Ummm, yes, arriving at mid-day on a Saturday in Chicago and leaving Sunday morning does not really leave enough time to get to know a place (it was a stopover on my way down to Kohler). But what I did see I loved! I checked into The Felix, which is quite the chic new spot and only a hop and skip from shopping on the Magnificent Mile, then set about exploring with House & Home's Cameron MacNeil.

CB2 was first, up in Lincoln Park, and if you haven't heard of 'em, they're the edgier, younger version of Crate & Barrel. Oh, I could've splurged, but luckily they ship to Canada and word is that we'll hopefully see a store north of the border sooner rather than later. Then we stumbled across Flor's new store (below), which I was so happy to see. Their modular carpet tiles are brill and it was great to see them all in one spot and get to play with all the patterns and colours, let alone check out the pixel artwork created with carpet! I use Flor on quite a few of my projects (yep, they ship to Canada) and picked up a bunch of samples for the new house. Right next door to Flor is Jayson Home & Garden (below), which was jam-crammed with tons of gorgeousness. Nate Berkus shops there which is reason enough to lurk around, lol.

After Lincoln Park we headed back down to the Magnificent Mile and wandered through Room & Board (always calmly contemporary) and the Bloomingdale's Home Store (loved the beach towel riff on their classic Brown Bag). Of course there's tons more to see, and I'll definitely be going back to find all the small and cool independent design stores, take an a tour with the Chicago Architectural Foundation, hit the museums... Oh, the list goes on.