Walter E. Smith Furniture launches modern, small-scale line

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, February 27, 2013

ITASCA, Ill. — Retailer Walter E. Smithe Furniture here has big plans for a newly launched The Mark collection of modern, smaller-scale and lower priced furniture targeting young urban professionals, according to a Crain's Chicago Business story.

The story highlights Chicagoland's 11-store Smithe as well as Lombard, Ill.-based The RoomPlace, which has a new "Live What's Next" advertising campaign targeting millennials and had added more contemporary furniture.

Smithe's Mark line features custom furniture priced "from about $300 to $600," Crain's said. On its website, the retailer show 252 items in the collection - colorful upholstered pieces, including ottomans and a wide selection of upholstered headboards and beds.

"We're going to try to make Mark a national, standalone brand," Smithe's Maureen Smithe told the newspaper. "It's new territory for us, but it's exciting."