Wood intros feature enhanced functionality
By Jeff Linville -- Furniture Today, September 16, 2007
High Point — This fall's High Point Market will bring plenty of new styles in wood furniture as usual, and look for some hot trends in functionality, too.
When flat-panel TVs became more affordable a couple of years ago, manufacturers changed their living room designs to compensate. Home entertainment walls adapted to the rectangular, widescreen shape of the sets. Some companies admitted that they were stuck with old-fashioned TV armoires that just weren't selling anymore.
Bedroom pieces didn't change much at the time. Case goods makers said people had been using tube TVs in the bedroom for decades, and most people buying a flat-panel TV were using it in the living room with the old set going to the bedroom.
But as television prices have continued to fall, multiple flat panels are going into the home. This market, some manufacturers are addressing this trend with dressers and drawer chests that accommodate the new sets and related electronics.
For example, the top drawer of a case piece might have a drop-front function to allow access to a DVD player, cable box or satellite receiver. Wire management holes in the back allow cables to be attached.
At premarket here in August, companies showing such functional pieces included Stanley, with its American Perspective collection, and SLF, with Newport. Hooker's Chatham offers similar functionality on a nightstand, but is more geared for use as a pullout laptop desk, similar to the company's writing desks.
Kincaid's new 27-piece Carrington Hall group goes a one step further in bedroom entertainment. A patent-pending media bureau has a landscape mirror that hides a flat-panel TV. When the unit comes on, the screen lights up and becomes visible through the glass.
Another trend in function this market is the use of underneath drawer glides. While many traditional case goods producers stand by the time-tested wood-on-wood guides mounted on the sides of the drawers, more are switching to hardware using ball bearings and mounted on the drawer bottom. Proponents say the feature makes drawers easier to open with one hand — by a mom holding laundry with the other hand, for example — and that the glides are invisible, smooth and self-closing in the last inch.
The function was especially popular in youth furniture at the All Baby and Child Expo in Las Vegas earlier this month. Expect to see it more in High Point.
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