Overview

The Great Indoors was a chain of furniture stores operated by Sears (later Sears Holdings) in the United States. The concept was introduced in 1998, and Sears operated the chain until 2012. At its peak in 2003, there were 21 TGI locations across ten states.

In the mid-1990s, Sears was losing money and sales were slow in its tired, traditional department stores. Sears's then-new CEO believed that Sears should focus more on selling hard goods, which were Sears's most successful business. The Great Indoors was a way for Sears to expand their strengths in a more upscale format. It also was intended to compete with The Home Depot's then-new "Expo Design Center" store concept. And so, Sears opened opened the first The Great Indoors store, in Lone Tree, Colorado, in 1998.

Each The Great Indoors location had about the same amount of floor space as a typical Sears, around 150,000 square feet. Each was divided into five sections: The Great Kitchen, The Great Bath, The Great Room, The Great Bedroom, and a flooring and wall section. Each store also had a cafe, some of which were Starbucks or Dazbog Coffee shops. The stores' styling was very distinctive.

Sears's goals with The Great Indoors were bold. They planned to open 50 stores by 2003, and grow to 150 locations by 2010, which Sears believed would generate $10 billion in sales annually. The concept's first expansion was into the Phoenix market in 1999, and entered the Detroit and Dallas markets the following year. At the time, The Great Indoors stores averaged $400 in sales per square foot (for comparison, Sears's average the same year was $325), and the chain's average transaction value was $260.

A massive expansion of the chain occurred in 2001. Eleven new locations opened, introducing The Great Indoors to the Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Cincinnati, and Columbus markets, the latter of which was home to TGI's first mall location at Polaris Fashion Place. A total of fifteen TGI stores were operating by the end of 2001, including additional stores in markets where TGI already had locations. This expansion continued through 2002.

The Great Indoors peaked in early 2003, following the opening of the chain's twenty-first and final store in Las Vegas, Nevada. Later in 2003, Sears closed three TGI stores, including the Arlington, Texas location, which had opened just a year earlier. They also converted one location to a Sears Outlet. Another TGI location in Deerfield, Illinois closed in 2005, which may have been as a result of the Sears-Kmart merger earlier that year.

The crash of the housing market in 2008 meant fewer homes being remodeled, which in turn caused a drop in sales for The Great Indoors. As a result, Sears closed four TGI locations in late 2008. Three years later in 2011, TGI closed three more stores, including their two remaining California locations.

The early 2010s brought declining profits and massive losses for Sears. In February 2012, Sears announced the closure of the nine remaining The Great Indoors stores.

In the years since The Great Indoors was shut down, most of its former locations have found new life as locations other retailers, such as Walmart, Floor & Decor, Garden Ridge/At Home, and Living Spaces. Others have been demolished, and as of 2021, the original location in Colorado still remains abandoned.