Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

"I will close," Ron, the manager of our store in Hanover, said nonchalantly. "I don't really care about the ribbon-cutting ceremony." Then he reached under the counter and pulled out an oversized, foot-long pair of blue plastic scissors. "By the way," he said, handing them to me, "I found these and I thought they would be great in the photographs."

Who knows where he found the scissors but he had bought and hidden them as a surprise for the ribbon-cutting when we opened our new store in Plymouth. And as for his comment that he didn't care about attending? I wasn't buying that line of manure. Being at the opening meant everything to Ron. Right then, I knew we would wait for him before we cut the ribbon.

Last Thursday, we formally opened our third store. Ron arrived just as Christa, our photographer, was documenting the event. She waved him up to the crosswalk where the red ribbon was strung from post to post. There, he joined his twin brother, Brad. Click went her camera.

Ron smiled and clapped his beaming twin on the back. We'd recruited Brad from Florida to manage the new store. This was his moment, but it was a moment largely due to his brother. Ron has been with Furniture Consignment Gallery since 2006, and year after year he has steadily grown the store in Hanover. He gave us the confidence to make this bold move. As a result, we doubled our inventory, broadened our footprint in New England, and hired his brother Brad.

Since December, Ron has quietly done all he could to ensure his brother's success. He sent some of the fine furniture in his inventory to Plymouth. On his days off, he would quietly sneak into the new store to set up the checkout counter, un-box lamps and arrange furniture.

On Thursday, we took a lot of photos. After all, it isn't every day that we have a ribbon- cutting ceremony. We'd re-arranged the group about a dozen times when I heard a sudden "Snip!" Impatient with the endless camera clicking, Collin, my ten-year-old, cut the ribbon and announced to the crowd, "Plymouth is now open for business."  

I was flooded with relief. "Thank you, Collin," I thought. Thanks for ending the anticipation and launching this new phase of our business. The twins seemed even more grateful than me. I guess they suddenly realized they were going to have a lot of fun together in this world of furniture consignment.  

So drop by our store in Plymouth. You'll find sofas from $229.99, dining sets from $349.99 and sectionals from $1,199.99. We've also got accessories for your beach house and beautiful lighting for any house on any Main Street. All our stores are celebrating. We are offering 10% off on all merchandise through Sunday. Indeed, Plymouth is open for business.

Just days before Christmas, the ping pong table went on sale. I couldn't resist. So I bought it and hid it from my wife and boys in the garage.

What fun this will be, I thought, giddy with anticipation. Best gift ever! We'll spend hours playing together, laughing together, hugging, high-fiving our victories. Everyone knows that ping pong is the Elmer's glue of family bonding.

On Christmas Eve, with the boys tucked in bed, I raced to the garage. My wife stood at the front door, skeptical. My last-minute no-list shopping expeditions have been known to be problematic. Every year, I set off like a 17th century explorer: armed, determined and dangerous. She never knew what I would drag home.

As I rolled the table up to the house, it looked more and more like an enormous mastodon. We could hardly squeeze it through the door. Suddenly, I realized with a crushing sense of doom, we'd never wrestle this baby down into the basement.

"Brilliant," my wife snarled.

Fortunately, I've got furniture-moving expertise. And our family room was full of furniture - pretty much all of it unnecessary in my view! I tipped the sofa on its side, rolled a chair around the corner, and flipped the ottoman into another room. When the dust settled, I'd created a sports arena with the table in the center.

Christmas morning arrived, and there were shrieks of joy from the boys. We picked up our paddles and the battle began. Outside, snow flurries whipped around the house. Inside, ping pong balls bounced off the walls.

When grandparents, and uncles arrived, they had to suck in their bellies to squeeze around the furniture stacked by the front door. A crowd gathered around the table. Merrily, we fought for ping pong supremacy. My wife even managed to forgive me - that is, until a ball splashed into the pan of gravy bubbling on the stove.  

And then it hit me. Maybe I wasn't the only fool who brought home a gift so large it required us to empty the house of furniture. So if you, like me, got swept up in the holiday spirit and you need to sell off your furniture to accommodate a new ping pong table ... well, Furniture Consignment Gallery is here to help.

But as for your fuming spouse, you're on your own.

Her cats slithered between the chairs as we stepped through the front door. In the living room we saw a kitty jungle gym and a couple of litter boxes. A well-worn cat scratching post, like a massive cactus, was perched in one corner of the kitchen. Nick, our highly allergic truck driver, looked panic-stricken. Hives were imminent. We backed out quickly, knowing that the strong eau de feline meant her furniture wouldn't find a spot in our showroom.

At our next stop, we were greeted by a disdainful French Bulldog, clearly in the midst of a long aristocratic reign as Louis XIV. He made it obvious: every sofa and chair in the house was part of his kingdom.

Later, I got an email a good friend who recently lost his beloved dog to cancer. For years, the dog had treated the coffee table like a chew toy. We were planning to repair the table. "Let's not fix it just yet," my friend wrote in the email. Attached was a photo of his new puppy.

As I write this, the sweetest dog who ever lived, my boxer, is swatting at my chair looking for attention. Feeling ignored, she hops on the sofa hoping to get busted - then hugged - for a mischievous infraction of the house rules. Okay, I'm not the strictest disciplinarian when it comes to my Casey girl.

Yes, we love our pets. Sometimes, we spoil them in ways we'd be embarrassed to admit. But they can be hard on the furniture. You may not be able to consign anything after years of domestic bliss with your pet. But you'll probably agree with me: it's worth it.

"New Jersey has the best tomatoes in the country," the gentleman reflected thoughtfully. He'd stopped by our store to ask me to evaluate a rug for consignment. Not this week, I said. I had plans for a road trip - to New Jersey. Don't forget to stop at a farm stand, he advised. You don't want to miss those tomatoes.

     Here at Furniture Consignment Gallery, we've always said that we will go far to fill our truck with good stuff, and we mean it. This week, we made the trek to a fine estate in Livingston, N.J.

     Getting there was a battle. We dodged kamikaze drivers from Boston to New York. At one point, we put the truck in park and sat on sweltering concrete for several hours. So hot was it in fact, that off to the side of us, a car literally caught fire and went up in flames. By the time we got to the Garden State, I wanted to hurl some of those famous tomatoes at the welcome sign.

     Our escapade took nearly twenty-four hours, but we returned unscathed and with tons of, juicy, ripe furniture: Henredon, Ralph Lauren, Mitchell Gold and Althrop. Also among the bounty was an extraordinary leather sectional and ottoman from Bloomingdales, creamy and soft as butter.

     We also scored some beauties closer to home this week. You won't want to miss the mahogany Stickley dining set that came in from North Reading with some upholstered pieces from Ethan Allen. Or the Hickory Chair sofa from Rowe's Wharf. Or the Council Craftsman inlaid table, chairs and server from Wellesley. That home also sent twenty other great items to our showroom that are not yet on the web stie.

      "Have truck, will travel."

That's our motto. So be sure to stop by today. The good stuff goes fast.  

I needed dog food, four wood screws to fix a wobbly table, a few basics at the grocery store - and all I had was an hour for these errands. 

     Since I'm a merchant, you'd think I would take my time and see how other stores do business. Nope, not me. I cannot stand waiting in line. I hate searching the aisles. And when I'm done, I want out. A shopper I am not.

Still, there are a few things I just don't get about retailing these days.

     At the pet store, I lugged a forty-pound bag of dog food up to the counter because I don't want to track down one of the shopping carts left scattered around the parking lot. I waited in line with a bag of rawhide in one hand and the dog food slung over my shoulder. By the time I got to the counter, I was sweating.

     "Do you have a rewards card?" the clerk inquired.

I searched my wallet for the card that is a ticket to nothing. I've never gotten any rewards from that store. They've never thrown me - or my dog - so much as a bone.

"Would you like to donate your change to the Rescue Dogs of America?"

     Now, I'm sure Rescue Dogs does wonderful work, but I don't know anything about the organization. Does the money actually go to the dogs - or to support some swanky fundraising operation? I declined politely. The cashier shot me a dirty look that accused me of being a dog-hater.

     At the hardware store, I found the screws. I had the sixty cents ready.

     "Do you have our rewards card?" the clerk asked. That stumped me. She offered to look it up, pecking away at her keyboard patiently entering every phone number I've ever had without finding a single record of me. She offered to sign me up. I declined. As I left, she was scowling.

     Racing against time, I hurried into the grocery store for the bare necessities: bananas, ice cream, OJ. I hit the express line only to find an older couple who apparently were stocking up for nuclear winter - and they had to write a check.

     My bill turned out to be $3.80 more than I'd calculated. "If you don't have our saver's card, then you don't get the sale price," the clerk told me. I couldn't find the card, so I asked her to help me out. That annoyed her. She went searching for a supervisor, who grumbled but gave me a break.

     I finished my errands feeling unwelcome and unappreciated. I vowed to go back to our showroom and thank every customer who came in the door. Heck, I'll even carry your purchases out to your car - and give you a friendly wave as you leave. I'll never forget: we are lucky to have you at FCG. And you don't need a special card to get that special treatment from us.  

   Cruising in and out of beautiful inlets on a borrowed jet ski, I spent Memorial Day on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, trying to forget about furniture for a day. Suddenly, I caught sight of a big man in a little kayak. His fishing pole was being yanked to the very core of the earth.

     I stopped to watch the struggle and he waved me closer. Already, this was more entertaining than schlepping a chest of drawers down the stairs of the showroom. He said he had been waging war with this fish for over an hour. It was a giant lake trout, he exclaimed, a native of the cold, deep waters of Winnipesaukee. He asked if I could help steady him. The powerful fish seemed intent on toting his little vessel around that massive lake like the shark in the film 'Jaws.'

     I moved in to help, but the fish wiggled free and vanished.  This formerly ecstatic fisherman was now just exasperated and exhausted from his long battle with Moby Dick. He asked me to tow him to shore so he wouldn't have to paddle. Wary of my clumsiness on the jet ski, I hesitated, but finally agreed.

     Within minutes, we were on our way. Turning to check on my new friend, I noticed he was wobbling in my wake. I fumbled with the controls and inadvertently hit the gas, rocketing forward. Instant capsize! He was being hauled home at high speed - completely underwater.

     When I reached the shore, I paused and my new friend swam to the dock, drenched and defeated. Head down, his flooded sneakers squished with every step. Clearly wishing he had never made my acquaintance, he was, nonetheless, a good sport and nodded good bye.  

     As for me, I have managed to overcome every minor annoyance this week by invoking the hilarious visual of that poor schmuck upside down in his kayak while I raced to shore. Mea culpa, man. 

     A warning to all: keep me away from the heavy machinery. That's why I leave the truck driving to our stellar crew Nick or Matt, and I ride shotgun position.

     We all have our place in life. Mine, apparently, is in the showroom.

      When we assumed the reigns at Furniture Consignment Gallery 7 years ago, all of our efforts and energy was focused on serving our local customers. But that's not true anymore. Now, it is global. Consider one of our new customers, Bob, who lives on an island called Hilo in Hawaii, 6,000 miles from Hanover. He found Furniture Consignment Gallery on the Internet, and in our inventory, he discovered the perfect dining room set. Shipping, he conceded cheerfully, would almost be prohibitive, but living on an island in the middle of the Pacific takes a certain can-do attitude and he was up to the challenge, so we sent the set off to a customer we'd only met over email and the phone. Here's what we heard a few weeks later:

Aloha, all!

     The dining set arrived in a total of seven pieces, not 500, as I had feared.  Six thousand miles over road and ocean - with no problems and no breakage - may not be a record, but it impresses me. I am attaching photos of the pieces in their new home with their westward view over the Pacific. The table and chairs look more at home in the land of taro and ahi than in the land of the bean and cod.

Thank you,

Bob

  Only a few weeks later, we got another call from the Pacific Coast. This was from a man who was outfitting a yacht in sunny LA. He was looking for a desk small enough to fit through the door of his stateroom, and thanks to our website, he'd found the perfect piece on the showroom floor in Hanover. Once again, the piece was packed up carefully and shipped across the continent. Here's the note we got from Nick: "What a gorgeous little desk. Looks like it came with the boat! Now, I need a larger dresser!" Thank You, Nick The Internet has rattled every corner of the business world, even ours. Bob and Nick taught us two important lessons. One: Customers will go a long way to find quality and value. Two: No matter how far out we can cast our net, our customer still wants that personal relationship and attention that only a small business can provide.