Tucked amidst the sound studios and mechanic shops are cafés and boutiques so chic, they’re reinvigorating the Armoury District, an emerging neighbourhood just north of Fourth.

Café Bica
The impeccable décor, the cold-brewed coffee, the tempting pastries—we’d happy wile away the hours in this charming spot.

Mint Interiors
After an outdoor dinner party, we’ll keep our guests warm well into the evening with one of Mint’s new wool throws by Jonathan Adler.

Patisserie Lebeau 
Their savoury waffles (hello cheese and green onion) make us forget all about that low carb diet we’re on.

Barbara Jo’s Books to Cooks
We picked up coveted finds like Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Leon’s Naturally Fast Food and walked out feeling like culinary geniuses.

Fullhouse Vintage Modern
We’re trying to find an excuse to re-do our entire home in their industrial mid-century modern style. Check out the vintage post office furniture in this new, highly-curated location.

—Kelsey Dundon

Designing a nursery is easy. There is a ton of choice, and let’s face it, babies don’t really notice their rooms.

Decor gets more complicated for children and teens. Kids need a space that reflects their personality and style, but without compromising the taste of their parents. Which is why it came as great news that PB Teen now ships internationally.

The PB stands for Pottery Barn, and the stock reflects that: stylish and reasonably priced. The site sells great bedding and bathroom accessories but the study spaces are probably our favourite.

Now you won’t feel bad for sending them to their room. —ASI

www.pbteen.com

Do you dream of one day having your home pictured on the pages of an interior design magazine? Make it mint with Mint Interiors.

The new furniture and design store in Fairview boasts a catalog of conversation pieces to up the  design quotient of your domicile. If the Tracy Kendall black sequin wallpaper they sell doesn’t get the editors calling, then an Aviva Stanoff hand-pressed silk and velvet pillow embossed with real botanicals or modern mirrored gold cuckoo clock by Milanese designer Pascal Tarabay will.

House & Home on line one.

Mint Interiors, 1805 Fir St., Vancouver, 604-568-3430, www.mintinteriors.ca

To see more Mint Interiors, check out the Editors’ Diary.

Remember when motherhood meant pouring martinis and playing bridge while baby sat in his playpen?

Now, between baby yoga, playdates and crafting class, you really have your hands full.

Take a load off with an Austrian felted lambswool baby swing ($215) created by the designer for his daughter.

With a rainbow of colour choices, they'll never cramp your style.

Exclusively at www.enfanterrible.com

When you live in 500 square feet, even the smallest canine crate can cramp your style.

Take care of Fido and furnishings in one wag of the tail with BowHaus. Created by Seattle-based company DenHaus, it’s a sleek side table well-suited to your Bauhaus-era Barcelona chair, with space inside specifically for your sleeping pooch. Or if your taste points toward the traditional, there’s a wooden TownHaus too.

Your dog’s life just got a little less ruff.

$399-$599 at All Modern Pet, www.allmodernpet.com

Forget Bette Davis eyes, we want Garbo’s sketched by Cecil Beaton.

And we get them at Örling & Wu. The new Gastown décor store stocks the award-winning fabric and wallpaper collection made from Cecil sketches which includes “Garbo’s Eye.” The shop, run by a design savvy pair who met at London's Central Saint Martins, features those peepers on a pendant light, but you could have yours as custom-order curtains.

There were other gorgeous goods that caught our eye, like a salvaged wood picnic-style table from Arxe ($4,800), a linen-coloured Carl Malmsten samsas sofa ($6,800) and a red and white vase made the old way by Dutch masters Royal Tichelaar Makkum ($619).

We see redecorating in our future.

Örling & Wu, 28 Water St., Vancouver, 604-568-6718, www.orlingandwu.com

We were never that interested in math. But this new furniture store really had us calculating.

Danish modern aesthetic + Thai materials + award winning designer = you’ve really got to check this out.

A surreal lamp made from white silkworm cocoons, indoor-outdoor rattan sofas, and low-profile stools and dining chairs are all begging to be bought.

Okay, so maybe we are good at addition.

Maai Living Furniture, 157 W. Hastings St., Vancouver, 604-282-6113, www.maailiving.ca

If when decorating your commons, you like to be liberal with your earnings, but conservative with your spending, plan a tour of Parliament.

Governed by three former Liberty staffers (each aptly titled Minister of Environment, Minister of Interior and Minister of Finance), the new boutique in Gastown is a light and airy space filled with fashionable furniture, like a plush velvet loveseat, and accessories that look posher than their price tags.

We snuck in just before they opened and gushed over all the glam gifts like custom-scented candles, cozy blankets and mod ornaments.

Now it’s up to you to pass the bills.

Parliament, 115 Water St., Vancouver, 604-689-0800, www.parliamentinteriors.com

If you wish you could live among the stylish and serene pages of Dwell, start by plonking your pre-schoolers in this heavy-duty swinging pod ($39.99) .

Tied to a tree it's an adventure playground; hung from the ceiling it's a quiet reading nook. 

And while it claims to help kids develop their sense of balance, it's the fact that "quiet time" is no longer a hard sell that has us spinning in circles.

At Ikea nationwide (air-filled pillow sold separately), www.ikea.com 

Collecting decorative china is decidedly non-grandma when the plates are pop arty with a dash of Salvador Dali surrealism.

Fascinated by 19th century operatic singer Lina Cavalieri, Italian designer Piero Fornasetti created more than 500 black-and-white variations of her face and put them on plates ($176-$245). Like a modern Mona Lisa with a sense of humour, there’s even stunning Louis XIV style armchairs ($1,640) upholstered in her likeness.

We bet Cavalieri could teach today’s pop tarts a thing or two about being a diva.

At Gigi B., 1663 Duranleau St., Granville Island, Vancouver, 604-687-1565.