When Jesse Detschermitsch exiled his wife, Lisa, from his woodshop a week before Christmas last year, she knew something exciting was in the making—she just didn’t think it would be a furniture business. Seven days later, Jesse, a woodworker whose family also owns an upholstery business, surprised his wife with a modern teak-stained birch bed and floating nightstands. The designs got them thinking: What if we did this for a living? A few weeks later, they had a sketch for a dresser—and for a new business called Atomic Living Design.

With Jesse’s skills and experience and Lisa’s taste for nostalgia, the duo created a line of new-century modern furniture. The concept: present-day riffs on mid-century designs with practical updates, like metal sliders in drawers and media storage. Each piece takes about seven days to design and build and retails online; the showroom (3064 S. Umatilla St., Englewood) is open by appointment for browsing. “Our main inspiration is each other,” Lisa says. “When we found each other, we found even more of ourselves. We want to make a contribution to modernism and see what we can leave behind.”

5280 November 2011
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