Pied-a-terre

“I have to love what I buy. If I don’t, I can’t sell it honestly,” laughs co-owner of Pied à Terre, Sharyl McPhee-Skinner. The Leslieville antique store opened in 2009 after Sharyl and husband Patrick had honed their buying skills at garage sales and flea markets, learned how to give tired-looking furniture a new lease on life and discovered they had a market. Not only that, they realized that what they did made them very happy. In fact, Sharyl says there’s not one part of the antique trade they don’t like. “We’re true to ourselves. We’ve passed up a lot of great deals just because the pieces haven’t struck a chord with us. That’s not a comment on what’s out there; some pieces we don’t want would be great elsewhere, but our policy is to only sell what we love. I’m not a very good liar!”