Merchandise Mart offers DreamRooms

When you spend thousands of dollars to buy a piece of furniture, you want to keep it for a while -- maybe generations.

DreamRooms decorated with furniture and other materials from Merchandise Mart showrooms give ideas on how to do this.

The nine rooms set up in the Mart lobby are open without charge through July 11.

The foyer from Interior Crafts combines a Makassar ebony table with starburst grain that dates from the 1970s or '80s with pieces from other decades and a newly introduced shelf and drawer wall unit.

It's the longevity that makes good style as well as environmental sense, agreed Susan Fredman, whose company in Chicago and Union Pier, Mich., is named after her.

"The upholstered pieces are good enough to reupholster, and that's green because you don't throw them away," said Fredman, creator of a sitting room with items from the Kravet showroom.

Foyer

Showroom: Interior Crafts

Theme: Deco-inspired drama from a contemporary company.

What you'll remember: The $18,000 round, expandable dining table and the iridescent walls of pleated fabric that look blue from one angle, green from another.

Etc.: The chandelier of hand-blown glass curls and orbs -- 400 pieces reaching down from the ceiling to just a few feet above the table -- is hard to overlook.

Sitting room

Showroom: Kravet

Theme: Sexy, glamorous, sophisticated and high-style -- but green.

What you'll remember: Fabric that looks almost like rough cotton on the wingback chairs and drapes with a silky shaggy look are both recycled polyester. The leather tiles on the floor are made from scraps.

Etc: The walls are a lacquered cocoa in a paint with low volatile organic compounds from Benjamin Moore, while the trim is flat for reverse drama.

Common room

Showroom: George Smith

Theme: Come in, sit down, read a newspaper and relax. This sofa covered in gray wool cashmere retails for about $12,000.

What you'll remember: Custom furniture made in England that might look Deco, especially with mid-century inspired fabric, is really based on 18th century designs.

Etc.: The large, pink tufted ottoman designed for Soho House in England can be made any size.

If you go

What: DreamRooms

When: Through July 12

Hours: 10 am. To 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Admission: Freeȯˆ¿Ã‚ˆ½

Where: North lobby, main floor, Merchandise Mart, Kinzie and Wells streets, Chicago.

Information: www.merchandisemartdesigncenter.com/dreamrooms or (312) 527-4141

The Merchandise Mart showrooms on the upper floors are open to the public only with a designer or for special events.