Mariya Boykova at 68 Home (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Your home is a reflection of yourself. This is a guiding philosophy in business and in life for Mariya Boykova, owner of new and used furniture and home décor store 68 Home, which opened in a long-dormant storefront next to Tarrant’s Café on West Broad Street last December.
A 2013 interior design graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Boykova got the idea to open her own shop while working for various furniture retailers in Richmond, including LaDiff. Her idea was to show customers that you can mix old and new pieces to create a stylish home without spending a lot of money.
Boykova frequents local estate sales, thrift stores and auctions to find unique, affordable pieces for the store. The look of the shop’s interior reflects her eclectic style — it’s constantly changing as she brings in new items, she says, but the goal is to show customers how each piece could work in their homes.
“My style is a mix of so many different things — Midcentury, pops of color, bohemian, wicker,” she says. “I’ll pair a velvet sofa with a rattan chair, for instance. The idea is to create these little vignettes to give customers an idea of how they can do it themselves.”
Boykova also buys pieces created by local vendors, in addition to displaying local artists’ work in an in-house art gallery. “It’s so cool having people come to me and say ‘I think this is something you’d be interested in for your store,’ ” she says. “I love buying things that appeal to me.”
Her favorite part of her job, however, is pairing people with just the right piece: “I’m helping people find things they can put in their home and make them happy,” she says. “ I love offering that service to my customers.”
