Urban Home Market
Owner Kathy McMahon discussed the various fabric samples with her designers at the design center in Urban Home Market. Photos by Jessa Pease.
Urban Home Market is more than a furniture store; it’s a place where remnants of the past reappear.
When the doors opened at the Village at Lee Branch Dec. 19, guests were greeted by a large tree, ornamented with drooping birdcages, growing from the front desk and the sound of water trickling from a waterfall.
“One of the things I’ve always strived for when I do a business is that you can’t look at it as a business,” said owner Kathy McMahon. “You have to look at it as an experience, and I like my clients to feel that they have experienced something very unique when they shop at one of my stores.”
McMahon also owns Renaissance Consignment & Marketplace on Cahaba Valley Road, and is the previous owner of Past Perfect, a furniture store formerly located in Lee Branch that she sold in 2007. After signing a non-compete agreement, McMahon got into clothing, but her background and degree were in interior design.
Two years ago, McMahon decided to start Urban Home Market just before the space became available at Lee Branch. She said it was the best place to open a furniture store because it’s the only thing like it in the area. Most people, she said, had to drive to Birmingham or Homewood before she opened.
McMahon describes Urban Home Market as somewhere that people can walk in and buy furniture straight off the floor. In chain furniture stores, clients have to wait for furniture to be ordered, but Urban offers special and take-home-today orders.
“We are trying to come up with a very different feel, and you can kind of see by looking around the store,” McMahon said. “It’s a mix of industrial [and] reclaimed. We put in a lot of modern industrial elements with the luxuries that kind of refer to the past as well.”
McMahon pointed to a silver, velvet Chesterfield sofa as an example of mixing old-fashioned-style with a modern twist. Velvet and cool colors make the more classic structure a contemporary piece.
McMahon uses more than inspiration from the past, though. A specialty of Urban is the reclaimed, one-of-a-kind, pieces. McMahon said if she can dream it up, Max Whitfield, who works with her, can create it. Most recently, they have used old doors and a barn rail to create a cover for flat-screen TVs.
“It brings resurgence of life,” McMahon said. “When you mix a lot of these things, the elements and the old pieces, it really gives a home or store or office its catena, its character and its uncontrived charm.”
The brick behind Urban’s front desk is actually more than 100 years old. It was part of the Avondale Cotton Mills in Sylacauga, and when the building was torn down, McMahon was able to salvage the material and bring it back to life. She travels all over the country to find architectural elements from old wall moldings, hardware and iron posts for use in her pieces.
“The nice thing about it is they have history, and we try to gather as much history about it as we can,” McMahon said. “People like having history because it’s a great for conversation, and they have these very unique pieces in their home no one else in the world has.”
Urban also offers a large decorating center where eight in-house, complimentary designers work with clients. The store also features a heavy emphasis on lighting.
“A lot of times when people decorate they don’t know how to put the finishing touches on it,” McMahon said. “They can go out and buy a sofa one month, a lamp one month and a painting one month, and it just never seems to have that feel to it. Urban is going to be a one-stop shop for decorating.”
To ensure every client is happy with his or her design, McMahon offers an Inspiration to Installation program. Through it, designers meet with the client in his or her home and then again in the store. From there, Urban decorates the room one afternoon, and the client is able to live with it for the night. If the client likes it, he or she pays for it, and if not, Urban picks up anything that didn’t work out.
The service, like everything in the store, is centered on creating the perfect look for customer and his or her dreams for a room.
For more information, visit urbanhomemarket.com.
