STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Interior designer Allison Paige opened an online store showcasing some of her favorite home décor and accessories in February 2020.
She kicked it off with an open house at a private home in Hailey where she showcased unique cutting boards, serving spoons bigger than pancake turners and as small as the tasting spoons at Baskin-Robbins and signature custom pillows made with special fabrics.
Little did she know that just days later the coronavirus pandemic would turn the world upside down and her online market would end up being the perfect fit for the time.
“It was serendipitous. The timing was kind of crazy,” she said. “I provide contactless deliveries for items that are purchased locally. And, I have reached an audience bigger than I could have ever imagined because of the pandemic.”
If anything, Paige is struggling to keep up.
Her interior design business, which she started 15 years ago in a storefront on Ketchum’s Leadville Avenue, has grown beyond compare, thanks to pandemic refugees moving into the valley and longtime valley residents seeking to remodel.
“I thought my business would take a hit. But it’s been the opposite,” she said. “A lot of people have a little extra pocket change and so they’re looking to make their space feel better, particularly since they’ve been staring at their four walls so much lately. And others are changing their spaces because they’re now working from home or their kids need a place to do online schooling.”
Paige, who grew up in Connecticut, actually got a degree in art history at the University of Colorado-Boulder, spending a semester abroad studying art in Florence. After working in art galleries, she decided she wanted something more hands on and creative. So, she began working for a designer, then an architect and later a window treatment company.
When her older brothers and sister moved to Sun Valley, she came out for a summer and never left. She met her husband, started a family and started Allison Paige Interior Design.
“I love full-scale projects. But I’m especially good at window treatments—window coverings, shades… I even help other designers out with that sometimes,” she said.
Paige created her online market to offer valley residents a chance at some of the items she had fallen in love with at buyers’ markets.
“Each year I go to a market in Las Vegas looking for special products for clients. Some items require minimum orders when I only need one for a client. Sometimes I see things I love but they don’t fit my clients’ needs. I thought: Why not bring some of these home and try to use social media to market them?”
Right now, Paige said, she has a plethora of recycled wool throw blankets from the United Kingdom that are amazingly affordable and beautiful. Other items currently in her market include recycled glass beads and cutting boards that range in size and shape and incorporate such wood as black mango.
Also, a ceramic globe birdhouse, modern black stoneware pitcher, storage pots with corks and glass and mango decanters.
Paige would love to showcase some of her accessories at an open house like the one that launched her online market. But, she says, those will have to wait until the pandemic wanes.
To visit her online market, go to www.Allisonpaige.market