The Portland Museum of Art’s new exhibition pairs architects with furniture makers.

Opening on Saturday, “Getting Personal: Maine Architects Design Furniture” features 15 pieces, many built by Maine artisans.

The exhibit follows the furniture from napkin sketches to final products of wood, concrete and steel.

The show will run through Aug. 28 and is designed to complement the museum’s upcoming “Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful.”

The museum is at 7 Congress Square, Portland. For more information, visit www.portlandmuseum.org. Read more »

Moroccan furniture and home decor’s largest importer, The Moroccan Bazaar, announces the adoption of new purchasing standards in an effort to adhere to its principle of promoting the Moroccan handmade industry while displaying a socially responsible relationship with the artisans’ community.

Despite the increasing demand for Moroccan home decor and furniture, global competition from manufactured imitation from China and India, rise of raw material and falling prices have squeezed the earning potentials of Artisans to new lows. In the face of deteriorating workplace, The Moroccan Bazaar has developed a new approach to its purchasing procedures.

To avoid any supply disruptions, The Moroccan Bazaar launched its pilot program directed to Furniture and certain home decor artisans first then to the rest of its furnishings product line in the coming months. Read more »

Gayle Zalduondo is a sculptor, who became a hot furniture maker, who became a CEO.

So it’s no wonder she’s ready to try something bigger. After 20 years of running a boutique furniture company in Miami, Zalduondo is leaving her wholesale niche and opening a salon that’s sort of a hybrid version of a store and a think tank.

It’s a tricky endeavor, even Zalduondo admits. Her metal furniture has become ubiquitous, carried by Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, Ethan Allen and other major retailers. She’s also been featured in The New York Times and twice won the top award from the American Society of Furniture Designers. But her company, Urbanus Inc., remains largely unknown outside the trade.

”The national furniture industry knows us, but nobody else does,” she said. “We were laughing the other day, saying we’re a start-up with 20 years of experience.” Read more »

Auction firms may not be associated exclusively with distressed property sales any more. But they aren’t exactly a sign of prosperity either.

This week, Oak Brook, IL-based Inland Real Estate Auctions, Inc. formed a venture with Alpha World Properties to promote auction sales of real estate assets associated with North Carolina’s furniture industry.

The firms said the newly-announced venture is intended to offer a prospective disposition option to owners of real estate facing vacancies as a consequence of the more challenging economic conditions facing furniture makers resulting from falling demand for furniture and more manufacturing business moving overseas. Read more »

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 »

By the end of the month, furniture makers Swarzędz and Paged Meble will sign a letter of intent concerning a merger.

“We have met, and following a discussion, decided that the merger of Swarzedz and Paged Meble is a favorable solution for both companies,” said Krzysztof Bukowski, president of Paged, which owns Paged Meble. Recently both companies suffered financial woes and the merger would give them new energy and a strong position on the Polish and European markets.

WITH happy families, lush landscapes and a hokey theme song, the State Government’s “Make it Happen” ads have been busy selling the idea of Melburnians moving to regional Victoria since its launch in 2003.

Packing up and making the tree change might be the right move for some people, but for Jimmy Possum, the furniture maker from Bendigo, it’s vital for attracting skilled labour.

The company has taken to advertising for tree-changers on its website: “Think ‘Tree Change’ … Think Wood … Think Possum … THINK … Jimmy Possum!” starts the sales pitch. Read more »

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – You’ll soon see three new furniture lines from American institutions: The Smithsonian, Better Homes and Gardens – and Donald Trump.

Trump created the most buzz when new looks were unveiled late last month at the High Point Market, formerly the International Home Furnishings Market. He strode the red carpet like a rock star and gave a thumbs-up to more than 300 cheering fans. He even managed to get in a snarky comment about Rosie O’Donnell.

Trump’s furniture will be at home in your uptown penthouse or country estate, but the line from the iconic magazine is most likely to fill your suburban great room. A few pieces in the Smithsonian line were surprisingly current, even though they’re based on historic artifacts, proving that classic design endures.

Celebrity endorsements have been important to the furniture industry for more than a decade. The industry said the three lines helped push the trend to a new high at this market, and offered a recent survey to help explain why. Read more »

HIGH POINT, N.C. – Large-screen TVs, laptop computers, cell phones and homeowners desiring ambience, innovative styling and smart storage solutions are clearly driving furniture design.

Furniture makers have been challenged to create pieces that meet the desires of the sophisticated, savvy homeowner, and clearly they have managed to deliver with furniture that makes being organized hip and simple without sacrificing style.

At the spring High Point Market, which ended Sunday, multifunctional furniture pieces were as plentiful as the shuttles carrying the thousands of interior designers, buyers and reporters to and from the world’s largest exhibition of residential furnishings.

Several showrooms had at least one new introduction that qualified as a piece doing double or multiple duty. Read more »

Beautiful wood from wine barrels and old barns is finding new life in the hands of contemporary furniture makers. The result is familiar and fresh, a new rustic style.

“We are just north of the wine country here in California, and over the years, a long time ago now, have seen a lot of barrels being disposed of,” says Whit McLeod, whose acclaimed furniture draws from the Arts and Crafts tradition.

“Obviously, it’s good quality wood,” he says. “It’s kind of a challenge to figure out what to do with it other than cutting it into a half-barrel planter.”

McLeod found a unique way to use the barrels, in a signature folding chair whose oak staves express the smooth wooden curves of their origins.

“About 99 percent of people sit down and say it’s more comfortable than it looks,” he says.

From there, he’s produced dining suites, tables, benches, comfy indoor chairs and even toilet seats, complete with the brands of the original wine barrel’s manufacturer. Read more »