Benches make a great space saving solution for the home and we find them to be some of the most versatile, multi-purpose pieces that have a great deal of longevity in the home. In order to demonstrate the practicality of benches we’ve put together a quick guide on some of the useful ways you can use them in the home.

In the kitchen/dining area:
One of our favourite ways to create a dynamic look for the space where you dine is to place a bench like the Sponge Bench at the dining table. Benches are especially practical if you are working with limited square footage because the lack of back means it can be completely tucked under the table and brought back out when needed.

In the entrance/exit area of your home:
Placing a bench in the part of your home where you enter and exit makes leaving the house so much simpler, especially if you have kids. Placing coat hooks above the benches means kids can hang their coats, hats and other belonging on the rack and place their shoes beneath the bench. This sort of setup encourages them to get ready more independently and helps keep things neat and organized.

At the foot of your bed:
The foot of the bed often becomes dead space and a bench, especially one with storage, is a great way to solve this problem. It will provide you with extra storage, and the tabletop portion can be used to lay out your clothes for the next day, or to rest things you want access to before bed, but don’t have room for on your nightstand.

Outside:
This is quite an obvious one, but can’t be overlooked. Having an outdoor bench means you have outdoor seating and we suggest opting for a lightweight option, which can easily be moved around the backyard so you have ample seating wherever it is needed. This is especially helpful for outdoor entertaining.

In the living room and beyond:
The living room also makes a great home for a bench. Try the Edison Bench, a multi-purpose piece that is well designed and can be used in many rooms as an ottoman or a cocktail table.

Performance fabrics are a class of manmade textile with incredible durability, colorfastness, and resistance to spills, stains and odors. For anyone with children, pets, or even a taste for red wine, performance fabric upholstery is virtually essential. It frees you to opt for any color of sofa, even white, knowing that it will continue to look fresh for years. Among the very best performance fabric brands are:

Crypton
A heavy duty fabric that looks and feels like a luxury textile, CryptonⓇ has a remarkably soft and natural hand, yet is spill-proof; liquids bead on its surface and simply roll off. It’s also resistant to microbes, stains, fungus, abrasions, odors, and flames, so even the most careless owner will enjoy years of use. Available in over 2,000 colors and patterns, Crypton’s indoor line, Crypton HomeⓇ, can be cleaned with just water and laundry detergent.

Sunbrella

The original outdoor performance fabric, SunbrellaⓇ offers great colorfastness, thanks to a process that adds UV resistant pigment to the fibers prior to extrusion so it’s deeply embedded. Designed to look and feel like cotton, it offers you the option to furnish your patio for summer as if it were another room in your house. Separate indoor and outdoor ranges include hundreds of options in upholstery, drapery and accessory fabrics.

Ultrasuede
A similarly priced alternative to good leather, UltrasuedeⓇ is just as durable but softer to the touch and available in a wider range of colors — 97 in all! Its color fastness, air permeability (which prevents odors and mildew from becoming trapped), tensile strength, and abrasion endurance make it extremely long lasting, while its microfiber composition makes it highly drapable. Like Crypton Home, Ultrasuede is recommended for indoor use.

The ease of living with durable, easy-to-clean soft furnishings is well worth the small extra expense. Discover the diversity of performance fabrics for yourself at the Sklar Furnishings showroom; we have an array of beautiful samples and furniture made up in Crypton, Sunbrella and Ultrasuede, ready for you to see and feel for yourself.

In 1953 Giacomo Peressini started producing and selling tables and chairs in a small town in Northern Italy called Udine. Today Udine is famous for all of the furniture manufacturers and (surprise) its wonderful wine. Peressini, the company, has grown over the years and is now run by Giacomo’s children, Michele and Michael Peressini. Their goal has been to blend the local tradition of their father with the modern globalization of their generation. They have been very successful achieving this!

Sourcing designers from all over the world and listening to their customer’s needs means that Peressini has come up with products that are elegant, modern and well received by the marketplace. Their focus continues to be on tables and chairs, and they do this very well. Peressini’s chairs are so versatile and can be designed and made exactly how you want it. Peressini advertises “Chairs Your Way,  and this is exactly what you get. All chair frames or shells can be mounted on different bases: four-leg base, a star base, a swivel, a sled base and on and on. This gives you, the customer, the ability to have a “one-of-a-kind” chair at the same price as one from an assembly line. Check out Sklar’s selection of chairs from Peressini, including the Doris or the Glamour.

Peressini’s table line is similar in that all of the options available are extension tables, with wonderful Italian mechanisms that make changing a table that seats 4 to a table for 8 in a simple twist of the wrist. The Myles Dining Table starts as a standard 48″ round table that can be extended up to a 75″ table that easily sits 6 people.

As always, we at Sklar strive to partner with small family businesses in Italy where we have an opportunity to build relationships—not just furniture.

Reducing environmental impact is a priority for all responsible furniture manufacturers and sellers. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to update most practices for a more positive environmental outcome. Options for manufacturers include reducing solvent use or switching to less polluting water-based options; using only wood from sustainable forests or plantations; and cutting back on unnecessary packing materials. Stores (and their customers) can help reduce air pollution by choosing to buy locally rather than flying furnishings in from abroad.

Not content to just reduce their emissions, these companies are going one step further and aiming for zero impact.

Huppe
Canada’s Huppe uses only Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified sustainable wood to build its furniture. The Huppe factory features state of the art anti-pollution technologies, including a heat exchanger that heats the space while slashing gas use and emissions; eight infrared thermoreactors bake finished pieces dry and evaporate solvents into harmless water and carbon dioxide. Huppe exceeds voluntary industry standards by using formaldehyde-free glues and paints with low volatile organic components, and aims to completely eliminate solvent vapors.

Jesse
If you’re going green but can’t stand the thought of giving up European furniture, you’ll be relieved to hear that Italian brand Jesse boasts strong environmental credentials. Its certifications include the ISO 14000-04 for environmental management and the Singapore Green Label for eco-friendly raw materials.

Gamma
Also in Italy, Gamma sources all its leather from Dani, the first tannery in the world environmentally friendly enough to achieve Carbon Footprint certification. Dani takes a scientific approach to reducing its environmental impact, and its current status is the result of ten years of research in partnership with universities, research centres and laboratories. Its leather is free of chrome and heavy metals, and each square metre of leather produced releases a relatively low 10kg of CO2. The company compensates for its remaining emissions through reforestation projects in partnership with an accredited energy service company. Dani also invests in renewable energy and technologies that reduce waste during production.

Copeland Furniture
Vermont’s Copeland Furniture has collected multiple awards for its environmental performance. The company sources all its hardwood within 500 miles of the factory, keeping transport emissions low and ensuring that the forests in question are legal and well-managed. The Copeland factory is heated entirely by waste wood and packaging waste is reduced since they installed their own boxmaker. Anything left over is recycled rather than going to landfill. The default or standard finish is low-emission GREENGUARD varnish, and, like Huppe, Copeland continues to work on reducing volatile organic compound emissions.

Sustainable Furnishings Council
Sklar Furnishings is a proud member of the Sustainable Furnishings Council (SFC). SFC certification demonstrates a measurable commitment to sustainable practices, and makes it easy for customers to identify stock lists of environmentally friendly furniture. Users can also search the SFC website for members, to confirm whether a manufacturer or store meets their standards. To qualify for membership, applicants must at minimum demonstrate ‘verifiable intent’ to improve their sustainability practice. The SFC currently has over 400 members, making it the largest organization of its kind.

Any party, large or small, can’t help but be enhanced by the addition of a bar trolley. A really stylish trolley serves two distinct functions. Most obviously, it neatly stores your bottles and bartending equipment, and allows you as host to move the bar with the crowd. But in a less tangible sense, it indicates a dedication to entertaining, and to style, that guests appreciate. By being both practical and beautiful, a bar trolley helps create atmosphere while keeping the party moving.

Reflex Miss Marple Cart
Like its namesake, the Miss Marple Bar Trolley by Reflex is always ready with a solution to vexing problems. Put this elegant, modern piece to work as extra shelf space for glasses and bottles, let it take center stage for mixing drinks when entertaining, and use its wheels to easily move the party from the kitchen to the patio as the mood takes you. The Miss Marple features a shiny steel body, two ultra-clear glass shelves, and four wheels.

Tonelli Kart Bar Unit
Designed by Karim Rashid and manufactured by our favorite Italian glass factory, the contemporary Kart Bar Unit is more a piece of art than furniture. Put your favorite martini glasses and shakers on the top shelf and all the condiments on the movable shelf below. Reminiscent of an old fruit and vegetable cart with the oversize frosted wheels, this is definitely a wow piece. It is worth rearranging the furniture so this will fit in your contemporary living room.

DIA Escapade Mobile Server
The retro charm of the Escapade Mobile Bar Cart makes it an incredibly versatile and useful piece for any contemporary dining room or living room. The polished chrome and glistening clear glass allow you to pair the Escapade Mobile Bar Cart with almost any style already existing in your home. The disguised handle and black casters make it easy to move from one room to the next. Having a big dinner party? Wheel it beside your buffet for added space, or bring it to the table as a dessert cart – the only limitations are in your mind!

Explore more
Browse our full selection of bar trolleys, stools, tables and cabinets.

Let us introduce you to Matthew Weatherly, a very talented and prolific designer who works at BDI, which is our favorite media company whose tag line is “Driven by Design”.

Matthew studied Scandinavian design, architecture and woodworking at Denmark’s Design School and added to this body of knowledge graduating with an Industrial Design degree from the Pratt institute. Obviously heavily influenced by the Danish modern style and inspired by a love of nature, Matthew strives to merge maximum functionality with minimal materials.

Matthew’s work has been recognized internationally through awards, exhibitions, and publications. Matt is originally from the Midwest but relocated to Northern Virginia a decade ago, where he lives with his wife and young son.

In October of this past year he was recognized by the American Society of Furniture Designers’ with two Pinnacle Awards: one for the Corridor Bar unit  and the second one for the Sequel Wall desk. In December of 2014 he was awarded the Eddy award presented by the Contemporary Design Group (of which we are proud members). He won for the Corridor media cabinet which is one of our best sellers. All of these products are examples of what his influence is – very reminiscent of the Danish look that was very popular in the mid 1950’s. Both awards recognize design quality and the Eddy award is also based on five criteria – Design Aesthetics, Creativity, Consumer Relevance and Appeal, Use of Material, Manufacturing Execution and lastly Functionality.

Matthew has designed many products for BDI – the Format, and Semblance desk systems, and the Cavo and Nora media units. He is constantly inventing new looks, and with the tech savvy direction of Bill Becker (The B in BDI), all of their products are of the minute.

The simple touch of good outdoor lighting can add just the perfect amount of whimsy and romance to any backyard. It can transform your outdoor space into an area you use not just until the early evening, but into the depths of the night.

String lights are a versatile favorite of ours. They can be used to light up trees and greenery, or with other structural support (think simple posts) strung overhead or around outdoor tables to light up the entertainment space, adding a flattering twinkle of light.

The quickest and simplest way to guarantee you will stay out in your backyard later is to simply string lights onto your patio umbrella. There are many solar-powered options designed specifically for patio umbrellas. They provide gentle overhead lighting that will encourage you to have at least one more drink while out on your patio.

Not a fan of wires? Our Kartell Battery Lamps provide a rechargeable solution that will twinkle like the night stars with their crystal covers. If you’re looking for a more robust alternative to stand up to any weather, these Vases Floor Lamps are built to stand up to the harshest weather while still looking sleek and stylish.

Installing lights in your pool is a common add-on people opt for when getting a new pool or renovating an existing one. Pool lights effectively add a lot of ambient lighting to a backyard and multi-colored ones are a popular option. They tend to alternate color, creating a mesmerizing light show on the surface of your pool.

Lots of people are quick to dismiss tiki torches, but they are truly a backyard classic. They are easy to install, inexpensive, and versatile – you can easily move them around as needed. If the classic and fun bamboo model isn’t your style, there are sleeker, more modern-looking metal options on the market. Aside from providing illumination, another major benefit of backyard torches is that many models can be outfitted with citronella candles in order to help repel insects.

The contrast of outdoor lighting against the backdrop of the night sky provides a sense of warmth and comfort like no other. We highly recommend adding even just a touch of outdoor lighting to your backyard because for a minimal cost, you will bring extra sparkle into your everyday life. It will encourage you to spend more time outdoors, which is always a plus, and in turn adds extra entertaining space to your home.

Photo courtesy of Casa Smith Designs.

Launched in 2010 Couture Jardin is a family operated Canadian company run by the father son combination of Normand and Philippe Couture. Normand graduated at 21 as an Industrial Designer and immediately opened a retail store called Domicil in Montreal, Canada which quickly grew to include a total of seven stores which he ran for over 18 years. Because of all the travel searching unique products Normand became greatly influenced by international trends and decided to go back to his roots and talents as a designer.

In 1995 he developed the patented sofa concept called Cameleon which garnered him many awards, including Canada’s top award for design, four years in a row! His designs are very distinctive, user friendly and available in wonderful fun colors. He has a separate collection of indoor pieces under the line called Pinnacle which we are also proud to show in the store.

With the success of his collection indoors it was only natural to move outdoors. So many times people would ask: “Can this go outside?” The comfort and fabulous fabrics made them want to enjoy these designs and pieces by their pool or in the lanai. The designs and pieces are not the normal wicker or metal furniture – all the collections are high design and would fit in your living room or dining room just as easily as they do by the pool.

Made from robust aluminum structures, quick drying foam and synthetic fibers these pieces are 100% recyclable and weather resistant. Fabrics are high quality Sunbrella fabrics – a well-known performance fabric which will look the same in five years as it does today.

The company has just opened up a warehouse in South Florida so all of these beautiful outdoor pieces are available very quickly. Enjoy the South Beach as a sofa, chair or sectional and right beside it place the Ella Dining Table and your outdoor space will be finished and gorgeous!

What a wonderful story this Vermont based family business has to tell! Started in early 1970 with a vision to create a family owned business making wood products from natural hardwoods it has grown to be a state of the art manufacturing facility located on the banks of the Connecticut River in Bradford Vermont.

Their first product was cider presses for home and small scale orchard use. Gradually the focus changed to home furnishings – this continued evolution of design has coincided nicely with the resurgence of appreciation for designs from the Arts and Crafts, Mission, Shaker and Scandinavian movements. As well with their roots firmly ensconced in Vermont they are part of a culture that has historically placed a high value on solid and natural wood products as well as the preservation of such.

The furniture designs coming out of Copeland can best be described as transitional – not strictly contemporary or traditional but that beautiful balance that incorporates classic proportion with modern simplicity.

Copeland and Green definitely go hand in hand – preservation and stewardship are values that run deep in Vermont and the Copeland family has embraced this to an astonishing level. They have been the recipient of the Sage Award for environmental excellence and were awarded Silver Exemplary Membership Status by the Sustainable Furnishings Council. This has been given to only a handful of companies in the Home Furnishings industry and is awarded for proven performance in meeting a range of specific sustainability measures.

Using sustainably harvested hardwoods in forests within 500 miles of the factory; using Greenguard certified water based finishes; reducing packaging with the installation of a box making machine; using wood waste to help heat the building and recycling all packaging wastes are just a few of the reasons they are so admired in the green community.

We of course are proud to have their product on our floor. They make beautiful bedroom sets like the Catalina Bedroom Collection, occasional tables and dining sets like the Audrey Extension Table. Their dining chairs are so exquisitely made they look like pieces of art. However above and beyond all of this is the quality of the Copeland family. They make you proud to be an American – they are honest, fair, hardworking and fun to be with! A true successful American entrepreneur.