October 18,
2012 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Acquisition on October 19, 2012
Bedding retailer Sleep Train has acquired eight Sleep City stores in Eastern Washington and Western Idaho.
Six of the new stores will become Mattress Discounters store fronts and the other two will become Sleep Country USA stores.
The eight new stores take Sleep Train's store count to 273. Sleep Train operates stores under the Sleep Train Mattress Center, Sleep Country USA, Mattress Discounters and Got Sleep? names.
Mattress Discounters expanded beyond California and Nevada into the Northwest last October. The brand will now have locations in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Spokane, Wash.; Richland, Wash.; and Yakima, Wash. Sleep Country USA will add two stores in Pasco, Wash.; and Spokane, Wash.
"Acquiring Sleep City's Washington and Idaho locations allows us to continue to expand in growing markets where we can enhance our consumer connections and provide residents with more convenient locations for quality sleep products," said Dale Carlsen, CEO of Sleep Train. "We are pleased to welcome Sleep City's new employees to join our employee-owned team, and proud to extend the reach of our Sleep Country USA Foster Kids program in these new locations."
Sleep City employees will have the opportunity to join the company and become part of the employee-owned Sleep Country USA and Mattress Discounters teams. The newly branded stores are expected to open on Nov. 7.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
October 18,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in on October 19, 2012
Home furnishings retailer Ikea has kicked off its third annual Life Improvement Project to encourage consumers to make a positive impact on their homes, family and community.
Through the year-long initiative, Ikea is encouraging people to share what they do to improve their lives at home, and to learn from the life improvement tips of others. With each project submitted or shared, the retailer will make a contribution to a Save the Children educational program.
Consumers can visit online to submit ideas and to be inspired by others' life improvement projects, from saving time through better organization to reducing household bills by changing to energy-efficient light bulbs.
To submit a project, contributors choose a room of the home, write a short blurb, and share photos or videos.
A virtual "Life Improvement House" will populate and grow as projects are submitted. Users can browse through the house for inspiration and mark and share their favorites.
For each submitted or shared project, Ikea will make a $1 donation (up to $50,000) to Save the Children's Early Steps for School Success program serving children in need throughout the United States. In addition to supporting a worthwhile cause, consumers will have weekly and monthly opportunities to win Ikea gift cards to help bring their favorite ideas to life in their own home.
"We believe that making a positive impact in your home can be fun and easy," said Lisa Allen, Ikea Life Improvement Project leader. "With the Life Improvement Project, we hope to collect creative, simple, and practical ideas that have worked in real people's homes and to build a community of people who can really help to inspire one another."
As part of the program, Ikea has enlisted a team of trusted home expert contributors - entertainment expert Amy Atlas, interior designer Erin Gates, green home guru Cathy Hobbs, and master life coach Susan Hyatt - to share their expertise and individual life improvement journeys. In addition, acclaimed journalist and television host Lisa Ling has partnered with Ikea to serve as program ambassador to help encourage people to share their life improvement stories.
"Throughout the project, we'll be collecting and sharing inspirational stories, something I'm very familiar with as a journalist," said Ling, whose most recent own life improvement project was building the first LEED Platinum-certified home in Santa Monica, Calif. "By participating, you're not only bettering your own home but also helping children in need."
In addition, as part of the ongoing Ikea commitment to improving all the places we call home, Ikea will also issue the "Life Improvement Challenge" to teams of Ikea co-workers to support local community projects. Ikea will provide a total of $500,000 worth of home furnishings, services, design expertise and manpower for this effort.
Co-worker teams will submit their community project proposals, which will be voted on by their peers. Consumers will then help pick the 38 winning projects by voting for their favorite finalists starting in February. Winning projects will be announced in the spring.
October 18,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on October 19, 2012
Art Van Furniture has named veteran mattress buyer George Mattress George Bruni the furniture retailer's 2012 Art Van Furniture Buyer of the Year.
Bruni is responsible for purchasing 10 brands of mattresses for 70 mattress stores including
Art Van PureSleep and
Mattress World.
Mattresses had the largest percentage of sales growth year to year and drove the largest amount of traffic into our stores, said Kim Yost, Art Van Furniture CEO. It was a record breaking year for mattress sales at Art Van and Bruni led our team for our sales growth.
According to Senior Vice President of Merchandising Bob Price, Bruni was selected as the 2012 Buyer of the Year based on his sales results, profit contribution and exceptional degree of teamwork exhibited during 2012.
Our mattress business is critical to our success, said David Van Elslander, vice president of Art Van Pure Sleep. Brunis expertise in merchanding our Art Van Pure Sleep business and our Matress World business is unparalleled.
Bruni leads a four-member team and has been with Warren, Mich.-based Art Van Furniture for 23 years as the senior buyer for mattresses.
Art Van operates 34 stores throughout Michigan, a full service e-commerce Web site, plus six freestanding Art Van PureSleep bedding stores in Canton, Troy, Rochester Hills, Brighton, Ann Arbor and New Hudson, Mich.
October 18,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Executive Changes on October 19, 2012
Global indoor and outdoor lighting vendor Maxlite has named Francisco Garza product marketing manager.
Garza reports to Director of Product Marketing Pat Treadway. MaxLite, West Caldwell, N.J., is the mmanufacturer and marketer of theMaxLED line of LED luminaires and lamps.
With more than 20 years of lighting industry experience, Francisco brings in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in product management, project development and other related positions, said Treadway. We have a very strong product agenda and are looking forward to Franciscos impact on our upcoming offerings in the near future and into 2013. He is a results-focused and driven lighting professional with deep technical knowledge and proven business experience.
Garzas current responsibilities include helping design and launch new lighting fixtures, lamps, ballasts and controls, as well as modifying existing products in the line. Interfacing with MaxLites research and development, marketing, product development, design and sales teams, Garza is assigned the task of creating new linear fluorescent and LED high bay and outdoor fixtures.
His extensive career experience includes developing new LED, HID and fluorescent fixtures for Philips-Crescent/Stonco Lighting in various product management, sales and applications engineering roles.
Garza holds a Masters of Science in Lighting from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
October 17,
2012 by in UnCategorized
By Aggregated Content in on October 18, 2012
from https://newsdesk4.moreover.com/click/?p=Qy83NDE2NDAwNzM2Jm49TkFQQ08&a=MTIwMzE1MTI1MjA&f=TmV3cw&s=cmljaHhtbA&u=YWNyZW5zaGF3QG5hcGNvLmNvbQ&c=TkFQQ08&i=MA&e=VmFjYXZpbGxlIFJlcG9ydGVy&d=1989&t=1
U.S. home construction is making a comeback that could invigorate the economy's still-weak recovery.
Builders last month started construction on single-family houses and apartments at the fastest rate in more than four years, the Commerce Department...
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