Laura Crater asked:

I’m thinking of getting some new living room furniture soon but I have two small Chihuahuas, which have sharp little nails. Will they put holes in leather sofas or chairs? I do have their nails clipped every month, but I really want leather which would be a lot easier to keep the doggie hair under control because they could be wiped down everyday.

Showcasing the most elite in the gourmet and high-end design products industry for 32 years, The Gourmet Housewares Show continues to add to the excitement of taking the show back to Las Vegas. A growing list of exhibitors and programming additions ensure the show will be a must-attend event.

The Gourmet Housewares Show has long prided itself on appealing to the highly selective and discriminating buyer interested in upscale products for the kitchen and dining room. Among the growing list of upscale exhibitors-some new and others well-known-are Palate & Plate, Diva Chocolates, TableTops with a Twist, Tastefully Unique, Yamazaki Tableware, Samantha Grace Designs, Pasabahce, Haute Cuisine, and Wilton Armetale. Read more »

Consumers looking to green up their patios with sustainable garden furniture have more products to choose from, but still face challenges finding them in stores, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

Crate & Barrel and Pier 1 Imports scored highest in the group’s first annual scorecard of major retailers of wooden garden furniture. Both, according to the survey, currently offer the largest selection of FSC-certified garden furniture compared with their total wooden outdoor furniture offerings.

Both clearly identify FSC-certified products in their catalogs and online and make sustainable forest management an important criterion for selecting product offerings. Conversely, Wal-Mart offers no FSC-certified products. Smith & Hawken and Restoration Hardware declined to participate in the survey. Read more »

When Jolie Berry and her husband, Dr. Eugene Berry, purchased Wakefield Plantation in 1987, they also purchased some of the furniture in the home.

“We knew they were original furnishings,” Jolie Berry said. “We were just grateful to have something to put in the rooms.”

Imagine their surprise when New Orleans attorney Paul Haygood, the great-great-great-grandson of Wakefield’s original owners, dropped by to tell them that while researching a family piece he had recently acquired, he discovered that a small table at Wakefield was a real treasure, an authentic Duncan Phyfe piece.

Phyfe, who was born in Scotland in 1768, is recognized as one of America’s most important furniture-makers. Furniture produced in his New York shop is highly treasured. He is particularly known for his early furniture with decorative carving in English Sheraton and French Empire styles. The table at Wakefield is from Phyfe’s later period of design, his Grecian-style furniture.

The Berrys bought Wakefield, some eight miles north of St. Francisville, from Lilie Stirling Sinclair, the great-granddaughter of Lewis Stirling and Sarah Turnbull Stirling, Wakefield’s original builders. Read more »

Everyone from top designers to top models has found success with namesake furniture lines (even Donald Trump lent his name to a new collection). Now, increasing numbers of designers want to get into the action, using show houses to showcase their work.

At the Hampton Designer Showhouse, which opens for tours Sunday, and the 2007 Hamptons Cottages & Gardens Idea House, which opened last week, the designers sprinkled their rooms with pieces from, or intended for, their own product lines.

At the Idea House in Amagansett, Nancy Corzine’s Hollywood-chic media room was awash in neutral fabrics and furniture from the designer’s own collection. “It’s hard to do a room in the basement. You want it to be light and comfortable,” says Corzine, who has showrooms in Manhattan and Los Angeles. So the designer upholstered the walls in her signature line of Ultrasuede fabric and selected a cozy-looking linen velvet couch. Read more »

When Jennifer Selby Long relocated from an office with leased furniture to an unfurnished one in February, her decorating problems began.

After shopping at different stores, all that the 43-year-old San Francisco resident could find was furniture made with a “5-feet-10-inch man in mind.” Long, who is 5-feet-6, ended up doing a lot of improvising, buying bookcases from Crate & Barrel and inheriting a reddish gold wood desk from the last office tenant.

“Everything is too masculine, edgy, too modern, and heavy on the metal,” said Long, who runs a management consulting business.

With small businesses owned by women growing almost twice as fast as all small business nationwide, retailers — from Swedish furniture store Ikea to OfficeMax — are just starting to wake up to the demands of female entrepreneurs like Long. These include office chairs and desks scaled to women’s smaller frames, as well as furniture that has more storage to hold purses and other personal items — a top priority for women.

While women’s design preferences can’t be lumped together, experts say they have definite tastes and, unlike their male counterparts, look at their furniture as an extension of their image. Read more »

Everyone needs help keeping clutter under control, no matter the square footage of the homestead. And if you look hard enough, there isn’t one piece of furniture in the house that can’t do double duty as extra space to stash your movie collection, magazine backlog or extra toilet paper.

And we’re not talking Tupperware bins or milk crates here. We’re talking super stylish furnishings you will want to put in the spotlight . . . not all that extra stuff you used to have lying around.

“There is a lot of thought to space, especially with the lofts being built here,” says Jackie Dreher with 2danes, a contemporary furniture store on White Bridge Road. “People want to know where to put stuff and how to make it look nice.”

Here are some furniture ideas you can incorporate in each room of the house to keep your clutter in check without losing your sense of style. Read more »

When Jennifer Selby Long relocated from an office with leased furniture to an unfurnished one in February, her decorating problems began.

After shopping at different stores, all that the 43-year-old San Francisco resident could find was furniture made with a “5-foot-10-inch man in mind.” Long, who is 5’6″, ended up doing a lot of improvising, buying bookcases from Crate & Barrel and inheriting a reddish-gold wood desk from the last office tenant.

“Everything is too masculine, edgy, too modern, and heavy on the metal,” said Long, who runs a management consulting business.

With female-owned small businesses growing almost twice as fast as all small business nationwide, retailers—from Swedish furniture store Ikea to OfficeMax Inc.—are starting to wake up to the demands of female entrepreneurs like Long.

These include office chairs and desks scaled to women’s smaller frames, as well as furniture that has more storage to hold purses and other personal items—a top priority for women. Read more »

William Bew White III has a lofty goal for the family business he founded in 1978: He wants to make Montevallo-based Summer Classics “the Ralph Lauren of outdoor furniture.”

White seems to be on his way. The company’s outdoor furniture line — which includes table and chair sets that cost $4,000 or more — is sold in 48 states and several foreign countries. Through retailers such as Williams-Sonoma and Restoration Hardware, sales are projected to reach $60 million this year and $76 million in 2008, up from $20 million just four years ago.

At that pace, White says the $100 million sales mark will soon be eclipsed.

“This is an incredible business that started from nothing,” he said. “We’ve grown it with people that believe in the business model and take ownership as if it were their own business.”

More growth is planned. White intends to open a large showroom in a high-profile spot along Interstate 459 in the Birmingham area, adding to the 11 the company already operates in places such as Huntsville, Gulf Shores, Nashville, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C., and San Antonio. Read more »

When Jennifer Selby Long relocated from an office with leased furniture to an unfurnished one in February, her decorating problems began.

After shopping at different stores, all that the 43-year-old San Francisco resident could find was furniture made with a “5-feet-10-inch man in mind.” Long, who is 5-foot-6, ended up doing a lot of improvising, buying bookcases from Crate & Barrel and inheriting a reddish gold wood desk from the last office tenant.

“Everything is too masculine, edgy, too modern, and heavy on the metal,” said Long, who runs a management consulting business.

With female-owned small businesses growing almost twice as fast as all small business nationwide, retailers – from Swedish furniture store Ikea to OfficeMax Inc. – are just starting to wake up to the demands of female entrepreneurs like Long. These include office chairs and desks scaled to women’s smaller frames, as well as furniture that has more storage to hold purses and other personal items – a top priority for women. Read more »