Art Furniture, which has operated for nearly 14 years at Arizona Avenue and Elliot Road in Chandler, is going out of business, a casualty of the housing slump.

A liquidation sale is under way.

At one time, owner Yalchin Balci was grossing nearly $1.5 million a year. But business began to fall in 2006. The death knell for the company came in November, traditionally the busiest month for furniture retailers, when business was off 70 percent.

The decision to close the business has been painful. Read more »

Tickets are on sale for the annual Fall Home Tour from 2-5 p.m. Nov. 4 sponsored by the Farmington High School Cheerleaders. Proceeds from the event go to the cheerleaders’ trip to appear in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Tickets at a cost of $10 each are available at: First State Community Bank (Main Bank), Botaniques, Farmington High School (Front Office) or by calling: Katie Rhodes at 573-756-5590 or Connie Waters at 573-701-1316 ext. 133. Tickets will also be available at each home on the tour. Read more »

Fast-growing retailer Ashley Furniture is expected to open in the former Hedman Furniture building by Thanksgiving, filling the largest vacant business space in downtown Grass Valley.

A familiar face will be at the helm: Chellie Peterson, whose family ran Hedman before it closed in March.

“I’m excited about it,” said Peterson, 61, who couldn’t stay retired from the furniture industry she was a part of for 35 years. “I miss the business.”

A mostly vacant building that wasn’t selling, as well as the success of Ashley Furniture, brought Peterson back to downtown Grass Valley, she said. Hedman had been a fixture in the city for 50 years.

Ashley Furniture will join Tess’ Kitchen Store in the flagship Mill Street building. Tess’ opened in its new location earlier this month from down the street. Read more »

Local furniture retailer Harry Gregorie got a bird’s-eye view of Summerville’s explosive growth during a recent small-plane trip over the area.

During the flight, he said he was struck by the vast number of new homes and neighborhoods cropping up around the town. “It’s just unbelievable,” said Gregorie, president of Charleston-based GDC Home.

The upscale home-furnishings company is hoping to tap into that residential boom, targeting Summerville for its fourth area location.

GDC plans to open a store this fall in North Main Market, located off U.S. Highway 17-A, also known as North Main Street and one of the town’s main shopping drags. The complex is anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter, a Lowe’s home-improvement warehouse and a Belk department store, and is across the street from the Azalea Square Shopping Center, home to a number of big-box stores. Read more »

George Washington never got zero percent financing on a brand-new Chevy, and Abraham Lincoln never bought one of those sweet plasma screens for half off.

Still, thanks to them, or at least thanks to the holiday that celebrates them, millions of Americans get deals like that every Presidents Day weekend. The holiday, which provides merchants with a boost in the otherwise slow winter months, has become linked to retail bargains in the national psyche.

But how did the phenomenon begin? Why did Presidents Day of all holidays become a four-star marketing superbonanza? Where along the way did we begin honoring the nation’s father and the man who freed the slaves with bargains on sofa sets and home electronics? Read more »

In the next week or two, Brandon Birtcher, of Birtcher Development and Investments, said he will be set to announce that the company’s new development, the South Coast Home Furnishings Centre, is 90% leased.

Construction and lease agreements are all right on schedule for the $90-million shopping center’s July 2007 opening date.

But customers are already taking advantage of one of the center’s stores, which opened the day after Thanksgiving. Read more »

Ashley Furniture HomeStore today will hold a grand opening in Henrietta.

The Wisconsin-based furniture store, which moved into part of the former Chase-Pitkin site at 650 Hylan Drive, Henrietta, unofficially opened to shoppers the day after Thanksgiving Day.

“Business so far has been phenomenal,” said managing partner Tom Kane of Wellsville Carpet Town Inc. in Olean, Cattaraugus County, the firm that owns Ashley Furniture. Read more »

Furniture Fair plans to open its largest area store in Cold Spring, bringing commerce to a shopping center that’s been missing an anchor since K-Mart closed at the same location several years ago.

“It is the largest Furniture Fair yet,” said Ed Hartman, director of marketing for Furniture Fair.

The building is 95,000 square feet.

The company decided to locate in Cold Spring because it’s a fast growing area with attractive demographics, Hartman said.

“Of course Furniture Fair’s roots started with the Erlanger store in 1963,” he said.

The company started by Robert “Bob” Daniels, is now owned and operated by his three sons, Rick, Steve, and Bill Daniels. Read more »

Some good news this Thanksgiving for workers about to be laid off in Pulaski. Federal money is on the way to help workers at Pulaski Furniture’s Plant 12.

The company announced last month it was laying off 119 workers by the end of the year. Those workers are now eligible for federal Trade Readjustment Assistance, commonly called TRA. The benefits will help workers with job retraining and health care premiums.

Someone’s trash might be another’s treasure, but if it’s in front of your house, it’s going to the city’s landfill.

The city’s refuse department picks up appliances, furniture and small tree limbs (smaller than 4 feet). This time of year workers also are vacuuming leaves.

Most materials end up in the city’s landfill off South Park Road. Newspapers, aluminum and bi-metal tin cans and plastic bottles placed in the proper containers are recycled.

The city provides homeowners with recycling bins for newspapers and clear bags for plastics and cans – at no charge.

Barbara Goff, administrative assistant with the city’s refuse department, said requests for pickup are handled as they are called into the office. Read more »