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INDUSTRY UPDATES
Pacific Manufacturing Announces Northern CA Expansion Plan
Pacific Manufacturing & Distributing announced the addition of Steven R. “Steve” Ray to their team. Ray will head up their Northern California Division.
In the past few years, Pacific Manufacturing & Distributing has experienced substantial growth in its Reflex and Memory foam futon and mattress line. In addition, the Night & Day platform bed program that Pacific distributes has really taken off. Joe Lujan, President of Pacific Manufacturing & Distributing said, “We are very excited to have Steve join our company. His extensive industry experience is a perfect match for our expansion plans in Northern California. We know that Steve will help us capitalize on the opportunities available to us in that region.”
Ray has worked in the furniture industry for the past 22 years; the last 20 have been for a major futon retailer in California. He has vast experience in both the retail and wholesale side of the bedding industry. “Sometimes all the right parts come into place and something magical happens,” Ray said. “I have always considered Pacific Manufacturing & Distributing and Night & Day Furniture to be on the cutting edge of product evolution, and I am excited to see the symbiosis between the two.”
Ray served on the board of The Futon Association International for four years, one year as president. “I found my time with the Futon Association invaluable,” he said. “It brought me in contact with the most creative minds in the industry. After leaving behind two decades of manufacturing and retailing last year, I was hopeful I’d find a way to use that experience to help shape the future of the category. I feel certain that this new position will provide me that opportunity.”
Ray also served on the Sleep Products Safety Committee (SPSC) for flammability issues and was one of the industry's voices in the shaping of AB 603. “Northern California has always been known as a hotbed of innovation and that is especially true in the areas of furniture and alternative sleep products. The market is open to new ideas when the product is well thought out and well made.”
Ray lives in Northern California with his wife, Jill, and five children.
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Night & Day Furniture Offers Complete Web Services
Night & Day Furniture has put everything on-line. “Our website is live and active,” announced Mike Gallawa. “I had a need for a useful website, and it looked like we should just put everything up there. And everything really means everything.”
The site shows all collections, all models, in all colors, and has sections for features and benefits for each collection, on-line registration for warranties, special information on Night & Day’s proprietary products like the Shoe Fittings™ Operating System, product dimensions, assembly and operating instructions, and movie clips showing assembly, disassembly and conversion procedures for different collections.
“I believe that no one has anything like it in our niche industry,” Gallawa said. “It is designed to be a tool for our dealers, retailers and sales people. And most importantly, it is a tool for the home user.” The instructional videos are a novel approach and wonderfully useful.
“It was a bit of a tough call,” Gallawa said. “A website, as we know, is where your competition goes to snoop. I really struggled with it but quickly realized that Night & Day Furniture has actually gone beyond that. And we do have lots of proprietary and protected products. The fact is, the biggest obligation I felt we had
was to our customer; when I got that, the rest was easy.”
Go to www.nightanddayfurniture.com and see for yourself. Look for a few surprises and some off-beat humor too.
For more information about Night & Day Furniture, call (360) 573-3309.
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Gold Bond Futons and Mattresses To Debut at New Las Vegas Market
Gold Bond will showcase its 2005 series of futons and mattresses at the World Market Center. Gold Bond will emphasize its strengths: comfort, quality and value. The 106-year-old company’s super premium lines feature the industry’s leading and most successful futon brand as well as a new series of mattresses and specialty beds, announced Bob Naboicheck, president of Gold Bond.
Gold Bond’s Visco Opulence futon, designed to rival the feel and performance of a premium sofa, will be featured. The super premium futon's extraordinary feel is a result of engineering two one-inch thick visco foam layers, two eight-inch batts of densified polyester and HR (high resilience) foam into its design. With 22” of materials compressed into a high profile 12” futon, this futon competes with many premium mattresses and is a strong performer on platform frames.
Gold Bond will also showcase its highly successful Prestige Elegance, described by Furniture|Today’s Executive Bedding Editor and columnist David Perry (at a recent High Point market) as the “Most Comfortable Bed.” It combines 1,058 individualized encased nested coils, cashmere, wool, silk, visco and super soft foam, and it retails at $3,000. This high-loft pillow top mattress has performed exceptionally well on retail floors since its introduction–and its retail success continues to grow.
Gold Bond will also showcase its new Visco and Latex Perfection mattresses. These super premium units contain more visco and latex than comparably priced competitors and feature edge-to-edge perimeter support and a two-inch deep blend of silk and wool quilted Belgian matelesse micro fiber ticking.
Gold Bond’s award-winning point of sale materials, banners and individualized market-by-market advertising and sales training support is renowned throughout the home furnishings industry. Gold Bond’s new specialty mattress lines also are supported by one of the strongest point-of-sale programs available. Gold Bond’s world class tailoring, feel, presentation, fiercely competitive price points and exceptional profits enable the line to be profitably shipped far beyond markets that other traditional “regional” mattress manufacturers historically service.
Gold Bond will show with SIS Covers and Adonis Furniture in space WMC #1038.
For additional information, please call Gold Bond toll free at (800) 873-8498. Visit Gold Bond’s website.
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Otis Bed Introduces Unique Coil Spring Support Technology
“Coil in Coil™ will become the new standard for Innerspring Technology when consumers desire True Pressure-Free sleep,” said Otis spokesperson Karen Day. Otis Bed Manufacturing will introduce their innovative sleep technology in their Signature Series of Personal Modular Sleep Systems…the iMod! The iMod™ by Otis Bed will make its debut at the World Market Center in the World Pavilions (P6601-70). For appointments, call (800) 588-6847.
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Bourné International Displaying New Products at WMC
Bourné International, the award-winning designer and importer, will be displaying four new bedroom groupings, three new futon sofa beds and three new juvenile sets at the World Market Center.
The bedroom groups consist of the Walnut Ridge and Renaissance collections, manufactured of solid mahogany with a full line of case pieces. The juvenile furniture features products in six vibrant colors, available in bunk bed and three other sizes with coordinated case pieces. Bourné will be introducing new sizes, several arts and craft designs and “lodge pole” looks for their futon sofa beds.
For more information, call (360) 816-1054 or stop by spaces P6601-84 in the Las Vegas Pavilion at WMC.
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Strata Furniture Introduces New Carriage Line
Strata Furniture is introducing its new Carriage Line of futon frames at the World Market Center in Pavilion Space P6601-66. This new line will be unique to the industry in that they will be true wall huggers; in other words, they will not have to be moved away from the wall to be converted from sofa to bed and back. The Carriage Line will feature interchangeable bodies with five different arm styles and two exciting finishes as well as our easy, patented front-loading mechanism. Brian Donohoo, President of Strata Furniture, said, “This line is in keeping with Strata Furniture’s tradition of providing unique designs and quality craftsmanship. The goal of the new Carriage Line is to bring the characteristics from our high-end, finished-back collection to a new line of mid-price point wall hugger frames.”
For more information, call (763) 786-3784 or go to www.stratafurniture.com.
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White Lotus Turns 25
On Earth Day 2005, White Lotus Home of New Brunswick, N.J., began its 25th year in business. Since 1981, White Lotus has been handcrafting natural-fiber mattresses, pillows and accessories. “Our products are found in massage schools, homes and offices across the country, furniture stores, the internet, and Whole Foods’ new flagship store in Austin, Texas,” said owner Theodore Casparian.
“What sets White Lotus apart is that for 25 years, each and every mattress has been made entirely by hand,” Casparian said. He claims, “I can put a futon crafter in a room with a natural fabric mattress case, a bale of cotton, a needle, some thread, and just her two hands, and she will come out with a 100 percent handmade mattress that is more comfortable, more supportive, will not poison the earth or the sleeper and costs less than $300.”
White Lotus also sells home furnishings crafted by other companies and ensures that they, too, embody the standards of quality, ecological awareness and efficiency that are demanded by the environmentally conscious.
White Lotus offers many beautiful cover fabrics. Covers are sewn to order in
the New Brunswick workshop, or the White Lotus artisans can take a customer’s own
fabric and easily make the couch match their existing decor. Reach White Lotus on
their website www.whitelotus.net, by email at info@whitelotus.net, or by phone at
(877) HAND MADE.
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New August Lotz Team to Debut at WMC
August Lotz will show at the Futon Expo in Las Vegas this July in space P 6609-82. Among the popular and market-proven products, there will be some new faces, a new owner, new management and an exciting new product line: The Metropolitan Collection, which features fashionable, contemporary furniture and accessories. There are promises of additional new products in the near future.
The company’s parent, Source Cut Industries of Osseo, Wisconsin, is a dimension part and contract furniture manufacturer. “We have one of the best QC and customer service programs in the futon industry,” said Fayne Peck, marketing specialist. “Careful, thoughtful product design and customer satisfaction are priorities at the new August Lotz, and with our background of managing a large and successful wood products business, the new team has the insight and experience to produce and distribute both futon frames and mattresses,” he said.
Among the fresh new faces will be futon industry veteran Pete Dodge, who has been drafted as design consultant.
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Viking Industries Showcases the Birch Bark Log Futon Frame
The Birch Log Futon Frame is a great alternative to the log futon frames currently on the market. This real, natural log futon frame comes with the white and black bark still on the logs and is manufacturered in the standard sizes: Queen; Full; Loveseat; and Chair. To compliment the futon frames, Viking has paired them with coffee tables and end tables with birch legs. Viking has also mimicked the pine Starburst bed with the birch log style . Quantities of the Birch futon frame and bed are limited.
Besides the birch furniture, Viking is also introducing their new line of game room furniture. Viking has been able to develop furniture for every room of the cabin or home. Visit Viking Industries in Las Vegas at World Market Center Pavilions P6601-118. For more information, visit Viking’s website, www.vikinglogfurniture.com, or call (320) 259-0909.
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Set designer gives futon a starring role
Futons are not only convenient for people who want an easy conversion between sitting and sleeping surface. They’re also convenient for set designers who want that same transition.
Ruth Neeman, a set designer in Boston, Mass., chose a tri-fold futon for the center stage in “Three Days of Rain,” a Pulitzer Prize-finalist play about adult children’s understanding of their parents.
Neeman and the play’s director liked the flexibility of the futon. “The futon worked well for a sofa and a double bed with a few seconds’ blackout transition [between scenes],” Neeman said. She also liked the unadorned modernity of the futon design. “The play takes place in the same studio apartment in NYC in 1995 and in the early sixties. The heroes are young architects, so the decor needed to be inexpensive but designer-oriented,” she said. “I wanted the very simple, no-arms model that would be believable as an early example [of a futon sofa].”
Ruth Neeman has been designing sets for 15 years. You can see more of her work at www.setbyruthneeman.com.
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New NCBI President
Alan Posner, vice president of sales and marketing for Jones Fiber Products in Memphis, was elected president of the National Cotton Batting Institute at the organization’s annual membership meeting in Raleigh, N.C.
Posner succeeds Tony Wolf, president of Wolf Corporation, Ft. Wayne, Ind., who served two terms as NCBI president and will serve as an ex-officio member of the board for the 2005-06 year.
Richard Ayers of Jones Companies, Ltd., Humboldt, Tenn., was elected vice president, and Jim Blasius, InCide Technologies, Inc., Phoenix, Ariz., was re-elected treasurer.
Jay Stolfi, president of Rose Mill Company, East Hartford, Conn., was elected to a three-year term on the NCBI Board succeeding Ayers. Other board members for the 2005-06 year are Charles Bing, SynCot Fibers, Inc., Cramerton, N.C.; Bruce Brazelle, Leigh Fibers, Inc., Spartanburg, S.C.; Doug Dyer, Searles Valley Minerals, Overland Park, Kan.; Robert J. Naboicheck, Gold Bond Mattress Co., Hartford, Conn.; and Greg Windsperger, Airtex Industries, Inc., Cokato, Minn.
Posner began his 30-year career in the cotton batting industry as vice president of operations for Earle of Arkansas, a position he held from 1976-95. He was general manager of Crain Industries in 1996-97 and plant manager for Foamex in 1998-99 before joining Jones Fiber in 1999.
For more information, contact the National Cotton Batting Institute at (901) 624-1200.
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