I am planning a trip to New York City soon and would love some ideas of great shops for contemporary home furnishings. I'm traveling from Virignia where Queen Anne rules and need to find contemporary things. Help!

Go to High Point, NC. A lot closer, a lot cheaper. Most every furniture manufacturer in the USA is based in the High Point area and has a show room and usually an outlet center. All those lovely contemporary things are available there. Most of the stores offer travel packages. I'm sure you could find it with a web search.

If you are against heading south, go to the Ikea outlet at Potomic Mills.

While the above suggestions sound thrilling, you might consider the following places in New York.

If you've got a lot of cash to spend, or would like to browse at some unique expensive ultra modern stuff, try Greene St. in Soho - specifically Modernica, Moss, or Troy.

For some more mainstream, yet contemporary furniture, try Conran's Shop on E 59 St, under the 59th St Bridge. Also you could try Workbench. This is a chain store, but I'm not sure if you have it in Va. There are a few locations in New York. See their website:
www.workbenchfurniture.com

Hope you find this helful.

Hi Sandy, I too love contemporary furniture. Have you checked out Theodore's in Wash DC? It's located on Wisconsin Ave in Georgetown. Another good place to try is Danker. It's located in VA but I personally feel that the furniture is a bit overpriced.

is there no IKEA twixt VA and NYC??

..oops, my personal Fodors pet peeve is folks who respond w/o reading the previous...and I now see that the very first response mentioned a local Ikea. Sorry.

Yes, there are IKEAs all over the place -- I know for sure there is one in New Jersey and one around Baltimore in addition to the one at Potomac Mills in VA. But there must be better contemporary furniture stores than IKEA somewhere around NYC...

In the DC/northern VA area I know of Reincarnations (one in Dupont Circle & one in Alexandria), Storehouse, Workbench, & Crate & Barrel, in addition to Theodore's & Danker mentioned above.

A personal favorite is ABC Carpet and Home, but I'm not sure how 'contemporary' they are. There are a lot of other furniture/home stores in that area tho, so it might make for a good browsing day.

I don't think IKEA is what Sandy had in mind.

I'm hoping the only people who still shop at Ikea are starving college students and those who have only been out of school a few years. What nasty cheap stuff they sell.