Ernie's Sleep Mapper - Discovering Your Perfect Night's Sleep!

XSENSOR Technology Corporation has been in the field of pressure imaging for automotive testing, sleep research and pressure ulcer prevention for over 15 years. This technology brings practical, real-world benefits of personal comfort. It was originally designed for the medical industry, and is now being applied to the mattress industry. According to revealbyxsensor.com, “REVEAL takes a scientific, unbiased approach that makes your selection of a mattress easy. You don't have to spend weeks or months shopping and then wondering if you made the right choice.”

The Sleep Mapper mattress fitting system is designed to help find the most comfortable and supportive mattress by using pressure imaging technologies. This new approach will tell us what kind of comfort and support you need from your mattress, which will help remove uncertainty and confusion to the customer and help us pin-point the perfect mattress for you. Currently, Ernie’s In Ceresco and Ernie’s Mattress 1^st are the only stores in Nebraska with this technology.

The Sleep Mapper only takes a few seconds and can save you tons of time in the long run. All you have to do is lie down on the Sleep Mapper mattress, in the position you would wake up in and our sales associate will capture an image of your body’s pressure points. We would then explain what the image shows and based off of where your pressure points are and the severity of them, we would be able to recommend a few mattresses that would give you the right type of comfort and support you need so you can get a better night’s sleep. What we want to accomplish is full contact area with minimal gaps to get the best support and low overall pressure with minimal peaks for the best comfort.

Based on your height, weight and sleeping position, everybody’s Sleep Mapper image will be different. If you’re a back sleeper and have high contact areas you’d want a firmer core for more support. If you’re a back sleeper and have low contact areas you’d need a plush core for the proper support. And if you’re a side sleeper and have high average peak pressure points you’d want a plush surface to reduce pressure.

We want to invite everybody to come out to our stores and we’ll help you discover your perfect night’s sleep. 

Kaitlin Benes
Advertising/Furniture Sales

Building for America’s Bravest

Would you be able to drop everything, leave your family and go fight for your country? Thousands of men and women did and now it’s our turn to return the favor. Ernie’s in Ceresco is partnering with Building for America’s Bravest; we’re collecting donations and also donating a portion of our flooring sales. 

Building for America’s Bravest is a program of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation that builds Smart Homes for injured service members returning home from war. Each home is custom made to the veteran’s needs.  Their homes are energy efficient and easily accessible to help the injured veterans live a more independent life. Unfortunately, for every home that is built, three more veterans join the long waiting list. According to ourbravest.org, “When the call came, these brave service members went. They made extraordinary sacrifices in our place.” Together, we can give them a home they deserve.  Any donation, whether it’s big or small, will make a huge difference in a service hero’s life. 

Kaitlin Benes
Advertising/Furniture Sales

Classic Flame - An Electric Fire Place

Why Electric?

• No Firewood Needed – Wood burning fireplaces are just a hassle to have. It takes up space if you store the firewood inside, and if you store it outside you have to go get it and protect it from the elements. With an electric fireplace, you never have to do that.
• Zone Heating Saves Money – You can save money while heating your house. You can lower the temperature of your house and choose to only heat the room(s) you’re in.
• Efficiency – LED technologies incorporated into the fireplaces actually consume less energy than a regular incandescent bulb and stay cool to the touch.
• Safety – Our electric fireplaces have an automatic timer function, allowing you to have a timer set for 30 minutes all the way up to 9 hours. Now you can be worry free because the shutoff timer reduces the risk of fires resulting from the unit overheating.
• Air Quality – No smoke or fumes are given off, which aides in maintaining air quality in your house and keeping you healthier.
• Style and Ambiance – Electric fireplaces can be operated with or without heat. Giving you the opportunity to enjoy a rolling fire all year long.
• Ease Of Use – You can plug the electric fireplace into any standard outlet, and because of that, it’s so easy to move from room to room.

Green Clean Safe

• Burning of a gas or wood fireplace emits carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane, a Classic Flame fireplace emits none of those, so no indoor or outdoor pollution.
• Why warm your entire house when they are rooms you rarely ever are in?
• Classic Flame’s technology is two years ahead of their competition and they’re always striving to better their products
• The LED’s Classic Flame uses have a life span of over 75,000 hours where an incandescent light bulb only has a life span of 2,000. That’s a life span difference of 8.5 years to 83 days!
• It’s 100% energy efficient! All the electric energy is converted to heat, so there’s no waste.

Kaitlin Benes
Advertising/Furniture Sales

Designing the Perfect Sofa or Sectional

Have you ever struggled trying to find the perfect sofa or sectional for your home? Or find something you like, but not the fabric you desire? Do you want to change just a few things about a sofa? Now you can. Ernie’s in Ceresco has a few different styles of sofas, love seats and sectionals you can customize until they’re perfect for you.

Designing and customizing your own sofa or sectional may seem overwhelming at first, but our brochures help simplify the entire process. First and foremost, to start the entire process you need to look at the different brands of sofas and sectionals and choose one that has a style or the comfort you want. Once you’ve chosen the brand, it’s time to configure what you want your sofa or sectional to look like. And lastly, it’s time to choose the fabric for it. Sometimes picking out the fabric can be the most overwhelming part of the entire process. Make it easier on yourself and start by picking out a specific color and go from there, paring down your options until you find the perfect one.

Here’s a little break down of each customizable brand.

England

England has two different series of sectionals you can build and customize. With each series you can choose the seats and configurations for what would work in your house. You are also able to choose almost any fabric from the England fabric collection. The only downfall is you don’t have any control over the arms, legs and backing of the sofa or sectional.

Cozy Life

Our F9 Series is similar to England as you can choose and configure any sectional to fit your needs. F9 Series has a great brochure that already has over 15 different options available. Our brochures also include dimensions, that way there’s no guess work involved.

Smith Brothers

Smith Brothers has two different series, the 5000 and the 8000. Each series gives you different options for customizing your sofa, love seat or sectional.

With the 5000 series, the brochure lays out customizing your sofa or sectional in 4 steps. The first step is to choose what kind of base you want. You can choose from a skirt, turned leg or a tapered leg. The second step is to choose the arm. You have 6 options and can choose from a T-Cushion or a no T-Cushion sock, panel or track arm. The third step is choosing the back, where you can choose either semi-attached or loose pillow. The fourth step is choosing the sofa or sectional pieces you want. The very last step is choosing a fabric for the body of the sofa or sectional and the pillow fabric.

The 8000 series is very similar to the 5000 series. You still get to customize the sofa and sectional, only some of the options are different. The first step with the 8000 series is to choose what kind of seam as you can choose from a welt chord or a top stitch. The second step is choosing the arm, with the choices being a sock, panel, track or deco arm. The third step is choosing the back. You can pick from a semi-attached boxing back, a loose pillow boxing back or a loose pillow knife edge back. The fourth step is choosing the sofa or sectional pieces you want. And just like the 5000 series, the very last step is choosing a fabric for the body of the sofa or sectional and the pillow fabric.

Designing a sofa or sectional can be quite easy – just follow the steps in the brochures and you won’t be overwhelmed.

Kaitlin Benes
Advertising/Furniture Sales

Swash. The new way to wash!

What is the swash? Swash is an at home, clothing care system that takes only ten minutes.

What can the Swash really do in only ten minutes?

- Remove light wrinkles for a clean look.

- Neutralize odor and leave clothes smelling clean.

- Restore the fit to your clothes that's lost after wear.
-  Extends the life of your clothes.

You might be thinking, would I really ever use this? Of course you would! The Swash allows clothes to look their best without the hassle of excessive washing, drying, ironing and dry cleaning. According to a consumer survey, “Based on people who use dry cleaning at least once a month, they spend about $750 on dry cleaning. By using the Swash, you can cut that number in half!” And the Swash can actually add to the life of your clothes, by making them last longer.

It is safe to clean most fabrics including denim, wool, polyester, lycra, cotton, cashmere and clothes with sequins, beading and lace. It is recommended to not clean clothes such as leather, velvet, suede, silk or fur with the Swash.

What does Swash clean your clothes with?

The Swash is gentle on dyes and doesn’t cause piling or fading. It uses a super fine mist to evenly wet the clothing and a rapid heat system to dry clothes quickly and de-wrinkle them. And uses Swash Pod Cups that neutralize odors and leaves your clothes smelling wonderful. Current scents available are Awaken, Recharge, Unwind and Sensitive. Through Swash, you can set up a subscription to get them delivered right to your door when you need them.

System Features of the Swash

- Intuitive Light System

A series of white, blue and orange lights count down cycle lengths and completions, and signals when an error has occurred.

- Adjustable Hanger

The adjustable hanger expands and contracts, making it easy to hang items, no matter the size or clothing type.

- Smoothing Clips

Experiment using Smoothing Clips with each item of clothing to provide the right amount of tension for maximum wrinkle release.

How does the Swash fit in your home?

The Swash can be placed anywhere in your home due to its quiet operation. It comes in two colors Shadow and Linen, and can easily fit in with any home décor. Setup is quick and simple! Just plug it into a 120 volt wall outlet and you’re good to go. 

Kaitlin Benes
Advertising/Furniture Sales

Black Stainless Appliances and Their Unique Features

We can all appreciate the new, sleek appliance color black stainless. Did you know LG, KitchenAid and Samsung all have appliances with the black stainless finish? But each finish has a little different hue then the next. LG’s black stainless has a high gloss finish, KitchenAid’s black stainless is a matte black finish, with a gold tone to it and Samsung’s black stainless has hints of blue in it. GE has a painted slate finish, which is a great neutral color for any kitchen. Slate finished appliances have  the most flexible in price range. If you look at their line of appliances you’ll most likely find something that can fit into your budget. All of these new finishes are designed to fight off fingerprints and fit in with almost any modern decor perfectly.

LG Black Diamond Collection

Coined “The Black Diamond collection”  LG’s black stainless is stainless steel that has been darkened and treated with a high gloss top coat. It reminds Adam Bouc appliance expert at Ernie’s of a freshly waxed show car. He added “ If you look closely, you can still see the grains of the stainless steel shine through.”

LG has tapped into the new trend of the door-in-door. The door-in-door is great for the quick trips into the fridge to grab the ketchup and mustard out of the door or to get a jug milk. The door-in-door feature is great for all the family snacks and go to foods without opening up the entire refrigerator and letting all the cool air out. Another popular feature the LG has on models with the exterior ice and water dispenser, is the ice maker that makes ice the size of bartender ice. And not only does LG have refrigerators with top of the line features even their microwaves do too.  For their microwaves that are above a range, they have a new extendable vent that pulls out from the bottom of the microwave to help diffuse the steam from cooking on the range. Currently LG is the only one with a microwave feature like that.

Samsung

Samsung like LG has a door-in-door feature, although theirs is a little bit different and is called “Food showcase”. Instead of having shelves attached to the door there’s a metal cooling panel, which is designed to keep the door two degrees cooler than the rest of the fridge. According to Brit Buresh Appliance manager at Ernie’s this cooler temp is designed to extend the life of your milk by several days. He also added “this innovative design allows access to your most used items quickly, it’s like a fridge within a fridge for added convenience.”   

Select Samsung dishwashers have the new feature called the water wall. Why wash a square with a circle? It’s impossible to get every part of the square clean. The water wall is a row of six jets at the back of the dishwasher on the bottom row. On the opposite side of the dishwasher is a deflector that shoots the water straight up, so every corner gets cleaned.

Samsung’s Flex Duo range now gives you a few options to choose from, now you can open the top half of the oven or the whole door. The Flex duo range comes with divider, which slides into your oven horizontally, dividing the oven in half. Once the divider is in place you now have two mini ovens that are now controlled independently. According to Samsung’s market research, “a surprisingly high number of users almost always leave the divider in, which makes for faster pre-heat times and better energy efficiency.”

KitchenAid

KitchenAid also has a new Black stainless steel available. They choose to focus on built in appliances with this new finish. “you won’t find any freestanding ranges from KitchenAid in Black stainless” according to Allan Pearson appliance specialist at Ernie’s. “but they do have several range hoods, wall ovens, dishwashers, cook tops, and some really innovative new refrigerators available in the new color.”

The anchor of the new KitchenAid line up is their five door refrigerator. The top two doors are standard French doors. The middle has two, soft close drawers. One drawer is designed for produce and the other drawer gives you the option to chose from meat/fish, cold drinks, green herbs, deli/cheese and thaw/marinate, allowing you to change the temperature of that drawer. The fifth door is the standard freezer drawer, but inside has 3-teir freezer drawer with storage divider.   According to Chris Follett appliance expert at Ernie’s this 5 door fridge is the first of its kind. He added “this is the fridge to buy if you want to be organized. It has a place for everything, plus the platinum interior give this fridge a very unique look instead of just looking like a white box on the inside. It even comes with a special herb storage compartment, KitchenAid thought of everything.”   

All new KitchenAid refrigerators have the new stainless steel handle design. On both ends of the handles is a red medallion, if you don’t like the color red and would prefer to have black or silver medallions they can be special ordered for you.  Along with the new handle design KitchenAid has made the interior of some of their refrigerators a little more stylish by having an all platinum interior with chrome door basket holders and removable door baskets for easy cleaning.

GE Slate

GE has been making the slate color for over 3 years now. They started with just a few models and have now expanded the finish to almost their entire line of appliances. The Slate finish has the flexibility to work with almost every kitchen regardless if you need built in appliances or freestanding. According to Rick Powell appliance expert at Ernie’s Slate is by far the most popular new finish available. Rick also added “the versatility of the slate color is really second to none in the business as it provides a unique option that can work with any design and style of cabinets.”  

GE’s new dishwasher has great water bottle jets for those hard to clean bottles; this dishwasher also has  102 jets to cover every inch of the interior. GE’s new electric and gas stove tops are now flush, edge to edge. Another cool feature of the GE range is called Chef Connect. This new feature offers three options with a single touch. For instant convenience, choose when to automatically sync clocks and the range elements with the microwave's surface light and vent. Pre-sets are customizable, so if you don’t like the vent fan on, but cook with the hood light on you can program it to do so. Brit Buresh added “the connected home is going to start in the Kitchen, Ge and all of the other manufactures are working hard to make features like this available and at a reasonable price. I can’t wait to see what’s going to come out next.” 

Kaitlin Benes
Advertising & Furniture Sales

Appliance Colors Through The Years

Initially, white appliances were the choice. In the 1950's colors such as Stratford Yellow, Sherwood Green, Turquoise Green, Cadet Blue, Woodtone Brown, Petal Pink and Canary Yellow offered housewives fun, new colors to coordinated their kitchen with. Unpopular and discontinued within ten years were Cadet Blue and Woodtone Brown.

After some colors were discontinued, new shades were added in the sixties. Almost all colors introduced during the sixties left as quickly as they came in. Aren’t we all glad?  The only colors to last through this time period were standard Yellow, Pink and Turquoise. Charcoal gray failed in the sixties, while Coppertone was a popular choice until the eighties. White continued to be the favorite color, with Coppertone and Turquoise following closely behind. In the later sixties Avacado and Harvest Gold replaced Turquoise. These two colors remained very popular for the remainder of the sixties, the seventies and the early part of the eighties.

Bright Red Poppy was in the seventies for a bit until the eighties, when the new neutrals were a big hit. Harvest Wheat, Onyx Black, Coffee, Fresh Avacado and Almond started in the eighties, with Almond and Harvest Gold being the most popular, while Coppertone and Avacado faded away.

Pastel 50's, earth tone 60's, off-white 80's and 90's and today's kitchen has stainless steel and stainless black for the new stylish look for sophistication.

Although stainless steel and stainless black are the big, new thing, white has continued to always be another top popular color for any appliance. White never goes out of style and can easily fit into any kitchen theme. If you want to add a pop of color to your kitchen, it's best to do so with a smaller, less expensive appliances. From the wise words of www.colorcombos.com, "when a fad color loses its appeal, it is much easier to buy a new toaster or can opener than a stove or fridge.”

Kaitlin Benes

Advertising/Furniture Sales