Part interior design store, part studio and part museum of oddities, Howl Interiors is a venture into the unexpected. An eclectic selection of pieces stud the studio, from a colonial-era teak box with brass inlay work to three-dimensional, double-faced mirrored towers that protrude into the room. “You can’t put a label on anything here,” says designer and founder Barry Jelinski. “There’s modern furniture, there’s Eastern furniture, there’s European furniture, new, old — all of it. Howl has something for everybody.”

Though he never received formal training, Jelinski has cultivated a passion for interior design since childhood: the designer first picked up a circular saw at the age of eight and began designing pieces for his mother’s antique store during college. “Afterward, when I was wondering what direction my life was going to take, I thought back to what I enjoyed doing most in my life, and that was being creative and making things,” he notes. In Denver, Colorado, Jelinski co-founded Rue 22, an antique store, and Ballpark Market, an urban flea market and the first of its kind in the area.

Seeking greater freedom and a more social line of work, Jelinski opened Howl in 2005, where he now showcases both antiques he has collected as well as his own work created in the studio behind the store. The name, Howl, was inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s work by that name, reflecting the poem’s intensity and expression.

“Ginsberg had something he wanted to say to the world, and so do I.” Through Howl, Jelinski’s message is a plea to rethink our living space: “I want people to seek some inspiration. Maybe Howl will inspire them to reexamine the way they surround themselves. If you’re going to put care into anything, make it your house, your apartment, where you spend your time.”

Channeling Ginsberg’s innovative spirit, Jelinski draws from his background as a seasoned traveler and antiquarian to combine antique and repurposed materials in unique ways. “The old stuff has soul,” he remarks. “And that’s what Howl is about: creating soul where you live.” One of his latest works, for example, is a table constructed from a 100-year-old piece of wood set atop chrome legs, highlighting Jelinski’s emphasis on counterbalance of seemingly contradictory influences. “There are organic elements, manmade industrial elements, soft elements,” he observes. “It doesn’t matter what two things are, but if they can speak to each other, then that’s what the Howl aesthetic is about.”

Howl Interiors, 1601 S. Lamar Blvd., Ste. A, (512) 291 2123, howlinteriors.com