There’s a new lifestyle in town, Lifestyle Furniture & Mattress Gallery, and the owners of the new business in town are pleased to share it with the community.

Earlier this month Lifestyle Furniture & Mattress Gallery, co-owned by Wayne Smith, Robert Smith and Ernie Thompson, opened in the former Town & Country Furniture location. The first Lifestyle Furniture & Mattress Gallery store opened in January in Henderson, N.C.

In 2002 Wayne and Robert Smith and Ernie Thompson opened Discount Furniture Center in South Hill. In 2007 they opened what is now the Farmville Discount Furniture Center Store in Crewe and moved it to Farmville’s College Plaza in 2010.

“My family’s been in the furniture business a long time,” Robert Smith said. “My father opened his first store when he was 21, and he’s 74 now.”

Robert started in the furniture business after graduating from Virginia Tech with a degree in industrial engineering.

“When I got out of college I went to work for a furniture manufacturer,” he said.

In 1989, Katherine, Robert and Wayne Smith opened a family furniture business, Karobway Furniture, in LaCrosse that later moved to South Hill.

“Once we got Karobway going, we went into partnership with Ernie Thompson,” Smith said.

Providing good service is the aim in all locations.

“We work hard to offer service at an affordable price,” Smith said. “What we offer through the different businesses we have now are all the name brands plus the ability to buy other brands.”

Smith believes the community will be pleased that Lifestyle Furniture will continue a tradition established by Charles Puckett at Town & Country — the La-Z-Boy brand.

“Town & Country was a large La-Z-Boy dealer and so is Karobway,” Smith said. “We knew that La-Z-Boy would be a natural fit for this area.”

Fitting customers with the right furniture is a priority at Lifestyle Furniture.

“We’re stressing middle-of-the-road furniture,” Smith said. “We’re in a hard-working conservative area, and we recognize that.”

Another main feature of the store is the mattress gallery.

“We have the largest selection of mattresses in the area,” Smith said. “We have about 30 different choices in our gallery.”

Keeping up with the latest trends is also important to the storeowners.

“We spend a lot of time going to furniture markets,” Smith said. “We go to any industry show that we can so we can be up to date on styles and trends.”

Styles, Smith noted, have moved away from traditional oak and cherry.

“Now it’s more about mixing wood colors,” Smith said. “Furniture is very cyclical in styles and trends.”

“We’re here to help customers mix and match,” Foote said. “They can bring us pictures and we’ll help with all that.”

Smith and the staff at Lifestyle Furniture hope that folks in the community will stop by, check out a La-Z-Boy or mattress and get acquainted.

“This is a homegrown company and family-owned,” Foote said. “We want to be part of the community.”