Thos. Moser Launches New Studio Living Collection
Thos. Moser, Handmade American Furniture, headquartered in Auburn, ME, and ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2022, just announced the launch of its latest collection, The New Studio Living Collection.
Thos. Moser uses solid U.S. Hardwoods and makes its furniture only in the United States. Species include Walnut and Cherry along with some Ash, Maple and Red and White Oak.
The New Studio Living Collection is an expansion of its namesake Studio Collection, which consists of a bed frame, vertical and horizontal dressers, and nightstand. The New Studio Living Collection includes a sofa, chair, ottoman, coffee table, console table, and media case.
The New Studio Living Collection is designed to make the most of minimal lines and comfort.
The cases and tables in The New Studio Living Collection offer adaptability for technology and storage.
For more information, go to www.thosmoser.com.
NKBA’s Final Kitchen & Bath Market Outlook Update Of 2021 Calls For Strong Across-the-board Growth
National Kitchen and Bath Association’s (NKBA) Kitchen & Bath Market Outlook October update, the latest information available, revealed a full-year revenue projection of $167 billion by year’s end 2021 — a healthy year, and consistent with robust expectations resulting from the surge in remodeling brought on since mid-2020. While much of it solidly confirms prior reports, there are a few, less obvious surprises hidden in the research. (NKBA is headquartered in Hackettstown, NJ.)
The latest projection represents a vigorous 19 percent increase over the $141 billion logged in 2020. The white-hot pace, though, will not go on indefinitely, and there are already clear signs that growth is beginning to moderate, settling into a steady, sustainable rate, stated NKBA’s update. In fact, in the July update, the full-year revenue forecast was for $171 billion. Although the latest expectation is a modest revision of a great number, directionally, it is still down.
Kitchen and bath growth has popped for new construction. Just under $100 billion of the projected $167 billion is expected to be earmarked for this sector, a whopping 26 percent gain over 2020. K&B remodeling should show full-year growth of just below 10 percent — still a healthy gain. Both, though, are a few percentage points off the previous forecast.
Drilling down, the greatest growth by project size is clearly in the high-end and mid-tier segments. Full-year revenues for premium projects are expected to run more than 22 percent ahead of last year, with mid-level projects exceeding 21percent. Lower-end remodels lag, with expected gains below 11 percent.
For more information, go to www.nkba.org.
U.S.-Vietnam Reach Agreement To Avoid Tariffs
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently announced that an agreement has been reached with Vietnam to address the concerns raised in USTR’s Section 301 investigation into Vietnam’s timber sourcing practices, as recently reported by the International Wood Products Association. This means that no tariffs will be imposed as a result of the investigation. Instead, the agreement calls for Vietnam to implement a number of new commitments.
Some of the steps that will be required of Vietnam are these:
- Eliminate financial incentives to import or export timber that is the product of illegal logging or illegal timber trade
- Enhance customs inspections of timber imports
- Revise the Enterprise Classification System under its Timber Legality Assurance System to cover all relevant persons in the supply chain
- Ensure its geographic indicators criteria account for available evidence of risk of illegal logging and illegal timber trade
- Ensure that all exports of domestically harvested timber and wood products made from that timber are subject to verification
- Cooperate with source countries to ensure that timber imports are legally harvested and traded
The agreement also creates a U.S.-Vietnam Timber Working Group within the current Trade and Investment Framework Agreement.
For more information, go to www.iwpawood.org.
