Winners and HomeSense Finds That Look Designer in a Small Apartment

If you’re furnishing a small apartment in Canada on a budget, you’ve probably already hit Dollarama for the basics and IKEA for the core furniture. The layer between dollar-store basics and full-price boutique decor is where Winners and HomeSense live — and it’s where the actual visual upgrade happens for an apartment.

The catch is that shopping Winners or HomeSense is nothing like shopping IKEA. There’s no website to browse, no stock guarantee, and the store layout changes every time you visit. It’s a treasure hunt by design, which means you either waste two hours wandering aimlessly or you walk in knowing exactly which aisles to check and which to skip entirely.

This guide is the second approach. Category by category, here’s what’s consistently worth your time at Winners and HomeSense for a small Canadian apartment — and what you should buy somewhere else instead.

Throw Pillows and Blankets: The Best Value in the Store

Key takeaway: Throw pillows and blankets are the single strongest category at Winners and HomeSense. Expect to pay $12–$25 CAD for pillows and $20–$40 CAD for throws that retail at $40–$80+ at boutique home stores or online.

This is the aisle to check first every visit. The quality gap between a $16 Winners throw pillow and a $55 West Elm throw pillow is genuinely small — same linen-blend fabrics, same textured weaves, same neutral palette options. The difference is usually a brand label sewn into the seam.

What to look for:

• Textured fabrics (boucle, waffle knit, linen-look) in solid colours. These photograph well, layer naturally on a couch, and don’t compete with other patterns in a small room.
• Lumbar pillows (12x20 or similar rectangular shapes). Most apartments have standard 18x18 cushions already — a lumbar adds visual variety without adding bulk.
• Throws in neutral tones (cream, oatmeal, charcoal, sage). A $25 CAD chunky knit throw draped over a couch arm makes an IKEA sofa look intentional.

What to skip: any pillow with a seasonal motif, metallic thread, or heavy embellishment. These look dated fast and don’t mix well in a small space where everything is visible at once.

Candles and Diffusers: 40–60% Off Boutique Brands

Winners and HomeSense consistently stock candle brands that sell for $30–$50+ CAD at Indigo, Anthropologie, or independent boutiques — for $12–$22 CAD. The same physical candle, same scent, same burn time. The only difference is that it’s from a previous season’s line or a colourway that didn’t sell through at full price.

Brands to watch for:

• Paddywax — clean-burning soy candles in cement, ceramic, or glass vessels. Retail $32–$45 CAD, Winners price typically $14–$20 CAD. The vessels double as small planters or pen holders once the candle burns down.
• Voluspa — decorative tins and glass jars. Retail $38–$52 CAD, Winners price typically $16–$24 CAD. The packaging alone looks like a gift.
• Illume — sold at Anthropologie for $34+ CAD. Shows up at Winners for $12–$16 CAD regularly.

Reed diffusers are also consistently underpriced here. A $10–$15 CAD diffuser from Winners in a simple glass bottle does the same job as a $40 Chapters-Indigo equivalent.

The candle aisle is near the front of most HomeSense locations. It’s also the section that rotates fastest — new stock shows up multiple times per week.

Vases and Ceramics: Where the Real Styling Happens

This is the category where Winners and HomeSense compete directly with the Dollarama ceramic picks — but at a higher tier. Where Dollarama tops out at $5 CAD for a basic matte vase, Winners/HomeSense starts at $8 CAD and goes up to $30 CAD for pieces that are genuinely indistinguishable from West Elm, CB2, or Anthropologie ceramics.

What separates a good Winners ceramic from a forgettable one:

• Matte or raw finishes over high-gloss glaze. Same rule as Dollarama, same reason — matte reads as handmade and expensive. High-gloss reads as factory-made.
• Irregular shapes and organic forms. A vase with a slight asymmetry or a hand-pinched rim looks artisan. A perfectly symmetrical cylinder looks like a factory second.
• Neutral earth tones (sand, clay, olive, cream, charcoal) over bright colours. A $12 matte olive-green vase from Winners looks like an $80 studio pottery piece. A $12 bright teal vase looks like it came from a clearance bin, because that’s exactly what the bright colours usually are.

The grouping trick: buy three different pieces in the same colour family and cluster them on a shelf or console table. Odd numbers look deliberate, matching tones look curated, and the $30–$45 total for three pieces is less than one equivalent piece at most home decor boutiques.

Wall Art and Mirrors: Selective, Not Wholesale

This is where Winners and HomeSense get uneven. The wall art section is huge in most locations, and about 80% of it is forgettable — mass-printed canvases with generic landscapes, motivational quotes in scripty fonts, or abstract art that reads as corporate lobby filler.

But the remaining 20% can be excellent:

• Framed prints under 20x20 inches. At this size, the framing quality holds up well — solid wood or wrapped frames with proper hanging hardware. Expect $15–$30 CAD for prints that look like $50–$80 framed art.
• Mirrors. This is actually one of the best mirror sources in Canada for apartments. Round mirrors with thin metal frames ($25–$50 CAD) are consistently available and dramatically cheaper than equivalent pieces at Structube ($80–$120 CAD) or West Elm ($100–$180 CAD). In a small apartment, one well-placed mirror does more for the room than any other single purchase.

What to avoid: anything larger than 24x24 inches in a thin frame. The backing material gets flimsy at that size, the hanging hardware is often a single sawtooth hanger that won’t hold the weight reliably, and the print quality drops because it’s stretched thinner. For large statement art, you’re better off with a poster in a quality frame from IKEA.

Kitchen Accessories: Surprisingly Practical

The kitchen section at HomeSense is genuinely useful for apartment living, especially for items that sit on the counter or open shelving where they double as decor.

Worth checking:

• Ceramic canisters and jars ($10–$20 CAD) for coffee, tea, sugar. A set of three matching canisters makes open shelving look intentional. These are often the exact same products sold at Anthropologie or Crate & Barrel for 2–3x the price.
• Cutting boards and serving boards ($12–$25 CAD for wood, $15–$30 CAD for marble). These lean against the backsplash when not in use and look like decor. The acacia and olive wood boards at HomeSense are reliably good quality.
• Linen tea towels ($8–$14 CAD for a set). Waffle-weave or linen towels draped over the oven handle look better than terry cloth and dry faster in a small kitchen.

Skip the gadgets and small appliances unless you’ve specifically researched the brand and model. The “compare at” pricing on kitchen gadgets at Winners is often inflated — a $40 gadget “compared at $70” might actually sell for $35 on Amazon.ca.

Bathroom Accessories: Quick Wins

The bathroom section is small but consistently delivers quick upgrades:

• Soap dispensers ($8–$14 CAD) in ceramic or glass. Transferring liquid soap from a plastic refill bottle into a proper dispenser is a five-second change that makes a rental bathroom look put-together.
• Cotton towels ($10–$20 CAD for bath towels). The Turkish cotton and Egyptian cotton towels that show up at Winners are genuinely premium — same weight and softness as $40–$60 department store towels.
• Small trays ($8–$15 CAD) for corralling items on a vanity. A marble or ceramic tray with soap, lotion, and a candle turns a cluttered sink area into something that looks styled.

Skip the shower curtains — IKEA and Amazon.ca have better selection and the same price point. And avoid the “luxury” bath sets (matching soap dish, toothbrush holder, tissue box cover) — they take up counter space that doesn’t exist in a small apartment bathroom, and they look like a hotel amenity set, not a home.

What to Skip Entirely at Winners and HomeSense

Being honest about what isn’t worth it here saves you from the most common Winners shopping mistake: buying things because they seem like a deal rather than because they fit your apartment.

• Large area rugs. The discount over Wayfair Canada or IKEA is usually marginal ($20–$40 CAD less), you can’t preview it in your space, and returning a rug to Winners is a hassle. For a small apartment where the rug is the visual anchor of the room, buy something you can measure and plan for.
• Core furniture (couches, desks, bed frames). HomeSense furniture is accent-only. For core pieces in a small apartment, IKEA, Structube, or Facebook Marketplace are more predictable.
• Anything you’re buying only because of the “compare at” price. That tag is a ceiling, not a floor. If the actual Winners price doesn’t feel like a good deal independent of the comparison, it isn’t one.

How to Shop Winners and HomeSense for a Small Apartment

The treasure-hunt model works against you if you browse without a plan. Here’s what works:

1. Go with 2–3 categories in mind, not an open brief. “I need throw pillows in cream or sage, and a candle for the living room” is a productive trip. “I’ll see what they have” is how you end up with $90 of impulse purchases that don’t match anything.
2. Check multiple locations if you can. Stock varies significantly between stores, even in the same city. A downtown Toronto Winners will have a different selection than a suburban Scarborough HomeSense.
3. Shop Tuesday or Thursday mornings for the freshest stock. New shipments typically arrive 2–3 times per week, and the best pieces get grabbed fast.
4. Set a colour constraint before you walk in. Two or three tones that already exist in your apartment. If a piece doesn’t fit the palette, put it back — no matter how nice it looks in isolation.
5. If you see it and love it, buy it that trip. This isn’t IKEA — it won’t be there next week, and it won’t be on a website to order later. The treasure-hunt model means hesitation costs you the piece.

For everything else you need to furnish a small apartment from scratch, our first apartment essentials checklist covers the full list — Winners and HomeSense fill in the styling layer once the essentials are in place, and our small space living room ideas guide covers how to arrange everything once you’ve got it.