Introducing Florica

Clarke & Clarke has wowed us again with the introduction of the Florica collection.

Printed on a heavy weight slubby cotton ground, the five patterns in the Florica Collection were inspired by Romany folklore and are available in the fashionable colorways of chocolate/aqua, sky/rouge, chocolate/raspberry, charcoal and citrus.

The interesting scales of the designs are perfectly complimented by a chenille boucle semi plain, which is available in 25 colors and can be used for both drapes and upholstery.

Take a look:

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NANO-TEX + DURABLOCK = EXTREME PROTECTION

It is rare that fine design is equally matched by durability. Duralee Contract has now married the two ideas with NANO-TEX + DURABLOCK = EXTREME PROTECTION. A 2-book color set, this collection blends beauty and performance with sophisticated appeal.

Brightly colored and easy to use, these fabrics combine Nano-Tex and DuraBlock technology to form a barrier that is virtually impermeable to stains. While Nano-Tex builds revolutionary spill resistance into the fibers of the fabrics, DuraBlock enhances the stain resistance with a durable liquid barrier that is laminated to the textile. Fabrics treated with Nano-Tex and DuraBlock technology meet ASTM F1670 standards for resistance to penetration by blood, ASTM F1671 standards for resistance to penetration by blood borne pathogens (virus and bacteria) and block the passage of dust mites and microscopic allergenic matter, making this versatile collection perfect for any healthcare, contract and hospitality application.

NANO-TEX + DURABLOCK = EXTREME PROTECTION offers a fresh perspective on contract design. These simple, colorful fabrics feature playful, expressive motifs with an edge, adding a touch of personality to any setting. Soft medallions, rich scrollwork and tailored chevron patterns mingle with a multitude of stripes and solids for a comprehensive offering. The Aquamarine/Leaf/Walnut color book is arranged to flow from cool tones of bright teal and variations of blue into fresh greens, culminating with an anchor of warm browns. Sangria/Plum/Gold is an ensemble of fruity tones of reds, featuring pinks and lavender, plum and berry. It graduates to spice, mango, orange and finally a hint of gold.

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View and download photos of Nano-Tex + DuraBlock = Extreme Protection, please click on the link below:
Nano-Tex + DuraBlock = Extreme Protection

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Take A Look At Seattle's modularArts,

Dune™

We've taken some time to post about some of the new look wallpapers that add interest and texture to a room. Now take a look at a Seattle company, modularArts, that creates relief (or bas relief) carving and molded wall surfaces in modular panels that align in horizontal and vertical repetitions on any interior wall for a continuous sculpted surface:

Stream™

Burle™

The panels generally are 32 inches by 32 inches.

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Raindrops In Zen Wallpaper

As an Oregon resident, we have maybe as many names for rain as Eskimos have for snow.  That idea was reinforced when I glanced at the new email from "Contract," the magazine "at the hub of commercial interior design and architecture." There's this photo and a blurb about some new contract wallpaper designs from Bolta:





It's called showers featuring gently cascading raindrops.





The wallpaper comes in 18 colors and look at the names:



Click to enlarge

Sheets, Droplet, Drip Drop, Drizzle, Mist, Pitter, Downpour, Sprinkle, Buckets, Cascade, Thunder, Spray, Drenched, Patter, Deluge, Cats & Dogs, Torrential, and Cloudburst.







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Bridget Otto Thursday

We've had a long-running fascination with wallpaper.  You can see our many posts here.  Today, it appears that Bridget A Otto succumbed and mentioned three interior designers who are friends of ours in Hang it up: Take a fresh look at wallpaper:

• Diane Keaton, of Diane Keaton Interiors - "Keaton says she sees grass cloth coming back in a big way -- but with a fresh look to the old standby. Some have painted designs; others have metal woven through, adding a sheen."
•  Joelle Nesen, owner of Maison Inc.- "...uses grass cloth "a ton." She loves the light refraction off it and says her clients are quick to see its beauty compared with a solid painted room." 
• JJ De Sousa of Digs Inside & Out -"...used a textured, silver granite wallcovering by Phillip Jeffries that looked and felt like sparkling pebbles. That splashy design touch jazzed up an ordinary entry. 

Wallpaper is a wonderful way to get away from  flat painted walls and add texture.  You'll also notice that many fabric vendors have wallpaper to match.

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From the Retail Floor: Home Accents Today Retailer Roundtable

Gift + Home:

From the Retail Floor: Home Accents Today Retailer Roundtable

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Building C-428

Join Jenny Heinzen York, editor in chief of Home Accents Today, as she takes an in-depth look at new data fresh from the retail floor. This exclusive research about store operations will come to life with the help of a panel of retailers who will weigh in on what’s happening on their own sales floors.

I've been asked to participate in the panel discussion in Las Vegas at World Market by Jenny Heinzen York, editor in chief of Home Accents Today.  If you are in the city, join us at 11:00 AM on August 2nd.

New From Duralee: Greenwich

For your oohing and aahing pleasure, Duralee introduces Highland Court Traditional Collection - Greenwich:

Click for larger view

A six-color book set, Greenwich begins with Sand, a versatile selection of both warm and cool neutrals ranging from natural to taupe to charcoal.  Clover features clean, mid-tone greens for a pop of color.  Daffodil offers saturated hues of cheerful yellows mixed with softer, creamy shades.  Blue Opal highlights popular Aqua tones with coordinates such as light green, taupe and daffodil, while Indigo features beautiful rich shades of blue that are reminiscent of fine Chinese porcelain and exotic batiks.  The warm and inviting tomato reds and deep ruby jewel tones of Poppy round out the collection.

Clean, clear colors, ample coordinates and rich textures make the Greenwich Collection easy to shop, while remaining a sophisticated addition to the designer's library.

To view images of the Greenwich Collection, please click on the link below:

Highland Court Greenwich Collection

Take A New Look At Hekman

We posted earlier this week that AF Lighting was a 2010 finalist in the The American Society of Furniture Designers  Pinnacle Awards for outstanding home furnishings. One finalist and vendor for Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery that surprised us was Hekman.  Known for classic American traditional casegoods, Hekman frankly, seemed pretty staid and conservative year after year. Not only was Hekman a finalist, but a finalist in two categories:

• Casual Dining - Havana, Phyllis Bridgeman for Hekman Furniture.
• Formal Dining - European Legacy, Chris Bergelin ASFD for Hekman Furniture.

Our rep Tim DeLauder tells us the new Havana Collection is just coming off the press. Havana will be featured in the Summer and Fall up coming markets. Here's a peak:



Havana Pub Table

 

Same Havana style, the Hekman Dining Table

In the European Legacy collection is this beautiful table and sideboard.

 We are excited to see these two collections at World Market in Las Vegas.

One note, Traditional is not for every one, nor is stripped down contemporary. It's all in your taste, desire for comfort, and the mood or ambiance you're trying to create in your home. That's why Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery in the Pearl carries such an array of styles, all well made and having various price points to fit your budget.

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The Tacked On Look

In Portland we see a lot of contemporary or cubist architecture where boxes seem to be attached to the sides, I suspect, to provide balconies:

Designed by Holst Architecture

Now, Architectural Record has an example of a 12 story square building with local architecture (s)tacked on.

WAM Architecten's hotel in Zaandam, the Netherlands's revitalized center incorporates the iconic wooden houses of the region. Photo: © Roel Backaert

What do you think?

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AF Lighting And Phillips Finalists

The American Society of Furniture Designers has announced finalists for the 2010 Pinnacle Awards for outstanding home furnishings.

In the Lighting division two of our vendors are finalists:

Antasia, David Kitts ASFD, David Martin ASFD and George Chandler ASFD for Hubbardton Forge.
Arieal lamp, Catherine Smoak ASFD for AF Lighting.
Up lamps, Nakarin Kamseela for The Phillips Collection.

Here we have the Ariel Lamp:
The aerial view of America's farmlands as seen from an airplane window provides a unique interpretation in the aerial lamp, whose base of mixed metallic finishes celebrates the textures, colors & symmetry that is the beauty of this lamp, Gray Poly-Silk Fabric Hard-Back Shade.


(Click image to enlarge)

The lamp is 31 inches high and uses a 3-way bulb.

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What Is Sensuede By Duralee?

Did you know that Duralee has an upholstery fabric called Sensuede that is eco-friendly? Eco what?

Sensuede is a luxury faux suede entirely made from high-purity recycled polyester (from PET bottles, fabric and apparel). The production process is eco-efficient too. “Given the concern with conserving natural resources and reducing the burden on the environment, it makes sense to be Green” explains the company.

Both sides of the fabric are properly finished “for a smooth drape and easy ability to contour to any shape and style of furniture”: wall-coverings, drapery, bedding, pillows, sofas, loveseats, dining chairs, recliners, handbags, picture frames, etc. From aircraft, cruise ships, yachts and RVs to corporate and executive interiors, restaurants hotels, home theater seating and bar stools.

If you have a dog like we do, you know dogs love to get up on the dofa and you can't always keep their paws clean, It's a dog! With Sensuede from Duralee you can toss the cushion covers in the wash and they're as good as new. Another point to mention, it is generally cheaper by the yard than its competitors.



You can see all the colors at Sensuede Eco Suedes Volume 1 book # 2716

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Apartment Therapy Discusses Water Features

Apartment Therapy (AT) posts today about water fountains:

A few years ago I was in California and blown away by all the beautiful garden fountains that I saw. So I put together a little roundup post of all the places I could find that I could dream about going to one day to buy a fountain for our own home. Two years later, I still don't have one, but I'm getting closer and my shopper's eye has grown sharper. Here's my latest update with rich collection of sources. Enjoy!

We two have looked longingly at water features for our backyard and checked prices and the sounds they make. We didn't want something too romantic looking with cherubs and it had to be a little rustic to fit with our home. Glancing through the pictures at AT, I noticed that I could be green and have a water feature. Someone has married solar energy to water fountains!

Silicon Solar Inc. has a number of examples:


Hartford Solar Cascading Fountain


Solar Tri-cycle Fountain

And our favorite, but it's only 14 inches high:


4 Tier Granite Solar Fountain

Who do you know in Portland has water features and can they be solar powered?

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The Portland Clicker

Here's a new website to promote your business, events, restaurants, etc. called Portland Clicker and it's free. The people behind it say it's Portland in a nut shell:

Portland Clicker is an easy-to-use website that puts everything you want, need, or wish to know about in Portland, OR within a few clicks of the mouse (clicks... clicker... get it?!)

It's basically everything that Portland has to offer in a nutshell, except we've cracked it open for you. Whether you're a resident, visitor or tourist, we've done the heavy lifting and left it for you to do the clicking!

We added Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery and through the "Photos" I found colorist Debra Wade's Creative Interiors on the site.

There is an upgrade option for $148 lifetime, which allows you to search for keywords, use coupons to promote your business, automatically promote your business on Facebook and Twitter. Go to their website for more features.

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Learn About Blogging from decor8 Founder

When you compile a list of the Top 25 Home Decor blogs, one name is always on such a list, small "d", decor8. ProBlogger interviewed decor8 blogger Holly Becker who gets 35,000 readers a day. Listen to the podcast at Problogger to hear her talk about:

• shares the story behind starting decor8
• gives insight into how she keeps coming up with fresh content ideas
• shares what type of posts work best at drawing in readers to comment
• talks about her decision to bring on a regular columnist
• reflects on dealing with negative comments
• answers the question of ‘what is a conversion’ for you when a reader hits your blog
• share how she’s built her readership
• reveals how she makes a full time living from her blog
• talks about her other ventures, including her ‘blogging your way’ e-course and up coming book

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Facebook Marketing

Mark at Mark Flavin's Blog, dedicated to internet marketing, is seeing a lot of businesses starting to use Facebook or are thinking about it. They probably have a lot of questions and don't want to make mistakes that would reflect badly on their businesses.

Questions like:

- Facebook etiquette: how often should we be replying to fans?

- Does using images prove to be more effective than just words on Facebook pages?

- How often should you post your website content on your Facebook page?

- Is there any value to creating and using Facebook groups?

Mark let us know that there’s a really good post over at Hubspot that answers these questions and a whole lot more.

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A Theory About How Women Buy, Part 2

We received a very nice email from Joe Capillo (who said we could share it) who wrote the article A Theory About How Women Buy in "Furniture World." Joe writes of our post:

Nice to see someone actually reads this stuff. I read your article carefully to see where I connected and where I missed. If you think I'm "worried" about the 40% of shoppers who don't buy, I am in this respect. I spend most of my time on the floor in furntiure stores observing behavior of salespeople, customers, and alleged sales managers, so my observations are not pulled out of the air. My concerns about those "non-buyers" isn't that I believe they should have, or could have been sold. Rather, it's that in virtually all stores, for nearly all salespeople, when those customers leave the building they adopt a "They're dead to me!" attitude, and no further effort is made to cultivate those potential buyers.

This is so true and even we are guilty of dropping the ball on people who stop in and then leave. We have four sources of leads for new business: obviously walk-ins, buyer inquiries from our web site, telephone calls and emails requesting information. We do a real good job of staying in touch with those who come in, outline projects and request pricing. Those are like grapes to Bev, just waiting to drop into her hand. From this group she can look plan ahead to potential business. We do not do a good job of keeping in touch with buyer inquiries and calls and emails.

Good follow up, I've found, demands some type of CRM or customer relationship software or at least some way to keep track of the conversations. When I was just a young stockbroker, I used five by three cards. Each had the prospect's name, the date and what we discussed and a time to follow up with another "touch."

Joe continues:

My point is that there is a tremendous potential for new business in the 60%, 70%, or 80% of shoppers who don't buy, and that most companies have no strategy to deal with those non-buyers.

Yet, we know that many home furnishings purchase decisions take along time to make, and if you can connect to the person, and the project, during those early visits, and gain permission to stay in touch until the time for action has arrived, you stand a better chance of making the sale in the future. There are some simple truths that my three-decade mission in this business has proven: first, in the area of fashion, say, upholstery purchases, first-time shoppers (in a store) make their buying decision that day less than 20% of the time, but on their second visit, they make their purchase 60% of the time. Weaker salespeople don't connect and therefore don't get that second visit. Stronger salespeople do.

In every retail furniture company I've ever worked with the variance in results from the top performing salesperson to the lowest, when measuring ROI, is greater than 40% and often nearer to 50%. So something ain't right.

Joe Capillo is right and these points weren't emphasized in his article. However through this conversation with Joe Capillo, we recognized a flaw in our treatment of new leads which will soon be corrected. I hope you will look at your business and see how you are doing with CRM. It's much cheaper to convert a walk in or call in to a customer than find a totally new person to call or walk in!

BTW, this works for interior designers, too. How many of you keep tickler files with the names of your clients and people who ask about your business? How often do you send them a newsletter or place a phone call? How many of you have a file of potential customers who say to you that someday they are going to remodel their kitchen or get rid of that old sofa? You know what I hated the most? I would hate to hear a potential customer say, Oh I did that last month and kick myself because I hadn't called back or kept in touch. I had missed the time when the cold lead went from warm to HOT!

BTW, did we mention Joe Capillo's new book?



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Wayne Martin Inc. To Close

This is sad news related in John Thompson Designer's blog:

...It is with much sadness that after 40 years of serving the interior design community, Wayne Martin Inc. will be closing on July 31, 2010. ...The economy has put a strain on our resources and as a consequence we can no longer continue business.

Wayne Martin Inc. has showrooms in Portland and Seattle and carries high quality lines in

• Fabric Collections
• Trimming Collections
• Wall Covering
• Leather
• Furniture/Accessories
• Outdoor Furniture / Fabric
• Lighting
• Drapery Hardware
• Floor Covering

It's a sad day to lose a great competitor. We value all the hard work and devotion to customers that has gone into 40 years of business. We would love to hear that a way was found to save this Portland institution.

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KUBOAA?

In April we posted about the creative and contemporary wallpapers of Wallpaper Collective. Big Apple dweller Cindy Weil founded Wallpaper Collective. She and her employees have been on a constant quest for the most interesting, clever, hip and beautiful wallpapers they can find.

Now Cindy Weil is back with KUBOAA,

a word invented by the great modern Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun, and put into the mouth of the starving hero of his masterwork, "Hunger." For Hamsun's delirious hero, the word was a pure sound, something outside, even above, the realm of signifying language. Always aware of the absurd, and with a longing after purity that led him into some dark corners of the psyche, Hamsun meant for his "kuboaa" to be a word free from reference. Kuboaa was the word of the modern primitive, the word of regrounding, of beginning again, outside existing language and away from the freight of civilization.

SO WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH WALLPAPER???



Artist and designer Andrew Hardiman is clearly inspired by the rich tradition of classical design in his native country, however he has managed to step outside these strict parameters and create fresh, edgy, ironic designs, in bold graphics and colors – with hidden messages and inside jokes. Look closely and you will see in his trellis design, a suited wage-man riding the escalator up. A commentary on our sisyphean existence or a beautiful wallcovering for a sunroom? The thinking man’s (woman's) wallpaper.

Another example of Kuboaa is this Sequoia wallpaper. If you look close, you'll see a stag in the background.



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Duralee Teams With Clarke & Clarke

Duralee has really generated buzz this year so far. In February following the success of his first print collection for Duralee, Thomas Paul expanded his offerings of iconic patterns with Thomas Paul 2. You can see some of his samples in our blog post New From Duralee Fabrics or better yet, come into our showroom.

In April we asked the question What is Ikat? and showed that Duralee is well represented in ikat this design trend.

In June we brought to your attention that the Big Kahuna of Fabric Design, Alfred Shaheen, was coming to Duralee. Alfred Shaheen is the big Kahuna designer of the postwar Hawaiian clothing movement.

We also shared with you that Duralee has just introduced a fantastic new fabric group, "The Wainwright Collection". This is a traditional collection of fabrics with more exciting and up to date colorways.

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Drum roll please!

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Now we learn from Fabrics & Furnishings Int. that Clarke & Clarke, the U.K.-based fabric and wallcoverings editor has announced that Duralee, one of the U.S.’s largest textile companies, will be the exclusive distributor for its products in the United States.


Florica - printed on a heavy weight slubby cotton ground, inspired by Romany folklore

Emphasizing a modern flair, Clarke & Clarke is a leader in the realm of home fashion and will now be distributed through Duralee’s sales representatives, showrooms and agent showrooms throughout the U.S.


Manilla- chunky, yet soft semi plain fabric

"Clarke & Clarke is known for high-quality and cutting edge design which has already generated a loyal worldwide customer base,” said Duncan Clarke, Head of U.S. Operations, Clarke & Clarke.


Venetian Silks - Made from Silk and Cotton, ooze luxury

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