One day a customer, well past retirement age, entered Shipley Furniture and ordered nearly $20,000 worth of items. Store owner Ronnie Brooks asked if it was OK with her husband. She responded her husband had died a rich man, but never indulged in furniture — a mistake she intended to correct.

Most customers Ronnie and wife, Venita Brooks, see at Shipley Furniture aren’t like that. Instead, they’re people who bought couches 15 years ago, but still come in every few days to visit. Read more…

Asia’s landmark event for the furniture industry is getting ready for business in autumn, when it will open its doors from 12-15 September in Shanghai.

As the first significant international event after the summer break in Europe, Furniture China returns with 1,600 exhibitors on 220,000 sq.m. exhibition space. Featuring Asia’s best designs and quality products, the show is expected to draw over 70,000 visitors, including 12,000 international buyers. Read more…

SAP AG has said that members of the Industry Value Network (IVN) for banks, which brings together SAP, banks and non-banks to collaboratively develop solutions for the banking industry have formed an expanded definition group to co-innovate and create global standards for enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture (enterprise SOA). The expansion of the community enables the members to leverage the results from the IVN for their custom projects as well as to directly influence the development of software solutions for the banking industry. As part of expanding the scope of its charter, the community has opened its membership to include additional banks and non-banks, including software providers, service providers and auditors. With this announcement, the members of the community and SAP continue to deliver on their mission to provide a common innovation backbone for the banking industry, be it global retail banks, private banks or corporate banks. Read more…

ATLANTA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–RCMS Group, the leader in design production services to the architecture, engineering and building construction marketplace, today announced that Rosser International and HighGrove Partners have signed long-term deals with the company.

Under the agreements, RCMS Group will provide Rosser International and High Grove Partners with high-quality construction drawings using Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology. The company will leverage processes, including a continuous work cycle that uses production teams in India, that are designed to speed the pipeline of each company’s projects from design concept to delivery and accelerate ROI realization. The deals with RCMS Group will help both Rosser International and High Grove Partners focus on their core competencies – design.
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If condo design were as strong as condo sales, Toronto would be one of the most amazing architectural cities in North America.

The bad news is that it isn’t. The good news is that it continues to get better.

Unlike Mississauga, Toronto still doesn’t have a Marilyn Monroe, a spectacular and iconic building chosen from entries to an international design competition. On the other hand, unlike Mississauga, the situation in Toronto is more urban and, therefore, more contextual. There are simply fewer opportunities for the iconic in Toronto than in the City that Hazel Built.
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Furniture once was considered an investment. People saved up for sturdy pieces that, with a little upholstery work here and there, would last a lifetime.

Now durable furniture is harder to find. A higher price tag or a brand name that had a good reputation when your parents got married doesn’t necessarily signify better quality today.

“The quality of furniture has gone down dramatically,” says Don Fuhr, who spent 52 years in the furniture business. His family owned Fuhr’s in Shawnee, a showroom that specialized in better-quality brands before closing in 2006. “Furniture has become about keeping costs low.”
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These clever pieces have a sense of fun, but would be right at home with Martha Stewart.

Craft has been stealthily nudging its way into fine art since the dawn of surrealism, if not earlier, but the last decade’s proliferation of silhouetting, crocheting, needlepointing, quilting and furniture-making techniques may represent the most visible alteration of art since installation. Think of any offbeat craft (those are all that remain, by the way), and it is probably already in the process of being subsumed by a young, ambitious contemporary artist, if not Martha Stewart. Read more…

Four years ago, Kieu Duc Thuong set up a furniture business, which he named Hai Au. A skilled carpenter, Thuong is both designer and manager and is a minor celebrity in An Tuong Commune in Vinh Tuong District, Vinh Phuc Province.

The 30-year-old craftsman’s birthplace had two traditional woodcraft villages: Bich Chu and Thu Do. He has four brothers, all of whom are carpenters - a skill they inherited from their parents.

When Thuong finished secondary school in 1992, he found work as an assistant carpenter. However, the craft villages began to go down hill because of poor workmanship. Read more…

Hand-painted furniture has always been considered special in one way or another, primarily because it adds sophistication in a way that is unique.

The furniture can be whimsically treated simply with color or formally painted to create a particular look. The scenery can span the globe from tulips to chinoiserie.

Antique pieces are recognized by the hand-painting techniques used in a particular era, while contemporary painted furnishings can be a faux finish of some sort.
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What happened the last time you walked into a store intending to buy furniture? Did you make a purchase? Or did you leave discouraged?

A recent survey of 2,500 households for the trade journal Furniture/Today estimated that $47.5 billion was lost last year because consumers like you and me didn’t find what they wanted when they shopped for new furniture. The biggest percentages of non-purchases were for futons (50 percent), motion sofas (43 percent), curio cabinets (42 percent) and dining rooms (40 percent.) Read more…