IN SPIRING
A home furnishings magazine that explores aspirational spaces, focused on designer insights and leading quality brands for the home.
Designer Insights
Looking through the lens of designer Mark D. Sikes
FabricTrends
A conversation with textile expert Laura Levinson at Valdese Weavers
INSPIRING
Inspiring Design.
senses.
See our 5 Buyer Insights throughout the magazine.
In loving memory of our dear friend, Stephen Parker Goss, president of Hickory Chair. 1960-2023
Join 1 2 3-7 8-9 10-13 14-15 16-19 20-23 24 2.
We want our magazine to be more than just pretty pictures and affirmations from the brightest minds of the home fashions industry. We also want to educate the luxury consumer on the value of luxury home furnishings.Throughout this magazine, we will share the quality queues of buying luxury upholstery and where your dollars go when selecting this level of fine furnishings. In each section, we will dive into the core components of luxury upholstery beyond design; Frame, Suspension, Cushions, Fabric and Tailoring. At Good’s we work very closely with our upholstery suppliers right here in Hickory, NC, and we have the most experienced and best trained sales organization in the home furnishings industry, and we want to share that knowledge with you to help you in selecting pieces of fine furnishings for your home.
Our designers in Hickory and Charlotte/Pineville, NC look forward to helping you create the rooms of your dreams that your family and friends can enjoy for many years.
goodshomefurnishings.com
us as we influence your
“INSPIRING by Good’s Home Furnishings is our effort to bring you design inspiration for your home through alluring home fashion photography from the finest names in home furnishings, along with features that showcase design expertise from some of the industry’s most skilled professionals.” - Kevin Bowman CEO Vanguard Intro Vanguard Vanguard Designer Insights Chaddock Woven Century Taylor King Back Cover Phillips Collection
Great design begins with great inspiration. The talented designers, whose work graces the pages of our magazine, understand the meaning of “Inspiring”, our magazine’s title, which is, “giving someone positive or creative feelings”. Whether the flow of a fabric of a dress for a fashion designer, or the flow through the room for an interior designer, the creativity begins at a point in the mind, or on a canvas, or today, even on a computer screen. Regardless of its origin, the inspiration for creation of room design is one that begins a process of collaboration; the collaboration of color, texture, tone, dimension, scale, mood, lighting, layering, and ultimately the love for what all of these things can produce for a client.
Please join us on this journey in this edition of Inspiring. Our journey will introduce you to some of the very best furniture manufacturers in the world, with alluring images, thought-provoking product designs, and carefully curated interiors that offer the promise of aspiration to our readers.
IN SPIRING
SHOP VANGUARD
3.
Vanguard Furniture featured on cover and pages 2-7
It all started in a modest facility with two employees and a perfect velvet chair. Today, over 50 years later, Vanguard Furniture is still making good on its name to be at the forefront of the furniture industry — from one perfect velvet chair to endless personalized possibilities. Custom upholstery in your choice of fabrics and trims and stylish dining rooms and bedrooms in your choice of finishes.
4.
Create the perfect seating for your home featuring the Boyden sectional and Troy chair by Vanguard designer Thom Filicia. Choice of fabrics and pillows.
5.
The essence of easy going elegance, the Dune collection offers an escape from the everyday and a return to simplicity. It’s modern organic style draws inspiration from the enduring appeal of natural elements.
6.
FRAME: Frame It Up. Upholstery frames today are made from either solid wood or furniture grade plywood. Each of these two materials are excellent for high quality frame-building. The material used in a frame is important, but a material is only as good as the joint connecting it to another piece of the frame.
Solid wood frames are used less and less these days and typically more for certain portions of the frame where shape is very important, such as a slender arm, or exposed leg. Solid wood frames are made from hardwoods and are joined together with quality joinery such as mortise and tenon and finger-joints. Glue, screws, dowels, and staples are used as additional support for the joinery, not the primary support. Plywood frames are often stronger and heavier than their solid wood counterparts. At the lower-end of upholstery manufacturing, plywood is of lower quality, has less layers, has many material voids that create weakness, and are joined poorly with heavy reliance on staples. At the luxury end of the scale, plywood has many layers, is often 21mm or 13/16“ thick, and is of exceptional quality with little voids in the material. Quality joinery work is also done with these high-grade plywoods and these frames are exceptionally strong and have no movement between joints, which is what creates annoying squeaking noise when you sit or move around.
7.
Designer Insights
Design conversation with Chaddock designer Mark D. Sikes
Mark, your designs use such powerful color, particularly of your famous blue tones. Where does this inspiration of color come from? Ever since I can remember, my favorite palettes have been blues and greens. These colors are everywhere around us in nature — the sky, grass, oceans and forests. Inspiration is all around us.
Your portfolio covers a wide range of home products; from custom furniture and fine fabrics and rugs, to lighting and tabletop. Can you give our readers some insight into how you view each of these categories and how they complement one another? Is there one particular product category you like to start with in a room project?
I always look at the environment outside the house. The exterior environment informs the interiors. From there, I start with fabrics. Some designers start with rugs, but for me it will always be fabrics.
Mark D. Sikes is an esteemed interior designer and taste-master working on projects throughout the United States and abroad. He is known for all-American sensibilities and a fresh take on classical aesthetics. Mark has a talent for creating beautiful and timeless interiors that embody an indoor/outdoor lifestyle. His rooms have been much celebrated, and his work has been featured in numerous magazines and show homes. Mark seeks to create beautiful interiors and, above all, a more beautiful world. Beauty is everywhere. It surrounds us each and every day; all we have to do is to look. 8.
Our readers are very interested in how you approach the layering of color, texture, and tone in your rooms. Can you give us some insight on where you like to begin with color, and how you use layering of tones to bring dimension to your rooms? Something always inspires the color palette whether it’s a hero fabric, a piece of art, or an antique textile.
“Something always inspires the color palette whether it’s a hero fabric, a piece of art, or an antique textile.”
Where is your favorite place in the world to gather design inspiration, and why?
My library in my home in Los Angeles. It is filled with books and magazines and every inch is covered in blue and white stripes — my favorite. I love to sit in there and peruse.
What types of projects are you working on now, and how do you see the interior design industry right now?
We’re lucky to be working on projects all over the country because we get to be inspired by new places, people, and perspectives. It pushes us creatively to work in new landscapes, each with their own different light, sensibilities, moods and feelings. It is also a great exercise in pushing ourselves to find amazing new vendors local to these projects and building relationships in new places.
9.
“ I start with fabrics. Some designers start with rugs, but for me it will always be fabrics.”
“We get to be inspired by new places, people, and perspectives.”
Chaddock is a leader in creating timeless designs in dining, bedrooms and living rooms. Specially created finishes and custom fabrics and pillows all add to the richness and beauty of each selected piece.
10.
Woven Voices In Textile Trends
A conversation with textile expert Laura Levinson at Valdese Weavers
1. Please tell us about what brought you to the textile industry?
I fell in love with Textiles after traveling to Guatemala in college. Every village or town had its own vibrant natural dyed color. Observing firsthand cultural ties to woven cloth resonated with my love of people. Learning to weave with a back strap loom on a local person’s back porch gave me a new appreciation for the craft. I knew that I wanted to work in the industry and Home Furnishings was a natural fit. I love the manufacturing processes and the craftspeople who create the product. As a designer I enjoy problem solving and making fabric that can be mass produced in our small western North Carolina community.
2. You are a textile expert and you serve as a Lead Council Member at NC State’s College of Design, where you earned your undergraduate degree prior to your Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design. What do you enjoy most about giving back to the design community in helping to educate students in the textile industry?
I feel a personal responsibility to inspire the next generation I love the challenge of finding someone’s talent and passion, then helping them to discover a meaningful career path. Nothing brings me greater joy in my work than watching a designer grow in their knowledge and job focus. My college Board work provides insight into new technologies and allows me to interact with the newest designers. It also allows me an avenue to contribute to curriculums in academia. We need colleges to produce students who have advanced technical skills plus a sense of style that pushes what we know. We in turn have a responsibility to stay connected and to provide constant feedback. It is a circular process that rewards us all.
3. Please tell us about the exciting new colors and furniture fabric trends to expect to see in the furniture marketplace over the next 12 months.
We follow multiple trend-forecasting services and travel around the globe to confirm our direction. This past January, the Paris shows highlighted natural dyed color paired with soft curved furniture frames. The low saturated shades serve as a neutral background for interiors, especially with the heavy influence of abstract rug motifs. With traditional interiors reemerging, colors are trending in the same direction. Deep clay reds, soft cypress greens, and goldenrod to camel shades are evolving as our future palette. The anchor color of cool gray is declining with burnt sienna and toffee browns gaining in popularity. The most popular trend by far is the use of performance fabric in every area of the home. Consumers seek solutions to durability in their homes opting for stain resistant, cleanable fabrics that feel good and have a decorative look. In today’s market you don’t need to sacrifice style for optimum performance.
4. What is the most mis-understood thing about fabrics?
A common misconception in the fabric world is that natural fibers are more durable than synthetics. While natural fabrics such as cotton, silk, and linen are often prized for their softness, drapability, and aesthetic qualities, synthetic fibers have come along way over the years and been re-imagined or engineered to mimic natural fiber attributes. The ability to deluster synthetic yarns allows them to have the look and feel of cotton, but with superior performance qualities
“I fell in love with textiles after traveling to Guatemala in college.”
“In today’s market you don’t need to sacrifice style for optimum performance.”
14.
5. Give our readers some insight into textile manufacturing that they probably would not know.
We manufacture woven Jacquard fabrics in a vertically integrated operation spread over four facilities. We make our own yarn, dye the yarn, weave, and finish fabrics that surpass industry standards. Our yarn dying operation is like dying a tee shirt at home. We have a lab where we can match any color including UV resistant shades. Our outdoor colors take up to three months to test. A fun fact about our yarn toolbox is that we have a recycled tee shirt yarn and a Seaqual™ yarn, which is made from plastic bottle ocean waste
Many of our looms use air to move the yarn across the loom at lightning speed. State of the art looms can throw a piece of yarn back and forth 800 times per minute. It’s fascinating to watch the Jacquard designs roll off the loom in our production environment. Our finishing operation uses several machines from Italy that soften fabric without losing its performance attributes. All sorts of techniques are used to change the hand of a fabric. Yarns can be twisted, fabrics can be punched with needles, or treated with a fabric softener not unlike the laundry in your home. We test every fabric to before offering it for sale to ensure light-fastness and durability. One of our testing methods simulates sitting on a fabric then standing back up 50,000 times. Durability such as this is a requirement in high use areas of your home.
6. Are all fabrics designed to be used on furniture? If not, what can be done to make them acceptable?
The repeat of a fabric is the most critical decision in selecting a fabric to frame combination. Every fabric has an underlying geometric grid that is hidden to most consumers. Certain repeats are more suitable for pillows and cushions than others. Any fabric layout can be applied to any furniture frame, but the harder it is to match the repeat, the more expensive it is to upholster, because it requires more fabric and more skill.
7. What are your personal favorite fabric patterns and colors?
I live in a neutral world at home. I work with color all day long in my job, so I need a sea of plains and neutrals to decompress. My eye is always drawn to patterns that reference a cultural textile but don’t copy the motifs. It’s a delicate balance but an intriguing design challenge. I have a hard time selecting one specific pattern, as our designers create my new favorite every season. For practical reasons, I like performance fabrics. But if you ask me what my favorite pattern and color is today, I will tell you it’s the ones we are working on right now.
“A fun fact about our yarn toolbox is that we have a recycled tee shirt yarn and a SeaqualTM yarn, which is made from plastic bottle ocean waste.”
15.
“I work with color all day long in my job, so I need a sea of plains and neutrals to decompress.”
Century Furniture is one of the world’s largest privately owned manufacturers of upper-end residential furniture. Its broad line of wood and upholstered furniture consists of bedroom, dining and occasional collections in traditional, transitional and contemporary styling. Century is recognized in the industry as a design leader, ranked in the forefront for its expertise in finishing and the many details of fine craftsmanship.
16.
Century Oberyn sectional with loose pillow back, down filled cushions, fiber down backs and available in your choice of fabrics and choice of pillows.
CUSHIONS: A Cushy Job. The cushion is the most recognizable component of the sofa and the one that our bodies mostly come in contact with; OK the part of our body that can most appreciate a comfortable seat. Cushions are encased within the fabric or leather casing and come in a variety of forms.
First of all, foam seat cushions are a petroleum derivative. Mixed with other polymers, this foam is formed and cut to order to fit specifications from upholstery makers. Foam cushions, depending on their formula, can be more or less dense which affects their resiliency (or return to form) and comfort. Density in foam cushions is measured on a scale of pounds per cubic foot with a typical range of 1.5 to 3.5 with the higher number meaning more density and comfort.
The cushion itself can either be entirely foam, or have springs imbedded within the cushion for added support and comfort. Some cushions, are made firmer or softer. The cushion works in concert with the frame and suspension system to create comfort While the frame and suspension system cannot be adjusted, the cushion is where a consumer can customize their sit. The fabric choice can also impact the feel of a cushion as well, depending on how the fabric breathes and reacts to draping around the cushion.
Seat cushions at the higher-end of upholstery are bagged in a sewn muslin cover and often surrounded by bags filled with goose feathers (down blend) or other luxury loft material on either side, which are kept neat and tidy within sewn channels. The entire cushion is contained within the fabric or leather casing, which is closed with a quality zipper for access. Turning cushions regularly (monthly at minimum) is a critical part of keeping upholstery cushions looking fresh and new. These luxury materials like goose feathers, need fluffing to keep their loft and shape.
17.
CENTURY CLASSIC. MODERN. REFINED.
When you choose Century Furniture, their ability to customize whatever you desire is much like commissioning an artist to create a fine work of art. With over 2000 fabrics, leathers and trims and 50+ finishes there are no limits as to how you can express yourself with our furniture. The possibilities are truly infinite. From the frame construction, to the hand-application of your choice of finish and distressing; to the sewing and application of the fabric or leather, each piece of Century Furniture passes through the hands of some of the most experienced artisans and craftsmen in the industry.
PROMISE TO YOU IN MAKING THE FINEST HOME FURNISHINGS.
“ Century Furniture strives to make furniture of such impeccable quality that it brings joy not only to the people who own it, but also to the craftsmen who build it.”
- Harley F. Shuford, Sr.
18.
FABRICS: FABulous Fabrics. Now comes the color, texture and tone of upholstery, the fabric! The choice of fabrics can be the most daunting part of the upholstery selection process. Each supplier has 1000 or more fabrics available in their line with varying materials, colors and patterns. At Good’s we shop the High Point Furniture Market bi-annually and see the fabrics and correlates that will be in the marketplace in the coming 6 months to a year. These fabrics are selected by some of the most experienced textile experts in the world, and made available to you before anyone else through our online and in-store trunk shows.
Upholstery fabrics have had tremendous innovation in recent years, particularly with Performance Fabrics. But, be careful with that word, as “Performance” can mean a number of things (more cleanable, more fade-resistant, more durable, for indoor and outdoor use, etc...). It is just important to understand the properties of Performance Fabrics to ensure that they are fitting the needs in your home. Performance Fabrics are tremendous alternatives for families with an active lifestyle, but they sometimes come with a price, and that price is in the “hand” or feel of the fabric, which can sometimes be more rigid and less luxurious feeling. If you are concerned about cleanability and protection, your best option is likely to use our Guardsman Protection Plan to both protect your investment, and perhaps more importantly, to help you with your fabric selection. This program allows you to select the fabric of your choice, and to allow you to really enjoy the feel of luxury fabrics without having to worry about stains or damage.
Making the Grade. In upholstery, the grading of the fabric is what controls the price of the piece more than anything else. A particular frame will have a starting grade price and then a number of pricing tiers (grade 10, 20, 30, 40,… is typical). The grading of upholstery fabrics is done based on a number of factors (material costs, weaving/milling costs, etc…), but the biggest factor in grading fabrics for upholstery use is the amount of fabric waste created to upholster an item in that fabric
19.
“Handcrafted In North Carolina By Fine Artisans.”
Create the perfect look for your home. Almost every item from Taylor King can be customized to meet your exact needs. Whether you want an item deeper, taller, longer or a plethora of other custom changes, Taylor King is happy to accommodate those needs. Taylor King features some of the newest designs and collections like the work of Celerie Kemble and fine occasional pieces by Woodbridge Furniture. Shop goodshomefurnishings.com
20.
“From classic styles to modern contemporary looks, there’s something for every taste.”
21.
“Featuring Woodbridge Occasional Tables”
TAILORING: Tailored to a T. Once you have made your fabric selection, how that fabric is cut and ultimately applied to the upholstery piece is what really sets higher-end upholstery makers apart. Yes, their frames, suspension systems and cushions are superior, but it is the tailoring that mostly distinguishes finely made upholstery.
Tailoring speaks to everything from the initial cutting of the fabric, to the sewing of the parts, to the tufting, inside/outside upholstering and foam fill, and nail head and trim application. The craftsmen and women that perform these various tasks in the factory are skilled artisans.
Something seams off. Well, sometimes it is what you don’t see that really matters. Very often, poor tailoring falls under the category of, “you will know it when you see it”. Conversely, great tailoring is most notable along the seams. How a seat casing fits on a cushion, or how a welting is applied above a skirt or along a cushion, or how the foam fits around an arm, are all general indicators of good tailoring.
The hanging of a skirt is one of the more tell-tale signs of great upholstery tailoring. How a skirt hangs to the floor and falls from the edge of the seating surface is an artwork that is under-appreciated. The use of techniques to keep a skirt hanging properly, such as weighted skirt edges, or turn-backs in the fabric, allow a fabric to drape beautifully, no different than a clothing designer of a gorgeous wedding dress.
Pattern matching is another key way to identify great upholstery tailoring. Patterns are cut for component parts with the center point of the repeat properly centered on the part, but getting the pattern on that part to match up to the adjacent parts is the real artistry of upholstery tailoring. Quality upholstery should see a “flow match” of the pattern down from the seat back, through the cushions and to the floor. Along the sides of the piece, the pattern should match as it rolls across the arm and down the side of the piece to the floor, and lastly across the back of the sofa in the same fashion.
22.
Passion. Finesse. Community. These are the pillars that started Taylor King almost fifty years ago. As one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of American made custom upholstered furniture, Taylor King attributes its success to an unparalleled commitment to quality and comfort.
THE ART OF UPHOLSTERY
Taylor King hardwood frames are constructed for a lifetime. Eight-way hand tied coil springs. Inside backs consist of sinuous springs, foam and fiber. Taylor King offers four different types of seat cushions and back cushions. Specify from over 1600 fabrics,125 leathers, 125 trims and 45 wood finishes.
HANDCRAFTED CASE GOODS
Woodbridge Furniture is a high-end brand offering stylish case goods, dining and occasional furniture. Woodbridge from its inception has focused on high quality veneers and finishes combined with best in class construction.
23.
