P.M. Bedroom Gallery a family affair
The story of brothers Arvid and Ben Huth is the kind of farm-to-suburbs tale you might think doesn't happen any more.
When he was 21, Arvid was a junior with a 3.9 GPA who dropped out of college because he wanted to own his own business.
When he talked his younger brother into starting a furniture store, they financed the venture by selling seven cows, a motorcycle and a snowmobile and borrowing $10,000 from their parents.
Fifteen years later they are hopeful their business, P.M. Bedroom Gallery, will sell $18 million worth of furniture this year, an increase of 6 percent over 2007, when sales were up 20 percent over the previous year. The company was on track to repeat that double-digit performance through August, but then global economic difficulties interceded.
Based in a suburb of Milwaukee, the company operates a 40,000-square-foot store in Naperville, a smaller facility in Hoffman Estates, and plans to open a store in Downers Grove to replace a smaller one in Lombard. Other stores are in the Milwaukee and Minneapolis-St. Paul areas.
From the beginning, the company turned a possible drawback into something positive, said Arvid Huth.
He knew that large furniture manufacturers would not sell to a small startup company, so the Huths started working with small Midwest carpentry firms. Today, most of the furniture is made to order in 20 shops in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and a few in Illinois and Ohio.
"I knew from the beginning that different was better - it's hard to compete with the big guys," said Arvid Huth.
Prices for bedroom sets range from $2,000 to $20,000, and the company is adding dining room furniture.
"We started out with bedrooms. They are mostly wood and lend themselves really well to working with small, local shops," said Arvid Huth.
"They are not something you can automate, even with the imports. Wood is wood, and you have to use your hands to adjust for imperfections."
Yes, business has slowed down for P.M. Bedroom Gallery.
But high fuel prices and the low value of the dollar help them compete with furniture made in Asia because theirs does not travel far. And Huth said his company can deliver in three to six weeks.
Arvid Huth on why his company different:
• Customers can select the type of wood for their furniture, the color of the stain and the style of hardware. Not every piece is available in every wood, but the choices include oak, hickory, birch, alder, pine, maple and cherry, with prices varying according to variety. All but the lower price points are solid wood.
• Other custom options include storage and hiding spaces. Drawers can be made to fit beneath a bed, or a hidden area to store jewelry or papers can swing down from the bottom of a drawer. A set with a bed, dresser, mirror and nightstand that costs $2,420 costs an additional $938 when the buyer adds six drawers under the bed.
• The drawers are strong; Arvid Huth steps inside, above, to demonstrate just how strong.
• The furniture is designed in-house under Ben Huth's supervision. Feedback from customers is important in the design process. Mixing and matching from various collections works because all the carpentry shops use the same stains.
• They believe in incentives. Even the delivery drivers work on commission; they receive nothing for a delivery in which something is broken or the home damaged. The drivers make more money per hour than when they were paid an hourly rate, but it doesn't cost the company more than when it paid them an hourly rate.
Arvid Huth on what's popular:
• Platform beds without footboards
• Drawers under beds
• The Mirropane a television when you want to view it and a mirror at other times
• The Alaska king bed, as wide as two queen-sized beds and longer, too
• Darker wood