Art Room Furniture

NC furniture maker looks to Brazil for sales

One of the first things Art Negrin noticed during his recent trip to Brazil was the lack of shoes.

Negrin, vice president of international sales for the High Point-based furniture maker Lexington Home Brands, didn't mean this literally. He was referring to an often-told tale about two shoe salesmen who are sent to a remote island by their employer.

The first arrives and, after realizing nobody is wearing shoes, quickly declares it a lost cause and leaves. The second makes the same observation and declares it to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

"There's nothing like what we do," Negrin, 55, said, noting that the Brazilian showrooms he visited were filled with sleek European-style furniture. "All the customer is getting is this one style. There was very, very little choice."

Negrin's company paid $3,000 - not including airfare and accommodations - to send him on the weeklong trade mission, which was sponsored by the North Carolina and U.S. commerce departments and open only to furniture companies.

The money covered the cost of hiring interpreters and the legwork involved in setting up meetings with a dozen furniture retailers in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Lexington, like many North Carolina companies, is looking to fast-growing emerging markets to help fuel its growth. Brazil has become an attractive opportunity for many North Carolina companies given the purchasing power of its growing middle class.

State and federal officials are eager to help facilitate these efforts as they try to meet President Barack Obama's ambitious goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015.

This was the first trip to Brazil organized by state officials since North Carolina hired a consultant in San Paolo to help connect companies with export opportunities.

Still, saying you want to boost exports and committing to it are two different things.

Lexington was the only North Carolina furniture company that signed up for the trade mission. When commerce officials announced the trip six months ago, a half-dozen furniture companies expressed interest.

"As time got closer and people had to spend money and make plans, we just started having dropouts," said Mike Padjen, who heads the state's Furniture Export Office and led the trip. "I think the reality of it is, in a lot of cases, a lot of companies are worried about making payroll next week and not worried about expanding markets outside the United States.

Efficient Interior Design for Small Spaces | Furniture Stores

For those small-home dwellers defined as minimalists, interior design is less a matter of how much one can live with as it’s how much one can live without. Even so, the same interior design principles apply to all who want to maximize their downsized living area. The first principle to understand is that interior design for small spaces has no room for clutter; all unused or unusable furniture , knick-knacks and appliances must go.

The second principle addresses spaciousness-and not lack of it. It’s possible to visually enlarge a room’s proportions by positioning and re-purposing furniture, especially with the multi-use pieces on the market today. Maximizing spaciousness also involves identifying each room’s theme, especially the living room , which will likely be the largest room. With a vision for how to best maximize living area, practice the art of illusion. Old tricks apply: incorporate as many large windows as possible; the higher the ceiling, the larger the room seems; avoid furnishing rooms with big, overstuffed furniture. Also, paint walls in bright colors to avoid the illusion of being “boxed in” in a warm, dark room-going further, boldly painted walls with equally bold patterns can maximize the impact of a room’s theme. For odd-shaped or uneven walls, painting a horizontal stripe along a wall’s length makes a small room appear larger. In fact, the stripe distracts the eye away from the uneven wall in the room.

Let me go on with this piece of writing. Allowing as much floor area to show also lends to a spacious effect. This can be achieved with tables , sofas and chairs without skirts or bases. Simple, basic aesthetics work well for any small house, and always match furniture fabrics and colors for a streamlined look. A cohesive appearance is the goal; avoid contrasting furniture colors or patterns, which throws the eye. A must-have for any downsized space is closed storage, and utilizing furniture with hidden storage areas is a big plus.

Aside from furniture, other effective interior design for the downsized home that “opens up” a room is decorating the walls with photos or art that’s few in number and small in size. Smaller frames-vertical on vertical walls and horizontal on horizontal walls-allow wall space to carry the eye from one room to the next, contributing to a sense of flow in the house.

Also hang pictures at or above eye level; this prompts the eye to keep looking up and around, which is the goal for the illusion of spaciousness. Whatever the element in a room-furniture, art, electronics-small space works when scale is understood. Some designers note that scale is the most important element in a small space. If the scale is off, no amount of clever design can compensate. It simply won’t work.

Furniture as art, room as allusion, Maryland Art Place : September 18-November 8, 1986

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