Where I Shop: Denver-Area Sources Worth Knowing
One of the questions I get most often from clients during the design process is some version of: where do you find this stuff?
The honest answer is that good sourcing is a mix of trade-only vendors most clients can't access directly, and a handful of local retail and showroom resources that are worth knowing about, especially if you're in the Denver area and doing any amount of independent shopping around a project.
These are the local sources I return to most often and what I specifically go to each of them for.
Textile Loft Denver
This is where I go when a room needs fabric that has some character to it. The selection leans toward natural fibers; linen, cotton, wool, blends with texture, and the quality is consistently higher than what you'll find at general home stores. I use it for pillow fabrics, upholstery yardage for smaller pieces, and occasionally drapery when the project calls for something with a softer, more artisan quality.
It's a designer-frequented resource that's also open to the public, which makes it useful for clients who want to participate in fabric selection during the design process.
Decorative Materials
My primary local source for tile and stone. The range here is genuinely broad, from straightforward subway tile through handmade zellige, encaustic patterns, large-format stone slabs, and materials you won't find at the big-box stores. The staff know the products well enough to have real conversations about what works for specific applications.
I've been coming here for the lava stone countertop samples I mentioned in the natural materials pos, it's where I first encountered that material in person, which is a good argument for why physical showrooms still matter. Some things you need to see and touch before you specify them.
Located inside the Denver Design Center on Broadway.
Waterworks
Waterworks is where I go for plumbing fixtures on projects where quality of hardware is a real priority. The construction of their faucets and fixtures is noticeably better than most brands; heavier, more precisely made, with finishes that hold up rather than wearing through. The unlacquered brass in particular ages beautifully in a way that most unlacquered brass from other manufacturers doesn't. It's an investment, and I'm direct with clients about that. But in a kitchen or bathroom where the fixtures will be used every day for twenty years, the quality difference is worth the conversation.
John Brooks
A showroom for furnishings, lighting, and textiles from higher-end manufacturers; the kind of pieces that are typically trade-only or difficult to find in the Denver market. I use it for lighting sourcing in particular, and for upholstered pieces from lines that aren't available elsewhere locally.
Worth a visit if you're in the design development phase of a project and trying to understand what's possible at different price points for furnishings in this market.
The Annex Antiques
My go-to local antique resource. This is where I find the pieces that change the register of a room, vintage brass hardware, French portraits, carved furniture, objects with real age to them. Not everything in here is usable, but the good finds are genuinely good, and returning regularly is how you catch things before someone else does.
As I've written before, one well-chosen antique piece does something for a room that no new piece can replicate. The Annex is where a significant portion of those finds come from for my projects.
Walker Fine Art
I reference this gallery specifically because art sourcing is something designers often leave to clients entirely, and the results are usually fine but rarely excellent. Walker carries contemporary work at a range of price points, and more importantly the work is actually interesting; not the kind of safe, neutral abstraction that ends up on hotel room walls. I don't specify art without understanding what matters to the clients I'm working with. But when the project calls for something contemporary and original rather than a print or a vintage find, Walker is where I look first in the Denver market.
A note on trade-only sourcing
Everything above is accessible to the public in some form, which is part of why I'm listing them. The majority of what I specify on projects comes from trade-only vendors, custom furniture manufacturers, fabric houses, lighting fabricators, stone importers, that clients can't access independently. That's one of the practical arguments for working with a designer: access to resources that aren't available retail, often at prices that are net of the markup you'd pay at a store.
If you're managing a project independently and shopping from retail sources, these are genuinely good ones. If you're working with me, we'll use these alongside a much broader set of sources depending on what the project needs.
If you're in the middle of a project and not sure where to look for something specific, that's a reasonable thing to bring to a conversation.
