The High End Furniture Market:

To help describe the depth of the high end furniture market, we'll break it down into two parts: everyday high end furniture and exclusive high end furniture.  Everyday high end products can be found distributed through high end retailers, high end online furniture stores and higher end designers.  High end furniture is made by companies like Hekman; Sligh or Lexington (all well known higher end manufacturers of furniture).  These companies are innovative in their designs; generous with their proportions and selective with their resource buying.  Alternatively the exclusive high end market include a few brands such as: Stickley and Century; but, is primarily made up of designer furnishings, the likes of which are "discovered" by professional interior designers based on the size, proportion and style of the consumers home. 

Everyday High End Furnishings:

Everyday high end furnishings like the furniture made by Sligh or Hekman, is generally made with the following characteristics:

Thoughtfully Designed

Consumers looking for higher end furnishings are generally looking for attractive solutions to problems that they encounter everyday.  For this reason many higher end furniture manufacturers incorporate into their furniture designs, thoughtful solutions to everyday problems.  A higher end desk will have more features built into the desk to cater to the users need of storage; writing; privacy and technologies.  Higher end bedroom furniture typically has designed into it, resources to solve everyday problems we encounter in the bedroom; a night light; easy access plug for technology and lamp.

Proportions

In the market for everyday furnishings there are a lot of generalizations made in the proportion of the furniture to cater to the highest number of people as is possible.  It's through this generalization that furniture manufacturers are able to get to the critical mass needed to get the pricing that they are striving for.  In the higher end of the market the proportions are more tailored to the market that they are going for (whether that be an 8 bedroom mansion in Texas or a two bedroom high rise apartment in Manhattan).  For example, a furniture designer building a home office library system for an everyday market (lower price) is going to build that wall system to be more 7 feet tall, because the average home has 8 foot tall ceilings.  On the other side, a higher end manufacturer of library wall systems will design for the height of their customers, which will likely be dealing with cathedral height ceilings.  The proportions (big or small) are generally more fine tuned in the higher end of the market.

Materials:

When it comes to building high end furnishings, materials is a big part of the decision process.   Low to mid end manufacturing of furniture, the selection of materials is either ignored or selected solely on price (with little guidance from the designer.)  In the building of higher end furnishings the types of materials used are specifically sourced and incorporated into the furnishings by design.  The result is that the furniture has a more distinguished look, intended upon by the original designer.

Market:

High end furnishings has an infinitely smaller market place.  Higher end furnishings are by price point and design, more exclusive.  Whereas in the market of lower to mid-end furnishings the big selling points are price and delivery; in the higher end market the product being readily available for shipment is often times, never the case.

Craftsmanship:

Here is a listing of the types of craftsmanship that high end furnishings has:

• French dovetailed drawers
• Solid wood construction (design pending, ornate wood veneers and inlays)
• Multiple wood types
• Wood dowels
• End joints

Resources:

Examples of High End Retailers and Manufacturers

Example of a High End Sectional:

The sectional above features these high end characteristics:

• Solid wood construction
• 8 Way hand tied
• 2.2 Density, high end foam
• Quality leather
• Quality European imported chenille fabrics
• Down blend seating, for comfort
• Gracious space, oversized sectional
• Luxurious accents and hand carvings

Example of a high end master bedroom collection, canopy bed:

The canopy bedroom set above has the following high end characteristics:

• Solid wood construction with high end wood veneers
• Mixed use of various materials to give the product an exotic look
• Quality top grain leather
• Sized and proportioned appropriately for the bedroom set
• Dovetailed drawers
• Felt lined drawers
• Dust covers are used
• Full extension side glides used