Furniture Connection isn’t new in town, but it’s new to downtown.

Derek Cleverly, owner of Jackson’s Office Supply, is now also the new owner of Furniture Connection, and is moving the latter into his downtown location from its old mall location.

“Office supplies is the original business — we added a Radio Shack franchise, we still have that,” Cleverly said. “(We) purchased The Print Shop from the newspaper a few years ago. And we’re still running those all full-time, just adding the Furniture Connection element.”

Cleverly said the opportunity just made sense.

“It fits for us because as we’ve evolved, and as Craig has evolved, the nature of the business is we wanted something else to bring more people to our store,” Cleverly said. “We saw a need because furniture options in Craig are limited.”

The showroom floor just west of Yampa Avenue on West Victory Way is already decked out with couches and beds, as signs announcing the new venture’s coming are seen from the street.

“The plans are to offer a full line of home furniture,” Cleverly said. “We’ve got mattresses, bedroom furniture, living room — don’t have dining room sets yet, but we’ll have them, too. The whole works.”

There’s plenty to learn, but it seems doable to Cleverly.

“There’s product expertise to learn; fabrics, coverings, things like that,” he said.

The front end of the showroom, facing the street, is now all furniture, while the back half of the store is office supplies and electronics. The whole building, which includes other businesses, is about 5,200 square feet.

“We’ve got space in the building we’re developing,” Cleverly said. “We’re expanding into that footprint.”

For now, the current staff is retraining to learn the furniture business, but that could give way to some hiring opportunities.

“The idea is to grow, maybe add some staff,” Cleverly said. “The big thing is I want people to know Jackson’s is not going anywhere. We’re just expanding into another line of business. We’ll all be operating under one roof”