Phil Lowe has received some pretty neat commissions during his 35 years as a furniture maker.

The Beverly resident made chairs for Abraham Lincoln’s childhood home in Springfield, Ill., desks for the Immigration Museum at Ellis Island and a Chippendale bed for the Derby House in Salem.

Last summer, though, his dream job fell into his lap, so to speak.

The Peabody Essex Museum commissioned Lowe to make six copies of a parlor chair carved by Samuel McIntire for its upcoming exhibit celebrating the 250th birthday of the Salem architect and carver. The replicas will be on display, along with two originals, in the parlor of the Peirce-Nichols House, which is being restored in conjunction with the exhibit.

“When this came up, of course I jumped at the chance,” Lowe said. “How often does someone come along and say, ‘Make this masterpiece’?” Read more »

Furniture Brands International, the parent company of Thomasville Furniture Industries and several other furniture manufacturers, will announce across the board job cuts Friday.

A Thomasville Furniture spokesman would not comment Thursday on the possible cuts, but the word is spreading quickly among workers who have said they have heard the news, but have not yet been given specifics.

Wayne Clark has worked for Thomasville Furniture for 28 years. “It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been there or how faithful you are,” said Clark. “The company isn’t faithful to you now.” Read more »

Rowe Furniture of Ellison, which gained a new owner in January, has named Stefanie Lucas president and chief executive officer. She had been the company’s senior vice president of sales, marketing and merchandising.

Lucas succeeds Gerald Birnbach at the beleaguered company. After a prolonged financial spin, the Rowe Cos., of which Rowe Furniture had long been a subsidiary, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.

In January a federal bankruptcy judge approved the sale of Rowe Furniture to Lexington-Rowe Furniture, a new affiliate of Florida-based Sun Capital Partners, a private investment firm. Read more »

There’s nothing worse than sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a waiting area, lounge or casual restaurant. Yet truly comfortable seating is a challenge to keep clean and costly to replace when it doesn’t stand up to frequent use.

The Igloo side chair by Beaufurn, LLC, offers a refreshing change of pace for those applications where customer comfort and durability must come together. The stackable, sturdy Igloo chair combines a strong, 12-gauge chrome metal frame with a 100% recyclable polypropylene shell. The smooth, glossy surface gives the chair a clean, contemporary look that is easy to clean and highly resistant to water, fire and chemical damage. Swivel glides offer stability on uneven surfaces. Read more »

All employees at Beaufurn LLC are involved in product development in some way.

Bill Bongaerts, the president of the furniture manufacturer in Winston-Salem, often asks warehouse workers what they think of a chair.

“That’s how you come up with a product that goes on the market,” he said.

Linnea Johnson, a graphic designer for the company, said that whenever a new chair is developed everyone in the office sits in it and gives an opinion. Read more »

All employees at Beaufurn LLC are involved in product development in some way.

Bill Bongaerts, the president of the furniture manufacturer in Winston-Salem, often asks warehouse workers what they think of a chair.

“That’s how you come up with a product that goes on the market,” he said.

Linnea Johnson, a graphic designer for the company, said that whenever a new chair is developed everyone in the office sits in it and gives an opinion. Read more »

Do you have a room in your home that needs a makeover but you don’t know where to start?

Hickory Furniture Mart, the nation’s leading home furnishings resource, is sponsoring a contest that can change an undesirable room in your home into a fabulous showplace just in time for spring. The winner will receive one day of professional design assistance in addition to select, new furniture. New pieces will complement existing pieces for a fresh, new look.

The deadline for entries is Tuesday, February 20. Anyone who lives within a 150-mile radius of Hickory Furniture Mart is eligible to enter. Read more »

The smell of fresh-cut wood saturates the air in his basement workshop. Black walnut is his favorite, but local furniture maker Kevin Tracey works with all types of premium-grade woods to create replicas of fine period furniture. Tracey, a life-long resident of Carver has been producing custom furniture for 12 years.

As a student at the former Plymouth-Carver Intermediate School he enjoyed instruction in what was then called wood shop. Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School provided further shop opportunities, but after a two-week orientation in four different shops, he settled upon print. “O.C. tech had students try four different shops to help them decide what they really wanted to do,” Tracey said. “When I went into the print shop I decided that’s what I wanted to do instead.” He spent several years in the pre-press end of the printing industry, helping to create all types of high-end glossy commercial magazines and brochures for Fortune 500 companies. But by the mid-90s with the advent of computer processing, the manual cut-and-paste pagination process was replaced by electronic pagination, which is still in use today. Tracey found himself unemployed and perusing the help-wanted ads. Read more »

The High Point furniture market’s biggest competitor just opened its winter market in Las Vegas. Organizers are still preparing for a week’s worth of events, but one economist still wonders how productive that marked will actually be.

“Las Vegas is a huge selling point, but Las Vegas is also a city that people go to for fun, and so you got to wonder how much serious business is going to be conducted out there,” explained Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia.

Las Vegas launched its largest furniture market ever last year amid pomp and circumstance. Vitner says there’s been a lot of investment into that show, and High Point will certainly loose some of its share to the City of Sin. Read more »

Rowe Furniture of Elliston has a new owner and, possibly, a brighter future.

If the beleaguered manufacturer of upholstered furniture survives and thrives, that could be good news for 825 people who work at Rowe’s factory in Elliston or its frame shop in Salem.

After a prolonged financial spiral, the Rowe Cos., of which Rowe Furniture was a subsidiary, filed in September for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Rowe Cos., based in McLean, subsequently closed and liquidated Storehouse, its retail furniture subsidiary.

On Jan. 19, a federal bankruptcy judge approved the sale of Rowe Furniture to Lexington-Rowe Furniture, a new affiliate of Florida-based Sun Capital Partners. The sale price was $30 million, with $24 million in cash and the remainder earmarked for the assumption of certain liabilities. The deal closed Thursday night. Read more »