SARASOTA - About a dozen Florida stores are on tap to add a locally created product to their showrooms. Bradenton-based Nirvana Swing Co. said it has struck a deal to put its Nirvana Swing chairs in eight Leather Express stores in Sarasota, Tampa, Clearwater and on Florida's east coast. The chairs will...come in a contemporary style in either black or khaki leather or a more traditional style in chestnut or caramel leather, said Taylor Garland, Nirvana's vice president. The chairs should hit the floor of the Sarasota store this week.

The chairs will also be available at three Denmark Interiors stores in the Fort Myers/Naples area, Garland said.

Garland's father, Tom Garland, developed the chair and the patented "Comfort Swing" mechanism it uses. The mechanism allows it to swing on an arc, creating a motion similar to a porch swing, Garland said. "What we're really selling is the swing motion," he said.

Getting the chairs in retail stores was a rubber-to-the-road endeavor. Taylor Garland drove a prototype of the Nirvana Swing chair around in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, inviting retail representatives to sit in it. "We literally took it to stores and had a lot of face-to-face meetings," he said. During the past year, Garland and a Nirvana chair visited 60 to 70 stores around the state, he said.

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