BATON ROUGE – The Olinde furniture showrooms in Baton Rouge and Lafayette will be closed and rebranded as Ashley stores between now and September, company sources told WBRZ Tuesday.

The changes come amid an advertised going out of business sale at Olinde’s and months after news broke that the Olinde family was selling the furniture business.

In January, WBRZ reported the two Olinde’s furniture stores and nine Ashley Furniture brand stores owned by the family were sold to a furniture showroom operator based in Memphis. The new company has a footprint in ten states.

The sale did not include Olinde’s Mattress stores.

Olinde’s, a Baton Rouge staple, is known by many for its catchy commercial jingle.

Olinde’s dates back to the 1860s in Baton Rouge.

“Everything has it’s day and there’s always a time for change and I think this is the right thing to do for our employees, for our company, for our shareholders,” Tom Olinde said of the sale earlier this year. “It’s a little bittersweet, but I’m glad we’re handing it off to a world class company.”

Specifics of the sale were not released.

Olinde’s is expected to close in three months and will re-open with a new name in the fall.

Company executives did not respond to WBRZ about the changes.

Going out of business advertisements have been mailed to long-time clients and TV commercials were seen on cable television recently.

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