Spring market report: low-key and livable; these new styles soothe rather than shout. (Design Lines).

This summer's new furniture is more "girl next door" than "Madonna." It's meant to delight, rather than dazzle you.

By turning their backs on frills and flash, manufacturers are trying to fit furniture closely to the way Americans live and play -- especially play.

Introductions at the April International Home Furnishings Market showed clean-limbed, uncluttered styles that in some cases are close to contemporary and in other cases hark back to Mission and other styles from America's past.

Designers also turned their imaginations to helping customers do something specific -- pay bills at home and manage the maze of wires emanating from their electronic entertainment -- as well as live in aesthetically pleasing surroundings.

When they wanted to impart a sense of luxury, they did it through unusual materials rather than through ornate carvings or classical styles. Much of the Asian and Island influence seen at past markets was not evident in April.

Century, which mixed gilded, black-painted pieces with simpler-styled polished walnut in its new 60-piece Consulate collection, topped a walnut chest with Moroccan charcoal-colored marble containing 600-million-year-old fossils.

There was also a lot of leather. Stanley Furniture introduced a smooth-lined, headboard/footboard in its new American View collection that was entirely padded leather. Vaughan-Bassett's salute to Elvis Presley included a white leather and cherry retro-style bed. (See story on page 57)

Help for Mom

Busy moms continued to be on the minds of designers.

Hooker Furniture and futurist Faith Popcorn teamed up to create a new Cottage Cocoon home office geared to women which was smaller-scaled and less expensive than last October's French-influenced La Cocoon. It includes a laptop computer desk with a covered top that opens to become a document rest and a mobile file that doubles as a worksurface for children or adults.

Moms also got a boost from Sauder Woodworking, which added a unique feature to a children's armoire in its Pacifica Collection. Blue-painted handles on the white-painted drawers represent the days of the week, with a bottom drawer labeled "Washday." Pull the drawer lid open, and a canvas sling tumbles dirty laundry at your feet.

A New Frontier: The Bath

To compete with custom cabinetry in the powder room and guest bath, Hooker introduced freestanding designer sink cabinets for both single and double sinks. "What people have been doing is buying chests and 'forcing' sinks into them "said Mike Spece, senior vice president. "Now we've designed sink chests with coordinating basins and faucets that are ready-to-install, and we are dropping the price down to an attainable level."

For the five single sinks, suggested retail price range is $899 to $1,499; the two double sinks sell for up to $2,499. Hooker plans to market them through furniture retailers and home improvement stores.

Return to Home

Commentators have speculated that Americans have been staying home more since the events of Sept. 11. Much of the new furniture is designed to help them enjoy the experience.

Bassett, which last year started offering customized pieces in its Simply Yours Collection sold through Bassett Direct stores, has since added a customized square "gathering table" for eight. Bassett also introduced two new bedroom suites, Options and Heartland Oak, four different kinds of posts available for the Heartland Oak bed.

In dining room furniture Kincaid in-traduced a china cabinet with glass-paneled doors that slide behind each other rather than swinging on hinges.

Size of Things to Come

In TV cabinetry, a couple of the big names in casegoods chose this market to leap into the big-screen and High Density Television field, while veterans of the field broadened their range of offerings.

Stanley Furniture was a newcomer, introducing five configurations in three of its collections. They included an entertainment center for HDTV screens up to 47 inches, and home theater units for screens up to 73 inches.

Sligh debuted its home entertainment units, offering five product types including a modular entertainment cabinet and home theater, and a home theater with an expandable storage bridge.

Hooker introduced a home theater cabinet with doors to conceal big screens, and also an HDTV cabinet for screens up to 46 inches.

RTA manufacturers Bush, Sauder and O'Sullivan have catered to the big screens before, primarily through TV stands flanked by audio towers connected by bridges.

"We're just trying to accommodate bigger and bigger TVs without locking the consumer in," said Ernie Artista, vice president of corporate communications for Bush Industries. "It seems to us that people are buying bigger and bigger TVs. They want the TV to be almost like a home theater concept."

Bush is introducing a new look with its Genesis entertainment stands and towers, which feature solid wood, aluminum strips and tempered glass shelves. The stands can hold up to a 40-inch TV. The glass is cushioned to prevent rattling.

Bush is offering silver TV stands "made to complement the silver TVs that are becoming very prevalent right now," Artista said. Stands in Bush's Universal collection come in either Dark Silver or Ash Gray; some of them are available in a V-shape.

Bush also introduced what may be the first stand for holding the thin, high-cost "plasma" screens. Made of wood and with a suggested retail price of $899, the base contains storage while an upper segment holds the swivel screen.

"We think the plasma TVs, certainly for a certain part of the population, are going to grow. People are going to have to hang them someplace. If you hang them on the wall, they can fall," Artista said.

Low-Key Flair

In keeping with the trend toward understated flair, chairs designed for Hickory Chair by Mariette Himes Gomez touch on contemporary, while Pennsylvania House's American Traditions collection is reminiscent of the past.

The 54-piece American Traditions was made of American black cherry grown within 100 miles of Pennsylvania House's headquarters in Lewisburg, PA, said Ron Fuhrman, marketing vice president.

"Our craftspeople, who have been doing it for 115 years, know how to work with black cherry wood," Fuhrman said. Dovetail and wooden peg joinery characterized many of the pieces, which also incorporated some Queen Anne and Chippendale styling.

Clean lines give today's savvy consumer a background on which to try out his or her own decorating ideas, contended designer Susan Sargent. Sargent, best-known as a fabric designer, introduced her first furnishings line through Lexington Home Brands.

The 44-piece collection is characterized by bright colors and soft upholstery and includes a four-door armoire of checkerboard-matched cherry veneer. In October, lighting, wall decor and accessories will be added.

Another large branded collection, Kathy Ireland Home Gallery for Standard Furniture, used gently curved lines and, again, dramatically matched veneer, to add interest to its Deco bedroom and dining room furniture. Standard also teamed up with the model-turned-designer to introduce Princess Bouquet, a laminate youth collection.

For Youths: The Red Bed

In youth collections, Yankee Doodle by Bassett tied into the country's post-Sept. 11 patriotic mood by featuring a red metal bed and a stars and stripes color scheme. Stanley stuck to a "cottage" mode with its pine Winterhaven and white-finished Summerhaven collections. Feminine-styled collections included Kathy Ireland and Standard Furniture's white laminate Princess Bouquet and Bassett's Bows 'n Blooms. Broyhill added 29 youth pieces to its Attic Heirlooms, including a schoolhouse-style desk.

Elvis Comes to High Point

Probably the glitziest touch at this sober-styled market was Vaughan-Bassett's introduction of Elvis Presley-inspired "Hollywood" and "Graceland" bedroom furniture.

They commemorate the singer's death 25 years ago, and offer, among other things, a gilded, heart-shaped "Burning Love" mirror with the initials "EAP" on top and an armoire with Elvis' signature and music notes decorating the frost-glass door.

If you want furniture that screams "Elvis," you buy the mirrors and the armoire, said Doug Bassett, vice president of sales. But if you want furniture that merely whispers "Elvis," much of the rest of the collection is relatively subdued. The traditional "Graceland" could fill any Southern mansion, and the retro "Hollywood" has a choice of plain or "EP" initialed hardware.

That restrained tone fit in with the market's style. April 2002 was a time that the market, along with Elvis, told consumers, "That's All Right." Nobody wanted to risk getting them "All Shook Up."

RELATED ARTICLE: April's Market: Optimistic Yet Cautious

This year's April International Home Furnishings Market was a far cry from the somber atmosphere just last October. With the shock of Sept. 11, 2001, fading and an improving economic picture beginning to emerge, buyers came April 18-25 in considerably greater numbers than last October, when concerns about travel safety and the economy combined to cut attendance about 25 percent

April's was an extremely important market because retailers were using it to lay a foundation for their two- to three-year plans, said analyst W. W. "Jerry" Epperson of Mann, Armistead & Epperson investment bankers. People tended to wax euphoric about the market because the atmosphere was so different from October, he said. In terms of the amount of business being done, it was better than April 2001, he felt, but still not as good as April 2000.

Buyers were ready to fill their stores, Epperson said, but they were not ready to take risks with new styles or blockbuster collections that dominate display space. He traced a slow rebound in manufacturing sales that, in some cases, has accelerated. Retailers started buying a little more each month last October, he said, and in December, they bought a lot more. "They haven't been able to keep up with retail sales."

Greater demand should show up in the fall, he said, particularly for wood case-goods, which, lacking a "wear cycle," have not picked up as upholstery has. Seventy percent of homes are bought between May and October, he said, and also, a big demand is likely building up for furniture to fill previously-bought homes.

Because so many plants have closed and so many employees laid off, Epperson said, "we may have problems meeting demand this fall." Already, he said, recliner plants are working 52-hour work weeks, and not all retailers can get recliners delivered when they want.

He characterized the April market as a value-oriented one. "There's a lot of new product here, but not a lot of flash," Epperson said. "Style risk will come once we get the economy a little more stable." Only three large, branded collections (Vaughan-Bassett's Elvis-inspired collection, one by designer/model Kathy Ireland for Standard Furniture, and one by designer Susan Sargent for Lexington Home Furnishings) were evident, Epperson said. That's in contrast to the 12 to 15 blockbuster collections typically introduced in past years, he said.