2012 Fall Color Report

Lately, you may have noticed a vibrant trend in clothing and accessories. Pops of neon colors have been all the rage this season, particularly in women's fashion – from all over neon to a nice contrast of nudes and brights. 

And now, fall is nearly here. Along with it comes new styles in fashion, home, and more. For all the color lovers that have been basking in the summer's electric hues, the impending neutral palette of fall may seem drab and dreary.

Not so, for Fall 2012. 

Pantone, the world-renowned authority on color, released their Fashion Color Report for Fall 2012 and it includes some hues sure to please. Picks include input from some renowned fashion insiders and designers including Tommy Hilfiger, Hervé Léger of BCBG Max Azria, Betsy Johnson and many more. Pantone's fall palette includes a traditional rich "French Roast" brown, a "Titanium" gray, and "Honey Gold" not unfamiliar to the autumn scene. Mixed in are a "Pink Flambe", "Tangerine Tango", and, our favorite, "Bright Chartreuse". The potential combinations are truly exciting.    

Designer Tracy Reese is also excited about some unconventional fall color combos: "Sour Citrus Yellow paired with Rich Jade Green and Fiery Red Orange – these bright tones are the perfect foil for the Medium Heather Gray and Camel neutral tones we are showing for fall; I am also pairing Fiery Orange with a Luminous Violet." Reese's inspirations for her clothing lines come from a variety of sources, but she also loves "looking at interiors for fabric and color inspiration." 

Not a bad place to start. Why should your wardrobe have all the fun? We've looked inside for some colorful inspiration as well, following fashion's fall outlook, but for the home. Below are some of our top-selling products from sofas to office supplies that are sure to liven up your space with color as the hot summer season drifts into fall: (insert picture)

Not the type to change up your trusty fall wardrobe or living space? Have no fear. Pantone offers equally colorful coffee mugs and phone cases to brighten up your day-to-day!

SAYL at Google

This picture is just too good not to share! This is a Google conference room at an undisclosed location and it's filled with Sayl Chairs from Smart Furniture. With a variegated mix to match Google's infamously fun and festive logo, this mix of Sayl Chairs brilliantly demonstrates the range of colors available to you. Change the back, seat, frame, even the armpads! Check out our Sayl Chair page to design your own. 

Needless to say, our eyes lit up when we saw the fruits of our labor embodied in this lovely image! We love to get photos of our products from happy customers, so don't hesitate to take out the ol' camera and share your space with us!

Steelcase Back to School Sale - Save 10%

As another summer draws to a close it’s time again for Steelcase's annual back to school sale! Whether you are equipping a child for the trials of college life or just in need of some new office furniture, the Steelcase Back to School Sale at SmartFurniture offers deals that are too good to pass up. With 10% off all Steelcase products this is an opportunity you won’t want to miss.

Steelcase has everything you need to deck out a workspace in all of the latest and greatest gear. From ergonomic chairs and accessories to tables and workstations that inspire collaboration, SmartFurniture has all of the Steelcase you need. Turnstone by Steelcase offers desks like Bivi, one of the most modular desks on the market, and chairs like Reply and Cobi that combine form and function into eye-catching, ergonomic office chairs. The Steelcase Leap Chair is one of the finest task chairs out there (it’s what I’m happily sitting in right now), while the Currency Desks give you the surface area worthy of an executive at a price an intern could afford. All of these great Steelcase products, and more, are now available at 10 percent off their normal price. Shop at SmartFurniture and save 10% on all Steelcase furniture today.

Need a new addition to your workspace or office but having trouble finding the right one? Call our furniture experts today and our team will help you find the perfect piece.

Gus* Modern Upholstery Sale

Have you been searching for the perfect sofa, but couldn't find it, or fit it into your budget?

Look no further – the Gus Modern Upholstery Sale has arrived and runs for an entire month. That gives you a little time to measure your space, shop your favorite products, read reviews and request free fabric swatches from us. It also means you'll be saving 20% on bestsellers such as the Jane Collection, which includes the Jane Bisectional – a finely tailored, cleverly designed sectional with beautiful tufting and French seams.

Searching for the perfect sleeper sofa? Let us introduce you to the new Flip Sofabed (featured above), a neutral but classic beauty, styled to fit any decor, and converts to a queen sized bed faster than you can say "unexpected house guest".

If you are looking to update your living room, be sure to check out the handsome Thatcher Sofa. Clearly a statement piece, this unique design has the same comfort, quality and styling that we associate with Gus Modern's designs. The Atwood Collection is modern and linear, with a sophisticated appeal and low profile. This family favorite includes a Chair, Sectional, Sofa, and a brand new Muskoka Surf blue fabric.

These amazing pieces are all on sale until August 19th. Carpe diem! Call our team today to ask us about our favorites, to request swatches and to ask questions about, well, anything. Try us!

Kartell Summer Sale

Brighten your home this summer with hot savings from Kartell. Now through the end of July, save an incredible 20% off your favorite Italian designs, many of which are fantastic for both indoor and outdoor use.

We're featuring new designs by one of the masters of modern design — Philippe Starck. His most famous design, the Louis Ghost Chair, is on sale. Other marquee designs by Starck include The Bubble Club Collection (you probably recognized the Bubble Club Sofa on Boston Legal), the Masters Chair, Magic Hole Armchair and One More, One More Please Counterstool. Most of these items are in-stock and ready to ship!

Tour the new candy colored designs of the Audrey and Maui Soft Chairs. Bright and playful, these comfortable chairs will liven up any space or dining room.

This sale only happens once a year – don't miss out!

We Love Our Customers...

And love it even more when they love us back! We recently had a customer share his happy experience, along with these gorgeous photos of his home. He customized one of our bestselling sofas, the Lily Sofa by Younger Furniture. We thank you for sharing your thoughts along with a glimpse at your beautiful living room! We look forward to working with you again.

“This was my first experience purchasing a sofa on-line and it was a great one. Karen G. in sales provided great support and excellent follow through. The entire process took 2 months since the sofa was being custom made by Younger Furniture. The Sunday staff was also great by answering my questions regarding shipping. The sofa is beautiful and it was worth the wait. I will definitely recommend SmartFurniture.com to friends and will be shopping here again. Thank you, F. Jacob, CA”

Employee Profile: Melanie Silva

Melanie Silva is one of our very best salespeople and a genuine Hawaiian savant. The valedictorian of her high school class, a woman of letters, a reservoir of poise and magnanimosity, she is indispensable to our office culture and to the success of our business. So we decided to give her her very own Smart Furniture Employee Profile! (Just kidding - everyone will have one, because we love everybody.)

Read more, here. “In Her Own Words: The Melanie Silva Story,” by Melanie Silva.

Design Milk/Smart Furniture Giveaway

Last month, we worked with one of our favorite blogs, Design Milk, to reward their Twitter followers and celebrate a special accomplishment - Design Milk’s 500,000th follower (yes, we’re most definitely one of them!). We selected a beautiful classic: A Herman Miller Eames Molded Plywood Lounge Chair. Iconic, comfortable, and gorgeous - you really can’t ask any more from a chair, and we were excited for Design Milk to choose a winner.

It turned out that lucky winner was @wanderlings, aka Allison, a blogger from Texas who we found out was in real need of a chair:

“About two years ago, my apartment caught on fire and I lost all my furniture. I haven't been able to afford to buy anything since then, and my boyfriend and I are getting our first place in August and this is our FIRST piece of furniture that we will have!! I'm over the moon. Thank you, thank you, thank you. :)”

You’re more than welcome Allison!

We appreciate working with great partners like Design Milk, and of course we love making people happy, which is why we’re all about free shipping, incredible customer service, unlimited customizable products, and a unique approach we call Design on Demand.

Congratulation Allison, and good luck!

Herman Miller Semi-Annual Sale Ends Soon

Our famous Herman Miller 15% off sale is about to wind down for the next six months. That means you only have 4 more days to save on some of the most iconic furniture ever designed, at some of the greatest savings you’ve ever seen.


Get your hands on a classic Eames Lounge Chair, Aluminum Group Chair, or Executive Chair. You can finally have a gorgeous Nelson Swag Leg Chair in your office, or a fun, functional Envelop Desk in your study. If you've been coveting some of these design icons for a while, shop What's In-Stock. You can outfit your entire home in authentic, beautiful Herman Miller furniture, at an amazing price.


You'll receive the best customer service you've ever experienced (call us - we'd love to hear from you), free standard shipping and no tax (if shipping outside of TN).

So don’t delay any longer. The biggest and best sale of the summer is happening right now, and it ends in just four days!

Summer of Eames Giveaway

We're opening the floodgates and letting our online customers register to win an incredible prize package worth up to $12,000!

Oh, you want to know what we’re giving away? Fine, we’ll tell you.

It’s only some of the most unique, groundbreaking, and classic furniture ever created. The Grand Prize Winner (register here) will receive a full patio set of outdoor Eames Furniture. As in Charles and Ray Eames.

That includes a big Eames Round Outdoor Table (built to withstand anything the elements can throw at it) and four Eames Aluminum Outdoor Side Chairs. We’ll also throw in a gorgeous Eames Aluminum Outdoor Lounge Chair, just for the thrill of it.

Eames Outdoor Furniture is the result of years of experimentation on the part of Charles and Ray, who were trying to create something that could be used indoors or out, and look just as lovely and at home in either place. It’s safe to say they succeeded.
Check out our Giveaway Page and Register Today!

Introducing HON

We are pleased to introduce an amazing line of office furnishings from HON, a company which hardly needs an introduction. For decades, it has been among the finest names in practical office solutions, from filing cabinets to desks, work surfaces and storage pieces. We’re very proud to be able to offer the full line of these unique products, thoughtfully designed to meet the needs of any user with options to personalize for the right mix of functionality and style.

One of the collections we'd like to highlight is the HON Voi Collection. Voi integrates your entire workspace attractively and efficiently by maintaining a compact footprint. It offers quite a bit of flexibility, allowing you to configure and personalize your work area as needed, and is so attractive, it can blend into any room of the home or work area.

Not sure where to begin? Let us help you design your work space!

Voi Workstation from HON

Introducing the Knoll MultiGeneration Hybrid Side Chair

From the same company that brought us the amazing Generation Task Chair, we now have a side chair that's every bit as inventive, fresh, and effective; the MultiGeneration Hybrid Side Chair by Knoll. This chair, like its big brother, is all about movement. You can rotate your body a full 270 degrees in this chair, sit in it backwards in total comfort, sit side-saddle ... sit however you want. Slim, compact, flexible, environmentally friendly - it's everything you could hope for in a small scale version of the groundbreaking Generation Chair. The MultiGeneration chair is perfect for forward-thinking offices, conference rooms, homes, and more. Get yours today in the Smart Furniture online store!

Happy Birthday to Mies Van Der Rohe

In honor of German-born architect and designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's 126th birthday we would like to say, Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Mies! To celebrate the German master of post WWI architecture, we'd like to share a couple of our favorite highlights in the life and career of one of the 20th century's greatest architects and designers.

Barcelona Pavilion

Designed in 1929 as the German national pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, Mies' Barcelona Pavilion is a site not to be forgotten. Built from glass, steel and different kinds of marble, the Pavilion was conceived to accommodate the official reception presided over by King Alphonso XIII of Spain along with the German authorities. After the exhibition the Pavilion was disassembled. In 1980, efforts were put into motion to reconstruct the Barcelona Pavilion based on Mies' original design on the actual site that the structure had stood in 1929. The recreated design was finished in 1986 and used the same materials: glass, steel and four different kinds of marble. One of Mies' most recognizable creations, the Barcelona Chair, was introduced with the Barcelona Pavilion. Also designed in 1929, this popular chair brought elegance and new life to the otherwise monotonous materials of steel and leather making it an icon of modern design.

Tugendhat House

Overlooking the Czech city of Brno, the Tugendhat House, fully designed by Mies, stands. Recently reopened in February 2012, the newly renovated structure remains true to the architect's original designs and aesthetics implemented in 1930. Mies dealt with an extreme slope that the house was to be built on by dividing the front and back of the house into public and private facades. Facing the street, the building is seemingly only one story, but it is two stories on the more private garden side. The home's decor was made up of several of Mies finest pieces of original furniture, including the Brno chair, the Tugendhat chair, and the X coffee table. All of these designs express Mies' attraction and need of simplicity and also used his hallmark materials of leather, steel, and glass. During this same time, Mies became the director of the Bauhaus School focusing the curriculum on form and function instead of fine arts and politics. The school was later closed in 1932 by Mies due to pressure from the Nazi party's declaration that the principles of the school were "un-German". Following his 1938 immigration to the United States, Mies van der Rohe continued to design and create structures that exemplify modern architecture. Structures like campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Not since Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia (1819) had an American campus been the work of a single architect. Mies also went on to design some of the nation's most recognizable skyscrapers, including the Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago and the Seagram Building in New York City with its iconic amber glass. Mies later died on August 19, 1969 in Chicago after a long battle with esophageal cancer and pneumonia. His legacy lives on in his designs and architectural masterpieces. The Mies van der Rohe Society of the Illinois Institute of Technology sum up Mies' vision quite nicely:

"Our built environment is meant to be lived in. Mies' buildings, beyond merely affecting our lives, endow them with greater significance and beauty. His buildings radiate the confidence, rationality, and elegance of their creator and, free of ornamentation and excess, confess the essential elements of our lives. In our time, where there is no limit to excess, Mies' reductionist approach is as pertinent as ever. As we reduce the distractions and focus on the essential elements of our environment and ourselves, we find they are great, intricate, and beautiful. Less is more."

The Steelcase Giveaway Has a Winner!

Our hearty congratulations go out to Rebecca Sama, whose inspiring custom design for the Steelcase Think Chair has been declared the winner!

We picked our winner at random, but it must be said that Rebecca has superb taste. The beautiful cogent upholstery and platinum base finish are perfectly set off by the tasteful yet distinctive maya blue color of the fabric. Her tasteful submission is more than worthy of the custom Think Chair she will receive.

Again, a hearty congratulations goes out to Rebecca from the entire Smart Furniture team, and also thanks to the fine folks at Steelcase for helping make this happen (and for making comfortable chairs too).

Don't forget that you too can create your own unique designs and share them with friends and family through out innovative email button on every product page. Keep designing!

The Design Your Own Steelcase Chair Giveaway Spectacular!

Very soon we're going to be bringing our Steelcase Chair Giveaway to a close - so you only have a limited amount of time to throw your hat in the ring and win one of these beautiful chairs!

Leap Chair	Amia Chair	Think Chair

The rules of the contest are simple. All you have to do to win is design the perfect custom Steelcase chair using our online tools. You choose the color - you choose the accessories. You choose the accents and the features. You choose everything, and then we will chose one lucky winner and give that designer the chair of their dreams for free!

Go ahead and enter the contest now! With products like the Cobi Chair, Think Chair, Leap Chair and the Amia Chair, you’ve got a great palette to start your design with. Good luck, and remember to act fast before the contest ends!