Monsterful opens in downtown Milton

Memo Faraj has worn a lot of different hats in his career, having worked in the New York fashion world, been an interior designer and a painter. 

Faraj is now bringing his eclectic taste to Milton in the form of his own store, Monsterful, located at 112 Federal St. 

As an interior designer, he’s collected a lot of pieces he keeps handy for jobs. He’s long had the idea of having his own brick-and-mortar store in downtown Milton where he could sell a mix of these items, but he was waiting for the right opportunity to pop up. That happened when the building on Federal Street, formerly occupied by Broadkill Tattoo Company, became available. 

“My background is in fashion, and I started decorating full time at the start of the pandemic,” he said. “I do all my decorating remotely, so a lot of it is really understanding what people’s needs are and guiding them. Sometimes people just need a few pieces in their house to make it come together – sometimes it's art, sometimes it's a decorative object.”

He said he wanted to open a brick-and-mortar store because the curation of the space is something that people miss when shopping online.

“It’s how people feel when they walk in,” he said. “It’s how they see the objects in a three-dimensional way. I feel like if I do it in a way that will engage people, it makes me happy and makes them happy as well. And to do it in a town like Milton, that has so much charm already, just felt right.”

Like a lot of Miltonians, Faraj stumbled upon the town after originally looking at real estate in the beach towns and quickly fell in love. He bought a house in town 10 years ago and began living in Milton full time five years ago.

“I think it was love at first sight, because I got here and it just kind of felt right,” Faraj said.

The store is segmented into three rooms. The first room Faraj calls Memo’s Room, as it contains pieces he personally created, which he said is designed to get people used to his aesthetic. The next room is the Captain’s Room, which contains nautical-themed pieces that Faraj said are a nod to Milton’s shipbuilding history. And finally there’s the Drawing Room, which serves as the main room and contains smaller pieces and artwork. Faraj said he designed this room to be easy for customers to pick up and use their imaginations to see how it would visually fit in their own homes.

“I wanted this space to really spark people’s imagination. By curating it in this way, it really allows them to engage with everything. It’s about developing an emotional attachment from the get-go,” he said. 

As for the name, Faraj said it is a word from the 1800s meant to signify rare, marvelous or extraordinary.

“That word just kind of felt right for this store,” he said.