Vanity sinks spawn more bathroom items
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, June 21, 2004
High Point — The success of vanity sink cabinets has spawned even more furniture for the bathroom, from salon chairs and linen chests to cabinets that fit above the commode.
The goal is to maximize the space in the bathroom while creating attractive companion pieces to vanity sinks.
At the April market, Hooker Furniture introduced five linen armoires that tie in with its successful vanity sinks. In styles ranging from European to traditional, they retail for about $999.
At 22 inches wide, 18 inches deep and 72 inches high, they have a small footprint appropriate for bathroom use. Three adjustable shelves sit behind a glass door. Beneath the shelves are a jewelry drawer and three drawers for additional storage.
The new armoires drew so much interest that Hooker is looking at offering one for each of the 20 vanity sinks in its line, giving retailers more ways to keep consumers interested and coming back to stores.
"It's so important for this industry to be revitalized and find new categories for incremental business," said Kim Shaver, Hooker's director of marketing and communications. "It needs to find things that are new and different."
Pulaski Furniture also is capitalizing on the success of its vanity sinks, adding a range of companion pieces, including bath etageres, medicine chests, lingerie chests and storage chests that fit over the commode.
The pieces come in a number of elegant multi-step, hand-painted finishes, including frost, pearl essence and Venetian. Like the Hooker pieces, they have both storage capacity and a small footprint, maximizing the space they occupy in the bath or powder room.
"These are great accent pieces that people can add to their home inexpensively," said Fred Schubert, a designer with Pulaski. "This is another way to accent the bathroom."
Bathroom furniture is timely from an economic standpoint. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that more and more money is being spent on bathrooms. In 2002, the last full year for which statistics are available, consumers spent about $4.4 billion renovating bathrooms, up significantly from $2.4 billion the year before. It was the third-largest spending area in the home after kitchen renovations and flooring.
"People decorate the powder room more dramatically than any other area of the house," said John Conrad, vice president of merchandising for importer Powell. "It makes a statement for them."
On that note, Powell expanded its offerings with several new products that complement its three vanity sinks, including two salon chairs on casters that retail between $249 and $279. Decorated with tassels and tailored skirts, their size and highly feminine style are perfect for bathroom use.
Powell also added a carved mirror to its Masterpiece vanity sink collection, as well as new tables, three-drawer cabinets, small accent tables and a vertical space saver to fit over the commode.
Other furniture makers that showed new lingerie or linen chests this April included Lexington Home Brands and Riverside. Pennsylvania House plans to include bathroom accent furniture in its upcoming Tracy Porter licensed line, to debut in April 2005.
Forms + Fixtures, a Greensboro, N.C.-based bath furniture specialist, introduced a 74-inch storage tower to accompany its Portofino vanity sink, and a 66-inch storage tower to go with its Parker sink. With a combination of drawer and door storage space, the Portofino model retails at about $2,950, with the Parker at $2,200 retail.
The company over the past 16 months has broadened its line beyond vanity sinks and currently has 17 collections that include sinks, short and tall storage towers, and armoires, hampers and mirrors. By the fall, it plans to bring out three new etageres in contemporary, Arts & Crafts and rustic styles, and introduce a storage tower to accompany its best-selling Yang bath collection.
"The bathroom no longer is an underutilized, utilitarian small space," said Pamela Merritt, a partner in Forms + Fixtures. "It's a room to be furnished and it requires case pieces, upholstery and decorative accessories."
