J.E.M.

By COURTNEY COX

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Pass it on the street, and the teal walls, contrasted with the blood-orange leaves suspended in the windows, immediately draw you into J.E.M. You might notice owner/designer Jane Miller casually chatting with a friend, or maybe Toby, Miller's yellow lab, as he twitches his ears upon your entry. Regardless, you feel at home right away.

This isn't your typical vintage furniture shop. You won't find cookie-cutter chairs hanging from the walls, or a shelf of decorative plates toward the back. Instead, you'll be confronted with giant, bold lettering ("BEEF LAMB VEAL MUTTON," screams one sign); heavy, hulking tables (like the potato-sorter table—measuring over 6 feet long—that's made its way into all my ultimate furniture fantasies) aren't covered in knickknacks, but are the found, refurbished treasures themselves.

"My idea was to have a furniture/design store similar to all the amazing boutiques I shopped in San Francisco," says Miller, an interior designer who moved from the West Coast two years ago. Since then, she's been doing freelance projects, from living rooms to "event production jobs like building a Trojan horse for the Boston Symphony gala in Tanglewood."

"Once I found the space, everything just sort of clicked," she says. Although, not every step of the process is pretty. That blood-orange foliage? "I harvested everything that is used for the window decor—branches, apples, etc.—and got a bad case of poison ivy."

Miller also designs some of the pieces in the shop herself, like the elliptical butcher block table, which she collaborated on with her sister. "It embodies several of the qualities that are important to me in product—simple and sophisticated design coupled with fine craftsmanship," she says.

"One of the services available at J.E.M. is a design service for people who need just a bit of help to full design services," she continues. And if the furniture in J.E.M. that Miller's turned her eye toward—like a vintage telephone table pristinely upholstered in Belgian waxed linen—is any indication of the transformation she could exact upon your home, expect to feel superiority when flipping through your design mags, rather than that familiar envy.

If you're not in the market to make a statement that weighs more than the sum total of all your roommates, J.E.M. stocks smaller accents, like adorable terrier statues and ceramic egg sugar bowls displayed on stacks of compact metal crates. Though no one would blame you for starting a savings account dedicated entirely to the vintage Frigidaire water bubbler. Certainly, I wouldn't.

[470 Shawmut Ave., South End, Boston. 617.391.0490. jemhome.com]