Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids-Based TMC Furniture Featured in WaPo, NY Times, CBS Mornings, Times of London for work/play station in public libraries
ANN ARBOR, MI – January 22 started out as an ordinary Saturday for Blake Ratcliffe and Sherri Moore, the married couple who are principals and founders at TMC Furniture. The firm, based in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids Michigan, builds and designs creative furniture for schools, libraries, hospitals, and corporate clients.
Then their phones blew up.
In the past two weeks inquiries, orders, and website traffic for TMC Furniture have skyrocketed, fueled by stories in the NY Times, Washington Post, CBS Mornings, Good Morning America, New York Magazine, Fox News, Newsweek, The Times of London, The Richmond Times Dispatch, Yahoo News and elsewhere.
Ali Faruk of Families Forward Virginia, a non-profit child advocacy group, was making a weekend visit to a library in Henrico County, Virginia when he spotted one of the “Fairfield Parent+Child Carrels” built and designed by TMC Furniture. The workstations featuring a computer desk attached to child’s play area.
Faruk snapped picture and sent out a Tweet. “A new public library in my area has these workstations for caregivers with babies!” he wrote. “Maybe these are common in other places but I’ve never seen anything like this before.” The image of a family-friendly environment in a public library quickly went viral. To date, Faruk’s Tweet has attracted over 240,000 likes, and been shared and quoted more than 30,000 times.
“We were blown away,” says Ratcliffe. “We know it’s a great product. But we didn’t know that people all over the world were looking for exactly this kind of solution.”
The Parent+Child carrel was designed based on a request from librarians in Henrico County, who were preparing to open a new library in 2019. In other facilities, library staff frequently saw parents with small toddlers trying to type with one hand or balance a child on one knee while trying to get a few minutes of work done. Architects from Quinn Evans teamed up with TMC Furniture to craft a custom solution that is now making headlines around the world.
The company has a 25-year history of collaborating with architects, academics, and educators to craft furniture for libraries, schools, hospitals, and other settings that support and facilitate families and early childhood learning. All TMC products, including the Parent+Child carrel, are made at the company’s Grand Rapids, Michigan factory, using environmentally responsible materials. Building on the rich history of furniture-making in Western Michigan, TMC’s manufacturing staff includes several second-and third-generation woodworkers.
TMC, which uses local and regional raw materials and components, is ready to meet increased customer demand, said Ratcliffe, and will not be affected by interruptions in the global supply chain. “We source our materials,” he explains, “within a 30-mile radius of our manufacturing plant in Grand Rapids.”
For interviews with Ratcliffe, or to tour the Grand Rapids factory where the products now featured all over the globe are made, please contact: caroline@tmcfurniture.com, 734-622-0080 x111
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