An armoire James Bond would appreciate

Furniture Traditions is one of those companies I enjoy visiting when I’m at the Tupelo Furniture Market. It is pretty unique to our industry.

It has three sales representatives that cover the entire U.S. They introduce one or two new pieces of furniture each year. The pieces are interesting, innovative and always well thought out.

Furniture Traditions has three collections, works mostly in oak or alder and sells its furniture as heirloom quality. The furniture is solid and well built in the U.S.A.

They won’t have the biggest line, but their line has all the pieces and all the bells and whistles you would find in any other media or bedroom pieces, if not more.

When I visited the showroom this year, I heard the same pitch I heard the last time I visited.

“If you make the same bedroom for 20 years you’re going to get good at what you do,” said Tim Price, a sales representative for the company.

This year Furniture Traditions added a great piece to the entertainment furniture canon. Its new Flat Screen TV Armoire has flat-back raised panel doors, a jewelry drawer lined with velvet, a power strip, three-way touch lighting and two giant full-extension, cedar-lined drawers.

Those are great features in themselves, but in the cabinet, behind a locking flat panel television swing-arm that the company is seeking a patent for, is the real meat.

When you swing out the television, you’ll find a fingerprint activated safe, storage for six rifles and a locking cable to secure them, multiple secret storage areas and false cabinet bottoms.

I think if you were a burglar you’d have to steal the whole piece to get anything. Aside from smashing it, you’d have a tough time getting into its contents. It’s like a big safe.

With so many features, this piece screams UPSELL.

You can find photos of the piece on page 10 of Furniture Traditions’ new catalog.

Click here to read a good story about the company that Furniture/Today ran in 2004.