LA GRANDE — Carpet One has purchased the Globe Furniture inventory and is going to expand its business by opening a new store, House to Home Furnishings by Carpet One, at 2212 Island Ave., Suite B, La Grande, adjacent to Harbor Freight.

“Carpet One has four owners that are here locally in La Grande that own the three existing Carpet One stores in La Grande, Baker City, and Enterprise, and we’ve decided to open a furniture and mattress store,” Carpet One General Manager Brent Huntsman said.

Business hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday. It offers free delivery throughout Baker, Union, and Wallowa counties and free removal of old furniture with delivery.

House to Home will continue to operate from the Globe store until about Feb. 1, when the inventory will be transferred and set up in the new building’s showroom in preparation for its soft opening Feb. 14.

The soft opening for House to Home will kick off a week-long sale for their traditional President’s Day sale.

“This will be a soft opening, but we will have a more formal open house, ribbon cutting and grand opening later in May when the building is finished,” Huntsman said.

An unexpected opportunity

The opening of a furniture and mattress store was an unexpected opportunity for the Carpet One owners until they were approached by Dale Basso from Globe Furniture, who said he was getting ready to retire and asked if the Carpet One owners were interested in buying his business.

“We hadn’t been looking for that,” Huntsman said. “We do sell furniture and mattresses out of our Baker and Enterprise store already, so when Dale approached us, we had some interest, and we eventually came to an agreement and bought Globe Furniture’s inventory.”

At the same time, the building across the street from Carpet One, formerly the Rite Aid building, which is right next to Harbor Freight, became available for lease.

“We decided that if we’re going to do this, and if we had a store right adjacent to our Carpet One store, that would make it very easy for us to operate all on the same campus,” he said. “That’s what kind of pushed us over the line to make the decision to start this new store.”

Remodeling underway

House to Home Furnishings by Carpet One will be leasing one third of the building that it shares with Harbor Freight, and it will have a little more than 13,400 square feet of showroom space. It is undergoing some remodeling, including cutting out large windows from the exterior masonry wall and eventually constructing a build-out in the front of the building and erecting a sign.

“The outside appearance of the House to Home building will look similar to the outside front of Carpet One,” he said.

Inside the building the remodeling is mostly cosmetic, painting walls and ceiling. The public restrooms and electrical wiring will be up to code and all the lighting upgraded from fluorescent to LED.

In addition to buying out the Globe Furniture inventory, Carpet One also purchased a warehouse that is located on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Greenwood Street.

“We will continue to use this as our primary warehouse storage,” Huntsman said. “The new building will be primarily a showroom.”

The new manager of House to Home in La Grande is Mark Madsen, who used to be the manager at C&M for the past 24 years, Huntsman said.

Carpet One also decided to retain four of the staff from Globe Furniture for a seamless transfer of operations. Many of the staff have been with Globe for more than eight years, including their lead salesperson, Scott Crouser, and their head of delivery, Chris Tuck.

“We’re excited to have them,” Huntsman said.

What’s in a name

The business name, House to Home Furnishings by Carpet One, was chosen so people would know they are connected, Huntsman said. Its name conveys there is a difference between making a house, which is just a place where you live, and making it into a home where you like to live. What makes that transformation happen is furniture and home decor.

“It’s a matter of decorating and making it a place where you work and spend time at versus a house, which would be more like a hotel where you stay the night,” he said.

Another key factor that persuaded the Carpet One owners to purchase and operate a furniture business in La Grande had to do with the well-known brand names that Globe sold.

“When we decided to purchase Globe’s inventory, we made it a point to get those brands because some of the brands give exclusive rights to their products,” Huntsman said.

In this way, those brands can now be offered for sale, not only from their La Grande store, but also from the Baker City and Enterprise stores that already had furniture and mattresses. “So, it actually expanded our ability to have those brands, specifically La-Z-boy and Simmons,” he said

History of Carpet One’s holdings

Carpet One has four local owners, Brent Huntsman, general manager; Lloyd Berry, Jared Bedard, and Shaye Perry, who is the son of the founder of our business, Russell Perry.

“This business used to be Perry’s Fashion Floors before it became a member of the Carpet One family and Russell Perry is the founder,” Huntsman said. “He retired at the end of 2015, the same year that I joined the company.”

The Carpet One store in La Grande was founded in 1977; the Enterprise store was opened in 2002; the Baker City store has been in business since 2017, and now House to Home Furnishings by Carpet One will join the group of stores in 2025.

“I think people will be excited to learn about the new, modern looking styles and colors of our furniture,” Huntsman said. “Also, they will like the new location of our store, being in a heavily growing part of town.

Huntsman is confident the La Grande Town center, including its two newest tenant retailers, House to Home Furnishings by Carpet One and Harbor Freight will become the shopping center for people of Eastern Oregon, where people can find high-quality furniture, mattresses and tools.

“We’ve been in business a long time and plan to stay in business a long time,” Huntsman said. “This is not a temporary thing. We’re investing heavily to be here for the future.”

For a sneak peek of the new showroom at House to Home Furnishings by Carpet One visit the business on Facebook. It can also be reached on Instagram or by calling 541-963-4144.