It’s been a busy month at Häfele America

First things first.  Get a load of this maple tree that was showing off here in High Point this week.  With the sun passing through it looked like it was on fire.  (Click the pic to Biggie-Size it)

Now that we have the important stuff out of the way let’s talk about hardware happenings.  We are excited to have a new kitchen vignette going into our showroom on Madison Avenue (name drop), which was hand crafted by our customer Plain & Fancy Custom Cabinetry.   They were kind enough to allow a few folks from our team to descend upon then in their shop in Lancaster PA so we could get some hands-on time with our hardware.

Led by our Key Account Manager Daryl Nauman our folks invaded the Plain & Fancy hardware line and installed Häfele’s LED lighting, blind corner storage units and almost every pull-out you can imagine.  We had pull-out trash cans, pull-out pantries, pull-out storage units and even a cool pull-out table!

But wait, there’s more!  We installed no less than five different lift-up door fittings: Free, Maxi,  Senso, Verso and Strato.  The Senso was actually the electronic remote version which could sure come in handy on a tall upper cabinet.

We also installed two of the new Eku Frontino sliding door fitting sets, which I think deserve a post of their own.

The photo at right holds an important lesson if you are specifying lighting.  Believe it or not both of those cabinets contain the exact same LED ribbon lighting.  Because of the white and the wood interior the visual effect give the impression that one is “cool” while the other is “warm”.  Daryl is the smiling man in white who was clearly as impressed with this phenomenon as I was.

I have several more pictures that I can share with you of this install process if you’d like to see them (comment below), but the best are yet to come as the cabinets are being installed in our NYC showroom this week!

What are the potential cost savings of LED lighting? It may be more than you think.

The National Kitchen & Bath Association’s “NKBA Magazine” Summer issue was published as an electronic issue only, in keeping with the “Green” theme of the issue, and if you missed it you owe it to yourself to check it out.

One of the exciting articles in this issue is titled “An Added Layer of Lighting Innovation”‘ which focuses on “cost savings through the latest technology”. Now, in the interest of full disclosure I need to mention that this excellent article was written by my friend and co-worker, Mr. Daniel Tripp.

Daniel and I have both been with Häfele America Co. since 1999, and for several of our early years at Häfele we sat face to face at two adjacent desks. “Cuz”, as I call him, is one of my favorite people in the world, and his attention to detail and interest in gaining and dispensing knowledge made him a ripe candidate for working with me in the Training Department; but his career led him to success in our Outside Sales Department and more recently in our Product Marketing Department.

When interest in LED lighting became a hot topic a few years back Daniel and our Product Manager for lighting at the time, Karen Armour, started absorbing information from suppliers, web sites, electronic publications and several classes and seminars until they both became as bright as the fixtures they were learning about! When Häfele introduced our new Loox line of LED products last year Daniel continued his education through excellent training provided by Häfele Germany, and he then started teaching our North American staff about this new technology. It is abundantly clear that he had become quite an expert on the topic.

The article, which is currently accessible at http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/c55a876a talks about the true cost of electrical lighting, and sheds light (groan) on several angles that you and your customers may not have considered. For example, we all know that incandescent lighting is inefficient and that they put-out a lot of heat, but did you consider the cost of cooling the resulting unwanted hot air during Summer months? Me either.

If you are new to LEDs or lighting you might benefit from a quick lesson in a few acronyms that are used in the article:

• LED: Light Emitting Diode. These little wonders produce light with tremendous efficiency and have been the light source of choice in laboratories and on testing equipment since the 1960′s. In fact, LED’s are used extensively by NASA because of their low energy consumption and high lighting output.
• CFL: Compact Fluorescent Lighting. These are those corkscrew-shaped fluorescent bulbs that we all started replacing our incandescent bulbs with a couple years back.
• DC: Direct Current. This is the type of current that’s normally produced by batteries and solar cells. This is the type of current that was developed by Thomas Edison.
• AC: Alternating Current. Explaining AC could get very nerdy very quickly, so let me just leave it at this: The power that is coming out of all the outlets in you house and in your business are AC. There are both advantages and disadvantages to AC power, and our Loox lighting actually utilizes both! Lights that are powered by AC flicker. You can’t always perceive this, but they do. DC power does not cause this, but to get to DC from AC takes a little magic.

I’ll let Daniel take it from there.

Let us know what you think of the article.

Mortise Handle Trends

Due to the trend toward sleeker, cleaner contemporary styled cabinetry, Hafele has introduced a new range of mortise aluminum handles with matching end caps that can be easily cut to size on site or by utilizing Hafele’s H2O cut to size program.

The 151.85.930 Mortise Handle comes in an uncut length of 38 ¼” with a brushed stainless steel look finish. The ends can be capped with matching die-cast 151.86.030 end caps.

                  

If a mortised edge pull is preferred, Hafele offers the new 151.85.930 Handle in a 38 ¼” length with an aluminum anodized finish. The ends of this handle can be capped with the matching 151.85.989 end caps.

                   

To receive information regarding these and other Hafele Products, please visit our website at www.hafele.com/us .  Your questions or comments may also be posted at the Hafele Facebook page on our Twitter account.

Häfele Adds Value To Hiddenbed™ As Exclusive Supplier

In today’s home market, the ever more financially conservative American consumer is more interested in making an existing home spaciously more efficient, rather than purchasing a new, bigger home. Such a trend presents an opportunity for suppliers of space-saving products and services that specialize in functional home design.

Hiddenbed allows a homeoffice to become a spare bedroom

Häfele, a company that has long profiled itself as an expert in concept, design and function, took this opportunity by partnering up with a company that sells a timely and intelligent invention from Uruguay. Mechanical Engineer and retired founder of the Hiddenbed™ company, Juan Carlos Monestier, is watching the world-wide growth in demand for his 2001 invention – a bed that transforms into a desk without disturbing the items that are laying on the desk. Hiddenbed is a step up from a wall bed, as it provides a double functioning piece of furniture: desk and bed. Mr. Monestier, now the CEO, invented the Hiddenbed for his son’s room.

In the spring of 2010, a representative from Hiddenbed in Uruguay paid a visit to HAC to show the fitting sets that would allow a desk to be transformed to a bed. She had already been working with Häfele in Germany on an exclusive agreement for both single and double units. Häfele is now in fact, the exclusive master distributor for these two sizes around the world.

Product Marketing Manager John Runyan is very excited about the product. Häfele sells the fitting sets, hardware kit and shelf/desk stiffeners. As a value-added service, Häfele America also provides technical drawings to help manufacturing customers with production set up. John sees a variety of applications for the distribution of Hiddenbed hardware. First of all, it will help furniture makers make and sell a popular product that lets homeowners find solutions to do more with the space they have.

“This product allows a home office to become a spare bedroom, or a bedroom to have a desk in limited space.”

Furthermore, hospitals can use Hiddenbeds for interns who need a place to sleep as well as a desk to catch up on paperwork. Other areas John has envisioned for potentially using Hiddenbed include yachts, motor homes, and university dormitories. If the recent economic down-turn has a few silver linings, one of them must be the growing awareness of consumers that resources are not unlimited.