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Undernourished Homes In America

June 12, 2008


Maybe someone heard me!  I wrote on Tuesday, that the Nichols & Stone website announced a Going Out of Business Sale, and for this furniture store,

“it's a double whammy.  … we have orders that are incomplete.  In one case we ordered a chest and matching side table back in January.  We finally got notice that the chest is shipping, but the matching side table is not available.  Now the rep for Nichols & Stone tells us that even the chest will not ship.  That means we have to refund thousands of dollars to interior designers and their clients.

We received a call from our rep that in fact the chest will ship to us and the interior designer will accept the partial fill of her order and look for a sidetable from another vendor.  Then Nichols & Stone called us to say they are trying to find us that sidetable.

Thomas Russell writes in FURNITURE Today “Company President and CEO Carlton E. “Tuck” Nichols said in an interview that the company is doing all it can to fill remaining orders before it ceases production.”  He noted that he is still talking with people to keep the company alive.

“We are still hopeful that some form of Nichols & Stone will continue in the end,” Nichols said. “That is my objective, to find a way for this company to go on and continue the proud tradition that we have.”

Nichols had an interesting observation and coined a new phrase for me.  He said one of the problems is a shift in buying patterns:

“Young consumers have money, but they don’t see longevity and buying an heirloom the same way,” he said. “They have changing priorities. I think there has been a real dramatic shift there. It is more important to have the big home and the car in the driveway, rather than to focus on the interior.”

“We have undernourished homes in America. They are not fully furnished. In those that are, they have elected to buy a lesser product to get by.”

Just the other day, Bev visited a beautiful home in a perfect neighborhood.  In the living room were two sofas, but nothing else.  Maybe, our new mantra should be:  Your home is undernourished.  Come to Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery and feed your home. 

Remembering those baby days with our daughters on our shoulders after a meal, we could add to our mantra, “We’ll even burp you!”

Thoughts?  Email them to my undernourished mail box at landfair3554@comcast.net

Posted by Mike Landfair on June 12, 2008 | Comments (0)