Luxury Living with Debrae Little

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Dave

Debrae Little 0:40
Dave, welcome to luxury living with Debray, where we discuss all things Design. Today we'll be discussing sustainable furniture, specifically outdoor furniture. Our guest today is Angie Beatty. She is from Pollywood furniture, and she's a business development manager there, and we're dying to hear her thoughts on sustainable

Anji Beatty 1:10
furniture. Hello, and thank you for having me here today. Dave Rae, yeah.

Debrae Little 1:14
Well, welcome, welcome. Tell me a little bit about you and what you do as a business development manager for Pollywood,

Anji Beatty 1:23
okay? Well, I have been with Pollywood. We are a sustainable company, and we actually make products out of HDPE, which is high density polyethylene. Our product is made out of sustainable goods. So we actually use that out of recycled milk jugs and ocean bound plastics well as a business development manager for Pollywood currently established in the West Coast, and I am working with professional and commercial designers and segments in the industry.

Debrae Little 1:59
Oh, that's fantastic. Well, I have a question for you right off. Do you have a showroom here in Las Vegas, Nevada?

Anji Beatty 2:07
So we don't technically have a showroom here in Las Vegas at the market, but we do have a customer that sells on the retail side at Mrs. Patio in the three locations.

Debrae Little 2:19
Oh, okay, so you do have a presence here, we do so definitely open to bringing in a client, or I could go, myself as an interior designer, and peruse the collection, that kind of thing. Is that available?

Anji Beatty 2:33
I mean, you definitely can go take a look at the products there at Mrs. Patio. But we also have our pollywood.com you know, for any professional designers, or in the commercial and hospitality contract side, that you can take a look and we can get samples and everything sent to you as well. Oh,

Debrae Little 2:50
great, because that was my next thing. We flourish, and we have to have samples, you know, whether it's wood or the material, in this case, plastic, yes, I would to show our clients, is there a wide variety of colors available?

Anji Beatty 3:05
Absolutely. So Pollywood is made up of 20 lumber profiles. We have a heritage color, we have a vintage and a premium select Finish. So we have up to 20 lumber colors that you can specify and design products with.

Debrae Little 3:26
So there's many, many choices. Did you hear that designers we love that we love choices because we love to put together different color palettes that work for our clients outdoors, especially bright colors. That seems to be something that is rare. I occasionally, I have, most of my clients are a little bit more reserved, right, and and very contemporary, or either traditional, but I have a few that like a like bow colors. So if that's a possibility, that's great, because I, as an interior designer, find that I use outdoor furniture indoors?

Anji Beatty 4:01
Yes, yes. And that's one nice thing about ours, is that it's very transitional. That you know, if you needed to, you could actually use this for an outdoor application, but you can also use it for an indoor application as well. Well, yeah,

Debrae Little 4:14
especially here in Las Vegas with all of the heat, because I find that in designing sofas or different furnishings for clients homes, then I'm always concerned about that sofa or that chair being placed near the window and having it just become disastrous. I mean, it fades with the color and everything, and it discolors the wood on the frame of of the sofa or the chair, and so that's why I've taken to using some of the outdoor furniture inside. Once you put that wonderful pillow or cushion in the seat, and you add a back pillow on the back of it, then I'm like, we're ready. We're ready for the indoors. And it's it feels like it's more sustainable too. And I

Anji Beatty 4:59
Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, one nice thing about, you know, going into, you know, having fading and everything like that, is that Hollywood actually is built with UV inhibitors that keep it from fading. We actually do a 6000 hour Sun simulator testing on our products to, you know, to keep it from fading. So that is one thing to kind of keep the longevity as far as the color goes in our lumber profiles.

Debrae Little 5:28
That's something that in this heat, and here in Las Vegas, it's, you know, as you know, it can be 120 plus degrees out there, even if you have a covered patio, but just the heat itself, and if you have it furniture exposed, then chances are it's not going to last. And one of my biggest concerns was, before I became educated, I was thinking that these materials that I would burn myself, that you would sit down on a sofa or chair out there and have to worry about it being too hot to the touch. But I understand that perhaps with that component that you're talking about, with the color stay and the climate tough, that maybe that won't be an

Anji Beatty 6:07
issue, no. And so kind of think of Hollywood and the lumber as leather seats in a car. You know, just like the first touch, you might have a little bit of warmth, but at the same time, once you touch that, it cools down. And our I have a I have a yard full of Hollywood right now. So our products are desert tough. We do thermal expansion testing on our products within BIFMA and ASTM standards. So, you know, our products are tested with an extreme cold and extreme heat temperatures to make sure it's going to uphold and be durable within the elements that it lives in,

Debrae Little 6:43
I see. So what you're saying is there's some type of inhibitors or something that's built into the product that allows so so controls for those for heat and

Anji Beatty 6:54
not, not necessarily heat. The UV inhibitors are built in to keep it from fading and keeping that color stay. Technology. As far as plastic goes, plastic doesn't heat up into a smoldering hotness, like aluminum, you know, like aluminum to touch sometimes is a little bit hot. But like with with like leather seats in a car, Hollywood reacts the same way as if it were, you know, hot for the first touch, and then it cools down after, you know, you give it that first initial touch,

Debrae Little 7:28
I see. So that's something we don't well, I might. I think one of my concerns was with we were talking about aluminum. Aluminum does heat up and doesn't seem to cool down as quickly, exactly, unfortunately. And so there's an advantage here with Hollywood, because it might bite you once, but not, might it not again, certainly, yes, and that's something to keep in mind, because, you know, the summer here lasts forever, specifically in Las Vegas, 100 Yeah, we are in the month of October here, and we're still having, we probably will have a 90 degree temperature today. So that's something. And plus, we like as living in Las Vegas, and we like living here because we know we can have year round entertaining, you know, if you're outdoors and you want to watch the the new the games, the football season is here and hockey is coming soon, yes. And so to outfit your backyard and Pollywood makes sense to me, absolutely. We even go indoors and outdoors, and I really appreciate having that ability to do both. Yes, you know, you mentioned some particular things that I think my viewers would love to understand exactly you talked about the standards that Hollywood opposed to, and you had mentioned, I think you said, what was it? B, I,

Anji Beatty 8:47
it's BIFMA, B, i, f, M, a, BIFMA and ASTM standards. So we actually test our products up to commercial and residential grades. We, for instance, we actually weight test all of our individual seats up to 400 pounds. We do, like I told you, UV inhibitors into our products. So we put all of our products through a sun simulator up to 6000 hours. We also use climate tough materials, and we do a 3000 hour salt spray on all of our hardware that we use. In addition to that, we use a strength test as far as our sewing goes and our sewing capability. In addition to that, we do thermal expansion testing, because poly lumber HDPE actually expands and contracts to the elements that it's in. So before we produce and launch any products into our production facility, we put our products through these extreme Testing one, to make sure that it's going to be upheld within a production line, and two, that it's going to be up. Held for the consumer,

Debrae Little 10:02
I see So, you know, it's a shame that you Polly wood doesn't actually just make individual pieces of lumber. I recently had a project that I completed after two years, and I designed a pergola. And boy oh boy, was that a tough one in terms of the options that are, you know, great colors that you mentioned that are offering different types of wood styles. And I chose a product that I used to build retaining fence, okay, and then turned around to use that same material just for the simplicity of the look and the consistency and use it to build a pergola. And boy, oh, boy. Was I concerned. Because I was concerned that whether or not it would be resistant to the the warm temperatures that we experienced. I was concerned about out gassing. I was concerned about many, many things, about using this product, and it would be lovely, or would be amazing to know that poly what? Maybe that's something they should

Anji Beatty 11:01
consider. So I'm happy to say, you know, that is something that's in our research and development right now as we're looking at pergolas. So that is something that is coming down the pipeline. We've had many, many requests for that. So you know, you're you're on to something, because hopefully we'll be able to launch that here, within the immediate future down the road,

Debrae Little 11:21
Oh God, I would love that. It's just so necessary here, especially if you do anything in this heat, for sure. So I mentioned outgassing. Is that a concern with Hollywood products?

Anji Beatty 11:32
So Pollywood does not have off gassing. We are actually prop 65 compliant, and we are also PFAs compliant within the industry. So as you know, prop 65 is a regulation across some states within the United States, and PFAs is becoming a mandate across many states, and will become a mandate throughout the whole nation. And our products do not do any off gassing like that at all, and are not carcinogenic at all,

Debrae Little 12:05
because that's that's a big concern. Because, as I started out saying, the beginning of this conversation is that I have a lot of clients who are very much hoping to be and to integrate sustainability aspects and and look at things from a different a healthier perspective. They're concerned about how they eat and the materials they use in their home, the insulation in their home, the flooring, just about every component, it's just and I think it's amazing that we have become that conscientious about things like that, that are that interact with our lives every day. We don't take it for granted anymore,

Anji Beatty 12:42
100% and one thing that I would like to mention too is that, you know, Pollywood was founded back in 1990 by two high school friends, and currently, right now, our existing CS CEO and president of our company, who was our found a co founder back in the 80s, when the government mandated recycling programs were happening, he wanted to come up with a solution, and so back in 1990 in his grandparents garage, they came up with the first Adirondack chair. And the nice thing about Doug grassy is that he had a background of already knowing how to extrude plastic and making them into extruded lumber pieces. So when they came out with that first chair in 1990 we really want, he really wanted to be a company that was going to be a sustainable company. And his mission has carried through for the last 35 years.

Debrae Little 13:43
No, that's commendable. He had definitely had vision, and he knew where the market was going. I wanted to ask you about the style, the design range that Hollywood offers as a designer, that's always important to me. I mean, we want the sustainability factor, we want the comfort, but we certainly want the style as well. Absolutely, a little bit about that,

Anji Beatty 14:05
yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Pollywood has anything from traditional, transitional and to modern looks. We have over 100,000 SKUs. So we have something for everybody. But I'll tell you, we have categories from, you know, starting out with the classic Adirondack, and we have over 40 adirondacks today. We have anything in the porch category, deep seating, dining. And we also have Hollywood Design Series, which is our luxury, upscale collections that we offer, as well anywhere from going into, you know, Chase lounges, fire pits, the kid collection, and even down to our little fur babies. We have pet feeders, but we've also done exclusive furniture collaborations with Martha Stewart, country living, and also Draper

Debrae Little 14:57
Janes. Wow. Tell me about the. Fire Pit, though. Oh,

Anji Beatty 15:01
so we actually made fire pits. We actually make it out of the Pollywood lumber. The nice thing about the fire pits is that with the fire pit components themselves, we actually have it fitted for you can do it to natural gas or propane. So it's it's equipped to be able to you do either or but we do require a wind guard to go on our fire pits. So that does come complimentary of it when you make that purchase. And we do require you to keep the wind guard on that just because if you do take that away, it could melt your plastic. But the wind guard will actually take the heat and let it rise up. Oh, okay,

Debrae Little 15:44
well, safety first, absolutely, that's important. Now tell me whether or not they have offerings for umbrellas. We

Anji Beatty 15:51
do. We do currently, right now, we have a supplier that supplies us with our umbrellas that we sell in our market, and that are great for residential and we are actually getting ready to to outsource another supplier for our commercial grade umbrellas as well. So, but we are using treasure garden. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, but that treasure garden is available. We have a 19 and a half inch base that you can get a nine foot umbrella, with umbrella

Debrae Little 16:24
fabrics. Oh, with umbrella. Oh, fantastic. Wow. You have a little your line. You have a little bit of everything. Have you thought about everything? Let me see if I've forgotten that.

Anji Beatty 16:35
I say, you know, come to Hollywood, because we have something for everybody. Trust me. Give me a minute. You tell me what you're looking for. We can, we can definitely equip you with something

Debrae Little 16:46
I appreciate, the wide variety in the selection, for sure. Now tell me with is there with your cheers in the and Aron dyke cheers that you offer, is that something that has to be assembled? Does it come? How is it? Yeah,

Anji Beatty 17:01
so if so all of our products are going to eat, I would say all of our products, but the majority of our products do come knocked down. We do build them in the concept that, you know, we do know that an end consumer are going to put these together. So they're usually built with three to five pieces, and we give directions and hardware kits to put products together. But let me just tell you if I can put our product together, which it is heavy duty, but it is pretty easy to put together, and it usually takes between no more than 15 to 30 minutes to put pieces together.

Debrae Little 17:38
Oh, that's that's good to know. Well, that means that that particular install company that I hire will be able to get the work done very quickly.

Anji Beatty 17:46
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And you know, the one thing that Pollywood does offer, as well as a white glove service. So if that is an additional up charge, but if you know you did need somebody to put that together for you, we absolutely could do that

Debrae Little 18:01
for you. Oh, no, I appreciate knowing that one one less thing on the list for designers to remember to do during the course of an install. Now, what about in preparing for the furniture? I understand that maybe there's a possibility that you provide CAD or SketchUp, or will you assist in that or so. One of the things I submit the drawings to you, oh, together say, this is what we can, we can do for this layout that you you have,

Anji Beatty 18:29
yes, yes, so that that is something that you know, being part of business development and working with professional and commercial designers and anyone in procurement that's looking to do, you know, a project and specify products from us. We have a commercial sales team and a professional design sales team that if you send me over your your project that you're working on, we can, we can do spatial planning and show you how the product lays out. We can also provide you dimensions, and again, in all of our collateral and on our website, we we offer all the dimensions and the weight of the product, but we are, we definitely have that capability of working one on one with you to give you the best quality service, as far as customer care and getting you anything specified for a project that you're working on. What's

Debrae Little 19:24
the turnaround time? What are we talking about in lead time, if I submit drawings, and this is the backyard I'm working on, or, for that matter, the living room and and I want an idea of how long will it take from that point of submitting the drawings and getting the feedback from you and the products and availability, and then I place my order, absolutely. What are we looking

Anji Beatty 19:47
at? Absolutely. So if you emailed me today and you said, Angie, I need your help with putting products in this backyard, this is something that I'm thinking about, you know, I'm looking at, you know, some chaise lounges, some Adirondack chairs and dining so. We would probably have a maybe a day or two going back and forth from product to development, you know, and then we would go back and go back back and forth a couple of emails. But our lead times on our products are anywhere from two to four weeks from production. So we build to order, and we are domestically made in the USA. Our manufacturing facilities are in Syracuse, Indiana, and Roxboro, North Carolina. So, you know, shipping from those two locations you're looking at, you know, maybe a seven to nine business day ship time. So you're, I mean, once we we close on something and we solidified that sale, you're looking at having product in hand, probably within five to six weeks.

Debrae Little 20:44
Okay, that's pretty standard. That's good to know. And so are are you are your company concerned with, like shipping costs or tariffs coming into effect? Is that going to change anything? Simply not. If you're from the U S

Anji Beatty 20:56
Nourse, no. And you know that that's the one blessing for Hollywood is the fact that we are domestically made, and we don't have concerns with tariffs, you know, shipping. We we we actually have aggressive shipping freight rates that we offer, but really honestly, we were always monitoring those on a daily basis, and we're always just making sure that we're giving the best quality and the best product pricing.

Debrae Little 21:27
And I, I'm assuming you mentioned high point a few months ago, yes, that you will be at this coming market. So I'm going back to there is the website that's available if I want to see the collection, and then I can order samples, yes, and see colors and all that are you offering? Is it a kit that I can Yes?

Speaker 2 21:50
So purchase or no, so we don't, we don't require you to purchase anything. So we have a professional design. And again, the commercial hospitality segment, you can go to pollywood.com and there is information there, and then from there, once you know, say, you just you fill out an application. We send out sample kits of our lumber in the fabrics that we offer. So we have the 20 lumber profiles. We also have aluminum, because we do have a main street collection that is aluminum and a multi material with our poly lumber. In addition to that, we will we have sling so we have a coastal collection. Yes, yes. So we, we can send you materials for all of the items

Debrae Little 22:40
for a moment. Yeah, you had mentioned that, what was the fabrics that you offered came from?

Anji Beatty 22:45
So we have two companies that we outsource currently, right now, revolution fabrics, which is made in the USA, and they're based out of North Carolina, and then also the family name of Sunbrella, everybody household name of Sunbrella. But yeah. So we use revolution fabrics and Sunbrella.

Debrae Little 23:03
Oh, that's and this is available for the chairs for so we chase for everything, yes,

Anji Beatty 23:10
so we, so we provide everything for our deep seating and our sectional seating, and then we that those are included. And then we have accessories, seat pads, cushions, pillows, you name it. If you want an additional add on to your product that you wanted.

Debrae Little 23:26
So if I wanted to color, create a nice color palette or a balance between my seat cushions and, say, my umbrella, I would be able to do that Absolutely. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Well, you're offering sustainability, durability, it's, we don't have to worry about fate fading, and you have a lumber collection as well as fabrics,

Anji Beatty 23:48
yes, yes. And you know, the one thing that I want to highlight too, is that, you know, it's weather resistance, so the fact that it can, it can live anywhere, is, I really love

Debrae Little 24:00
that about Hollywood. So we can, did you hear that, folks, you can leave your your outdoor furniture outside Exactly, exactly. But if, for those like myself, we're a little still fearful, you can certainly provide covers, or you can refer us to a company that offers yes furniture covers. Yes,

Anji Beatty 24:21
Hollywood doesn't offer covers for our furniture, but I do know that there are companies out there, like cover store.com, that offers, you know, a wide range of covers outdoor for outdoor furniture that are waterproof.

Debrae Little 24:36
All right. Well, thank you for the thank you for the information. Angie, it's just been incredible. I feel a lot more comfortable. Outdoor Furniture is something that I love, and as I said, I love to have it outside as well as indoors, but it just is very soothing to my brain to know that there's a company out there that is offering products that. That are sustainable and that are adaptable to our client, in particular, Las Vegas, or, for that matter, probably Arizona, or any other the other states that are West, we have a tendency to be it feels like we're in the Sun Belt, although we're not called the Sun Belt, which is interesting, exactly, but, but anyway, well, thank you today for all that information, and I look forward to perusing the website and taking a look at the products and ordering some samples.

Anji Beatty 25:30
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us on the show today. I appreciate that.

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