Shopping in Keller

Real Deals Home Décor is an affordable home accessory, furniture, and decoration emporium. Due to the limited hours and nondescript exterior, shopping at Real Deals feels as exciting as finding an unlit firework in a bale of hay. Inside, accessories including picture frames ($12.68) and metal wall art (from $8.99) are stylishly arranged on tables and in groupings around the store. If you're in need of shopping navigational aid, the Real Deals staff can assist by pointing you toward 24-inch clocks (from $29.99) and a wide variety of smaller home accents such as ceramic chickens ($15.71). Real Deals Home Décor also sells larger furniture items and Downeast clothing, so self-esteem is not overpowered by the newly abundant vanload of home esteem.

Browsing the spacious showrooms at Heritage Furniture Galleries’ two locations truly ignites the imagination to start thinking about what your living room or bedroom could look like. Throughout the space, sofas, sectionals, bedroom sets, and tables crafted by brands such as Coaster, Ashley, and Broyhill sit in cozy arrangements. Shoppers can mentally place a new couch in their family room and choose which beanie-baby portraits to display on nesting coffee tables. The helpful staff can come up with decorating ideas and suggest pieces to suit any aesthetic, whether contemporary or traditional, masculine or feminine.

Cars line up at the drive-thru window, where instead of bags of burgers and fries, staffers hand over bundles of glossy personal photos. Inside Creative Photo & Digital Imaging, digital techs convert media such as VHS tapes, records, and reels to DVD and CD, while across the store, photo experts transfer snaps onto album prints, museum-grade canvas wraps, and gifts such as coffee mugs and puzzles. Heirloom family portraits, ravaged by rips and sun damage, doff their imperfections in the photo-restoration lab, and an onsite portrait studio captures clans as they update their sweater sets through the years. Creative Photo & Digital Imaging also hosts photography classes on subjects from how to take better pictures on camera phones to the intricacies of digital SLR cameras.

Teeming with precisely organized lighting fixtures, Passion Lighting's 9,000-square-foot retail show room—a multiple-year finalist of Residential Lighting magazine’s Showroom of the Year award—is designed to demystify home lighting and interior design for the everyday customer. Owner Bruce Paul—one of only 125 ALA-certified lighting consultants in the nation—uses his years of illumination expertise to help customers solve their interior-design conundrums. In addition to his company’s website, Paul maintains the video blog LightingGourmet.com, where he doles out expert advice on household lighting strategies and irresistible video clips of kittens installing solar panels.

Father-and-son team Robert and Fred Lee worked as homebuilders for years before going into business selling lights in 1965, so they knew how quickly something impressive could rise from a humble foundation. Sure enough, Lee Lighting, their small family company, grew to include a vast online retail shop and one of the largest lighting dealers in Texas. They've even purchased Savoy, a company that designs fixtures to bring cheer to dining rooms and make rooms full of ventriloquist dummies less terrifying.

Lee Lighting stocks shelves with a diverse selection of indoor lamps from brands including ELK Lighting, Quoizel, and Hudson Valley. Staffers certified by the American Lighting Association move beneath the dazzling crystal sprays and faux candles of chandeliers. They suggest outdoor lighting to transform backyards into regal terraces. They also stay abreast of lighting trends to help patrons select lights that will stay in style.

At the Dallas Vintage Clothing and Jewelry Show—the largest show of its kind—vendors from Atlanta, Chicago, and locally gather to showcase vintage apparel and accessories. By reading tags or sawing items in half and counting the rings, shoppers will find items that date from the 1890s to the 1980s. Vendors include Vintage Martini, which won D Magazine's 2011 editor’s choice award for best vintage clothing store, and Lush Life Antiques, a retailer that specializes in distinctive fine and costume jewelry. Though the inventory varies, previous finds have included mink stoles, jeweled brooches, and 1950s formal dresses.