven by the condo and townhouse market. That wasn't part of the original plan, but it's worked out that way. He plans to tunnel deeper into the condo market, too. He's got a good sense for it. Whitfield was an industrial designer and did a lot of commercial work, mostly in furniture design. He also furnished over 80 model suites for condos across the city, and he's still working with design firms. Most of the staff in his store have interior design backgrounds.

His imports aren't the typical stuff you see in most of the import shops around the city. A lot of the items seem more hand-picked. I've been in a large number of furniture stores that just slap things on their floor right off of the pages of an el-cheapo distributor company's catalogue. Many of the imported things in this warehouse were pretty unique. It seems like this guy has everything that can be shaped from steel, fabric, glass and veneer. It was a little short on artsy, but pretty high on functionality.

There's a good selection of trendy wall organizers and wardrobes, because condos usually don't come with these pre-installed. But in this shop, it's the tables and chairs that make the grade because of the variety. A typical glass dining table was $1285, and was pretty darned sturdy. He's branched into kitcheny-type fittings, too, all with good clean lines.

He has a huge number of items on the floor, but this pales beside his library of buyable stuff-- over 60,000 things at last count. If you're willing to take the time to browse through catalogues, "it's difficult to stump us", he says with a lump of pride. He brought in the first drawer-bed in the city, for example. He had to scour the world for it.

The space is huge and warehouse-like. The banks of 19th-century industrial windows let natural light into the store from almost every angle, so there aren't a lot of dark corners where forgotten furniture lurks in shadows. Everything is bright and cheerful.

And there are some sweet finds, too. Take this flat panel TV stand, for $79. I've been all over the city and haven't found many decent ones. This one was inexpensive and stylish, it swivelled and it was damned sturdy. I was impressed. And the mirror wasn't exactly unique, but it was better built than most I'd seen, with a cool base, and about the same price as this type of mirror elsewhere.

Whitfield says his philosophy is "value for the dollar". "I don't sell crap." He never has sales, and says he just tries to keep the price reasonable and set to move stock. "In the door, out the door. There's no BS." I'm not sure about that, but he does seem to sell things that people can actually use.

This is one picky dude for a guy with a massive warehouse store. In Milan, he saw 60 football fields worth of furniture displays. In all of that, he found one table he liked. And if he can't find it, he says he designs it and has someone make it. The quality is slightly better than I'd expected for an import house, too.

If you go, expect a lot of black and white. He likes to buy things for everyone, so there's a lot of neutral colours. Black and white seem to be the theme of the market this season.

Casalife has an amazing selection of glass tables of all sizes. And there are lots of extension dining tables, from all over the world. The designs are often pretty clever. This one, for example, makes a show out of not hiding the leaves under the main tabletop. It has nice shiny table leaf supports. Not the most stable table, but pretty stylish.

A glass cofee table was going for $630, and I liked the lines. And the $1410 coffee table that converts into a dining table, made out of Wenge, is pretty neat, too, if slightly more pricey than I initially expected.

There's a huge wall display of chairs, and no end of them on the floor. They're from all over, so it's hard to customize them if you're after just the right shade of mauve, but the variety is more than enough for most of the population. As with all chairs, though, and especially the imported ones, you'll want to try them all before you buy anything. A few turned out to be noxious when I actually sat in them. Though they all look more or less stylish and seem pretty basic, the comfort level varies hugely.

Sit before you walk out with anything.

There's a range of other stuff that seems to fit into his aesthetic, as well. The wall units and low-rise storage solutions weren't run-of-the-mill, but they seem less carefully chosen. Most of it I wouldn't buy myself, though I can see how someone might. They don't show the same care of choice as the tables and chairs, and the prices aren't as aggressive. They almost seem like an afterthought.

Most of what he sells is imported, of course. All of the little Canadian manufacturers disappeared 4-6 years ago, including his own operation in Vancouver. He built $3 million worth of furniture a year, and he and his 40 or so employees were the main suppliers to Urban Barn. They were cannon fodder for the first wave of ultra-cheap imports from China. The whole industry was laid waste almost instantly. The Chinese imports were mostly garbage, but the prices were devastatingly low. Since then, Western companies have invested heavily in Chinese industry, tooling it up, and now a lot of the big guys have gone belly up, too. Shermag in Quebec was one of Canada's biggest manufacturers. When it went under, it caused an earthquake.

Whitfield shrugs his shoulders. "You just can't have a heavily financed shop here."

Now he retails imports.

There's still a market for locally made custom pieces, though. He plans to re-open a facility for making specialized custom work at some point.

Upholstery is still made here, for example. The foam, you see, is unreliable overseas. You never know what you're going to get. So the good sofas are still made in Canada. Don't expect this situation to stay the same, though. As quickly as the rest of the furniture industry was gutted, Canadian upholstery might be torn up, too. The quality of Chinese work has picked up recently.

The prices are surprisingly similar to sofa prices everywhere else. A good sofa will set your wallet back about $1800-2700, and this isn't unreasonable for the level of quality he has on display. And he does stock a good variety, from a number of manufacturers, so you're not stuck in a box when you buy from him.

The outdoor furniture isn't abundant, but there is some. If not for the actual outdoors, it's at least outdoors-y. It's all slightly more clever than similar things I've seen elsewhere. I mean, there's not a lot of wiggle room for design and whatnot for such functional pieces, but what's here seems to be interesting enough to warrant a second look.

The little attached store right beside Casalife is called C2. When it opens, it'll be a fast, in-and-out place, where orders can be placed and picked up within 1-4 weeks. It'll also have cash-and-carry stuff and discontinued items. I'm not sure what this will mean, except that his already huge selection will get more difficult to co-ordinate and harder to choose from. He's opening a new store somewhere else in the city in January. He doesn't know where yet. There's already a satellite shop in Vaughan Mills, way up north.

Not a bad first stop for a shopping trip if you're moving into a new unit. Worth a drop by.

In fact, check out the Liberty VIllage neighbourhood when you go. It's not as desolate as it looks.