In Kathryn and Eric Straub's home accents store, the senses are engaged by floor to ceiling product displays, eclectic merchandising and "surprises around every corner."

Kathryn Straub provides the creative vision and maintains the look and feel of the store brand. "This means choosing our product mix and hunting for the unique and fabulous pieces that our customers have come to expect," she said. "My husband is the tech and muscle guy. He handles all the accounting, general business strategies, technology, heavy lifting and building."

In business since 1989, Common Folk offers promotional to high-end lines in 2,000 square feet of selling space. Home accents are devoted to 80% of space and the store has nine employees. Common Folk was named to Home Accents Today's Retail Stars list in May 2009.

Describe your store: Our store offers a non-conventional, unexpected shopping experience that engages all five senses. Products are displayed from floor to ceiling, and our merchandising is eclectic with surprises around every corner. Our staff is super-friendly, and we serve complimentary beverages and samples of our specialty candies. We choose fun music that invokes fond memories and makes our customers happy. The store always smells great, whether it's seasonal botanicals or our signature scented candles.

How's business? Business improved in the third quarter. Sales for the year aren't as strong we'd like, but we used the downturn to critique our business and fine-tune some areas we had previously ignored. We just purchased a new POS system that will allow us to better target our existing loyal customer base and examine the core lines they purchase.

What makes you different? We are known for our unusual, non-conventional displays that inspire our customers to try something new at their own homes. One of our most recent was inspired by the opening scene of a James Bond movie where he was fighting on construction scaffolding. I thought, 'wouldn't it be really cool to put industrial scaffolding in Common Folk?' The next week, that's what we did. It has been a great display and a real conversation piece.

What's hot? All shapes, sizes and colors of the alphabet letters are super hot right now. Another trend is 'embellished everything' — votives with jewels, candles with crowns, picture frames with bling. We are also seeing a lot of excitement around accent furniture with metal tops, vintage industrial and mid-century modern. Repurposing the old has become very cool. Enviro-chic is certainly a nationwide trend and Northwesterners have fully embraced it.

How do you reach your customers? We do a lot of social networking with Facebook, Twitter and e-mail. Our customers look forward to our seasonal and holiday events and usually brings lots of friends. The store hosts Bridal Flair, benefitting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, holds spring and fall open houses, a Mother's Day brunch and an anniversary sale.

What's the most enjoyable part of your job? Doing the displays. I love going to our store late at night, just me and my dog. I crank Tom Jones on the CD player and re-do the displays. For me, it's like painting a picture in 3-D.

Annual sales: less than $1 million

Home accent categories: Accent furniture, lamps, wall decor, pillows, throws, permanent botanicals, tabletop, garden decor, decorative accessories, vintage home decor

Tradeshows/markets you shop: Atlanta, and many of the West Coast regional markets.

Key vendors: Vagabond Vintage, Design Legacy, CBK, Homart, Peddlers, Cody Foster, DK Living, Barreveld, Pure Home, Timeworks, Imax, Gallery Design, Empress Arts, CAS, Left Bank Art, Sean Fox, Vintage Finds

Web site: commonfolkco.com