On Addison Street, three steps down from street level-two blocks west of the lake-and you’re in an almost typical neighborhood flower shop. There’s a cooler holding blush roses, assorted lilies and even out-of-season daffodils. On shelves, paperwhite narcissuses are beginning to blossom. Behind the counter, an elaborate antique mirror; across from it, a large aquarium. Walls are covered with latticed wood.
Then step left into a separate room and you’re in an enchanting place of everlasting flowers. This is Bruce Jasinski’s two-month-old addition to his European-inspired shop called The Flower Flat.
With its hardwood floors, its lighting softened by a fringed shawl tossed over a vintage floor lamp, this room holds myriad dried flowers creatively arranged in all manner of frames, boxes, baskets, even vases. Some are charmingly displayed in an old china cabinet, others are on aged wooden tables.
The ceiling is a canopy of bunches of dried flowers. On the walls are elaborate frames encircling dried flowers that Jasinski thinks of as “three-dimensional paintings.” There are gnarled baskets or fishing baskets filled with dried blooms or grasses appropriate to the texture of the containers; wreaths woven with blossoms. Fragrant dried heather and roses, hydrangea, lavender and greens spill from birchwood boxes or stand in flower flats that resemble strips of lumber.
Jasinski credits, his assistant, Maya Soodam, with coming up with creative ideas, such as tiny candle holders fashioned from dried petals.
Jasinski started drying flowers to pass the time, to salvage flowers that went unsold and, quite frankly, to “decorate the place and cover up a bad ceiling.” But customer response, followed by the availability of the adjacent apartment, resulted in the expansion.
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Dried flower prices range from $4 (a lavender swag) to $200 (an enormous grapevine basket with assorted flowers). Customer favorites include roses (single stems to bunches, $2 to $3 a stem) and bunches “that have volume,” like wild clover ($6.50).
The Flower Flat is at 622 W. Addison St.; 312-871-0888. Hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; until 6 p.m. Sunday.