Goodfolk is a brand-new store brimming with vintage curiosities from around the globe, tucked quietly into a strip of stores at Dundas and Broadview. It's an unusual location - the area is known more for family-owned Chinese restaurants and convenience stores than for "curated" objets d'art. But for Emilie Dolenc, who co-owns the store with her boyfriend, there was nowhere more natural to set up shop.

"I grew up in Riverdale, just at Broadview and Danforth," says Dolenc, who remained in the neighbourhood and dreamed of opening up a store on her home turf. "This was kind of the furthest west I'd ever go."

When she was growing up, the space was a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store where her family would drop off their old clothing; the store closed three years ago and remained empty until Goodfolk arrived.

Dolenc worked in design for years, recently moving into home decor textiles. "Me and my boyfriend loved picking things up on the side, and we always joked around, like 'Wouldn't it be amazing if we were doing this for a living?'" Now, that collection of vintage oddities is on full display in the store, with nautical flags and vintage signs next to Berber-rug pillows and woven tapestries from Mali.

Their aesthetic, Dolenc explains, is a mix of design influences and cultures, with emphasis on colour and coziness. "There's amazing shops out there, but I find some of them are very industrial-focused, and others are mid-century modern.

We love farmhouse looks, but not in the shabby-chic, grandma way - kind of mixing it with industrial and a lot of ethnic and folky items from around the world, to bring in different patterns and colours. I think that's a huge trend in home decor right now, that everybody's mixing different eras."

It's the perfect store for "I didn't know I needed this" home buys, from the tiny (vintage sign letters at $5 a pop) to the splashy (a handpainted German armoire from 1846 at $1250).

Quirky, one-of-a-kind pieces with unusual histories, like a massive reclaimed arrow sign or painted folk-art wooden lions, are priced far less than you'd find for comparable items in other parts of town.

"We price for it to sell. We love it, but we want people to love it in their homes. We try to keep things as reasonable as we can," Dolenc says. "It takes us a little longer to find things, because we find it at a decent price so we can sell it at a decent price. We really just wanted a shop we could actually shop in."

Vintage aside, look for the store to carry more goods from Canadian creators - Dolenc's working on sourcing some cards, artwork and ceramics from around the country for the shop.

For now, she's glad to be bringing something new to her neighbourhood: "We're excited about this part of town, and the potential for what's going to happen."

Photos by James C. Lee .