Unfinished Furniture Featured On PBS Program This Winter

Furniture World Magazine

This winter the Unfinished Furniture Association will light up the screen as home project experts Vicki Payne and daughter Sloan Payne-Rutter decorate several top-quality pieces of unfinished furniture on their highly popular home and garden show, "For Your Home". Unfinished furniture will have a recurring role in five episodes of the show’s 20th season, which were available by satellite feed beginning in early January. In the episodes, Vicki and Sloan, with the help of several guest decorators, embark on home decorating projects that will show viewers the true beauty of unfinished furniture. In one project they transform a wooden armoire into a feminine and practical floral arrangement center and in another they create a stylish home office with finishing techniques that are so simple anyone can learn them. In another exciting episode they convert a breakfront into a funky children’s dresser with a cosmic adventurous theme through colorful designs, layering and elaborate crackle paint. The mother and daughter team also turned blah into beautiful by painting unfinished Adirondack chairs bright red to add some excitement to a garden hideaway, and antiqued a wooden bench, creating an inviting place to sit and relax in a guest bathroom. “We are so excited to be a part of For Your Home, which is known for its creative decorating projects,” said UFA Executive Director Michele Biordi. “Hopefully this exposure will help to introduce some consumers to the benefits of using unfinished furniture in their homes.” Vicki, who has been helping Americans redecorate their homes for two decades, said she was impressed by the versatility and quality of the furniture she received from UFA members. “Some of the other people working on the show had no idea that unfinished furniture was so versatile,” she said. “They said ‘this is really great furniture. It lets you be so creative.’” Even veteran decorative painter Bob Nulf, who has worked with numerous furniture manufacturers, was amazed by how well-made the furniture was and was interested in using more unfinished furniture in future projects, Vicki said. For Vicki, working with UFA opened up her eyes to the endless possibilities of unfinished furniture. “We found it so easy to pick what we wanted because we were only concentrating on style,” she said. “We could choose the size we wanted. If we wanted cabinets with doors instead of drawers we could find that too. It was great because we weren’t looking at color, just style and lines because we were going to finish it ‘our way’ as UFA says.” Vicki said she believes it will come across to viewers that she and her daughter had fun with unfinished furniture and that it is so easy to work with. They demonstrate a variety of different finishing techniques such as antiquing, distressing, faux finishing and using outdoor paint and elaborate crackle paint. “At the same time, For Your Home also shows viewers how to use both unfinished and finished furniture in the same room so people are able to use what they already have and complement this with some more unique accent pieces,” Vicki said. UFA retailers featured in the program include: Archbold Furniture Co., Arthur W. Brown Manufacturing, Woodcraft Industries, Khoury Furniture and John Greenleaf Furniture. Tune in as Vicki and Sloan show off the fantastic features of unfinished furniture one piece at a time. It is up to the discretion of each PBS station whether to run the episodes. For local listings visit http://www.cutterstv.com/FYH.html The Unfinished Furniture Association is a national trade organization of domestic and international manufacturers and retailers of unfinished furniture. UFA is the sole authority providing Real Wood Furniture Finished Your Way® certification to retailers The Unfinished Furniture Association (UFA), a national organization that sets the benchmark for Real Wood, ready-to-finish furniture, has made it easy to find Real Wood Furniture Finished Your Way® certified retailers in your area by visiting its comprehensive website, www.unfinishedfurniture.org. Make this website the first stop you make before heading out to purchase your unfinished piece. For more information contact UFA, 15000 Commerce Parkway, Suite C, Mt. Laurel, NJ, 08054; phone: 800-487-8321 or fax: 856-439-0525; e-mail: ufa@ahint.com or visit www.unfinishedfurniture.org.