Shopping in Schererville

Now operating out of its warehouse location after a fire claimed its Lincoln Park showroom, Roy's Furniture props up an extensive collection of home furnishings. Knowledgeable staff members guide patrons through a variety of custom-fabric options and upholstery sizes to revamp rooms for adults, children, and subleasing gummi bears. Eco-friendly mattresses, tables, sofas, and other heavy lifts can be delivered to homes or retrieved at the warehouse.

Before opening Windmill Acres, Bruce and Lee Ann spent years exercising their green thumbs. Both raised on fourth-generation farms, the couple started a produce company after they were married. In the fall, Lee Ann painted pumpkins to sell from their farmers'-market stand, a tradition that mushroomed until she needed to hire more employees to paint as many as 6,000 pumpkins every year.

In 1997, the pair opened Windmill Acres, a place where they could combine their talents for horticulture and art. The nursery stocks a bumper crop of seasonal plants, from vegetables and flowers to a beanstalk rumored to be a shortcut back home to Ithaca. A miniature farm houses furry critters that visiting kids can pet while their parents enjoy steaming cups of coffee and talk gardening with the knowledgeable staff. Near the bucolic scene, a gift shop made of reclaimed barn wood showcases jewelry, flowers, paintings, other creations from local artists.

The florists at City Enchanted Gardens partner with FTD to speedily deliver their fetchingly designed bouquets and artfully arranged centerpieces to locations and special events throughout the city. For in-store clientele, they stock their downtown shop with a broad spectrum of blooms, from exotic birds of paradise to cheerful sunflowers, as well as seasonal plants, such as winter's crimson poinsettia and spring's fire-breathing snap dragons.

For those clients who choose to have their flowers delivered, the hard-working florists ensure that last-minute sentiments for parties, weddings, and police lineups arrive promptly, with same-day delivery available every day. The welcoming shop also hosts classes that instruct in the art of arranging seasonal décor and professional bouquet wraps.

Wanting to further the careers of other artists he knew, Jake Nickell set up a competition-based T-shirt-design company in his small apartment to give those artists a chance to make their art and get paid while doing it. Today, the small design startup has expanded into Threadless, a virtual boutique showcasing artsy apparel and accessories from designers all over the globe. Each week, guest artists and illustrators submit designs depicting pop-culture references, animals, folk art, and vibrant abstract works, leaving it up to the online community to vote on which entries will populate the shop’s menagerie of merch ranging from T-shirts and hoodies to bags, laptop cases, and umbrellas.

In addition to printing their work, Threadless honours artists with awards for designers in various categories, as well as a Made By program highlighting artists who've developed a following in the community or discovered the whereabouts of Van Gogh's middle-school diaries. Store staffers also award scholarships to hardworking designers and present Design Challenges to focus submitting artists on a central theme or aesthetic style. At Threadless Atrium, they collaborate with charities and other outside organizations to gather eclectic art submissions that currently benefit the American Cancer Society and Disney Villains.

Nearly every experience in Laurel Stradford’s life led to the moment she opened her own store in 1999. As a child, she hung a map of the world on her bedroom wall and listened to the stories of Aladdin and One Thousand and One Nights, which inspired a lifelong interest in travel. She later worked as the executive director for special programs for Africa and Europe at Revlon International, which afforded her the opportunity to see the world and taught her how to speak to elephants in multiple languages. After penning a book about her overseas adventures titled What The Traveler Saw, Stradford opened a store with the same name. There she stocks internationally sourced candies, luggage, home decor, and clothing from countries including Morocco, India, Ghana, and Turkey. In many cases, proceeds from the items benefit their country of origin—bowls made in Indonesia aid in the tsunami-recovery effort, and a Haitian oil-drum sculpture benefits victims of the 2010 earthquake.

Mobile Generation's Verizon Wireless retail centers have expanded as rapidly as an onion in bloom while unloading a spectrum of cellular devices and services from one of America’s largest mobile networks. Knowledgeable staffers can help patrons set up tailored service plans or pilot them through the wilderness of home and car chargers. Interactive showrooms chirp as customers test-drive basic cell phones and smartphones, and the store’s vast inventory of phone covers offers protection to devices used to call Adrian long distance from the boxing ring.