Quest for improvements fuels Layout Quest’s five many years of development

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — More than 5 many years, progress has been a regular element of Design Quest’s tale.

The Grand Rapids-centered retailer has grown from a far too-smaller 1,200-sq.-foot showroom in 1972 to significantly larger spaces (5,000 square feet, 10,000 sq. ft, 18,000 square feet) to its present 32,000-square-foot showroom and warehouse.

“We were outgrowing one room immediately after an additional,” Thor Sorensen, co-operator of Design and style Quest and son of founders Meg and Jorgen Sorensen, explained to Household furniture These days. “We’ve been in this location for 30 decades we moved in 1992. We eventually have a place that has the visibility in Grand Rapids. We have a facility that’s great for a home furnishings store: all a single flooring with an hooked up warehouse.”

Ahead of opening their 1st store, Meg and Jorgen Sorensen taught high faculty at a private faculty in Arizona. Seeking for a modify, they decided to open a home furniture shop. Meg’s brother, Joseph Grassie, was the town manager of Grand Rapids and encouraged them to pay a visit to the metropolis, and they at some point selected to open up in Gaslight Village in East Grand Rapids.

Though a lot of felt fashionable furnishings would not go more than in Grand Rapids when they opened, Thor Sorensen explained good design overcomes a ton.

“People’s attachment to fantastic design — design and style that speaks to you — that is universal and does not adjust with the time. What resources it is built of and what distinct style and design could adjust, but when individuals put their fingers on fantastic quality, the piece talks to them,” he reported. “That’s even now correct these days. You slide your arms around a properly curved arm of a chair and you say this is definitely great, and if it was not executed appropriate, it places you off.

“I feel a good deal of moments, clients really don’t know what it is they like or never like about something, but the minimal particulars that get lower in hoping to cut corners in output are generally detrimental to the customer’s working experience. That has not altered.”

Modern-day household furniture is where Style Quest can make its name, but it is also normally experienced a present day attitude, especially all over know-how. Sorensen explained though he labored in the loved ones business enterprise for several years, he really acquired fascinated in it when he was questioned to computerize operations.

“We do almost everything we can to stay on prime of that. From the really commencing, we experienced a position-of-sale system, which a good deal of shops didn’t do. We had been producing orders on the pc,” Sorensen reported. “We’ve normally been addressing technological innovation. As before long as we had the program that could take care of it, we barcoded our warehouse. We have usually looked ahead as considerably as we can. With a single organization, you feel there are these factors we should do.”

Sorensen explained a further ahead-imagining factor was the determination to be part of the Up to date Design and style Group, as it gave Design Quest the means to workshop ideas with peer stores in other marketplaces and to request thoughts as desired.

“That has been incredibly effective for us. We have realized a ton as a result of the sharing of data,” he reported. “It’s been so educational. That has been a big support you have a good deal of people today in related boats, and they maintain inquiring thoughts. That’s been significant.”

So, what does being in organization for 50 many years mean for the Sorensens and their longtime staff? “Obviously, it is a enormous milestone. We know that the large the greater part of companies really don’t last 50 several years in any industry,” Sorensen explained. “We’ve been via an terrible good deal of improve in the overall economy, our retail outlet spots and what customers are searching for. It’s been a continual expansion for all of us, both equally the genuine footprint of the organization and the persons doing work at it.”

Style Quest celebrated the anniversary during October, and Sorensen mentioned it was the company’s best Oct at any time. About a thirty day period ago, it held a 50th anniversary celebration in its showroom. Sorensen said response blew expectations out of the drinking water, and some in attendance reported they remembered the unique location.

“You never ever know but you ship the invites. We experienced 500 persons,” he reported. “The caterers had been setting up for 200 to 250 persons, and they had been wiped out of food and drinks. It was a superb encounter and gratifying that so a lot of customers arrived and wanted to rejoice with us.”

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