Today I visited historic Newburyport. This neighboring town is where I go to when I want to meet friends for coffee, shop for gifts or just stroll along the Merrimac River boardwalk to clear my head. I love this city for its brick sidewalks and buildings and its old world feeling. Also, the town is dotted with adorable street names like Fruit, Pleasant, Unicorn and Milk :)

My first stop was at Great Hall on Green Street. Hands down, this is my favorite store in town. You can expect to see its friendly owners Peter DuPlace and Fancisco Colom when you visit. They specialize in selling high end contemporary European design and are happy to special order anything you might need from Stelton, Rosenthal and Iittala to name just a few.

Every January they visit the Maison Objet in Paris and in February the Frankfurt Messe gift shows where they handpick all of the stores merchandise. Which ranges from oven mitts to cow skin rugs.

I love how the store mixes rough and clean textures with tablecloths of burlap along side Marimekko fabric. The clean lines of the Rosenthal plates, cups and tea pots are set off beautifully here. The upper left image is a place setting designed by Walter Gropius.

Peter has an extensive background in design ranging from brand design and merchandising as well as interior design. At Great Hall Peter also designs and sells the stunningly beautiful Eggersmann custom kitchens.

This fall Peter and Francisco will be opening a second Great Hall shop right around the corner on Pleasant Street. It will house the entire Marimekko collection including a fabric department and a much needed resource for design books. Check out their website for more information at www.greathallinc.com.

Next stop was Oldies Antique Mall. Unfortunately it was closed but I got a couple of nice shots of the exterior of their building which is covered in cool ephemera. Inside they have a lot of furniture, books and paper goods which are fun to use in my mixed media art.

I love how these birds are swimming alongside an ice cream cone on the side of the Oldies building.

For more photos of my trip to Newburyport click here!