Everyone benefits from right-sizing, the “functional” watch word emerging from this Fall’s High Point Market, where author and home furnishings trend watcher Gale Steves will conduct a seminar on how the struggling furniture industry can succeed in helping consumers economically “make their homes fit their lifestyles.”
The seminar, Right-Sizing Your Home, is scheduled Sunday, October 17, 4-to-5:30 p.m., Court Yard, Market Square, 317 High Street, High Point. Full disclosure: I am working with Gale to spread her mantra of right-sizing.
She will detail how right-sizing techniques can prevent the nightmarish problem dramatically presented in the adjacent photograph.
“In this turbulent economy, people still want to live comfortably and more efficiently, and are especially attracted to multitasking furniture and home furnishings that demonstrably delivers more than esthetics,” she said. “This real consumer pent up demand opens significant opportunities for retailers, designers and realtors, who can literally open doors to sustainable business with adopting right-sizing techniques.”
In the seminar, Steves will enumerate practical insights from her book, “Right-Sizing Your Home" (www.right-sizing.com), and from years as editor-in-chief of Home magazine, as well as incorporating smart insights from interviewing thousands of consumers on ”using space more wisely.” She will present a variety of images how people created more space in transforming rooms and other areas to confirm to their needs and lifestyles.
Steves will explain how designers and merchants can focus on the merits of multitasking furniture, especially with a variety of pieces featuring what she characterizes as “hidden assets” or special functions and storage areas for safe keeping valuables.
“Even though this terrible economy has convinced many people to remain in their homes and not sell, people I call the ‘improve-don’t move’ group, adopting a right-sizing perspective gives smart realtors a unique opportunity. They now have fresh ideas as they help their clients recognize that every house has more value if right-sizing underscores the sales discussion,” Steves said. “Right-sizing allows those home buyers a way to imagine greater space and function possibilities.”
At the High Point Market, Steves will be “discovering multitasking furniture” to feature in an exclusive news story she is writing about satisfying “real consumer needs.” Also, the author will discuss how the industry can benefit from producing furniture and home furnishings that meets people’s “real needs and not what they think they want. We have learned that no one has a dollar to waste anything that’s not efficient and functional,” Steves explained.
In addition to her website, www.right-sizing.com, Steves maintains a Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Right-Sizing-Your-Home/102575219782552?ref=ts.
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