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…two of your designers show up wearing matching animal print sweaters. Why didnt I get the memo??! Asking whether they were sporting leopard or cheetah, Janice chimed in that whatever they were wearing, maybe Suzanne and Veronique were ‘cougars’. How can you not have fun at the shop when that happens?
With the showroom transformation well underway I am looking for ideas to expand our ad campaign. I’ve never run television commercials before so I thought it would be wise to see what other stores across the country have produced and aired. I can only assume how effective they were. Needless to say, there is a lot of, um, talent out there!
I’d love to hear your opinion, so please take a look at these Youtube videos and vote for your favorite!
Here’s one with a catchy little tune that you will not be able to extract from your brain for a while, sorry. I hadn’t considered rap until now.
They say that sex sells, so maybe this could be a good direction.
It’s just like a mini mall…see? I can’t get that tune to go away!
Darn, tax season is over but I’ll remember this one next year. Sometimes you just scratch your head and wonder why.
This guy dominates the late night airways in Cleveland. Maybe I should look at offering credit to everyone like Mark does here!
These guys want to make sure everyone is included. They’ve been all the rage on Youtube lately. I like Richard’s philosophy on weightlifting and selling furniture. Nice firm handshake!
Let me know what you think!
It’s a sad day for us in the design studio as Elizabeth is moving back home to Mississippi to take care of her mother. We said Bon Voyage at Cinco’s and gave her a one of a kind gift that was mostly an inside joke amongst the designers. The vase is the end of a bamboo pole used for a curtain rod and it is stuffed with discontinued animal print fabric samples (her favorite) and gilded feathers, topped with a leftover wooden drapery ring. In the photo, Veronique is making an elaborate presentation much to Elizabeth’s delight!
A friend sent me this photo and suggested I feature these stools in my showroom. Too bad they dont swivel! For more helpful info on bar stools, click here.
Suzanne just installed a sofa at a client’s home this week and got a special surprise. Our customer was so happy and excited that she danced a little jig, and then serenaded Suzanne with a tune played by the string quartet that was practicing at her home! Suzanne didnt want to come back to the studio!
I enjoy the fact that we work with so many different manufacturers. I was looking for a special table for a client yesterday and felt that it really didn’t exist due to the “defying physics” thing. It needed to be traditional, unique, cool, 60” round with a pedestal, but then extend to feed King Arthur and all his knights when they come to visit. That’s where the physics came into play. How do you support a table from one pedestal when it extends to seat twelve? Fortunately my mind has not completely faded and I remembered a company that makes dining tables in England and supposedly is the supplier for Harrods. Sure enough, they make a beautiful table that is going to be perfect for our client. The top is planked in spectacularly grained cherry and hand lathed to give it just enough texture that you’d swear you found it in some ancient vine covered estate in the English countryside. 
They don’t skimp on the support structure underneath, so the table won’t droop like a willow tree when extended.
Most of the time I think of my manufacturers as large corporations full of office cubes and assembly lines. Truth is, some of the great product comes from family owned companies that pass down their knowledge from generation to generation. Yesterday I was calling on one of those small suppliers to check on the availability of a piece only to find that they had forwarded their calls to their home phone…which was answered by the baby sitter. She wasn’t much help with our question, which will have to wait until Monday, but I got a good laugh from the situation.
My observation over the years of the interaction between husbands and wives in our design store is that their relationship is much like the one between congress and the president. The wives usually do all the legwork, homework, and research, while the husbands are mostly uninvolved but reserve the right to veto. They’ll spend whatever it takes for a flatscreen or the latest in golf technology, but balk at the cost of custom window treatments.
The other day, Elizabeth and I were at one of our favorite clients homes, enjoying a glass of wine and having fun talking about future projects around the house. Even though they have used our services for much of their home, the wife still likes to shop and was a little embarrassed to tell me she was about to buy a nice vanity for their powder room at a buying club. It was too good of a deal to pass up, she explained, and she had spent all that money to join. Just about then, Elizabeth came out of the powder room, tape measure in hand, and said “you havent ordered it yet, have you? It wont fit!” Sure enough, had it been installed the guests would have had to sit side saddle to use the facilities.
The husband smiled and said, “honey, will you just pay them (us) what it takes to do this right?”
Finally! No veto! And she didn’t have to pay four grand to join us…
One of the challenges we face in the world of custom order is the ever dreaded backorder. With the downturn in the economy, many factories are cutting back inventory and that makes us have to be even more on top of things for our clients. Even though we check availability of frames and fabrics, etc. before presenting to our clients we still occassionally get an acknowledgement of our order with the B-word next to an important item. If the expected delay is going to be too long for our clients we have to reselect.
The delays are can be in production. Sometimes they can be in shipping as a typhoon in the Pacific can slow up the boat. Truckers can strike. Hurricaine Katrina slowed everything down as we learned that a large percentage of foam used for upholstery cushions is imported through New Orleans. We’ve had product stuck in customs, especially when homeland security elevated the threat levels. Today I heard a new one. We just ordered a chair for a client and the fabric was expected to be in stock any day which made me feel good about placing the order. Then I was told that a machine at the fabric mill broke down and they had no idea how long it would be to get the right parts. Oh brother!
