Shopping in Foster City

Given how much time the average person spends in bed, the team at Select Sleep Mattress believes everyone should be entitled to their own personalized mattress. Instead of selling premade mattresses, they have a three-step custom building process that lets sleepers to create their ideal bed. Customer circulate through the shops, selecting their foundation, support level, and comfort level, or waiting while assembly takes place in the on-site factory. Crews then deliver the finished product, and the comfort guarantee gives customers a six-month option to have their mattress rebuilt if it isn’t comfortable enough or if it makes them have that dream where the mailman unravels into a pile of hair.

A native of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, George Georgiou brings classy yet effortless European style to his line of women's clothing, which he conceived three decades ago after a stint in the corporate world. Elegant sheaths and interchangeable tops and bottoms reflect a range of sizes, while eye-catching jewelry transitions a casual ensemble from day to night. Patrons can peruse racks of apparel in eye-popping colors and textiles, bedecked in lace, studs, or buttons that easily create a fissure in the time continuum.

For more than three decades, ABC Tree Farms have provided the Bay Area with seasonal fun October through December. Summer inspires the first round of recreation in the form of Summer Fun Zones packed with inflatable bounce houses masquerading as castles and slides and fresh harvests of local cherries, peaches, melons, and other fruits. During October, they run 17 pumpkin-themed locations, some of which also feature petting zoos, hayrides, and haunted houses. Once Thanksgiving passes, groves of Christmas trees spring up, having made their way south from Oregon and Washington. There they will stand until Christmas Eve, hoping to decorate homes or become the model that inspires a revamped line of evergreen air fresheners.

After purchasing Carlmont Nursery in 1962 with his personal inventory of more than 8,000 plants as collateral, owner Bob Tyler tripled the facility's physical size and has since established the nursery as one of the Bay Area’s premier sources for japanese maple and bamboo. Fast-forward to the present and Tyler's Carlmont Nursery has become a peaceful oasis filled with an extensive selection of flora, gardening supplies, and decorative items, crisscrossed by gravel paths that meander past a waterfall and along a winding creek. Customers benefit from garden consultations and design services, and the nursery’s skilled technicians can install plants, lighting, and hardscapes to enhance the beauty of home gardens. Nursery emissaries can also put in water features to imitate babbling brooks or gargling humans.

To the art designers at S.F. Framing, picture frames should do more than simply encase art, photos, and posters. They believe they should complement decor as well. At S.F. Framing, more than 1,200 mouldings suit all sorts of aesthetic styles, from sleek, metal frames for posters to wood frames embossed with intricate gold leafing for traditional art prints and ancestor's mug shots. They also believe that frames should offer protection and draw from more than 40 years of shared experience as they armor precious objects in museum-quality frames. This archival process uses premium materials, including acid-free paper, UV-blocking glass, and framing-grade acrylic, maintaining items in mint condition for years of display. As a bonus, some of the brands on hand have earned the approval of the Forest Stewardship Council, and some actively support reforestation programs or use reclaimed wood.

The green thumbs at The Garden House specialize in helping customers bring pops of nature to their homes with a variety of low-maintenance plants and orchids. Within the shop's sunny confines, white, violet, yellow, and speckled orchids flourish, causing the trees outside to gossip about the diets they must be on. Green leafy plants of all sizes, including lilies and palms, sprout from attractive pots, and indoor and outdoor decorations such as lanterns and botanically inspired artwork line shelves and tables. The shop's gardeners use their professional experience to answer questions and offer advice, and they can often order any desired item not currently in stock.