Archive for October, 2008
Driven by the growing popularity of outdoor spaces as an extension of modern homes, the market for outdoor furniture in the United States is projected to reach $4.6 billion by the year 2012. Future growth in the market is expected to be sustained by innovations in style, colors and designs.
San Jose, California (PRWEB) October 30, 2008 — The US outdoor furniture market stands enthused by the rapidly changing lifestyle trends in favor of greater outdoor indulgence. With family life steadily extending beyond the four walls of a closed home, the business case for outdoor furniture is expected to become stronger, and more lucrative. Rising penchant among homeowners to entertain guests outdoors is leading to increased number and frequency of outdoor parties, barbeques, high tea, and lawn picnics. This is leading to increased demand for outdoor gas grills, outdoor fireplace, decorative patio umbrellas, poolside chairs, tables and recliners, among several others. As an extension of one’s living space, the outdoors are being furnished with great care and high style. Being perceived as a style statement than a necessity, outdoor furniture market is expected to be influenced largely by innovations in styles, colors and designs. Technology innovations in weather resistant materials, and furniture fabrics, which extend product durability, are also forecasted to drive demand for outdoor furniture. Exquisite fabrics, which are resistant to mold, mildew, and the sun are prompting an increasing number of consumers to invest in classy outdoor furniture, a purchase decision, which was hitherto bogged down by durability and replacement cost related issues.
Metal outdoor furniture market in the US is estimated to reach US$3 billion by 2010, as stated by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. Wicker/Rattan outdoor furniture market in the US is projected to follow a CAGR of 4.6% during the period 2000-2010.
Being a symbolic representation of wealth, affluence and social status, romantically lighted, flower-twined patios and gardens with elegant settees, ottomans, garden recliners, and warm outdoor fireplaces are just the right indications of sophisticated living. Driven by the rise in replacement purchases, lucrative market opportunities are expected to emerge in the high-end market, as households that already own outdoor furniture make a change over to better quality and stylish products. With outdoor furniture contributing towards the overall appreciation in the resale value of a home, even average income households are beginning to invest in outdoor furniture. This marks the beginning of a trend where outdoor furnishing is no longer resorted to by just the rich, famous and the wealthy living in weather-perfect geographical areas. Business opportunities are therefore forecasted to shift from the premium strata of the market to the mass-market. Widespread product awareness brought about by TV home makeover shows, advertising blitzes, and lifestyle magazines, is expected to help outdoor furniture achieve deeper market penetration in the upcoming years. The affluence of the aging baby boomers, and the generation X homeowners are expected to bode well for the market. For instance, departure of adult children from home translates into higher disposable income among the empty nesters, thereby leading to increased expenditures on outdoor lifestyles.
Major market participants profiled include Casual Living, Creative Woodwork International Inc., Gibraltar Furniture, Grosfillex North America, Hanamint Corp., Homecrest Industries Inc., Kingsley-Bate Ltd., Leisure Furniture & Powdercoating Inc., Lloyd Flanders Industries Inc., Mallin Casual Furniture, Meadowcraft Inc., Modern Outdoor, O.W. Lee Company Inc., and The Coleman Company Inc.
The report titled “Outdoor Furniture: A US Market Report” published by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, drivers, product profile, players, recent developments, mergers, acquisitions, and other strategic industry activities. Analysis is presented in terms of value sales for the United States market for the period 2000-2015. Analytics are presented by the following material type- Metal, Plastic/Resin, Wicker/Rattan, Wood and Others.
For more details about this research report, please visit http://www.strategyr.com/Outdoor_Furniture_Market_Report.asp
About Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Global Industry Analysts, Inc., (GIA) is a reputed publisher of off-the-shelf market research. Founded in 1987, the company is globally recognized as one of the world’s largest market research publishers. The company employs more than 700 people worldwide and publishes more than 880 full-scale research reports each year. Additionally, the company also offers a range of more than 60,000 smaller research products including company reports, market trend reports and industry reports encompassing all major industries worldwide.
Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Telephone 408-528-9966
Fax 408-528-9977
Email press@StrategyR.com
Web Site http://www.StrategyR.com/
Taken from http://www.prweb.com/
October 31st, 2008
Houston Business Journal
Gallery Furniture is the newest worldwide partner for the
United Service Organizations.
The USO, which provides morale, welfare and recreational services to U.S. military personnel and their families, has 86 centers in the United States, including two in Houston — one at each airport — and 22 centers around the world.
The Houston furniture shop has initially committed to outfit 35 USO centers worldwide with new furniture, electronics and interior design services. The store plans to continue until all centers are revamped.
Gallery Furniture is kicking off the relationship by providing new furniture to centers at William Hobby Airport; Mississippi’s Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; Philadelphia International Airport; and Camp Virginia, Kuwait.
The shop also partnered with the USO during Hurricane Ike, setting up televisions, computer stations and gaming equipment at two USO mobile canteens.
Taken from http://www.bizjournals.com/
October 31st, 2008
Covers protect wood, iron
Donna Gray, For Neighbours
Chilly winds, piles of snow and chunks of ice can do a number on deck and patio furniture. Protecting your chairs, tables, benches and boxes can get you more mileage and enjoyment for summer seasons to come.
Corrine Palmer, sales manager for the Kitchen and Patio Store, says our winters can be challenging for wood, plastic, metal and stone.
“Because of the thaw and freeze cycle, it’s really hard on the furniture,” she says. “You’ve got water that settles onto and into the frames and flat surfaces, and when it freezes, it expands and cracks the joints.”
The first step is to make room inside the house or garage to ensure the furniture stays at a fairly stable temperature or, at least, away from exposed elements. Palmer says covering the furniture with a simple tarp may not be the best solution, as ice and snow can build up under the plastic, creating an opportunity for moisture.
“If you’ve got some really large or heavy pieces, storing them inside isn’t always an option,” she says.
“You can store them under a deck or in a protected area away from the elements. It’s best to invest in acrylic blend covers that can breathe and protect the surface or material and still allow the ice and water to evaporate.”
Wood, iron and stone require their own special care. Most need covers as well, even though they are built for the elements.
“For teak products, again, it’s imperative to have a breathable cover,” Palmer adds. “It’s a dense wood with natural oils in it. If you don’t cover it properly, there’s great potential for mould and mildew.”
She also says that some stone tables, especially those with tiles, should also be brought inside.
“You really need to refer back to their manufacturer or retailer for the proper way to store stone tables,” she says.
“Sometimes moisture can get into the grout and break it up.”
If your furniture is in dire need of repair, there are choices — spend extra money to have parts replaced or rethreaded, or simply buy a new piece. Ron Elies, owner of Patio Furniture Repair, says he often fixes broken umbrellas and pieces of deck furniture, but it comes with a price.
“If you’ve purchase a cheap chair and table set, it’s really too expensive to repair,” he says. “They don’t make furniture like they used to. It’s a throw-away society now. You’re just better off replacing it with a higher quality set.”
If the furniture pieces are made of wood, such as cedar, they can usually stand up to what winter dishes out, but come spring, some care and maintenance needs to be done.
“I’ve had wood tables and chairs for 38 years,” says Elies. “The only problem with wood is you have to finish it regularly.”
He adds that iron pieces should be moved to dryer ground since moisture can cause rust, and glass tables, although sturdy in composition, can crack if the temperature fluctuations are too great due to chinooks.
Perhaps the most vulnerable to cold snaps is plastic and vinyl, which can break if sat on or stacked with snow and ice.
“The vinyl strapping on chairs is really delicate in winter,” says Elies.
“It’s best to bring them inside or at least, protect them from any weight putting pressure on them.”
© The Calgary Herald 2008Taken from http://www.canada.com/
October 31st, 2008
Published by Streem
Flat-pack furniture imported to Australia could be a ticking timebomb for people’s health.
News Limited newspapers report test completed by manufacturers in Australia show the flat-pack furniture contains high levels of the toxin chemical formaldehyde - known to cause cancer.
The products are imported from China and sometimes contain levels of the chemical far above International standards.
Tests on random flat-pack furniture show some furniture could be unsuitable for indoor use due to the high levels of the chemical.
Formaldehyde, a component of glues used in wood products, is known to cause skin, eye and respiratory damage and the World Health Organisation says the chemical in high concentrations is a cause of throat and nasal cancers, the report says.
Many retailers sell flat-pack products including IKEA, Bunnings and other major department stores.
The report did not indicate who or where the products were being sold, or if specific store products contained high levels of formaldehyde.
Taken from http://www.streem.com.au/
October 30th, 2008
By Rae Leavitt
Turning Art Into Furniture
As a teenager, Benny Goodman began to recognize he had a natural flair for creating works of art from wood.
In wood shop classes in Junior High and High School Benny learned the basics of wood working.
He grew up with his eight brothers and sisters in Woodruff, Arizona, a small rural community in Northeastern Arizona.
As a hobby, he would build tables in the front yard under the shade trees. Neighbors and friends would drive by admire his workmanship and buy his furniture.
“By the time I graduated high school I had an idea that maybe I could earn a living building furniture.” Benny said.
With only a few dollars to work with and an unwavering determination Benny began the tradition of hand crafting quality functional art.
Now it was time to get creative, Benny built a cedar chest, a unique and finely crafted tapestry covered chest with 52 individual hand-carved slats giving it a graceful, curved contour. At the suggestion of a friend, he entered it into the county fair where he won three Blue Ribbons and Honorable Mention. Encouraged by the success at the county fair, he entered it into the Arizona State Fair, where his masterpiece brought him recognition and he walked away with a Blue Ribbon, Honorable Mention and a trophy for greatest contribution to the show.
By this time his cedar chests were in high demand and were displayed in some of the finest art galleries in the state.
“The art in these galleries inspired me to combine art and functional furniture.” He said.
” I realized that art hanging on the wall was commonplace and I began brainstorming to come up with something different. I put a lot of thought into this and developed a coffee table that could hold a piece of art.”
Growing up near the Navajo Indian Reservation Benny learned early in life to appreciate Native American art, from this appreciation grew his inspiration and from his inspiration Benny’s concept of functional pieces of art were born.
The quite, modest entrepreneur had a plan to combine unique wood craftsmanship using hardwood of southwestern oak and alder with the ancient art of Navajo Sandpainting to create coffee tables, bedroom furniture, entertainment centers, china hutches and dinette sets.
Benny enlisted the artistic touch of Medicine Man Robert Lee and his wife Erma. The Lee family from Sheep Springs, New Mexico descends from a long line of sand painters. Keeping with their Navajo tradition of art, their sand paintings are natural sands gathered from around their home near the Painted Desert, some of which are tinted by natural methods of exposure to the sun and rain, then mixed with other sands and liquids. Each painting interprets a story. “The Coyote Stealing Fire, Storm Patterns, The Bear and the Snake” and many others.
For centuries sand paintings were only used for ceremonial purposes by medicine men and had to be destroyed by the end of the day. It took many years for this art to be allowed to be painted as permanent art. Each piece is signed by the artists.
The self-taught furniture maker opened his first shop Trails End Furniture in Jerome, Az. in 1990. He sold his crafted pieces wholesale to stores and art galleries around the state. The demand for his work grew and he had to hire nine employees to keep up with production. But his high standard of quality was not met. “After twelve years I learned I must do it myself in order to produce the quality furniture that my customers expected.”
Eighteen years later Trails End Furniture is now a family affair. You can find Benny, 39, and his wife Amy, 30, a third generation upholsterer working side by side in their factory in Cottonwood, Az. building furniture far beyond industry standards. He has added a new line of cedar tables crafted from the root of Arizona’s native cedar trees with inlays of turquoise from Arizona mines. ” I find a great deal of satisfaction when I deliver my work to people’s homes and see their appreciation for my work.” He added, ” it is rewarding and gratifying.”
Taken from http://www.americanprofile.com/
October 29th, 2008
Lauren Heist
For more than 15 years, Pam Danziger, owner of Unity Marketing, has been tracking the buying habits of high-end consumers in the United States.
She’s asked thousands of consumers where they shop, what they buy and why they buy it to figure out why people will spend more for a Louis Vuitton purse, a Tiffany bracelet or a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes than they will for other items and to help companies tailor their brands to appeal to luxury consumers.
This year, Danziger set her sites on the home furnishings industry, delving into the mindset of thousands of home owners to find out what they’re looking for in the home.
Danziger’s report, which was released Oct. 16, is entitled “The Home Furnishings & Decor Report 2008.” The report is based on two consumer research studies: one survey of 1,360 consumers with incomes of $50,000 or more who were involved in home decorating or remodeling projects in the past year or planned to undertake them in the next year, and another study of 542 consumers with incomes of $100,000 or more who purchased one or more luxuries in the three-month study period.
What’s striking about the survey, Danziger says, is how much furniture brands and home furnishings retailers are missing out on marketing to these luxury consumers.
For example, when asked which home furnishings stores they liked best, survey respondents said Target and Home Depot were among their favorites, two brand names that aren’t exactly geared toward a luxury consumer.
Yet, luxury consumers spend significantly more money on home furnishings than they do on clothes, travel or other items every year. According to the report, about half of American consumer households with incomes of $50,000 or more were involved in home decorating or remodeling projects in the past year or plan to undertake such projects in the coming year, and each household spends about $20,000 per project. That’s about 26 million households spending about $20,000 each — a huge market by any standards.
Still, Danziger says these consumers could be influenced to spend more if they believed that the brands had added value.
“It’s not the reason why they buy, but it’s the justification for spending more money,” she explains.
Danziger says furniture companies who can create a brand image that connotes high style will be able to command higher prices from consumers.
“I don’t think home marketers really know how to tap that luxury market the way the fashion marketer does,” Danziger says. “So many of the furniture manufacturers have an engineering mindset, which is limiting them.”
Danziger also said there is a misconception among home furnishings retailers that furniture is a necessity — something that is only purchased when you move into a new house.
In actuality, Danziger said furniture is really a discretionary item that people buy because they want it, not because they need it.
“Consumers continue to want to refresh their home,” Danziger says. “It’s an important source of creative expression.”
Sometimes, however, consumers do buy a piece of furniture out of need — say, their kitchen chair breaks and they need to get a new one. Suddenly, they’re looking for a new kitchen table to go with their new chairs, and then the new furniture doesn’t match the old hutch or the old curtains, and in no time, they’re spending $20,000 on a renovation.
“The purchase of a needed item generates a cascade of other items,” she says.
Danziger says the vast majority of homeowners do renovation projects themselves, and many of them get their inspiration from home shelter magazines and home decorating shows.
But the most affluent consumers see a significant value out of hiring an interior designer to help them create a polished, professional look in their home.
Although only 20 percent of consumers who make $100,000 a year or more hire an interior designer to help them with their remodeling project, Danziger says these consumers consider interior designers to be extremely valuable because the interior designers can give homeowners confidence that they’re making the right decisions.
Danziger also said homeowners who hire interior designers spend significantly more money on home furnishings projects than those who don’t.
Danziger said one of the biggest growth opportunities for furniture stores is to add outdoor furniture to their product offerings.
“When it comes to upgrading their homes, Americans often forego more luxurious interiors in favor of creating more luxurious outdoor living areas. Yet the size of the outdoor furniture segment of the market is roughly half the size of indoor furniture segment,” Danziger says in the report. “Marketers and retailers can find many opportunities to help their customers enliven their outdoor living areas, particularly with more luxurious offerings.”
Danziger says furniture retailers have often assumed that outdoor furniture is only popular in Florida or California, where it can be used year-round. But Danziger says consumers in all parts of the country are spending money to make their outdoor living spaces one of the most posh parts of their house.
“It’s almost like in these places that have short summers they celebrate [being outside] it even more,” she says.
A complete report is $3,500 and can be ordered on Danziger’s Web site. For more information, visit unitymarketingonline.com.
Taken from http://furniturestyle.com/
October 28th, 2008
By Jill Doss-Raines
The Dispatch
HIGH POINT | In the face of a slumping economy and dismal quarterly reports from many furniture manufacturers released in the past few months, the High Point Market opened Monday with some good news for the furniture industry’s future.
“The situation we have now is somewhat severe, but it will be short-lived,” said Jerry Epperson, a home furnishings analyst speaking at the opening day media breakfast.
Epperson, who has 35 years of experience in home furnishing analysis, said he expects at least two more quarters to continue the downward trend in furniture orders and sales.
“The fourth quarter will be down 3 percent and the first quarter next year down 1 percent,” he said after the breakfast. “The second quarter will be flat, and we will see movement upward in the third quarter. If our numbers in the third quarter next year are not better than this year, we are in a pickle.”
During the breakfast, Epperson told the crowd of media members and market and industry leaders he is confident furniture sales will pick up next year.
“The reason I can tell you next year will be better is we are creating numbers this year that will not be hard to beat,” said Epperson, drawing laughs from the audience.
Epperson said no one should be surprised by the lagging sales and orders in the furniture industry, considering what is happening across the United States in the housing market and credit industry. While he said the new home construction market would not be a quick turnaround, he expects existing home market sales and lending industries to improve sooner, which will help furniture sales.
“We will not see a bounce back in the new home industry until 2010, but we will see a bounce back sooner in existing home sales,” he said. “Who got badly burned in the housing industry were people who were going out buying homes to flip. They were taking these interest-only loans expecting to never stay in the homes long. These homes are down in value.”
Brain Casey, president and CEO of the High Point Market, also cast a positive message about market at the breakfast. While the number of registered buyers will not be available until market ends Friday, he said 6,500 new buyers had registered by Monday to attend, and 80 countries are represented among the buyers.
“Despite the economic challenges we all face, High Point Market continues to be in a position of strength,” he said. “… The level of buying that may happen at this market will be at a level we’ve not seen before. Buyers and exhibitors alike will look to where they get the best values.”
The furniture industry continues to have a positive economic impact in the Triad, injecting $2 billion into the three-county region and providing 65,000 jobs, Casey said.
With Epperson’s forecast of brighter conditions for furniture manufacturers and retailers next year, he said there is question about who will survive for the better day.
“I think the manufacturers based here have had their big shakeout,” he said, referring to announced factory closings such as Stanley Furniture’s Lexington plant. “I think you will see us lose a few more retailers, however.”
He also pointed to some positive news in the past year, such as Thomasville Furniture Industries recalling 50 furniture workers to make chairs at its previously shuttered Plant C and Ikea opening a manufacturing facility in Danville, Va.
Last week, Bob Shaak, chief operating officer and senior vice president of sales and marketing for Lexington-based Linwood Furniture, said he wouldn’t gamble to predict how his company will fair at the High Point Market.
“I have no crystal ball,” he said. “I wouldn’t pretend to know whether it would be a good or bad or fair market. We do anticipate a number of dealers coming to see us that we have been in contact with us in the last six months.”
Linwood debuts two new lines by Lexington furniture designer Steve Hodges at this market — Louis Philippe and Charlton House. This brings the company’s total number of lines to seven.
Jill Doss-Raines can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 219, or at jill.doss-raines@the-dispatch.com.
Taken from http://www.the-dispatch.com/
October 27th, 2008
By Rupert Walker
Indonesia plans to diversify export earnings away from commodities to tourism and creative industries.
Indonesia is preparing to diversify its exports away from commodity dependence just as the world’s leading economies look set to plunge into recession. Opening the Trade Expo Indonesia 2008 in Jakarta on October 21, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono identified three sectors with potential for growth: tourism, creative industries and migrant workers’ remittances.
The annual trade promotion event in the capital, supplemented by similar displays to match local suppliers with international buyers in other major cities such as Yogyakarta in central Java, showed a large variety of non-commodity export-ready products and services. Stalls represented most of the 14 sub-categories of creative industries listed by the ministry of trade. These ranged from traditional Batik textiles and up-market furniture to animation and information technology.
More than 1,000 buyers flew in from 22 countries, and officials expected that agreements would be signed which would surpass the $200 million worth of deals last year.
Currently, creative industries make up just 6% of Indonesia’s GDP and 9% of its exports. And despite ambitions for diversification, Indonesia’s foreign exchange earnings remain highly reliant on the primary sector. The country is the world’s largest palm oil and South Seas pearl producer, the second biggest gelatin producer and the third biggest cacao producer.
In an interview with FinanceAsia, minister of trade Dr Mari Pangestu argued that small- and medium-sized enterprises could be a new source for the country’s economic growth, emphasising that they are labour intensive, not low-skilled businesses. While traditional handicrafts would always have a reliable market, the products themselves as well as the manufacturing, marketing and distribution processes would need to be modernised. In addition, education and training to instill a “creative mindset” in the population was essential and a blue-print had been drawn up.
The minister said there is a draft bill prepared to set up an Export Credit Agency to augment limited export guarantees and insurance already in place. She stressed that no import tariffs or quotas would be imposed to protect domestic industries, as Indonesia fully intended to adhere to its World Trade Organisation and bilateral trade agreements.
Meanwhile, Indonesia has cut its overall export growth target for next year to 11.9% because of sluggish demand from Japan, the United States and Europe, which account for about one-third of the country’s export revenues. This would mark the second year in a row that export growth has slowed, despite an increase in Chinese demand for Indonesian commodities, particularly coal. Export growth is expected to come in at about 12.5% this year, the slowest for five years despite 31.4% growth in the first quarter according to the official statistics bureau.
Official GDP growth forecasts for 2009 have been downgraded from 6.3% earlier in the year to between 5.5% and 6%, but inflation fears that were prominent earlier this year are subsiding as the oil price has plunged.
The rupiah has recently hit a three-year low against the US dollar, having fallen more than 6% this month already, as the US and European credit crisis has spread to emerging markets. A weaker currency could, of course, provide the most immediate tonic to Indonesian exporters while the country prepares its secondary and tertiary sectors for international competition in better times ahead.
© Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
Taken from http://www.financeasia.com/
October 27th, 2008
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Furniture dominated the first two-day transactions in the 23rd Indonesia Trade Expo which was opened by President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono on October 21, 2008.
“The transactions reached US$ 5,64,281 and was dominated by Spanish, Greek, Italian and British buyers with the largest portion came from furniture (64.3%), handicrafts (14.2%), and cosmetics and herbal products (8.8%),” Bachrul Chairi, Head of National Agency for Export Development said here Thursday.
The figure would still increase and reach the peak on the third and fourth day.
“Furniture products are favorites. One of the exhibitors even earned a total of one million US dollars in transactions on the first day,” he said.
“The producer of fire engines is said of having negotiations with buyers from the Middle East for purchasing five such fire trucks,” he added.
The target of this year`s expo increased 10% from US$ 200 million to US$220 million.
“The number of visitors is predicted to reach 20,000,” he said.
Chairi added that a number of 4,600 buyers came on the third day of the event from 63 countries such as the US, Brazil, UAE, Australia, Japan, Nigeria, and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, non-traditional markets such as Lebanon and Algeria started to become interested in the fact that almost 50 buyers come from each country.
Taken from http://www.antara.co.id/
October 24th, 2008
By ROBIN STANSBURY |The Hartford Courant
Janice Perkins bought a bedroom dresser more than a decade ago, although it never made it into her bedroom.
Instead, the versatile dresser has been useful for Perkins in three different places in three different houses. Once it held a television set; another time it served as an entry table coupled with a mirror.
And, though it was built to hold clothes, its three wide drawers now comfortably store Perkins’ table linens, napkins, candlesticks and napkin rings in an area near her dining room.
“It’s just a nice piece of furniture. It comes with me wherever I move. I always seem to find a place for it,” says Perkins, who recently moved herself and her bedroom dresser into a newly constructed condominium in Farmington. “It’s a classic piece. It will stay around forever.”
Even if it never makes it into the bedroom.
Furniture can get a “second life” — call it a second career — serving an entirely new function. The experts call this “repurposing” furniture, and local designers say they use this trick often, to add surprise and uniqueness to a room.
Amateur decorators, though, have a harder time and are less likely to make use of furniture in this way, afraid of breaking an unspoken design rule or unable to remove the name of the furniture from its purpose.
But just because it’s called a dining room hutch doesn’t mean it needs to reside in a dining room. The same is true for sofa tables, which don’t need to be near a sofa. And as Perkins proves, bedroom dressers don’t need to be in the bedroom.
“Most of us already have furniture, so it’s wonderful to use it in a new application,” says Kirsten Floyd, owner of Kirsten Floyd Interior Design in Hartford. “And a dresser is one of the best examples because it is one of the most universal pieces of furniture and one of the most reusable.”
Floyd says she has used dressers in entryways with a tray on top to gather keys and mail, and drawers to capture hats, gloves, scarfs and mittens. She also has repurposed them in a workroom to store art supplies, and in a kitchen for pots and pans.
“A small dresser with drawers can be used just about anywhere,” Floyd says.
If you still have trouble picturing a dresser anywhere but in the bedroom — or a desk other than in an office, a dining room chair only matched with its table — then try transforming the piece, designers say.
Adding a granite or butcher block top can make a dresser feel more as though it belongs in the kitchen. Changing knobs and hinges helps furniture feel different. And if you want a bigger challenge, you can transform furniture completely by staining the wood a different color or sanding and then painting it.
“Changing it in some way is a good idea so it doesn’t feel like the same piece of furniture,” Floyd says.
Too Big For Today’s TV
Perhaps the latest furniture piece being given a second life is the giant television armoire used to store a big TV behind closed doors. Modern flat screen and plasma televisions are turning these armoires into relics, but they don’t have to be, designers say.
“Everybody has them, and you can try to sell them, but you can’t get much money for them because no one needs them anymore,” says Sharon McCormick, owner of Sharon McCormick Design in Durham. “So the best thing is to turn them into something else.”
With some adjustments — removing the doors, replacing wood shelves with glass and adding a mirror as a backdrop — an old armoire can do double duty as a wine cabinet. Or it can be repurposed into a home office cabinet with storage for a computer and drawer space for papers and a printer.
McCormick transformed her own large armoire, originally designed to store clothes, into a linen closet for her bathroom. The shelves hold towels and toiletry items, and the bottom doors were re-hinged so two hampers now tilt outward to collect dirty clothes.
Nearby in the bathroom, McCormick tucked an upholstered chair and a floor lamp for soft lighting.
“It was an empty corner and I had the chair but I never knew what I was going to do with it,” McCormick says. Placing an upholstered chair in a bathroom is “unusual but so handy” to sit down and dry your hair, put on makeup, or keep an eye on children in a bathtub, she says.
New Twists
McCormick has embraced the practice of repurposing furniture, and all around her historic home in Durham are examples of her own twists on classic pieces of furniture that are serving a new function.
“Some people are not confident enough to put something in an unusual place. Or they can’t imagine things any other way or in any other place than where it already exists,” she says. “But the more unusual and unexpected it is, the more exciting a room can be.”
In her mudroom is a six-drawer filing cabinet she originally purchased for her office. It now stores hats, shoes and gloves. In her sun porch is a small desk she repainted white and uses as a side table. On the other side of the room is a painted dresser that now functions as a decorative table.
McCormick says that even if you don’t reuse your own furniture, it’s easy to find someone else’s item to repurpose at a tag sale.
“Keep an open mind about what it could be,” she says. “If there’s something about it that appeals to you, you can always find a new use for it, even if it was not what it was intended to be, and that makes it more interesting. It’s always nice when someone walks into a room and says, ‘Wow. That’s cool. I never would have thought of that.’”
If you are thinking of repurposing a piece of furniture, the designers offer these three guidelines to help determine if the piece fits in a new place.
•Anything being used as an end table or side table placed next to furniture generally shouldn’t extend 2 inches above or below the arm of a sofa or chair.
•Furniture used as an entryway table shouldn’t extend too far into the hallway or walking space leading from a door. Usually allow for 36 to 42 inches of walking space.
•Don’t try to squeeze too much furniture into a dining room. Make sure there is enough room to pull a chair all the way out from the table with room to sit down and, ideally, with some extra walking space behind the chair even when it is pulled out.
Taken from http://www.courant.com/
October 24th, 2008
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