Naughtone, Hightower, Allermuir, Keilhauer, Arper, and SitOnIt make the lounge, cafe, meeting, and collaborative furniture that fills the parts of an office that are not desks. Because buyers search by the task chair brands and not by these names, their used pieces trade at a deeper discount than the quality warrants, typically 50 to 70 percent off list for lounge and cafe product built to a commercial standard and often only a few years old. The checks are upholstery, frame joints, glides, and foam, and the places to find them in volume are San Francisco and Peninsula exits.
Ask a buyer to name an office furniture brand and you get MillerKnoll, Steelcase, maybe Haworth. Ask an interior designer and you get a second list: Naughtone, Hightower, Allermuir, Keilhauer, Arper. Those are the companies that make the lounge sofa in reception, the stools at the cafe counter, the laptop tables in the collaboration zone, and the chairs in the room where the all-hands happens.
That gap between the two lists is where second life ancillary furniture is mispriced. Buyers do not search for these names, so used pieces from them trade at a discount their quality does not justify. If you know what you are looking at, that is an opportunity.
Who these companies are
- Naughtone British, and part of the MillerKnoll group since 2019. Known for soft, simple lounge shapes: the Cloud sofa, Hush lounge chairs, Pinch stools, Always and Riley seating. The pieces you see in tech reception areas and assume are custom.
- Hightower Portland, Oregon. Distributes a mix of Scandinavian and in-house designs for collaborative space: the Arlo and Nest chairs, Flote and Gimbal lounge, Levels and Prism benches, Kona laptop tables. Big in Pacific Northwest and California offices.
- Allermuir British, part of the Senator Group. Famiglia, Casper, Conic, Mollie, Open, Host, Haven, Mayze, Jinx, Circo, Axyl. A deep catalog of cafe, meeting, and lounge seating that shows up in large matched quantities when a floor clears.
- Keilhauer Toronto. Lounge and meeting seating with a long design pedigree. Juxta, Sguig, Talk. Pieces that hold their shape for a decade and look like it.
- Arper Italian. The Catifa 46 is one of the most specified cafe and meeting chairs in the world, and Babar and Aston stools sit under countless office counters. Light, stackable, and nearly indestructible.
- SitOnIt California. Value-tier task, guest, and cafe seating: Focus, Torsa, Wit, Amplify, Novo. Not glamorous, built to a commercial standard, and the brand most likely to furnish an entire open plan floor at a price that does not need a second meeting.
Why they trade cheap
Search behavior. A used Aeron has a line of buyers who typed the word. A used Naughtone Cloud has a line of buyers who typed "used sofa" and will not know what they are looking at when they find it. Dealers price to move, and a piece nobody is searching for by name moves at the price of the generic category, not the price of the product.
The second reason is that ancillary furniture leaves offices in odd quantities. Six stools, two sofas, nine laptop tables. Those are hard to list and easy to bundle, and bundles are priced by the pallet rather than by the piece.
What the discount looks like
| Piece | New list (approx) | Typical used | Discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lounge chair (Naughtone Hush, Hightower Flote, Allermuir Open) | $1,500-4,000 | $300-1,000 | 60-75% |
| Two-seat sofa (Naughtone Cloud, Keilhauer Juxta) | $3,000-6,000 | $600-1,800 | 60-75% |
| Cafe or meeting chair (Arper Catifa 46, Allermuir Casper, SitOnIt Wit) | $300-700 | $40-150 | 70-85% |
| Bar or counter stool (Arper Babar, Allermuir Conic, Naughtone Pinch) | $400-900 | $60-200 | 70-80% |
| Laptop or side table (Hightower Kona, Allermuir Host) | $300-800 | $60-200 | 70-80% |
| Bench (Hightower Levels, Prism) | $1,500-3,500 | $300-900 | 65-80% |
Compare that to task seating, which trades at 40-60% off new because the names are known. The same quality, a deeper discount, and the pieces that make an office look finished rather than furnished.
What to check
- Upholstery Pilling, fading on the side that faced the window, and seam wear at the front edge. Commercial fabrics are rated for tens of thousands of double rubs and usually look fine. When they do not, reupholstery is possible on these frames and worth it on the sofas.
- Foam Sit on the front edge. A sofa that was in a reception area for four years has been sat on in the same spot several thousand times. Compression there is the most common fault and the most visible one.
- Frame joints Rock the piece. Cafe chairs and stools fail at the joint between leg and seat, and a stackable chair that has been stacked badly shows it at the frame welds.
- Glides and feet Missing glides scratch floors and mark a piece that was moved carelessly. Cheap to replace, useful as a tell.
- Matched sets Six identical stools are worth more than six similar ones. Confirm the fabric or finish code, not the color name.
Where to find them
Design-forward offices in San Francisco specify these brands heavily, and when a SOMA or Mission Bay floor clears the lounge and cafe pieces come out alongside the Aerons. Peninsula startups buy them in their second office and sell them in their third. San Mateo client-facing packages surface conference and reception pieces that stall elsewhere. The reception and boardroom end of this is covered in where second life has to be perfect, and mixing these pieces with the big three without it looking assembled is the subject of mixing MillerKnoll, Steelcase, and Haworth.
Furnishing a lounge, cafe, or collaboration zone? Send a design brief with the rooms and the look you are after and we will come back with what is available from these lines, by piece and by finish. Our brand pages cover the names we carry most.