HIGH POINT – With housing prices remaining at or near all-time highs across the country, one trend in case goods has fully crystallized: smaller scale furniture.
Many suppliers saw success in smaller furniture throughout 2024, with quite a few – such as A-America, Mavin, Stickley, Bernards and Hekman – significantly ramping up their offerings.
The reasons behind this trend are two-fold. With housing prices high enough to force younger consumers in particular to opt for smaller housing, that means smaller furniture.
The other reason is inflation. Consumers might not be able to pitch out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a new bedroom or dining table, but they’re still interested in smaller, less-committal items.
“For a long time, better-end goods were large,” said Micah Swick, president of Bernards Furniture. “It was almost priced by the pound. But homes are being built smaller today. I think we’re all trying to address that. Let’s build nice, upper-end product but at a scale that’s going to fit in homes that are being built today.”
Executives at higher-end solid wood case good importer Napa Furniture Design agreed.
“We’re going after the 25- to 45-year-olds,” said Dean Banks, vice president of operations. “That means smaller scale, more colors and looks that are more eclectic. An example is a his/her dresser where one side has bigger drawers. Another is a bedroom with one small nightstand and one that’s larger.”
“We’ve been doing about 60% king beds, 40% queen as an average between all customers,” said Bobby Papazian, one of the company’s owners and executive vice president of sales. “But I think we’re going to start to trend toward majority queen.”
Gat Caperton, president of the high-end solid wood producer Gat Creek, says the shrinking size of the average family is also a factor.
“The amount of furniture we can sell into a bedroom has continued to decline (too many window and closets in newer-designed housing),” he said. “With family sizes getting smaller, the number of bedrooms per house may start to decline. These will not offset the increase in demand that should come when the U.S. finally starts building more housing to close the demand gap.”
As such, Caperton predicts smaller items will see the most success this year.
“Nightstands,” he said. “Yes, the smallest case goods product will be the biggest thing in 2025. Too many bedrooms have no room for dressers, but we can always get a nightstand and usually can get two.”
Despite the demand for case goods remaining soft overall, Porter Designs said it did see success with smaller items.
“We did lots of metro scale furniture (in 2024),” said Jeff Schwall, vice president of sales at Porter Designs. “It’s great for second homes and townhomes, the people who don’t need 76-inch dressers.
“I expect that to continue. The cost of property is high, so I think we’re going to see more affordable smaller housing.”
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Credit: homeaccentstoday.com
