Average, as the name suggests, retails everyday items, but designed with intention and curated with thought. It’s also an online shop.

The international designers represented at this almost-hidden shop are brought together by owner Chris Hanz, meant to prioritize function over kitsch or fashionability and enhance daily life.

The space is tiny and minimal, and almost feels like a little office/apartment space. Chris’s computer and a coffee maker even sit on a desk.

Popular Danish brand HAY can be found here. In fact, this may be the largest retailer of their accessories in Canada. Several of their practical products are here, including their Sleep Well neck pillow ($68).

For example, they also make giant pins and pencil sharpeners ($7) as well as a pen clip that can be attached to pockets or clipboards.

A versatile bag by Ucon Acrobatics ($124) can be used as a handbag, shoulder bag, backpack, fits a laptop and is made from waxed canvas and vegan leather.

Their Alto backpack ($129) is made from recycled PET plastic and has a magnetic rolltop.

This place also has a ton of hard-to-find reputed design books and magazines, including Berlin Design Digest and Slanted as well as some local zines.

Hanz has brought items together in such a way that whatever level the brand is at or wherever the product is from, he considers that item to be the paradigm of its kind.

Pick up what he considers to be the perfect toothbrush, pen or eraser rather than scrolling through lifehack lists for hours.

The Kinto slow coffee style brewer ($259) is made from timeless walnut and brass to complement nearly any sense of interior design in the kitchen.

Skandanavisk candles in embossed ceramic with raw oak lids retail for a whopping $120 but I sheepishly admit they smell intoxicating, the “Rosenhave” combining blackcurrant bud, lily of the valley, alba rose and elderflower aromas.

Mugs ($24) by Playtype are decorated with red glyph designs in a typeface created by the same company, just one example of how graphic design and art work their way into the utilitarian objects for sale here.

Except for some items like watches or bike lights (the shop also has a fair selection of bike accessories) it’s a very impermanent collection of products, but in a store this intimate it’s easy to develop a relationship with shopkeeper Hanz who is expert at connecting customers with the items they need in their lives.