At its most basic, the word ‘home’ denotes a shelter, a place of residence that keeps us warm through the darkest months of winter and cool through the longest days of summer. Home is where we retreat to after a hard day at work; it’s where we find shelter, both physically and mentally, from the demands of everyday life.
A fine home is typically stylish—an expression of what its owner finds beautiful. A good home combines style with comfort to create a place to rest and feel at ease. A great home, however, combines style and comfort with function—it is useful to its owner, enabling their best life.
This idea—that a home is at its best when it is stylish, comfortable and functions well—is at the heart of Janet Arneson & Scott Tjaden’s mission as owners of 1010 Interiors in Grand Marais.
With a 5,000 square foot showroom located a short distance northeast of town off of Highway 61, 1010 Interiors has been in the business of improving residential spaces for over 28 years.
“We do everything within the realm of residential construction,” says Tjaden. “Honestly, there probably aren’t many businesses like us outside of small towns. Most businesses [like us] specialize—they do kitchens, or bathrooms, or maybe flooring—but because of the size of the market here we do everything. Flooring, carpeting, cabinetry, kitchen tiles, bathrooms—if it’s residential, we do it.”
1010 Interiors markets themselves as specializing in kitchen and bathroom design which includes everything from cabinetry and counter tops to flooring, tiling and window treatments. However, Arneson & Tjaden take on projects of all types and sizes in order to meet the diverse needs of the community.
“We’ve done everything from tiny homes and guest cabins, all the way to million dollar homes with massive kitchens,” says Arneson, “and that’s great! It’s what we really love about this business and this unique community—both ends of the spectrum.”
The showroom is surprisingly expansive from the inside, consisting of a variety of displays, renovated spaces, and product samples all expertly laid out to inspire and guide the viewer in discovering what’s
possible.
“The displays give people a sense of options, colors and styles,” says Arneson, “but we want to be sure not to mislead people into thinking that this is all that they can do, because really it’s almost unlimited what can happen with custom work.”
While 1010 Interiors has been in the home improvement business on the North Shore for 28 years, Arneson and Tjaden are themselves relatively new to the business and the area, having recently purchased 1010 Interiors from its former owner in February of 2018.
Prior to purchasing 1010 Interiors and making Cook County their home, Arneson and Tjaden spent a majority of their professional lives moving between big cities like Dallas, Chicago, and St. Paul as they pursued their respective careers in higher education. Moving into new spaces was a constant reality, something that allowed them to discover and grow their passions for home improvement.
“Over the years both of us have owned a lot of homes and had to do remodeling in almost all of them,” says Tjaden, “and something that the two of us have in common is how we enjoy making the space we live in feel right. This is something that we learned about each other early on in our marriage, and something that has carried over into our work with 1010.”
Arneson and Tjaden both frequently vacationed on the North Shore before moving, and were actively looking to change careers and become small business owners in Minnesota when they came across the listing for 1010 Interiors.
Purchasing 1010 Interiors not only allowed Arneson and Tjaden to build a life in a place that they both love and are excited to call their “permanent” home, but also to “make our careers about something that we both like to do, something that we believe in, which is to configure space and make it feel right for people,” according to Tjaden.
Running a small residential improvement business in a town of 1,300 people was a big change for Arneson and Tjaden, but one that they have thoroughly appreciated and settled into over the past two years.
“We wanted to control our own world a little more,” says Arneson. “It’s not that we were unhappy before, we just wanted to have a new form of happiness.”
When asked about the changes that they have made to 1010 Interiors since taking over, Arneson and Tjaden responded by saying that while they haven’t been radical in the changes that they’ve made to the location, they have definitely “put their stamp on it.”
“A business like this is always changing,” says Arneson. “Whether it’s the showroom lay-out or the types of products on display, and we’re going to keep making changes—some small and some large—because it keeps [the business] fresh.”
In addition to changes in the showroom, Arneson and Tjaden have made changes to the sign, logo and graphics since purchasing 1010 Interiors, and continue to utilize new and developing technologies to improve their clients’ experiences.
