My Palace in Chicago - David Barsoum and Niky Sampedro (Carefully Picked)

“Solitude requires you to move past reacting to information created by other people and focus instead on your own thoughts and experiences – wherever you happened to be”

— Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

Hi everyone, missed me? I will just assume you all do. After taking a little break from shooting and talking away, it’s good to be back sitting in front of my laptop, going through the recording every night, like how every article here is born. We’ve got some fun plans in the works for those who stumble upon this blog, and I can’t wait for all of them to meet y’all!

I started My Palace in Dallas during the height of the pandemic, and it was born from pure curiosity: I want to know, I want to see, and, most importantly, I want to document what the people around me have become after these unprecedented years. They can be artists, comedians, or they can also be people you meet on the street. So, what is it that they do? This project and this spin-off to other cities delve into their stories and, as the name suggests, explore their palace across the nation.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to David and Niky. I’ve been a long-time fan of the shop since seeing their Dwell article randomly while being chronically online. Lucky enough, call it fate or whatever, during my trip to Chicago last October, I got to visit the store and talk to David briefly. Fast forward to this summer, I got to sit down in their amazing apartment, rendered speechless by their incredible collection, and asked about their journey while trying my best to speak over the loud boom from the air and water show happening at the same time. I hope you guys would enjoy this piece as much as I did writing/shooting it!

Hello David and Niky! Thank you for sitting down with me today! Before I bomb you with questions, for anyone who might not have the chance to know who you are, would you like to tell me a bit about yourself? Who are you and what is it that you do?

**David (D):** I’m David, co-founder of Carefully Picked. I came to Chicago to get a PhD in organic chemistry at Northwestern and ended up building a life around vintage design. I handle the curation and creative direction. A lot of what I do is find pieces I think deserve more attention and figure out how to get other people to see what I see in them.
**Niky: (N)** I’m Niky, the other co-founder. We started Carefully Picked together in 2018, and we both do it full-time now. My background is in brand strategy, and I handle a lot of the operations. We’ve built the business together through getting married and now becoming parents.

The love for collecting and furniture pieces started when furnishing the first apartment, to launching Carefully Picked in 2018, and opening up the cutest museum-like shop in West Town in 2023. What was that journey like for you? How did you two get to where you are now?

D: I moved to Chicago in 2015 for graduate school. Niky and I started dating around that time, and we were furnishing our apartment on a student budget. We would drive around the Midwest looking for things we liked. There wasn’t a business plan. We just kept finding things we wanted to live with. When we had to move, we started selling some of them and realized there was something there.

N: Selling gave us a way to keep collecting and improve what we had at home. Eventually, there were so many chairs in the apartment that something had to go. We started posting on Facebook and other platforms, and it grew from there.

D: After I finished my PhD, I went straight into Carefully Picked full-time. We opened the West Town storefront in 2023, and we’re now at Design at 329. Our audience grew through the pieces we shared and the videos we made. Looking back, our taste was developing in public the whole time. People could watch us figure out what Carefully Picked was becoming.

Vintage furniture can be categorized by so many different eras. Was there a specific era you two had in mind when you started sourcing on your own?

David: No. I was following a feeling before I really knew what I was looking at. Something would catch my attention and I’d want to understand why. That still drives the curation. We know a lot more now, but I don’t want the research to replace that first reaction. The pieces can come from completely different periods and still make sense together. I’m more interested in the strength of the idea than the decade it came from.

Niky: In the beginning, a lot of it was also shaped by what we could find locally. Now we can seek out specific pieces around the world. Back then, we were discovering things as they came up around us.

Did you have a pre-existing knowledge of vintage furniture when you started Carefully Picked, or was it a journey of understanding the history behind each piece, the more you collect?

David: It was learned along the way. My education was in chemistry, so I didn’t come into this with a design background. I’d find a piece, get curious, and start researching it. Then that piece would lead me to a designer or another piece I hadn’t heard of. Over years of doing that, you build a much bigger picture.

I think that’s part of why I believe taste is developed. You learn by paying attention and spending time with things. Knowing the history makes the experience richer, but you shouldn’t need an education in design to see why a piece matters. Helping people make that connection is a big part of what we do.

Having such distinct and different specialty backgrounds, what was the task delegation like between you two as co-founders?

David: I lead the curation and creative direction. I’m usually thinking about the next piece, how we’re going to present it, and where I want Carefully Picked to go.

Niky: I handle the operations, including the website, events, and all the admin that comes with running the business. We have different strengths, but we discuss the decisions together.

David: The public sees a lot of me because I’m in the videos, but Niky is half of Carefully Picked. Her work is what allows so much of what people see to happen. We built this together.

Niky, as a brand strategist, did you ever foresee David’s blue chore jacket being such a signature piece for Carefully Picked?

Niky: [Laughs] It became a huge part of the brand for over a year. But we’re always evolving, and eventually it felt like time to move on. We went to a restaurant in Chicago and the entire floor staff was wearing the same jacket. That was the moment. He hung it up on a high note. It’s part of the Carefully Picked archive now. Maybe we’ll frame it one day.

After five years of operating only through your website, what made you two pull the trigger to have your own physical location for Carefully Picked?

David: Before we opened our own shop, we were selling through our friend Tim’s store, Dial M for Modern. Spending time there showed us what it could feel like to build a world around the things you love. Tim was a big influence on us, and seeing him make a life out of this made it feel possible.

Niky: When Tim moved his shop, we had to decide whether to keep doing everything from the apartment or get a space of our own. We found a small storefront at a price we could make work and took the chance. It had felt like a distant dream when we started.

David: The storefront gave us a place to express the curation physically. Since then, we’ve moved to the warehouse at Design at 329. We’re reaching people around the world through social media, and we’re expanding our space to accommodate that growth.

Starting from your own apartment and now to this place, what was it like living in an environment constantly having so many different furniture pieces coming in and out?

David: You get to know the pieces in a way you wouldn’t from just looking at them. You sit in the chair, move it around, see it at different times of day. Sometimes your whole understanding of it changes once you live with it. I think one piece can change how you see everything that comes after it.

Niky: The constant change has become normal for us. We get attached to things, but we’re also used to letting them go. Selling something opens up space to try something else.

David: Our home has always been part of that process. The collection changes as our taste changes, and now it also has to work for our life with our son.

I understand there was an intention behind the almost museum-like look of how the store was designed. Was the decision made for a more practical reason, like square footage or a specific design choice you set out to have?

David: It was intentional. I wanted each piece to have enough space for people to actually look at it. Some of these objects are easy to walk past in another setting. The way you present them can change whether someone notices them at all.

There’s also a relationship between the pieces. Two objects from completely different places or periods can bring something out in each other. That’s a big part of curation for me. We were trying to make those relationships visible and give people a way into the work.

Niky: We wanted the space to feel approachable and different from the other shops around us. Sometimes people would come in and ask what kind of store it was. [Laughs] So it definitely made an impression.

Both coming from a non-traditional furniture-related background, how did you two tackle the need to restore or upholster vintage pieces in the beginning?

David: We learned a lot from other dealers in Chicago. We visited their shops, got to know them, and asked questions. People were generous about sharing the restorers and upholsterers they trusted. Those relationships were a huge help.

Niky: Before that, there was a lot of trial and error. We once decided to sand a set of Peter Danko Bodyform chairs by hand in the basement of our apartment building. It was brutal. [Laughs] You do something like that once and develop a much better appreciation for the people who do it professionally.

To further dig into your brain and understand who you are, where do you get your inspiration from?

David: A lot of it starts with the objects themselves. I’ll see something that makes me stop, and then I want to follow that feeling. I’m also always looking at our own work and asking what we haven’t done yet. Our taste keeps changing, so the goal keeps moving.

Travel is a big part of it too. We go to Brimfield and Round Top, and even on vacation I’m still looking. I enjoy that. Seeing things in a different context can open up an idea I wouldn’t have had at home.

Niky: When we visited Luis Barragán’s house in Mexico City, the way he used furniture with neutral drapery really stayed with us. It doesn’t mean we come home and recreate the house. Sometimes one small detail changes how you think about your own space.

It’s been five years since the pandemic hit, and for some reason, we all came out alright, if not stronger. What did you do to stay centered and sane? Have any of those new habits carried over now that things are back to normal?

**David:** None.
**Niky:** We were laughing when we saw this question originally, because we both went insane. *laughs

I’m sure you have your fair share of traveling experience and exposure to different scenes across the states and even countries. What do you think sets Chicago apart from all the other well-known big cities or any other city you’ve been to?

David: Chicago gave us room to build this. We could pursue something unusual and find people who were already making their own version of it work. The furniture community here was a big part of how we learned.

Niky: The cost of living and having a space makes a difference compared with other major cities. There’s also a real community around vintage here. Design at 329 has more than a dozen dealers under one roof. Being around people building their own businesses and being able to help each other is a big part of what makes Chicago special to us.

As I look around, I can see a lot of your taste in a tangible form! Now the hard part is, what is your most prized possession in your home?

David: I’d split that into two categories. Sentimentally, it’s the painting we found in Mexico City. As a piece of design, it’s the Peter Danko Bodyform chairs. Those represent something we put a stake in the ground around as Carefully Picked. They’re part of how we’ve expressed our taste and what we believe deserves attention.

Niky: The painting has a whole story attached to it. We saw it at a flea market near our Airbnb and passed because we hadn’t planned on bringing anything home. David couldn’t stop thinking about it. The next day, we went to a market in another part of the city, and the first stall we saw was the same dealer’s. The painting wasn’t there, but she still had it at home. She’d left it behind because of the rain. We arranged to meet her afterward, and she brought it wrapped up to an intersection where we picked it up. That one feels irreplaceable.

And we are almost at the bottom of my list of Qs for today, for those who are interested in getting into this business or starting something of their own. What suggestions or advice would you like to give them, or wish you had known sooner?

David: The advice we got was ‘don’t do it.’ [Laughs] Even our friends in the business told us that. It’s a lot of work, and loving furniture is only part of running it.

If you’re going to do it, bring your own way of seeing. There are already plenty of places to buy a chair. What makes your choices worth paying attention to? For us, that came from following our instincts and developing them through the work. You have to keep learning and be willing to stand behind what you choose.

Something I’ve understood more recently is how much energy you can spend waiting for the right people to recognize what you’re doing. We already had people watching, learning, and buying from us. I want to put my energy into building on that.

To wrap this interview up, also because I am personally curious, what’s on the horizon for you? Are any “Big things coming” in the works for you? What would you like the world (whichever random soul stumbled upon this article) to know about?

David: We’re expanding our warehouse space at Design at 329 and planning to put on our own exhibitions in the US over the coming year. The videos have become a big part of how people experience our pieces, and I’d love to bring some of that into a physical space.

We’re also starting Carefully Picked Reissued, or CPR, to release contemporary productions of vintage designs. There are pieces we care about that very few people have a chance to own. I’m excited about what it could mean to bring some of them back into production.

Niky: And we’re parents now, so the business is growing alongside a very different home life. Carefully Picked has been with us through all of those changes.

David: What I understand more clearly now is that we’ve been helping people see design they might never have encountered otherwise. We want to keep making it understandable and available to live with. ‘Design for everyone else’ has been our line, and it feels more accurate than ever.