Michael R. Payne: Furniture Design for the Sexes

The star of HGTV's "Designing for the Sexes" is now designing for the masses.

Michael Payne, the Los Angeles interior designer who gained national exposure by mediating couples' design differences on television, has created a diverse furniture collection for California-based Powell Co.

The collection comprises four style groups, aimed at the 18-to-35 age group and priced to go easy on the checkbooks of people furnishing first apartments or houses. Three of those groups were just unveiled in High Point, N.C., at the International Home Furnishings Market, and the fourth will debut at the new Las Vegas Furniture Market in July.

Payne has been designing furniture since he opened his own firm, Michael Payne Design, in 1980. But until "Designing for the Sexes" hit the air, he said, the only people who saw his work were his clients and their families and friends.

The show put his designs on display for millions of viewers. "And now, instead of people just seeing it on TV, they can actually own it," Payne said.

The styles represented in Payne's collection are as varied as the tastes of his TV clients. One of the furniture groups introduced at High Point, the 7 Series, is boldly contemporary; another, called Hampton, has a country look; and the third, Sloane, is an urban line inspired by the hip sophistication of London's