Gone Live

Over the years I've been keeping my customers informed on what I've been working on by my "Current Projects" page. I post picture there and then give a little description of what I'm doing. That is if I had the time. Sometimes I would go a few days without posting any pictures, but would always catch up.

I have always wanted to show a live video of the shop, but didn't think that was possible. Until now. I've found a way to get our security camera onto our site. This is great because I can first, give my customers something fun to do.... See if you can find you furniture. It's a "Where's Waldo" type of thing. It also allows me to monitor the activity when I'm in the office or my day off. And especially it allows me to prove that I really get to work at 6:00, sometimes earlier. I'll have to move my nap time from the work bench to somewhere off camera. Not to mention removing the sawdust from my head (if you know what I mean).

It may not be the most beneficial thing, but you have to admit. It is really cool. Maybe the customers can't make out if I'm working on their furniture or something else. Even when I upgrade the camera. I'll try to keep note on the page and I'll keep up the photos. Speaking of photos did you see my new helper.

I plan on upgrading the camera system. I am using a wireless system now, which has a lot of interference. I'd like to hard wire the camera and add good quality audio. Now that would be a show. We have our own word to songs and our own dance moves too.

Let me know how you like it. Is this something that only I'm excited about? I'd like to know so send me some feedback.

Special Edition

I just finished building another Special Edition baseball bed. This was a fun bed to build. It was ordered for a professional baseball player for the Angels, Kelvim Escobar. His designer placed the original order and Kelvim filled in the stats with his information and faxed the forms back to us.

This bed is based on our Special Edition version with a few modifications. For one, this will be the first one that we put both drawer and trundle under the bed. We also stained the wood a Special Walnut color from Minwax. Staining the headboard, I think, works out better than painting the letter black. We may make this the new standard.

The desk was a nice addition to the group. I did a distressing technique on the top. I first used a white undercoater to give it a white base; then I used a special walnut glaze to antique it a little. I did a little simulated worn look on the corners to make it look well used.

End of year

Wow, it has been along time since I've posted anything. Business has been very busy. Let me give a quick update on how our Murphy bed line is going. We have finished out the 2006 with 52 murphy beds being sold and built, which was our exact goal (1 per week). That is not bad for a small 2 man shop considering all the other items we still offer and build. Next years goal will be 60 murphy beds or 5 per week. That may be too conservative considering the new purchases I've made which has increased production.

My new baby is an edgebander that I've recently bought from Laguna Tools. I took a trip to Atlanta to visit the IWF2006 show for this specific purpose. This has been the largest purchase we've had to make so far in our 27 years in business, even bigger than our wide belt sander. But it has proved itself to be worth it. It is a BIG time saver. What would normally take 2 hours, now takes just 15 minutes. In our business time is money.

With that time savings I was able to keep the prices low. If you remember from an earlier post, my strategy was to artificially keep the prices low to increase interest and to get more web traffic. This has worked, but instead of raising the prices up to where the should have been (pre banding machine era) I can keep it level and save the customers a little.

I did make a small change in pricing. I raised the base price of all the sizes to cover packaging. This was not really a price increase. I just moved it form one place to another. I was figuring it into the shipping cost before. Now I've lower the shipping price to $299. So it is really a wash.

Don't forget to visit our web site at www.wwbeds.com, and our kids website www.poggyskids.com. I do have a new site where I'll focus on just the Murphy beds. That will be www.murphyswall.com.

I've had some interest in our beds from a sales rep., so we've sent a couple up to the furniture market in tupelo Mississippi. I'll post how that goes at a later time. So keep

Wow, it has been along time since I've posted anything. Business has been very busy. Let me give a quick update on how our Murphy bed line is going. We have finished out the 2006 with 52 murphy beds being sold and built, which was our exact goal (1 per week). That is not bad for a small 2 man shop considering all the other items we still offer and build. Next years goal will be 60 murphy beds or 5 per week. That may be too conservative considering the new purchases I've made which has increased production.

My new baby is an edgebander that I've recently bought from Laguna Tools. I took a trip to Atlanta to visit the IWF2006 show for this specific purpose. This has been the largest purchase we've had to make so far in our 27 years in business, even bigger than our wide belt sander. But it has proved itself to be worth it. It is a BIG time saver. What would normally take 2 hours, now takes just 15 minutes. In our business time is money.

With that time savings I was able to keep the prices low. If you remember from an earlier post, my strategy was to artificially keep the prices low to increase interest and to get more web traffic. This has worked, but instead of raising the prices up to where the should have been (pre banding machine era) I can keep it level and save the customers a little.

I did make a small change in pricing. I raised the base price of all the sizes to cover packaging. This was not really a price increase. I just moved it form one place to another. I was figuring it into the shipping cost before. Now I've lower the shipping price to $299. So it is really a wash.

Don't forget to visit our web site at www.wwbeds.com, and our kids website www.poggyskids.com. I do have a new site where I'll focus on just the Murphy beds. That will be www.murphyswall.com.

I've had some interest in our beds from a sales rep., so we've sent a couple up to the furniture market in tupelo Mississippi. I'll post how that goes at a later time. So keep

Batter Up!

Here at Poggy's Kids furniture we have been known for our baseball bed. This has been a popular item in both our local store and over the internet. Switching to our more "grown up" furniture, we've dove right in on the Murphy bed market and have made a big difference in our product line. I've been averaging about 1 bed per week and we are now preparing for a big increase.

I've been wanting to design and build a Murphy bed with a child's theme. This week I did it. It is not something I've just threw together, I have thought about this idea a while. I've combined both our baseball bed and our Murphy bed into a very exciting new addition to our line. It is our new Locker Room Murphy Bed. It is designed to look like a pair of lockers in the locker room of the child's favorite team. This is complete with the child's name, another name of their choice, and a scoreboard headboard. The display that I made has the optional light kit ($125). This includes 2 can lights, a touch dimmer, and a mercury switch. The cost of this bed is:
Twin size Murphy bed $1082
Locker Graphics $80
Baseball headboad $170
Total $1332

I plan on selling the first 10 or so at $994. I have some other ideas too so keep checking our current project link.

New Addition

I've been thinking of adding a new addition to our already diverse product line. This product, I think, will revolutionize the children's bedroom market. It is the Hiddenbed. This simple bed caught my eye surfing the web and I haven't quit thinking about it yet!

Here's the concept. It is a desk then it's a bed. It kind of like our murphy bed (see www.wwbeds.com/murphy.htm ), where the bed folds down from the cabinet. But it even better than that. The bed is made so that things on the desk, like a computer, papers, and a drink, can stay during the transition from desk to bed. No need to move anything. You could download files while sleeping.

It is all in the mechanism. This patented product from www.hiddenbed.com allows the desk to stay perpendicular to the floor. It also slows the motion down, so that it will not be dangerous for the little ones. The entire transformation takes less than 5 seconds.

I plan on building my first on in the next few weeks. I am currently working on getting the hardware shipped from Uruguay, South America. The hardware is reasonably priced, but what is killing me is the shipping and wire transfer fees. It will cost $50 to transfer the funds and $95 for shipping. With those cost I can see why most companies are charging around $2000 for one. As you read in my last post, I am trying to break into the market by artificially keeping my prices low. I am hoping to stay below that $2000 mark.

The company is real restrictive on beds that they will allow us to build. All new designs have to be pre-approved by them before we market them. I can understand that. Their name is on the product and they don't want to ruin it with some bad, fly-by-night company.

Let me know what you think about this. I hope my customers get as excited about this as I am. Keep looking for building pictures on this and other new projects. Comments are always welcome.

Where have I been?

It has been along time since I've posted anything new. Alot of things have happened since then. On a pervious post, I noted that we were gearing up to build Murphy Beds. Well that has exploded. Since then I've build 25-30 complete beds. See http://wwbeds.com/murphy.htm for a few of them.

To give you a little backgroung, In Atlanta Augest 2004, I researched the different types mechenism on the market. This was at the IWF woodworking show. I found that the creat-a-bed mechnism to be the best. With this system the bed is mounted to the wall at 3-4 studs. No need to mount to the floor and ruin your flooring. I also cope around the customers base molding. These two features right here sold me on the mechnicsm. It doesn't become a perminate fixture, you can move it very easy. Features that make it even better are the pneumatic piston lift, and there is no special mattress to buy. With this system there is never any springs to adjust and the pistons are tested at 10,000 revelutions. (see other features) That is 27 years of everyday use! It uses any type of innerspring mattress up to 12" thick. The only set back that I had with the mattress is if a customer wanted to use an ultra lite foam mattress, the foot of the bed wanted to float of the ground. This was easily fixed by adding a little weight at the foot.

My stratigy to sell these beds were to artificially keep the prices down for about 6 months while trying to get my foot into the market. During this time I'll try to get my name out there and to get the web site moving up in the search engines. The name part of that has worked but the search engines has let me down a little. People do stunble across the web site, but not in the numbers expected. I plan to keep the prices where they are for another month or so.

I plan on designing a Murphe bed for dogs. In the mean time keep watching my Current Projects link to see what I'm building.