In 1972, Design Quest opened as a Scandinavian furniture and gift store. Today, our passion for design, quality and intelligent fun has taken us all over the world in our endless, exuberant "design quest." http://www.designquest.biz
In 1972, Design Quest opened in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a Scandinavian furniture and gift store. Today, our passion for design, quality and intelligent fun has taken us not only to Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but also to Italy, Germany, France, Canada and the USA in our endless, exhuberant "design quest." Come and see us in Grand Rapids. Come and put your hands on our furniture in our 32,000 foot showroom. As we say to our customers, "You can trust your hands." If you cannot stop by, call us or contact us. We can ship almost anywhere.
This segment is sponsored by DesignQuest, celebrating 50 years of great design and craftsmanship. DesignQuest opened its doors in 1972, and something that rarely happens in this day and age, they are still serving their customers and making their homes most stylish and beautiful by the day. Tor Sorensen is here to talk 50 years of success. Hi, Tor. Hi, Catherine. Congratulations. What does it take to have the staying power to make it 50 years in this crazy world of art? Well, it takes both a lot of smart people, good staff, a lot of luck, and an awful lot of hard work. Yeah. And a lot of loyal customers who have come to know you for some brands that are really very special. For folks who are not familiar with DesignQuest, tell them a little bit about it. What about the store? Well, we are strictly a modern furniture store. Started out as a Scandinavian furniture store in a small, little 1200 square foot location in Gaslight Village and have branched into modern furniture from anywhere in the world. As our name says, it's DesignQuest. We are always looking for great design. We have a very loyal customer base. At our 50th anniversary party, there were customers who had been to every single one of our stores. So this was a very amazing party. Followed you along as you've grown and grown. You are celebrating this 50th in a couple of really unique ways, one of which you're standing in the middle of a cool retrospective display. Well, when were looking back, we saw some of the photos from our original store realized that some of those products are still things that we sell. And so we have a n And some who have been selling for a lot, but not quite 50 years. So we created picture boards of each of our locations. We've had five locations. Plus we had a furniture design competition and we have a space we call our Design Gallery where we would let local artists show their different skills. And we featured all of those things. Also celebrating 50 years by having a sale. Talk about that. Yes. Yeah, well, we're having our 50th anniversary sale and we have support from a lot of our vendors. In addition to that, we're also having a raffle where people can sign up between now and the 29th. And we will have some wonderful prizes of furniture and gift certificates and accessories. And now I want to welcome Jorgen and Meg Sorensen, the Patriarch, the family that started this beautiful store design quest. It is good to have you here. Congratulations on 50 years. How did you do it? It's because we love it. We run a friendly store. But I want to go back and say, Meg and I were both teachers before we started this design quest. And part of teaching is learning. So the whole 50 years has really been a learning experience. And we feel that we are still teaching. Very nice. And did you ever imagine back in 72 when you open that little store front and gaslight village that you'd be in that massive space right now standing in front of a display that shows where you've been over the course of 50 years? Did you ever imagine it? No, you don't because you really, when you're in business, you sort of take one day at a time. And that's on 50 years. It's a remarkable accomplishment. And here's to many, many more. Thank you.
