A home decorating store has opened at the historic Spokane Club, at 1002 W. Riverside in downtown Spokane.

Mad Max Furniture & Decor, located on the club’s third floor and open to the public, offers decorating services, small-furniture painting, home décor goods, and private shopping experiences.

“I wanted to offer something that’s unique for my customers,” says Sara Walter, the store’s owner, who notes that she isn’t employed by the Spokane Club, but rather leases the space.

The space previously held a small coffee bar and at one time had been used as a hotel suite, she says.

Customers can schedule private shopping experiences outside of the store’s regular hours. Walter can order them drinks from the club’s restaurant and bar, she adds.

“I want to offer more personalization,” she says.

Mad Max’s regular hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. 

Walter hasn’t hired any employees, although she says she hopes to hire some eventually and expand the store's hours once it becomes busier.

The products sold at Mad Max include a variety of home décor goods, such as wall art, books, and kids’ toys. Many of the items sold make for good gifts, Walter says.

“Pretty much everything that I sell is very affordable,” she says.

In addition to helping clients pick out products to decorate their homes, Walter, who calls herself a budget-friendly decorator, also will travel to their homes and handle decorating tasks, from painting to hanging art.

Customers can bring small pieces of furniture for Walter to paint as well. She doesn’t do larger pieces anymore because they take a long time to do properly, she says.

Mad Max also offers find-and-finish services if customers are looking for a particular piece of furniture or an antique, Walter adds.

“I can actually go out and find it, paint it, and deliver it,” she says.

Walter’s hobby-turned-business venture began about 10 years ago, not long after the birth of her first child, Max.

Walter jokingly says she was “going mad” as a stay-at-home mom at the time, so she began painting furniture in her spare time and eventually wound up renting space as a vendor at a local vintage shop, when she created the Mad Max moniker.

Her design and decorating experience at that time involved staging some houses that she and her husband flipped. Walter’s introduction to the industry started when the owner of the local vintage store took notice of a piece of furniture she had painted and asked her if she wanted to sell items at the store.

“I’m super passionate about it, which I think helps,” she says. “I think you can tell when someone is passionate about what they do.”

Her space at the vintage store helped to build a customer base, but when business began slowing down there, she expanded Mad Max.

“I started branching out a little bit, started doing pop-ups,” she says.

Walter held numerous pop-up events at her house, at which she would decorate a space and sell a variety of home décor products. The temporary shops were accompanied by catering and wine, she says.

Walter ended up doing a Christmas-themed pop-up event at the Spokane Club, where she’s a member. The general manager liked what he saw, she says, and asked her if she could help decorate some rooms at the club.

After designing a coworking space, also on the third floor of the club, Walter was offered a space to set up her permanent store.

She had already decided to transition away from of the vintage store she was selling goods out of but had planned to just move Mad Max online.

“And then an opportunity came up here,” she says.

Walter is in the process of creating a website for Mad Max, through which customers will be able to shop the store online.

“It’s been almost 10 years,” Walter says. “It’s come a long way from where I started, just painting furniture.” 

Small Bites

*Happy Laundry & Dry Cleaning, of Spokane, has relocated to 3724 E. Front from its previous location at 3027 E. Mission. The move, which comes after months of remodeling work, will make the nearly 20-year-old laundry service company more efficient and enhance its growth capabilities, co-owner Kent Wales says in a press release from the company. Wales also served as the general contractor on the remodel project. Happy Laundry has about 20 employee