The American Furniture Hall of Fame Foundation Inc. is accepting nominations for the class of 2007.

The deadline for submitting nominations is July 27. Only members of the organization are eligible to nominate and vote on candidates.

Members will receive nomination forms in the mail. Read more »

Recently Pipefine Patio Furniture Company’s manufacturing facility in Ft. Lauderdale was purchased and relocated to a new home in northeastern Florida, resulting in the adoption of new processes and technology, streamlining and creating more efficiency in the manufacturing and craftsmanship of their distinctive PVC furniture line.

Terry Potter, the new owner of Pipefine, liked what he saw of the 40-year old company: “Pipefine’s successful 40-year track record was what initially attracted me to purchase the company”, Potter said. “In addition, the designs are very distinctive – unique curved design elements set Pipefine apart from competitors, and the use of UV-treated furniture-grade PVC, which is twice as thick as most manufacturers, enables Pipefine to offer a lifetime warranty.”

Potter plans to offer more design elements and options and take the company to a new level in resort and leisure furniture. “Because our product range is not mass-produced, but instead built to customer specifications direct from the factory, we customize each order to suit individual décor or corporate image and colors”, he said. “Our extensive range of strap furniture products is ideally suited to hotels, spas, resorts, apartment complexes and condo environments where harsh treatment calls for durability and low maintenance.” Read more »

China’s first furniture export industrial zone would be built on 133 ha in Qionglai City of Sichuan Province. Manufacturing, research, development and design, marketing and distribution of furniture would be done according to export requirements. The zone would be built in January 2008, completed by 2010, and would be China’s first furniture production and export base.

The purpose of building the zone is to allow Sichuan furniture enterprises to have production capacity. It is expected that more than 50 Sichuan furniture production enterprises will be centralized in the zone. To become established in the zone, furniture enterprises must have annual output value of RMB50 million yuan, and high market share, brand recognition and export capacity.

They’d barely moved in when they got cleaned out.

But when more than $35,000 worth of goods were nicked recently from JYSK, a new London home furnishings store, the district manager didn’t take it lying down.

After reporting the heist to police, Jim Davy took the unusual step of taking out an ad in The Free Press with hopes readers could help catch the culprits.

“The police are going to do their job, but I take this personally,” Davy said of the June 20 theft from the Masonville-area store.

“I just want to catch somebody and charge them.”

More than $35,000 worth of home furnishings — including a heavy haul of mattresses, bedroom sets and other furniture — were nabbed from two locked tractor-trailers outside the store overnight on June 20, he said. Read more »

On its home turf, BUT entices value-conscious shoppers with the slogan “ Le juste prix”. But what is the right price for France’s second-biggest furniture retailer?

That was the question that investors in Kesa Electricals considered yesterday as the Kingfisher spin-off confirmed that it had received “a number of indications of interest” to acquire the offshoot: an admission that promptly sent its shares up more than 7 per cent. Speculation over the future of BUT has followed Kesa since its 2003 demerger, fuelled by suggestions that Kingfisher had explored its disposal but failed to find a buyer at its price.

That is because the chain, which it bought into 11 years ago, has never sat well within the rest of the group. It relies on a cumbersome franchise network and remains the company’s only excursion into the furniture business, from which BUT draws 60 per cent of sales. The format of mixing furniture with electrical goods appears tired, while in recent years it has come under pressure from the expansion of Ikea in France. There are few synergies with Darty, Kesa’s principal French electricals chain. Read more »

Greenwich DC LLC and Greenwich Additional LLC has made an application to the local planning board to expand the local Raymour & Flanigan furniture dealer.

The application calls for a two-phase expansion. The first phase will consist of construction of a 157-space parking area and stormwater management basin at the business, located at the corner of South Democrat Road and Swedesboro Avenue.

The second phase consists of a 101,500-square-foot addition to the distribution center.

Originally scheduled for July 9, the application will now come before the planning board on August 13.

Source

Retail furniture sales rose for the first time in a year during April, increasing 12 percent compared with April 2006, according to a report by Smith Leonard PLLC, a financial-services company based in High Point.

The value of new orders was $2.1 billion compared with $1.9 billion in April 2006.

However, Ken Smith, the director of furniture services for Smith Leonard, said that the change in the 2007 spring market month to March from April was the primary factor in the rise in new orders. Post-market orders that normally are received in May were made in April.

“We expect to see a decline in May if our assumptions about market orders are correct,” Smith said. “We did hear that Memorial Day sales were generally good, but discounting appeared to be a big factor in those reports.” Read more »

Having won the bid to be the sole furniture supplier for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Hong Kong Royal Furniture Group is in top gear expanding its production capacity and implementing new marketing strategies.

“According to the contract with the organizing committee of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, we will supply more than 100,000 pieces of furniture, of the highest standard, for the grand event. We have to gear up,” said Gary Ma, president of the furniture firm.

Headquartered and listed in Hong Kong, the company, with its key production base in the Pearl River Delta cities of Zengcheng and Dongguan in Guangdong, is a leading furniture supplier in China.

He said his firm has recently put into use a new production base in the Pearl River Delta region and will continue its strategy of focusing on innovative design, quality and brand building. Read more »

For Custom Publications
Finding fine furniture that matches your decor and accurately expresses your personal style can be challenging. It’s important to think about what you need, what you want and what your budget will allow.

“You have many choices for living rooms and great rooms to express your personal style and decor,” said Al Stevens, vice president of Charles Home Furnishing. “We offer up to 1,000 fabrics and hundreds of styles to fit your decor, plus we deliver within 30 days.”

In the beginning
Whatever your reasons for shopping for furniture, start by determining what your needs are in each room. Are you looking for new seating? New bedding? New kitchen furniture? A list will come in handy when you’re ready to start shopping.
Prioritize the items in order of importance. What do you need now and which ones
can you add into the mix later?

Looking through catalogs, Web sites and decorating magazines can help you decide which styles you like best before you visit showrooms. Read more »

Crawford Furniture can now be called a ‘‘Custom Comfort Center’’ as the Jamestown business has partnered with England, a La-Z-Boy company.

Founded in 1883, Crawford Furniture is a manufacturer of solid wood furniture. The company runs both a factory on Allen Street in the city and an outlet store on Fairmount Avenue in Lakewood. On Tuesday, representatives from England visited with Lakewood Store Manager Tracey Heeden.

‘‘Even though we’ve been selling their upholstery for the last year, we just decided to partner with England and become a Custom Comfort Center,’’ Heeden said. ‘‘We will be able to sell for a bit less because we will now be buying in quantity from the factory and there will be other benefits as far as shopping goes.’’ Read more »