Former Breuners buyer to open Arizona store
Store aimed at toddlers through tweens
-- Kids Today, 8/23/2007 12:18:00 PM
By Lisa Casinger
Jami Myers, former buyer for furniture retailer Breuners Arizona, is opening her own children’s furniture store in Scottsdale, Ariz. Jami B’z is set to open Sept. 1.
The 5,900-square-foot store carries furniture and accessories geared toward toddlers to tweens, though it also shows a crib to promote its Young America line. Myers is displaying 23 beds, including some full beds.
“The store is set up in a large U shape,” Myers said. “There are 14 vignettes around the store and nine more beds down the center aisle. Some are complimented by accent pieces while others are dressed in themes with accent rugs and accessories to coordinate.”
Major furniture partners include Young America, Lea Inds., A.P. Inds. and John Boyd. Myers also is in the final stages of creating her own private label furniture collection that will be made locally. The line will be for boys and girls with a more modern, contemporary feel.
“We’ll also offer ‘in-home’ design by getting to know the child’s hobbies, likes and dislikes and assisting in space planning,” Myers said. “Our motto, if you will, is that no two rooms will be alike!”
Myers, a Chicago native, turned her degree in interior design from the University of Arizona into a career in the home furnishings industry and spent the past 15 years at Breuners Arizona.
With Jami B’z, her goal is to “make the store something different; something that I hope moms talk about.”
To that end, she’s incorporating the work of a local children’s photographer into the displays. She’s painted the 20 foot-high ceiling black to make it almost disappear and suspended the photographer’s huge stretched canvas portraits over the beds in the center aisle. The portraits show close-ups of children’s faces from toddler to tween.
“When I found out Breuners was closing, I was speechless; I grew up there,” Myers said. “The knowledge and relationships with co-workers and factories have been priceless, and I am blessed to have had some wonderful teachers over all those years. That is what helps me sleep at night, knowing that they will be with me in this new adventure.”
