SAN DIEGO – Martin Furniture will venture into dining in time for the fall High Point Market, a brand-new category for the home office and entertainment furniture specialist.
The company will introduce more than a dozen new dining collections, encompassing an array of tables, chairs, buffets, sideboards and more.
“This is a big step for us,” said Dee Maas, vice president of sales. “It’ll make us more important to our partners, as home office isn’t the biggest category on store floors.”
Entering the dining category was a natural progression of the company’s strengths, said Pat Hayes, the company’s lead designer and vice president of marketing. It also works well with the company’s new Vietnam warehouse.
“It was a good match for our expertise, with desktops being similar dining tabletops,” he told Furniture Today. “And since we now have a mixed container warehouse in Vietnam, it’s more attractive for our buyers to be able to mix office and dining. As home office isn’t the largest retail category, doing direct container for just office is sometimes too much. Now our customers can ship mixed dining and office direct from Vietnam. They don’t have to invest so much in just one category.”
Exact pricing hasn’t been revealed yet, but Hayes said it will lie in the mid-to-upper range. “It’s all natural and distressed wood, our specialty” he said. “Looks are casual, with all the chairs having upholstery.”
“The quality is consistent and the pricing will be competitive,” said Maas.
Martin will also add an additional showroom. The company has taken the space across the hall from its current space at Market on Green. The new space is about 5,000 square feet, bringing the company’s combined space to about 15,000 square feet.
“The idea is to show dining mostly in the new space, even though some of the collections are influenced by our home office lines,” said Hayes. “The exact layout depends on what gets here in time for market.”
In addition to dining, the company also plans to introduce fireplace consoles for market. A wide array of design options and features will be offered, including modern finishes, rustic aesthetics, adjustable shelves and wire management systems.
“Our fireplace consoles are a testament to our commitment to innovation and customer-centric design,” said Gil Martin, CEO. “We believe that a beautiful home should also be a functional one, and our consoles achieve the balance between style and practicality.”
See Martin at High Point at its showroom on the third floor of Market on Green.