By Tracy Buffington/Fremont Tribune

Howard Krasne has read all about the economy, but he knows his family business is strong and growing.

"You hear gloom and doom every day," he said. "Things are great at Krasne's. Our business is good. I have a lot of confidence in this marketplace."

That confidence and an opportunity to expand the company's line of furniture has led him to open Casual Lifestyles by Krasne's at 447 N. Main St., right across the street of the company's main showroom.

"We're excited about it," Krasne said. "We've been open softly, quietly since the first of August. But we're ready to go now. We've got the store stocked properly and staffed properly."

The store's official grand opening is Tuesday.

Krasne and his staff has transformed the former Walker's True Value, updating the location inside and out. The exterior received a fresh coat of paint. Inside, original brick on the north and south walls were cleaned up, the tin ceiling was painted and the back wall was redone in metal.

Additionally, Krasne worked to add more merchandise into the store without making it crowded.

"We've taken a 6,400-square-foot shell and we've probably created about 10,000 square feet of merchandising area," he said. "We're vertically merchandising."

Using a shelving system, sofas have been placed on the bottom, chairs in the middle and love seats on the top.

"People can sit on the sofas; they can touch and feel it and then the companion pieces are stacked on top of it," Krasne said. "That's proven to be successful and saves a lot of space."

Designers have group furniture, too.

"We've tried to make it as friendly to the way customers want to buy," he said. "We've also tried to create an environment so that they can come in and say, ‘That's what I want.'

"We've put the proper area rug with the proper end table with proper lamp with the proper sofa. Sometimes customers are gun-shy that they'll make a mistake. ... We tried to take some of that fear factor away them and put these packages together that we feel all go together."

Tucked into the south side of the building is the Discount Den, a place for overstocked, discontinued or special purchase items.

"The merchandise in that space is priced very sharply," Krasne said. "Most of that stuff is priced at cost or even slightly below cost. Customers have the ability to buy as well as I buy and maybe even better."

Krasne explained the strategy behind the new store is to give the company the opportunity to sell furniture from a different price range than the main store.

"We cover the sofa price point in (the main) store from $599 up," he said. "What I challenged myself to do ... is find a price point of about $299 to $499. So now we're covering the gambit from $299 up.

"It's a stretch for somebody to buy a $1,000 sofa, and that's what we do a lot of (at the main store)," he added. "Fortunately, we've found and carved our niche in the marketplace. But we do want to broaden our horizons."

Much of the furniture in the Casual Lifestyles store is from the Signature line, which is manufactured by Ashley Furniture, Krasne said.

Krasne's wife, Sharon, will oversee the sales team at the new store. The company has hired one additional sales team member and could possibly add another in the future.

"We have a devoted sales to the Casual Lifestyles building, but the sales team from this store also will have the freedom to go across the street as well," Krasne said. "We're going to try to some cross merchandising.

"We're going to try to flow customers back and forth to make sure they see our offerings in their entirety."

Casual Lifestyles by Krasne's is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. The store can be reached at (402) 721-7014.

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