7 minute read
Furniture Focus
HABERSHAM’S ARROW BED IN A TRUFFLE FINISH
Mid-Century Modern, Industrial Farmhouse Chic: It’s a Trend!
HOW TWO FURNITURE FIRMS AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM ARE CATERING TO THE DYNAMIC SHIFTS IN BUYER PREFERENCES
IBY BILL ESLER n the over-heated furniture market, perhaps it’s a fool’s errand to try to nail down design trends, but as we emerge from the penumbra of all that COVID-19 has eclipsed, patterns of preference among buyers are unmistakable and widespread. The pandemic rapidly spawned lifestyle shifts—mandates to work, to educate, even to worship—shifts that have been accompanied by tectonic changes in purchasing habits and supply chain, affecting everything we do. Pre-pandemic, a nascent “resimercial” trend had been identified as residential furniture buyers hunted for innovative designs heretofore available only to professional office or hospitality purchasing agents. During the pandemic, however, corporate central purchasing surrendered the keys to millions of newly designated office furniture buyers, the individuals working at home. Likewise, with brick-and-mortar retail restricted, residential furniture sales moved online. This Google soup of buying options seems to have sped up the dissemination of at least some design trends, particularly a rustic industrial motif featuring rough hewn wood finishes frequently trimmed in metal or mounted on metal frames and maybe seen in outlets ranging from Ashley Furniture to Wayfair and Amazon, to
Herman Miller’s Design Within Reach. Exiting central cities for cheaper, less dense (and perceived as healthier) neighborhoods and suburbs, millennial home buyers are now the key consumer influence on design trends. For many of them, ready to assemble flat-pack furniture in laminated MDF was already a familiar solution. The more well-heeled may be looking for a higher grade. But across the board, design preferences have shifted largely in lockstep to more restrained styles like mid-century modern and industrial farmhouse.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 ›
‹ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16
Two firms responding to these changing preferences are Habersham, the respected Georgia maker of bespoke furniture, and Sauder, the venerable Ohio maker of RTA furniture.
Located in Toccoa, GA., Habersham has been known for its elegantly carved, shaped and hand finished residential furniture designs, evoking moderately restrained expressions of French country baroque, produced in solid wood—poplar and maple—and hand finished and sprayed, customized with paints from Benjamin Moore.
In May, Habersham announced a radical departure from its signature work, launching the Eternal Collection, its first in nearly a decade. Said to be “inspired by the oak tree,” the spare designs—mid-century modern crossed with industrial farmhouse—features four beds and four nightstands, with plans for occasional tables, sideboards, vanities and more throughout 2021.
Habersham says the designs are like their traditional work, every item handcrafted and heirloom-quality intended to last for generations. “When people hear the name Habersham, they think of exceptional quality and delicate details, so it’s exciting to offer that level of craftsmanship in an entirely new style,” said Daniel Wright, Vice President of Design. “Our goal with this collection was to pull concepts from increasingly popular mid-century modern architecture and that’s what inspired the unique movement of lines across each piece.”
The materials fabricated for Eternal will call on different skills, with red oak slats laminated to maple veneer furniture-grade plywood. The wood is laid out in three patterns—herringbone Arrow, louvered Ridge, cross-hatched Cardinal and a plain design, Gorge.
Other techniques required—mortise and tenon joints and hand and spray finishing—draw on familiar skill sets for Habersham’s craftsmen. Five finishes for red oak Eternal line (from washed grays through two rich browns), Woodring, and darker Bearpaw, are mixed from the Sherwin Williams lines.
“Habersham operates differently than most furniture companies who are very collection-driven,” said a company spokesperson. “More than 30% of Habersham’s furniture orders are custom, and the business is very interior design-oriented.” The stately custom pieces have historically been springboards for new product lines. Habersham had previously launched a transitional version of its kitchen cabinet line, Moderne Cabinetry. “We spent the last few years focusing on getting the cabinetry lines more robust, so the time was right to expand furniture offerings and satisfy the request of designers,” they said. “The offerings are quite different, so we wouldn’t necessarily say there is a relationship between the two. However, both lines were a direct result of Habersham listening to the requests from our clients to offer new styles of products that are in line with our commitment to high-quality standards and made-in-America products.”
Matt Eddy, CEO of Habersham, calls Eternal a “cleaner line of furniture that is crafted in a new medium while still maintaining Habersham’s standards. Customers can choose nearly any customization imaginable, making each piece unique.”
Though far from the world of Habersham bespoke, Sauder Woodworking has channeled similar consumer design preferences into its ready-to-assemble furniture lines. Remarkably, it manufactures everything MDF and decor paper laminates. Closely tracking design, texture and color trends, Sauder has captured the interest of millennial home buyers with the latest in farmhouse industrial chic.
At High Point Market in June, Sauder released a broad array of new items, opening the floodgates on an accumulation of more than 350 products developed during the pandemic. Well before the pandemic, Sauder had been innovating and diversifying. It began contract manufacture for IKEA, it launched a kitchen cabinet line, created ClosetTrac, supplanting commodity flat-pack furniture with stylish products.
In May, Sauder Commercial Office was launched, a venture into pre-assembled, ANSI/BIFMA-certified furnishings for commercial office interiors. It had moved into the office furniture arena, recognizing the resimercial trend as well as the increased numbers of workers based in their homes. This trend increased dramatically in 2020 and continues even as the pandemic recedes.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 ›
STANDING DESK FROM THE SAUDER SELECT COLLECTION
‹ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18
“Even before the pandemic dramatically shifted work patterns and environments, we saw a growing trend toward remote work, satellite offices and shared workspaces,” says Mike Lambright, senior director of marketing at Sauder. “Consequently, our development into this arena has been in the works for several years and we have been ‘quietly’ launching commercial grade product into our residential furniture line since 2016.”
The dynamic work-from-home surge has created a need for varied styles of office furniture with broader function. And along with that comes an opportunity to launch the effort in a more public way. Three Sauder product lines—Office Works, Worksense, and Commercial Extensions—offer different ways of imagining commercial office furniture to meet the diverse needs of today’s consumer and business customer.
Featuring a range of styles from unified professional to eclectic residential and everything in between, all Sauder Commercial Office furniture meets or exceeds ANSI/BIFMA compliance for safety, durability, and structural integrity.
“These products represent a performance upgrade to our standard residential offerings and include designs that play well in workat-home environments,” says Lambright. The office furniture lines include another shift for Sauder: shipping goods that are fully assembled or with pre-assembled components like drawers and desk pedestals for the convenience of business customers.
“Our core competency in Archbold is manufacturing wood,” says Joe Ruedinger, Principal Design Director at Sauder Woodworking. Ruedinger, who joined the firm just over three years ago, has been impressed with the company’s inventive approach to fabrication.
“In joining Sauder, it was something that I found refreshing—that Sauder does so much with elements like mouldings,” Ruedinger said. “We’re really interested in pushing the envelope in terms of developing specialized methods for applying laminate material, especially to a deeper, more defined shape.” An example can be found in one of the new Sauder Commercial Office lines, Palo Alto, a trendy midcentury modern office suite in Spice Mahogany with a post-modern touch—louvered drawer fronts—produced inline through adaptation of existing fabrication techniques.
“We wrapped the laminate after the louvered part has been shaped,” explains Ruedinger. “It’s a laminated paper over either MDF or particleboard. The work surfaces are melamine. For the louver in particular, they might take a particleboard and run it through some kind of a cutting or grooving device.”
These kinds of contours might ordinarily call for a membrane press, an approach Sauder had used previously. But the company has developed its own way to apply the decor paper uniformly to highly contoured surfaces. “We call them ‘wrapped mouldings.’ It’s something in which Sauder has expertise, our specialty, something we do very well,” said Ruedinger. The approach can also be found on a type of crown moulding on Sauder’s Heritage Hill hutch done in a classic cherry finish.
Like other furniture firms, Sauder tracks design trends at shows and conferences, and receives guidance from analysts at decor paper printers, who will show developing color lines, then adapt colors and textures at Sauder’s request.
“They come to us with cylinders that they’ve made when they’re working on the colors,” said Ruedinger. “And then we’ll specify specific finishes or colors that we want.” s p
SAUDER’S PALO ALTO COLLECTION IN SPICED MAHOGANY FINISH
THE WOOD FOR HABERSHAM’S FURNITURE IS LAID OUT IN THREE PATTERNS AND IS AVAILABLE IN A WIDE RANGE OF FINISHES.
LEFT: ARROW IN CLOUD VEIL RIGHT: RIDGE PANEL IN
