Our Favourite Home Stores in Toronto

Update: Our in-house Designer, Kiel, has put together his list of top home stores too – click to read it!

We often get asked for the BREL take on the best furniture, lighting and home decor stores in Toronto. While we certainly can’t claim to be THE experts, we do spend every day looking at houses and condos and have helped guide a lot of new home owners furnishing their new spaces.

So without further ado, here’s a list of our favourite inspiration websites and haunts for modern furnishings, lighting and decor in Toronto.

Inspiration and Ideas

If you’re looking for inspiration, Houzz is the place to go. With hundreds of thousands of design photos and ideas, you can create your very own idea book and find out where to purchase what you like. Also check out the iPhone app, it’s sort of awesome.

Of course Pinterest is another option, but be careful – you can lose entire days to Pinterest.

Top 10 Furniture Stores

West Elm Contemporary furniture with reasonable prices and good inventory so you don’t have to wait months for your new couch. (Liberty Village)

EQ3 Great modern furniture with lots of good smaller-scale couches and furniture for the condo owner. (Liberty Village and King Street East)

Urban Barn Canadian-owned company focused on contemporary furniture, accessories and  home decor solutions. (Queen Street West)

Structube Modern furnishings with affordable price tags.   Think of it as a more grown-up, more upscale version of Ikea (they’d probably hate to be described that way). (Little Italy)

IKEA  Everyone new home owner makes a trip to IKEA eventually. No matter your budget, Ikea has storage solutions for everyone. If you don’t have a PHD in putting together Ikea furniture, you can hire people to do that for you (direct from Ikea or on Craigslist) and you can either rent an Ikea van to drive your purchases home yourself, or go for one of their delivery options. (Etobicoke)

Style Garage If you have a generous budget, this is the place to go for custom-made furniture and unique pieces. (West Queen West)

Design Republic “Furniture for the People”, or so they claim, come here for everything from edgy couches to designer classics to vintage pieces. (Queen Street West)

Design Within Reach (DWR) If you want “real” designer furniture (but not vintage) vs. the cheap knock-off options offered by so many, Design Within Reach is worth the visit. (King Street)

Morba – The undisputed king of  retro, vintage and modernist furniture and homewares.  (Queen Street West)

Best Lighting Stores in Toronto

Living Lighting – With locations across the city (and downtown on King Street West), Living Lighting has a fabulous variety of indoor and outdoor lights, and great prices on ethanol fireplaces.

If you have a big budget, check out Eurolite. If you don’t have a big budget, you’re probably best not to visit, because everything else will seem disappointing. (Queens Quay East)

Union Lighting  The mega-store for lighting. If Union doesn’t have  it, you probably don’t need it.  (North. You’ll need a car to get there)

Best Home Decor in Toronto

By far our favourite home decor store in Toronto is Bergo Designs. We like it so much that we actually registered at Bergo for our wedding (it’s a great place for gifts too). Bergo features internationally recognized designers and architects, such as Phillippe Starck, Frank Gehry and Michael Graves. (Distillery District)