In our Boutique Spotlight series, we take you inside the carefully curated and magically creative stores we work with! You can find Clr Shop products in all of the boutiques featured on our blog.
Name: Woonwinkel
Location: Portland, Oregon
Tell us about you! How did you start Woonwinkel?
I started writing the business plan for the shop while I was working as a color designer for a big American sportswear company in The Netherlands. I knew I couldn't stay in the corporate world forever; there were lots of good things about it but work/life balance and joy were two big things missing from the equation.
While I was living there I really fell in love with Dutch design - the lightness, the levity of it - and I wanted to bring that attitude back to Portland along with COLOR, which at that time was pretty much absent in Portland. The name of the shop, by the way, means home shop in Dutch.
What’s one piece of advice you always go back to when it comes to your career?
You sometimes hear people give the advice to entrepreneurs to stick to your vision and just keep at it. I would give the opposite advice: shift, morph, adjust your vision, adapt!
What makes a space feel like home?
Color and pattern, of course. I went through a long period in my corporate design year during which I pretty much only wore black. It was my armor - it was a way of not revealing my emotions. Home should be just the opposite of that - it's where you can let it all hang out - all your happiness, moodiness, edginess, your need for serenity; whatever feeling you want to feel, you can get it through the right combination of color and pattern and texture. And it's YOUR space - no one's grading you, so you might as well just liberate yourself. Go ahead and get your color kicks!
What’s your best tip for achieving a sense of balance in your home?
I spend time thinking about how I want to feel in each room of my house, and how it needs to function. That immediately builds some variety and flow into the different spaces and it helps me to avoid getting attached to a beautiful image I've seen without thinking about whether it would really work for me. For example, we're renovating our family room and I keep seeing these gorgeous images of dark, cozy dens with painted walls and ceilings - very cocooning spaces. But in my family room boys are going to be throwing darts and food's going to end up on the floor. So we're designing it to be fun and well-lit. My hideaway will be my bedroom where I can layer darker, calmer colors and there's no need for more than a reading light.
What are some of your home essentials?
I'm a ridiculous collector of blankets. There are the lightweight ones, the heavy duty wool ones, the washable ones (like yours!) - they all have different seasons and purposes and they migrate around my house for all my different blanket needs.
What are you looking forward to in the next year?
We're growing! We hope to expand our store footprint in the next 12 months - so stay tuned and WISH US LUCK! It feels like starting a new business in some ways, so it'll be a wild ride, but that's what makes being an entrepreneur so great - I'm constantly learning and growing.