Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

When  my wife, Diana, first passed the NCIDQ exam and began her career in Interior Design armed with a 4 year degree from the fine University of Kentucky, she landed a fantastic customer.  Being young and thrown in the middle of an exciting project,  she was learning on the fly and creating great designs that the customer loved. The clients were buying the best of the best.  They asked Diana to pull together a plan for a guest bathroom as part of the project and Diana obliged.  After reviewing the proposal, the gentleman said, "Diana, I am not sure what a $1,400 toilet paper holder looks like, but I am quite certain that we don't need that."  Lesson learned!  There are times to push a client to spend money on certain aspects of a plan and there are times to bargain hunt.  A good Interior Designer needs access to the finest showrooms, but also needs to know how to find good deals.

Here are 5 ways an Interior Designer can benefit from Furniture Consignment Shopping and Services:

1) Staying in touch with your favorite furniture consignment store's ever changing inventory and popping in alongside your customer demonstrates that you are looking out for their pocketbook.  Saving money for your customer increases your credibility, especially when closing a proposal with high priced items.

2) A furniture consignment store may be able to handle the items that your client plans to replace.  This makes the client feel better about spending new money as the old items will find a good home.

3) When you see something that works for your client in a consignment store, you can have it now!  This is huge as clients want immediate results and are often frustrated by 10 week lead times for custom pieces.  Filtering in some items that have immediate impact can help a client to relax and start to see the benefits of your talents and work.

4) Consignment stores have unique pieces that fit unique corners and spaces.  Sometimes you have to hunt for furniture that fits, and consignment stores are a great place to start.

5) The multitude of unique pieces that populate an upscale furniture consignment showroom can inspire creativity.  Sometimes there are projects that are hard to get excited about, and going into a furniture consignment store can jolt your imagination.

Three Prominant New England furniture manufacturers were forced to abort or sell their business this decade.   Each were extremely popular and had a large and proud following.  In an industry that struggles mightily with branding, these winners had it all: style, quality, and reputation. They were trusted names, and they remain winners on the resale market.

The most obvious example is The Hitchcock Chair Co., which stopped producing furniture in 2006.  Hitchcock (manufactured in Riverton, CT) is known for very well built furniture that features colonial styles that were shaped on a maple platform.  Hitchcock furniture tends to use a variety of colors. What makes Hitchcock so desiresable, however, is the etching and stenciled artwork bearing the Hitchcock name. 

Hitchcock maintains a vibrant existence on the resale market.  Hitchcock's product can be found on eBay, Craigs List, furniture auctions and many furniture consignment stores in the New England area. Hitchcock furniture can be found in many New England homes as Hitchcock had a period where it was producing 15,000 chairs a year! The Hitchcock market is thriving, and www.hitchcockchair.com & www.usedhitchcockfurniture.com are excellent resources when determining the value of pre-owned Hitchcock furniture.  In the spirit of restoration, some former Hitchcock artisans purchased the original finish recipes and stencils and are able to authentically re-finish Hitchcock Furniture.

Unlike Hitchcock, Nichols & Stone was able to sell its intellectual property to Stickley & Audi in 2008. With all do respect to the Audi family, it is Nichols & Stone's fine past that delights most furniture connoisseurs.  Not to say that the new Nichols & Stone doesn't make a fine Windsor chair, but there was a time when obtaining a Nichols & Stone Windsor chair or rocker was an achievement for a working family. 

The Nichols & Stone logo on the bottom of a chair or on the inside of a drawer means something. It stands for quality and class.  Nichols & Stone was one of the finest furniture manufacturers in the history of the State of Massachusetts. 

The third great New England manufacturer to disappear from the furniture manufacturing scene was Moosehead Furniture.  Moosehead was Maine's pride and joy and fell victim to the many pressures furniture manufacturers have been subjected to over the last 10 years.  Though the fall of Moosehead Furniture leaves many scars behind, a great product forges ahead on the resale market. 

An argument could be made that Mooshead Furniture produced some of the finest children's furniture this country has ever seen.  What made Moosehead great was the excellent construction, quality, and stock of materials that were used (Give the best ingredients to a great chef and imagine the results!).  Such was the case when these great materials were laid in the hands of a craftsman from Monson, Maine.  A special product was formed. 

Our buyer wish list is cluttered with random requests for pieces that were made by these once great New England furniture makers.  Hitchcock, Nichols & Stone, and Moosehead Furniture created great brands and a great following. They all remain winners in the New England furniture resale market. 

Before you sell your home and punch your ticket to Destination Downsize, it's important to seriously consider hiring an Interior Designer. Having a professional eye by your side as you make critical decisions about what stays and what goes will pay huge dividends down the road.  

Your designer can help you to construct your simpler life before you get there.  They can help you to build your vision of style, functionality, and through this can help you identify which pieces will move with you and which pieces won't.

From there, a designer can help you begin the cleansing process which will in turn help you to sell your home faster.  Removing pieces from your home that will not travel to your next destination helps to eliminate clutter.  This allows potential buyers to better visualize their own pieces in your living space.

Your Interior Designer should not charge an arm and a leg for assisting with this process.  It is simple planning. This also gives you an opportunity to begin sharing your vision so that when your real project begins, your designer will be familiar with your tastes.

Recently, we assisted a client who was late in her process and downsized from a beautiful home in Sudbury, MA to a two bedroom condo in Boston.  In the planning process, the place she purchased had an odd wall that angled in such a way that it does not accommodate her furniture or even a rug very well.  She also is temporarily using a piece of glass on top of containers as a desk and is enduring many other inconveniences.

Had she engaged with an Interior Designer early in her process, she may have realized that the odd shape of the living area, would make it difficult for her to create the room arrangement that she desired. Had a designer been present in the home selection process, she may have saved herself the aggravation and frustration that she now faces.

Hiring an Interior Designer early in your down sizing process can help you to organize your home furnishings, sell your existing home faster and can help you to assess potential living spaces.

A personal highlight of our business for me is getting the opportunity to pick up high-end furniture consignments from private residences in the New England area.  For starters, I get to ride around in a truck, which helps me to connect with my inner manhood. Aside from the windows down and sports radio blaring, it is never boring when we enter a consignors home.

Working with people and helping them to solve their furniture logistics problems just tickles me to death (to borrow a line from my wife's Southern roots).  Even more than that, new furniture means new excitement and energy in our showroom for our staff and for our on-line and in-store shoppers.  But what about our valued Consignors?!  What's in it for them? After all, they have to wave goodbye to all of these beautiful pieces that were recently purchased that for one reason or another, won't fit wherever they are going.

Here are some reasons why a furniture consignment store that offers in-house pick-up services should get top consideration when choosing a channel to sell your items:

1) If a furniture consignment store accepts an item for consignment and places it on their truck, they feel they can sell it.  Therefore they have a vested interest in removing the item carefully from your home and transporting it safely to their showroom. Safe transport preserves the condition and allows for the highest possible sale price which means the most money for all parties involved.  The last thing we want to do is cause damage to a piece we can sell.

2) Furniture consignment stores move more furniture than any professional moving company.  Thursday, we brought a sofa into the store for sale, sold it one hour later, and then swiftly removed it from the showroom floor. We delivered the sofa Friday.  To put it bluntly: We move a lot of furniture!  This is important because you have people who know what they are doing, have a vested interest in your furniture and have the expertise to remove items from your home quickly and safely.

3) If you have beautiful and marketable furniture, a good furniture consignment store should make arrangements to adjust their schedule to yours.  This leads to great convenience when dealing with life's otherwise stressful and transitional situations.

Safe and convenient pick-up service offered at a reasonable price, is a great reason to consider consignment as an option when selling upscale furniture. 

Leather is having a hard time at the moment.  The average consumer assumes that leather is mass produced and doesn't rely on market conditions or supply and demand.  Leather, as a reminder, comes from cow hide, of which there is a finite supply and is currently experiencing a worldwide shortage.  As a result, leather furniture products are experiencing price increases of 5% to 25%. 

In the near future, we will begin hearing catch phrases like "bonded leather".  Bonded Leather combines synthetics, latex and polyurethanes.  As described by wisegeek.com (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-bonded-leather.htm), bonded leather is the difference between "ground beef" and "steak".  Bonded leather gives the appearance of genuine leather, but is far from the real thing.

With the current supply issues surrounding co

w hides, the most frugal and humane way to purchase a genuine leather product is on the resale market.

If you see a genuine leather product on the resale market, do not hesitate, as the value is likely to be too great to pass up.  Two weeks ago, we had a beautiful Hancock & Moore leather recliner that I was strongly

considering for my own home.  I thought about it overnight and was pacing the showroom floor, ready to take the plunge.  When I walked to the second floor to grab the tag, one of our regular customers was relaxing in "my chair".  Needless to say, he purchased the chair and I am still kicking myself for not moving more quickly.  Leather is durable, looks great and is in short supply.  So if you find it in your favorite consignment store  -- buy it!

Though it is true that there are many Craigs List-selling-success-stories, it's important to remember that the Craigs List business model lends itself to every scheme imaginable.  On very rare occasions, those schemes can turn into unimaginable tragedies.

It's important to remember that Craigs List is a completely unregulated market.  While you could easily have a seamless, painless, and fair transaction selling your items on Craigs List, there is a chance you won't. The real problem lies in the transactions that don't go so well. As a result, experts are advising potential sellers to take precautions by taking their items to public places where there are many watchful eyes. 

On last Friday's Good Morning America show on ABC, there was a segment highlighting the best ways to handle a Craigs List transaction. One of the suggestions was to meet in a coffee shop or a busy parking lot.

Furniture is different. It is large and hard to move (a dining or bedroom set is not the easiest thing to whip out of your SUV and set-up in a Best Buy parking lot for evaluation). This means that people usually need to look at your furniture in your home.  Though we all try to assume the best in people, you never know an individual's true intentions.  So take precautions to protect your home address and to qualify the character and seriousness of your buyer.

If this latest round of issues teaches us anything, it is that predators can be anywhere, and that there is tremendous value in privacy and confidentiality when selling your items.  If your furniture could be considered upscale, a predator could logically assume that the rest of your possessions are also upscale. While this risk may be relatively small, it is smart to consider all the options.

One option is a trustworthy, local, consignment store to sell your high-end furniture or home furnishings.  With this option, your identity is protected and your confidentiality preserved.  An upscale consignment service should also have the ability to pick-up items from your home to save you the aggravation of transportation. 

It is possible to net equal or even greater profit through a private sale than through consignment. But, if you net a little less and are able to market your furniture anonymously without the aggravation and risks of selling and moving your furniture; it may be well worth it in the end.

A gentleman phoned our store last week and wanted to discuss selling his furniture and he wanted us to know that is was "brand new". "We never even used it!" he exclaimed. When he struggled to describe the set, couldn't recall how he acquired the pieces, how much they cost him or what store they were purchased from, I became concerned that his items were stolen.  After asking a few more Colombo style questions, I uncovered that the set was purchased between 1965 and 1969. That explained why the man couldn't remember much about the purchase process.  But it was the fact that he described his furniture to be "brand new" that initially threw us for the loop.

This is actually a fairly common conversation with our potential consignors. In accentuating the point that they took great care of the their furniture assets, they will tell us that a sofa was only sat on five times or that the dining set was used on Easter 3 years ago and that was the extent of its use.  But what they don't often realize is that their furniture endures a lot of unintentional and unnoticed abuse.

Furniture finishes and upholstered items often break down due to the natural elements and cleaning practices.  Here are some ways to keep your furniture in showroom condition without screaming "don't touch that!" at your kids.

• Be aware of the sunlight in your room.  Sun is one of the great destroyers of furniture.  A dining set may never host a single family dinner and yet can get walloped by the sun every day.  Ultraviolet rays on your furniture will cause significant bleaching, discoloration, peeling finish and flaky wood.  It is important to pay attention to the times of day and year when the furniture will be exposed to these direct rays.  Installing blinds, a film over your windows, or rotating your furniture periodically can help to slow the sun's damaging effects on your prized pieces.

• Living in New England with the crazy weather patterns that we experience can put furniture through the ringer.  Especially in the Spring and Fall when we have the heat on in the mornings and then turn it off during the day, it can be literally torture on your furniture as it absorbs and releases moisture causing it to expand and contract. In these months, close the heating vents in the rooms that host your nicest furniture.  Do your best to position furniture away from heating and cooling vents.

• Believe it or not, dust build-up on your furniture and how it is removed can cause your finish to scratch.  We see dining tables and dresser tops that have been cleaned in a circular motion and under direct lighting, circular scratches are very evident.  Dusting with a damp, clean cloth, is generally the safest and best way to keep the dust mites from compromising your prized finishes.

Caring for your furniture is as much about understanding the elements that exist in your home and being aware of how they effect your home furnishings.  Furniture doesn't need to be sat on or used to endure wear and tear.  We often have the ugly job of pointing out the results of this unintentional furniture abuse to proud owners who thought they were doing the best for their furniture.

It is troubling to continue to watch furniture retailers wallow in the wake of the sluggish housing market.  This is a critical time, when furniture retailers must re-focus their efforts on putting furniture into the hands of the consumer. Unfortunately, furniture retailers seem to only be interested in gimmick promotions that have nothing to do with furniture.

As the gimmick promotions continue to hit new lows such as: "Buy this furniture package and receive a free washer and dryer" (yes--I heard this one), retailers are inadvertantly cheapening the products that they carry.  Retailers don't seem to realize that these gimmicks are causing the consumer to view their furniture to be of lesser value.  In the same vein, the retailer is conditioning the consumer to want an even better price or an extra throw-in.  Now you might say to all this: "I'm a consumer and this is great for me!".  Unfortunately, this mantra of more - more - more for less - less - less is going to prove to be quite messy as we go forward.

As the economy turns, the overseas labor market in countries where furniture is produced will become more competitive, driving costs up.  This could lead to a catastrophic cycle for furniture retailers who, faced with the prospect of higher costs, will choose to use cheaper materials in lieu of raising prices. Just when we think that quality could not possibly get worse in furniture, it will continue to erode.

Furniture retailers have the power to change this bleak outlook and can right this sinking ship. In order to do so, however, they must put the gimmicks aside and demand that their manufacturers produce a better product, not a cheaper one.

The question is asked at least once a day, "What kinds of things do you take for consignment?" The quick answer is "Things that we can sell!" but that's only really half the truth.  There are plenty of items we can sell, but we want to take the pieces that knock the socks off of our buyers.  There are a few specific features that customers are particularly attracted to:

Wood Grain that pops out of the wood.  Well, it doesn't literally pop out of the wood, but customers love to see disctinct and powerful wood grains.  Tiger maple, birdseye maple or walnut, and quartersawn oak will draw the "oohs" and "ahhs" of a potential buyer.

Veneers with a punch always draw a reaction from browsers and buyers, especially those that offer contrasting colors on the drawers of bureaus and the doors of larger pieces.  The crotch walnut or mahogany veneers that are bookmarked together are always crowd favorites.

Furniture with bold inlays almost always sell well.  Mahogany dining tables with a border that has satin wood, ebony wood, or rosewood is striking to the eye and allows a homeowner to mix and match various accent pieces.

Nothing beats a great finish!  Not all finishes are equal, and certain companies and craftsman do better than others.  I've seen good furniture with a sub-par finish sell for significantly less than similar furniture with a superior finish.

Unlike the purchase of your home where it is important to think about resale before you buy, you should not buy furniture for its potential resale value.  However, if you are looking for a way to justify a purchase of high end furniture, pieces that have a great finish, contrasting wood colors and nice veneers will appeal to most buyers if indeed you decide to sell down the road.