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THE SHINY BLACK DOOR

About

The Shiny Black Door is kind of like a curiosity cabinet that you can step into and explore; a boutique in Northampton's iconic Thornes Marketplace that showcases an ever-changing collection of rare, one-of-a-kind, eccentric, & gorgeous items for the home and body, brought to you by the owners, Augusten Burroughs and Shari Sirkin. The Shiny Black Door is likewise an interior design firm, known for creating original, expressive spaces that have been featured in magazines and newspapers around the world.

Our collection contains antique, vintage, modern, & custom furnishings, decorative accessories, original artwork, a smattering of exceptional vintage clothing, exceedingly rare books, as well as jewelry: fine luxurious jewelry, unique handmade contemporary jewelry and fun, stylish costume jewelry.

Please stop by and explore our collection of treasures!

A Peek at our Store

Meet the Team

Augusten Burroughs & Shari Sirkin share a passion for design and collecting.Together, they created The Shiny Black Door to share their treasures with those who appreciate them.

Partner

Augusten Burroughs

In addition to being a lifelong collector, Augusten is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 9 books including Running with Scissors, the 2002 publishing phenomenon that detailed his remarkably unorthodox adolescence in Northampton, Massachusetts. Augusten graduated from Boston's Control Data Institute as a Programmer/Systems Analyst and Designer, but instead entered the advertising industry and was one of Manhattan's top Creatives for almost 18 years. Augusten became a Certified Professional Gemologist and in 2019 opened The Blue Paisley Fox jewelry store on the luxury website, 1stdibs. The store broke all existing sales records and instantly became the #1 jewelry store on the platform. Augusten has honorary Doctor of Letters from the Savannah College of Art & Design -the #1 interior design college in America. A self-taught interior designer, his spaces have been featured in publications worldwide.

Partner

Shari Sirkin

Shari has lead a fascinating life and run several highly successful businesses. She introduced personal-trainer based gyms to Connecticut in the 1990s, and as one of Connecticut's leading Real Estate Brokers, created the now standard "team" system. Shari has traveled the globe extensively and amassed a huge inventory of remarkable, rare, and magnificent treasures. She is the mother of two objectively wonderful adult children and she enjoys cooking for friends, gardening, and -of course- always collecting.

INTERIOR DESIGN PROJECTS

Interior Design Projects

In addition to offering fabulous treasures for the home and body, Augusten and Shari are both professional interior designers with complimentary tastes and skill sets. They embrace projects large and small -from helping your living room look more cohesive, creating a magical nursery, even carving out space you didn't realize you had for a home office- to designing and implementing an entire interior from scratch. Below are several of our residential and commercial interior design projects, as well as a brief showcase of custom furnishings we have designed.

Wall St. Manhattan Apartment

This sumptuous, opulent Manhattan apartment features 18 foot ceilings which we emphasized with built-in mirror-backed bookshelves trimmed in brass, huge mirrors and endless purple velvet sofas. The dinning room is the epitome of glamour, with a custom mink-trimmed chandelier and mink slipcovered chairs. In the library we find an 18th century hutch, reinvented in riveted steel, muted tones, with an emphasis on the abundant natural light. We retained the footprint of the original galley-style kitchen instead of expanding it into the expected restaurant-sized production. And instead of exotic hardwood, we used plywood for all the cabinetry, polished concrete for the floors, and 100% recycled plastic for the countertops. The bedroom continues the client's favorite color theme with a bed dressed in purple velvet; an 18th Century French landscape as headboard. We created a white mohair sofa and suspended it from chains in front of the window, facing away from the view.

Chicago Ad Agency

To reinvigorate and inspire a new generation, we designed the complete renovation of a venerable, iconic Chicago advertising agency known for its green giants and talking hands. We stripped out the wood paneling to create client presentation room that wows from two directions: panoramic views of the Windy City skyline on one side, a wall of blue neon scribbles, accent lighting and a showcase of electric guitars on the other. The chrome table is paired with coordinating chrome and vegan leather chairs. Ribbons of soft, warm neon light hang inches below the platinum-leaf ceiling. The creative department was consolidated from six floors to two: the top floor features NYC brick walls and exposed HVAC pipes; a steampunk vibe with plenty of spaces to work. Downstairs, it's all play -with vintage pinball machines, pingpong tables, and a lap pool. For the commercial screening room, we designed plush armchairs covered in gold crushed velvet, platinum velvet carpeting and velvet walls and curtains and a brass ceiling studded with rock crystal ceiling fixtures.

A Rural Luxury Wellness Center

To create the most exclusive, remote wellness center in the world, we embraced warm, natural stone and reclaimed hardwood for floors, walls and ceilings, replaced traditional chair vs chair therapy rooms with library spaces, and gave each private bedroom a cozy, understated but luxurious feel with in-room bathrooms, minibars, writing desks and plenty of places to sit and read or reflect. The kitchen eschews cold stainless steel, which is so cold to the touch. Instead, we used white nephrite jade from the Northwestern province of China for the countertops and leggy wood cabinetry for a more unfitted look. The communal dinning area is farmhouse style. A below-grade stone-walled billiard room offers an escape and the acupuncture/massage therapy space is ever so slightly French Industrial. A yoga and pilates space is filled with light to inspire. Master Herbalists staff the apothecary. At night, walking paths are revealed by soft illumination.

A Connecticut Mansion is Reborn

Left to deteriorate over the decades, this 19th century mansion was brought back to life and into the current century with bold colors and luxurious furnishings, selected from the client's personal inventory.

New England Home

A New England country home blends tradition with whimsy. Featured in Country Living magazine and the CBS Morning Show

Manhattan Studio Apartment

This 600 square-foot studio apartment was transformed into a seemingly vast space, by cunningly obscuring views and redirecting the eye. Stainless steel penny tiles on the bathroom ceiling captured light from the West Side Highway below. Featured in The New York Times.

Home Staging for Real Estate

We often work entirely with a client's own furnishings to edit a space and create a more cohesive look and feel. Sometimes we stage homes for sale, sometimes we simply lend our fresh eye to a space.

Custom Furnishings

We love to create custom furnishings, especially when we have the opportunity to reinvent a classic or reimagine what a familiar piece can be. Below are renderings for a few of our concepts. From a mink chandelier, a free-form cherry wood table, a throw pillow for dog lovers, an 18th century highboy in riveted steel, a dinning table and chairs made from recycled plastic, a classic chesterfield sofa in rich silk red paisley instead of traditional leather, a birch tree dinning table, or an outdoor recliner that lights up the night. We reimagined the 19th century Lancashire ladderback chair in gleaming aluminum, but retaining the hand-woven rush seating surface.