DECOR : For U.S. Furnishings, Bigger is Beautiful

Bigger is better in America, even in home furnishings.

True, in the early days castles, manor houses and other European estates called for furnishings that wouldn’t be dwarfed by the architecture. But scale and taste have changed with the times.

“When I first arrived in New Orleans from London, I realized that everything was huge here,” says designer Christine Lambert, who now works with an international clientele from New York. “People in this country wanted bigger beds, larger TV sets and bigger kitchens.

“It’s almost like ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ Europe is Lilliput, and the United States is Maxiput.”

Americans who shop retail have the same demands for size as those who shop through decorators. They choose bigger, softer seating; bigger, harder beds, and tableware that dwarfs continental styles.

Pam Diaconis of Ikea, the Swedish-based international home furnishings chain, says that when the company came to the United States in 1985, it stocked its stores with existing European lines. Many items have since grown to American specifications. A sofa designed for, and made in, North America is 86 inches long and 37 inches deep. By contrast, a popular model in Europe is 72 inches by 33 inches. It also feels firmer than the American sofa. The story is the same with upholstered chairs: They’re bigger and softer stateside.

Among other differences, the recliner is uniquely American. And Americans have a corner on the home entertainment furniture market. From 1992 to 1994, Diaconis says, Ikea has nearly doubled its sales in the category. The day after Christmas, she says, “the day our winter sale started, customers in record numbers were shopping for furniture to accommodate the electronics they got for Christmas.”

Whereas Americans often plan their living room and family room furniture needs around their television viewing habits, Europeans are more likely to arrange their seating for conversation, with the TV set off to the side.

In the bedroom, Ikea added an armoire for the television so U.S. consumers can watch TV while they dress in the morning and before they go to sleep at night.

Even the bed is bigger in America than in Europe. In the United States, a king-size bed measures 78 inches wide. The widest in Europe is 180 centimeters, or 71 inches.

And tableware? “American customers were buying our vases and using them for drinking glasses,” Diaconis says. “And at first we didn’t sell a platter large enough to accommodate an 18-pound turkey.”

If there had been a big platter, some of the tables would have been too narrow to hold it. A pine table, when the store first opened, was 30.5 inches wide. Now, it’s 36 inches wide.

Christine Lambert links Americans’ desire for larger furnishings to a demand for physical comfort.

Beyond scale, there’s a difference in taste. Lambert designs fabrics as well as interiors. Recently, she came up with one that mixes penguins and sunflowers. She calls it Sun on Ice.

“Someone said to me, ‘You will never sell a yard in the United States,’ and they were almost right. Penguins sell and sunflowers sell, but not penguins and sunflowers because that is too surrealistic. . . . Minimalist and avant garde doesn’t sell here. Clients prefer something that looks old and rich.”