Construction sites are rubbish-strewn inconveniences to most people, but for an environmentally friendly Thai architect, they spell opportunity.

Singh Intrachooto, a university lecturer and author of several books on architecture and the environment, was so appalled by the tons of debris generated during the building process that he decided to turn it into award-winning furniture.

“I’ve always focused on green buildings, but one day, when I went to the site of an office block I designed, I could not believe the amount of waste that trucks were hauling away from there every day,” he told Reuters by telephone from Bangkok.

“My inspiration to create furniture sprang from an attempt to reduce the amount of waste from my building sites.” Read more »

SWANSEA - Soon, there will be no more Ethan Allen furniture retailer in Swansea, but that does not mean that the store itself is closing or even being sold. Nowadays, it is not unusual to see small local businesses gobbled up by large ones. In this instance, however, the internationally known Ethan Allen name will be replaced by a well-known local name: Charlmor Furniture.

Charlmor Furniture is a Fall River-based business that sells several reputed brands of furniture. Charlmor’s president, Manuel Campos, has also run the Ethan Allen franchise on G.A.R. Highway in Swansea, having built the store in September of 1998. He said a decision was made to discontinue carrying the Ethan Allen brand, which did not allow for other brands to be carried at the store.

“We are phasing Ethan Allen (out),” Mr. Campos said. “There are many different brands out there. We are going to bring in the best brands we have. There will be more to choose from.” Read more »

A group of artisans in Gujarat have earned name and fame for the handicraft novelties made of bamboo.

These bamboo artisans make intricately designed bamboo handicraft items like photo frames, miniature ships, wall hangings and chariots.

The bamboo is split into thin strips which are later coloured and used with other decorative material to craft beautiful items.

The group’s most liked creations are the ones that showcase little bamboo ships put inside glass bottles.

This handicraft unit started with Anthony Joseph, an artisan from Porbander, who mastered the special art of making decorative items from bamboo. He was earlier employed with a Mumbai film Studio where he learnt how to place various things into bottles.

Later, he decided to settle down at his native place, Porbander and started it all as a venture. Read more »

Furniture Brands International Inc. gained breathing room in its covenants with bondholders and creditors by agreeing to put up some property as collateral, according to a regulatory filing Thursday. The company also said in the filing that it had reduced the base salary of Chairman and CEO W.G. “Mickey” Holliman.

In exchange for modifying the debt covenants to loosen restrictions on its required debt-to-earnings ratio, Furniture Brands put up as collateral its personal property, including accounts receivables, cash, inventory and intangible goodwill. The deal was reached Monday and announced Thursday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The expanded borrowing power allows the firm to have $4.25 in debt per dollar of earnings. Prior to Monday’s deal, Furniture Brands’ debt-to-earnings ratio could not be greater than or equal to 3.25-to-1.

Furniture Brands had said in its annual report filed March 1 that it likely would not be in compliance with the covenants as of March 31. Read more »

Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.

The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out “n—– brown” on the tag.

“My daughter saw the label and she knew the color brown, but didn’t know what the other word meant. She asked, ’Mommy, what color is that?’ I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I never thought that’s how she’d learn of that word,” Moore said.

The mother complained to the furniture store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the derogatory label Translation program at fault Kingsoft Corp., a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault and said it was a regrettable error. Read more »

The Smithsonian collection from Bernhardt Furniture is based not only on pieces owned by the popular museums in Washington, D.C., but also on the structures themselves. The pattern in the glass front of a china cabinet, for instance, is based on a window in the Castle, the original museum dating to 1855.

The sleek and surprisingly contemporary Campeachy leather chair and ottoman is based on an early 19th-century piece that Thomas Jefferson discovered in New Orleans. The Legacy sleigh bed was inspired by a pictured discovered in the Cooper-Hewitt library of the Smithsonian, which houses books on the decorative arts. Read more »

The Better Homes and Gardens furniture line, produced by Universal Furniture in partnership with publisher Meredith Corp., captures the middle-America look reflected in the magazine.

“It was designed in collaboration with the editors of Better Homes and Gardens, taking cues from 38 million readers,” said Universal’s Larissa Rolland.

Colors are friendly, and so is the realistic scale. This furniture will be easy to live with, and will complement your grandmother’s china cabinet. Read more »

Lexington Furniture launched the new Trump Home line with two full collections. Central Park is sleek and contemporary, with a hint of Deco. It features dark woods and leathers, offering

a lush but masculine appeal. Straight handles on wooden pieces are wrapped in black leather and tipped with touches of silver.

A signature piece is a bar with curved front corners that open to provide storage for wines, liquors and glasses, and a frosted glass central door that opens to more storage. In the Lexington showroom the bar was stocked with, what else, gold-colored bottles of Trump Vodka, introduced late last year. Read more »

What happened the last time you walked into a store intending to buy furniture? Did you make a purchase? Or did you leave discouraged?

A recent survey of 2,500 households for the trade journal Furniture/Today estimated that $47.5 billion was lost last year because consumers like you and me didn’t find what they wanted when they shopped for new furniture. The biggest percentages of non-purchases were for futons (50 percent), motion sofas (43 percent), curio cabinets (42 percent) and dining rooms (40 percent.)

My husband, Carter, and I fit the non-buyer profile. After searching in several stores for a sofa table with a few shelves of display space, we finally found an attractive one at a furniture store in Palm Beach Gardens. The only problem was the price. We liked it but not enough to shell out $1,400. Read more »

Three young design talents were recently honored at the Spring addition of furniture fair High Point International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, North Carolina as part of the annual David Kline Memorial Scholarship. Sponsored by the American Society of Furniture Designers (ASFD) and hardware manufacturer Häfele America Co., the scholarship recognizes a creative piece of furniture constructed by a college student using Häfele’s Tab A Honeycomb Connector.

With the Platform bed, Diane McCabe, a senior at Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan took the First Place Award. She will receive a $3,500 scholarship. Runner up is Fiona Dickenson, a senior at Savannah College of Art & Design in Savannah, Georgia. Dickenson earns $1,000 for the Passage, a wall-mounted entry-way cabinet. A $500 Honorable Mention Award went to Thor Taber, a junior at Kendall College of Art & Design, for Manchester, a free standing closet system/media center. Read more »