Admit it: You think the best thing about visiting a museum is the chance to hit up the museum shop after you tour the exhibits.
Well now there’s a new must-see store to add to your list: the one at the Driehaus Museum (40 E. Erie St.). If you haven’t been to the museum yet, it’s a gorgeously preserved old home that shows off the lifestyles of wealthy 19th-century Chicagoans.
The new shop is located in what was once a guest bedroom on the third floor of the historic mansion. The room maintains its original look—fireplace and all—but now the Gilded Age furniture inside it is being used to display period accessories that are for sale.
The items reflect the era of the home’s glory days, when people filled their spaces with as many decorative objects as they could. And the odder the better (think scissors made of bone and graphite sculptures that double as writing utensils).