EVERY time furniture giant Ikea sells an Ensta or Jokkmokk dining set in Malaysia, Datuk Kimble Yao hears cash registers ring.

One in three pine dining sets Ikea Damansara sells in its Petaling Jaya store is made in Kimble Furniture Corp Bhd’s 10-hectare factory in Bukit Rambai, Malacca.

And he is banking on the company improving profit with an impending RM900 million contract to supply the Swedish group more of such sets over the next three years.

Ikea, which owns 250 stores worldwide, is due to place purchase orders worth e200 million (RM912 million) for bedroom and dining furniture, said Yao, the company’s managing director and founder. Read more »

A Wisconsin furniture maker is trying to set things right for customers of a Joplin store that went out of business this month without filling paid orders.

Complaints from customers about the sudden closing of the local Ashley Furniture Homestore prompted an investigation by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon’s office.

The store, like all Ashley retailers around the country, was owned and operated independent of Ashley Furniture Industries Inc., the manufacturer based in Arcadia, Wis. Read more »

Here’s how Ikea, the Swedish housewares and furniture maker, plans to assemble its Tampa store: secure city council zoning approval Thursday, prepare the site beginning this summer and complete 12 months of construction by 2009.

The worldwide company, which had 458 million customers in 2006, presented its detailed plan before about 20 people at the Palmetto Beach Community Association’s recent meeting.

Without community approval, construction plans usually go awry before zoning officials. There was little concern expressed from this neighborhood of about 200 residences along McKay Bay. Read more »

Painted furniture is all the rage, and the Crossville Arts Council, with the help of many local artists and craftspeople, has put together the best selection of painted furniture you’ll find in Middle Tennessee. They’ll have chairs, tables, stools, benches, shelves and much, much more. Some are painted antiques, some are contemporary pieces. You can bid on all of them at a live and silent auction called “Mountain Chair-Ubs” on Friday, May 25, at 6 p.m. at the Community Complex Fair Grounds.

If you missed finding just the right gift for Mother’s Day, tell her you’re going to surprise her with a one-of-a-kind gift that will be worth her wait. She might like a chair with a cameo painted on the back, or a peacock chair with real peacock feathers and beaded legs. Read more »

French furniture from the first half of the 20th century — whether Art Deco or 1950s pieces — has never been so sought after. That’s why examples are turning up in the “Important 20th-Century Design” sale on Sunday at the Wright auction house in Chicago, and in New York sales on Thursday at Phillips, de Pury & Company, on June 5 at Christie’s and on June 19 at Sotheby’s. Read more »

Furniture Brands International Inc. said Monday that Denise Ramos resigned as senior vice president and chief financial officer to accept the same post at ITT Corp.

ITT said in a release Monday that Ramos, 50, will join the firm effective July 1. She will succeed George Minnich, 57, who is retiring from the company.

Ramos joined Furniture Brands in January 2005, succeeding David Howard.

Furniture Brands said it plans to begin a search for a replacement and will evaluate internal as well as external candidates. Read more »

Approximately 25 trucks converged at Drake University on Thursday to load used furniture from residence halls for a variety of nonprofit organizations across Iowa.

The university offered more than 350 sets of furniture - bed, desk, chair and dresser - to charitable groups and government agencies throughout the state. Most of the items came from Stalnaker and Crawford residence halls, which will be renovated this summer and outfitted with new furniture selected by students.

Organizations from Cedar Rapids, Mount Pleasant, Marshalltown and Sioux City were among those that responded to Drake’s offer, said Mark Hines, a maintenance supervisor who coordinated the project for the university. Read more »

Teams in the Moultrie-Colquitt County Parks and Recreation Department’s girls softball leagues began their final round of play on Monday at the Jim Buck Goff Recreation Complex.

In Mite League action, Triangle Furniture polished off Rocky’s 15-5.

Hanna Friedlander, Alex Gibbs, Jessie Burgess, Meaghan Coats, Lindsey Oxley and Kerri Owens scored two runs each to lead Triangle Furniture. Kara Menix went 2-for-2 and hit a home run for Rocky’s.

In the Mite League nightcap, Bull Durham Insurance painted over McAlpin Signs 20-0.

Carly Horne, Bailey Brewer, Ainsley Davis and Taylor Owens scored three runs each. Ashlyn Hamilton, Lora Alford and Diana Durham scored two runs each for Bull Durham Insurance. Read more »

The exports of handicrafts from the state has shown a declining trend in spite of the fact that the region is rich in rural handicrafts.

Exports in the year 2005-06 were worth Rs 301.3 crore only, whereas, national exports were worth Rs 14, 526.85 crore during the same period.

The state has not been able to keep pace with the increase in exports at the national level.

Handicraft exports at the national level had almost doubled from Rs 83,430 crores in 2002-03, whereas exports from West Bengal has marginally increased from Rs 226 crores in the same year.

P K Agarwal, Principal Secretary of Land and Land Reforms, gave these figures at a seminar titled “Entrepreneurship development for rural artisans in the field of Indian Handicrafts”. The seminar was organised by the Eastern Chamber of Commerce. Read more »

When Jerry Helling sees retailers offering a five-piece matched living room “suite” of furniture, he feels a little depressed. “As they say down here in Carolina, it jes’ ain’t right,” he says, affecting a disheartened Southern drawl. “You shouldn’t go in and buy a whole roomful of furniture.”

That might seem an odd thing for a furniture maker to say. But Helling, creative director of Bernhardt Design, the cutting-edge, design-driven division of the venerable North Carolina firm, loves furniture too much to see it purchased like a Happy Meal (NYSE:MCD). “These mega-lifestyle collections don’t represent true, long-lasting design,” he says. “They’re paint-by-number solutions.”

Helling would like to see Americans approach the task more like Europeans do: shopping carefully for individual pieces, assembling them in a way that reflects their style, and keeping them for a good long time. And he’s going to help us. At the 2007 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, Bernhardt is set to debut the Global Edition, a line of furniture expressly created to stand the test of time. Read more »