Rich Christianson

IKEA's worldwide sales increased by 9.5% to $4.2 billion for its fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. But improved revenues hardly begin to tell IKEA's story - or better yet - saga of 2012.

I can go on and on about how great it felt to be one of the organizers of this awesome event. But why take my word for it when you can read the comments of exuberant exhibitors and attendees who participated at the 2013 Cabinets & Closets Conference last week in Edison, NJ.

More foreign investors are finding the production cost advantages in their homelands is less valuable than being directly attached to the world’s greatest consumer market.

The wood panel companies represented by the new executive board of the Composite Panel Association reads like a who's who in mega mergers and acquisitions of 2012.

I can only begin to imagine the thousands of wood products company websites, brochures, etc. that are in need of swapping out the term thermally fused melamine in favor of thermally fused laminate.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) did not have a magic wand to un-burst the housing bubble, but that did not stop him from using his senate seat in Washington to take a whack at stemming the flow of Chinese wood imports.

Mohawk Industries's agreement to purchase Pergo laminate flooring for $150 million will bring an end to German-based Pfleiderer's 7-year presence in the North American wood products market.

1 Man + 1 Robot @ 24/7 = 1,200 Cabinets. That's the potential weekly output at Ro-Bois-Tic, a most intriguing start-up I visited last week in St.-Apollinaire, QC.