Husband-and-wife owners Marina Dempster and Edward Wilkinson-Latham -- she's a photographer and artist, he's a writer and photographer -- also live in the former storefront grocery store and see it as the site of an ever-evolving house party on the budding stretch of Dundas Street West.

During gallery openings, they open the back door and let the crowd migrate into their kitchen (complete with piano) and onto their new back deck. "We can open or close ourselves to the outside world," Ms. Dempster says.

They'll draw the curtain and transform the gallery into the ultimate dining room for private dinner parties with guest chefs. "That's why we named it The Common Room," Mr. Wilkinson-Latham says. "We want people to stay and connect."

Ms. Dempster plans to use the space for workshops too, particularly to share her obsession: Mexican yarn painting. Get the two talking and all manner of endeavours arise: projected films out the window onto a sidewalk screen, a dinner party in which everything, even the cutlery, is for sale.

"The whole thing can take on a life of its own," she says. The space is currently showing Vancouver artist Carrie Walker's collection of detailed pen-and-ink drawings of the heads of wild animals and birds, grounded only by the animal's Latin name and a direct quote lifted from field guides. Under a glossy-eyed red squirrel, for instance, Ms. Walker has written: "It kills and eats other animals when the opportunity arises."

The show runs until Halloween. No doubt Ms. Dempster and Mr. Wilkinson-Latham have something up their sleeve to fill the lull before their next opening in mid-November. Watch that space.

VISIT THE COMMON ROOM