I was up in Chicago for a few days for work and decided to end the trip with a visit to a new (at least newly relocated) store by the name of Architectural Artifacts. It was kind of like being able to shop at a museum – there were rooms and rooms full of amazing tables and art and other unique objects – including some of the topiaries from the movie Edward Scissorhands (who doesn’t need one of those?!).

The building was formerly a Catholic school, and it still had a little of that vibe going on (and a few remnants like blackboards and locker cubbies in some of the classrooms. There was also a lovely cafe – where Chris and I had a lovely breakfast – and the space doubles as an event venue…complete with a pickleball court in the middle of the school’s old gymnasium. It is also worth noting that we found easy parking behind the building (under the elevated train tracks) – so all in all it was a wonderful way to end a great trip up to the windy city.

The other neat thing to note about this spot is the fact that there were QR codes scattered throughout the building that told about the history or other interesting facts about various objects. We watched several of the videos and found that it was a fun way to learn a little more about the objects we were looking at.