Amy Howard tests one-step paint line at Elder’s stores

Americans throw away more than 22 million pieces of furniture a year.

Amy Howard, who has spent more than a quarter century designing and making high-end furniture from her Memphis business home, sees such disposal of chairs, cabinets, tables and other furniture items as a business opportunity.

To help sustain and revive her furniture, Howard developed a one-step paint she thinks can help reclaim more of what is now often thrown away while tapping into the growing $716 billion-a-year do-it-yourself market by homeowners eager to use their hands. In the process, Howard says she also hopes to help build up family-owned hardware and paint stores on the retail side while creating a new sense of craftsmanship for those who buy her product.

Today, Howard is launching a pilot program at the 18 Elder’s Ace Hardware stores that stretch from Chickamauga, Ga., to Knoxville.

To market her Amy Howard at Home line of 80 paints, Howard will personally demonstrate her one-step paint and finishes today during a noon webcast at all of the stores. She hopes to build upon the pilot program at Elder’s ACE stores in Chattanooga to expand her distribution around the globe in other independently owned Ace hardware stores.

“I don’t want to sell to big-box retailers and I think Ace stores which are independently or family-owned and operated can provide the kind of personalized help and sales that I think is the most successful,” she said. “I’m committed to making our products in America and I like selling to independent retailers like Ace who are in local communities and are often closest to the consumer.”

Howard said she developed her one-step paint while working with chemists to preserve and protect her furniture lines.

The one-step furniture paint allows users to transform cabinetry in a single step without time-consuming stripping, sanding or priming. The paint is a water-based paint that adheres to most any surface and can be applied directly on wood finishes, concrete, iron, stone or Formica.

The paint has become her personal passion and where she thinks she enjoys the best business opportunity after cheaper foreign competitors quickly copied and undermined much of the market for U.S.-made, high-end furniture during the Great Recession.

“I didn’t want to just survive in that market, I wanted to thrive and we found our real strength and “blue ocean” strategy was to focus on our finishes where we had the greatest strength and advantage,” Howard said. “We’re able to show people how to recreate the look that we have developed with Amy Howard collections furniture.”

The fastest growing segment of the furniture retailing business is now the consignment or second-hand store while the number of small mom-and-pop furniture retailers continues to decline.

“I figured if we teach people how to rescue and restore these pieces of furniture that we are throwing away, they will get to reuse these pieces of furniture and enjoy the bragging rights for the craftsmanship,” she said.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340.