Jumat, 17 April 2020

Spruce up your space with 9 incredible furniture deals— up to 80 percent off

Yahoo Life is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

image

Now that we're all spending more time at home, it's impossible not to look around and notice everything you want to change. Your living room needs better light, your desk chair isn't comfy enough for an entire work day, and your rug is tired.

But with massive shipping delays at Amazon, it makes sense to look elsewhere to jazz up your place. We scoured the internet for sales and found nine awesome pieces to transform your home without putting a noticeable dent in your wallet. 

image

Done with working from the kitchen table or the couch? It's time for a proper desk. This elegant teak option features unique O-frame metal legs in a powder-coated white finish for durability.

Shop it: O-Frame Modern Computer Desk Teak Gray, $118 with code SPRING (was $154), target.comimage

This chair looks like it came straight from Scandinavia. With hardwood arms and classic woven upholstery, you can add it to your seating arrangement for a bit of midcentury flair or use it to replace that uncomfortable dining chair you've been "borrowing" for work.

Shop it: Langley Street Derryaghy Armchair, $167 (was $315), wayfair.comimage

With a marble base and fabric shade, this sculptural beauty will add a dynamic look to any room—and it costs way less than a big piece of art.

Shop it: Matlock 74" Arched Floor Lamp, $126, (was $170), allmodern.comimage

At an eye-opening $254 off, this closeout is begging to be added to your cart. The C-shaped side table with a frosted glass top is designed to hug your favorite sofa or reading chair.

Shop it: Caceres Glass Top C Table, $61 (was $315), wayfair.comimage

Lend an organic feel to any room with this natural woven rug. Handwoven of jute, it's virtually maintenance free and looks amazing on its own or layered with a cowhide on top.

Story continues

Shop it: Safavieh Handmade Natural Fiber Jerneja Solid Chunky Jute Rug, 11 x 15 feet, $421 (was $562), overstock.comimage

Stop everything: This lounger is $461 off. So if you're thinking of upgrading your outdoor space, build it around this super elegant solid wood number.

Shop it: Leia Chaise Lounge, $257 (was $718), wayfair.comimage

In brushed brass, this artsy globe lamp will add a touch of glamour to a desk, side table, or nightstand. 

Shop it: Shania 22" Desk Lamp, $68 (was $136), wayfair.comimage

With midcentury vibes, this majorly discounted structured chair with a stainless steel base will modernize your living space without overpowering other pieces. 

Shop it: Armen Living Chandler Chair in Dark Grey, $386 (was $644), bedbathandbeyond.comimage

At $136 off, this small-space sanity saver is a steal. Use it as a coffee station in the kitchen or to keep those bottles of wine all in one place. With a practical butcher-block top, a metal storage basket, and a handy drawer, it's a versatile must-have.

Shop it: Berinda Multifunction Bar Cart, $83 (was $219), wayfair.com

Read More from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day

Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle's newsletter.

Top 10 Creative Ideas That Will Make Your House Awesome.

Kamis, 16 April 2020

It's No Secret Target Has Great Furniture — These Are the 28 Pieces That Caught My Eye

Furniture shopping can be an exciting, yet daunting task. Sometimes the amount of choices can stress me out more than anything. When I was looking for my new apartment, I spent hours online browsing endless retailers, but it turns out, a ton of a great options were hiding at Target. Every time I visited the store I saw a handful of nice items, but its site has thousands of even more choices. To help you shop its best selection too, I curated a list of my favorite picks right now.

Ahead, you can shop everything from chic sofas to cool accent chairs and even desks for working at home. All these stylish pieces have one thing in common: they're affordable and won't break the bank. Plus, they're delivered right to doorstep, making redecorating easier than ever. Keep reading to shop my top picks and see which ones fit in your space.

Rebecca Zamolo Official New House Tour! (Found Secret Hidden Room Using Extreme Everyday Objects)

Rabu, 15 April 2020

Sunset Pool and Patio has large selection of outdoor furniture

You don't have to own a pool to find something you want at Sunset Pool and Patio in New Albany.

The business, located at 510 E. Main St., has a large selection of high-quality, comfortable outdoor furniture.

Sunset Pool and Patio is owned by husband and wife Jason and Amanda Butler, who bought the business last year from Kathy Chism, who is now a state senator.

Chism opened the storefront in 2018, but her time in the pool business goes back about 25 years. She still helps the Butlers out with the business since she has been the "backbone" of the operation for so long, said Jason.

Prior to the Butlers buying the business, Amanda was working as a registered nurse for New Albany Medical Group. Amanda stopped working as an RN to work in the business full time. Jason also owns Empowered Electrical and Plumbing in New Albany.

The polymer patio furniture at the business is well-made and very comfortable. Loungers, swings, high-top tables, gliders and rocker gliders that rock and swivel are among the furniture items available at the business.

"We have a big variety of furniture" said Jason, adding that it comes in various colors and styles.

The patio furniture is good for people who do not even have a pool, he noted. The furniture can work well on the front porch, patio or even around a fire. The polymer furniture does not corrode, rot or lose its color, said Jason.

"It's good heavy furniture," he said.

Jason and Amanda live in Myrtle, and they graduated from Myrtle Attendance Center. They both attended Itawamba Community College, where Jason got a degree in electrical technology and Amanda got a degree to be an RN.

Amanda has done a great job learning the business at Sunset Pool and Patio, said Jason. Prior to them taking over the business from Chism, Jason was already installing above-ground pools. Chism has been a family friend for years and helped them learn about the pool and patio business.

"It's a new adventure for us, but we're excited about it and want to offer a good service at a fair price," said Jason. "It's been good so far."

Jason also worked at American Family Radio for about 13 years in the engineering department. But he left there to start his electrical, plumbing and gas business in Union County.

Sunset Pool and Patio has a great group of people who work for the business, he added.

He said he would "absolutely" recommend that people get a pool because it provides fun for the whole family. Whereas a vacation only lasts a few days, a pool is around for years, he said. Children can also enjoy a pool if everything is done safely, he said.

Amanda and Jason have two children—Wyatt, 11 and Waylon 4.

Jason encourages people to think about using their stimulus money to put in a pool or to fix up an existing pool.

Moreover, Jason noted that Sunset Pool and Patio is locally owned and operated. He said he and his wife are just everyday people trying to make a living.

Sunset Pool and Patio provides a full range of services related to pools. For instance, the business can help people open their pools for the summer and close them down for the winter. Opening the pool for the season includes making sure it is treated with the right chemicals so the water is balanced and ready to swim in.

If the water is not properly balanced it can affect the pool by breaking down the liner, said Jason. When a pool has dull water it probably does not have the right chemical balance, he noted.

The business can also help people winterize their pools for the off season and close them down. Installing in-ground and above-ground pools as well as fiberglass pools are other services provided by the business, which also does pool repairs.

Sunset Pool and Patio keeps parts, chemicals and other items in stock. There are even robotic cleaners that can be dropped in the pool. The business also sells floats, hammocks and toys.

Sunset Pool and Patio is closed Tuesday and Sunday. During the weekdays it is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The business can be reached at 662-539-7122.

RV Slide Topper What You Should Know! (With Keep Your Daydream)

Selasa, 14 April 2020

Furniture icon Bernie Rubin of Bernie and Phyl’s dies of COVID-19

Mr. Rubin, who with his wife founded a business in a single Quincy location that has grown into a series of stores that stretch from South Portland, Maine, to Hyannis, died in Florida Monday of COVID-19. He was 82.

"I have a lot of respect for somebody who can start a business from scratch and stick with it and make it prosper and create a legacy for his family, which Bernie did with a lot of class," said Ed Ansin, owner of WHDH-TV, Channel 7. "Bernie was a great patriarch. He loved his family."

Ansin, a longtime friend, often accompanied Mr. Rubin to sporting events, where the Bernie in the commercials was the same Bernie in the next seat.

"We went to Red Sox games, Patriots games, Celtics games," Ansin said. "He was just a wonderful human being. Everybody loved Bernie. He had a great personality and a nice way about him."

Having entered the furniture business as a teenager, cleaning the store for which his father drove a truck, Mr. Rubin worked seven days a week after he and his wife launched Bernie & Phyl's in 1983.

The work demands didn't show on TV, where his enthusiasm made commercials memorable.

"He had a presence and felt very comfortable with the camera," said Terrie Brown, a senior account executive at WBZ-TV, Channel 4, who handled Bernie & Phyl's advertising. "He worked the camera and the camera loved him."

By appearing in years of commercials, the Rubins "became household names. They became a brand into themselves," said Bill Fine, president and general manager WCVB-TV, Channel 5. "The fact that people liked them and trusted them was probably one of the most important factors in their success."

As the company expanded, the couple's three children joined the business. Larry Rubin is now chief executive, Rob Rubin is president of merchandising and marketing, and Michelle Pepe is director of community relations.

In turn, Mr. Rubin and his wife became more involved in philanthropic efforts.

Phyl Rubin was diagnosed in the early 1970s with multiple sclerosis, and the couple worked to raise funding for research and increase awareness.

They recorded public service announcements, and the Greater New England chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society honored her in 2010 with the MS Hope Award at its MileStones Gala.

Mr. Rubin, meanwhile, was forthright in persuading business associates and friends to contribute to charities he supported.

"He made sure people knew a cause was important to him," Fine said.

And yet, Fine added, Mr. Rubin made his case without being overbearing.

"He was without question one of the kindest, warmest, friendliest, gentlemen I've ever met," Fine said.

Born in Boston on Dec. 17, 1937, Mr. Rubin grew up in Mattapan and was 4 when his mother died.

His father was a milkman, and Mr. Rubin told Furniture World Magazine in 2012 that he helped out on his father's Boston delivery route, carrying milk upstairs in three-deckers.

When his father started driving a truck for a furniture business, Mr. Rubin began running errands for the business when he was 13, and also cleaned floors and polished furniture in the store.

It was then that he began planning for the day when he could open his own furniture store.

As a high school senior, Mr. Rubin met Phyllis Segal when a friend brought him to her Sweet 16 birthday party. They fell in love and within months were inseparable.

As a commuter student at Northeastern University, from which he graduated, Mr. Rubin kept daily contact with Phyl, proposing when he was 19 and she was 17. They married a year later, in 1958.

Initially after college, Mr. Rubin joined his father's furniture trucking business. Over the years, he and his wife lived in Randolph and Sharon.

The Rubins had three children and were in their 40s when they launched Bernie & Phyl's in 1983, in Quincy. By then, she was also several years into her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, and together they worked seven days a week, side by side, building their business.

Expanding a location at a time, the Rubins — later joined by their children —turned the original store into a chain. More than 400 people are now employed at locations that include Braintree, Hyannis, Natick, Raynham, Saugus, and Westborough, as well as South Portland, Maine, and Nashua and Newington, N.H.

The Rubins drew praise for their ability to bring their children — and more recently the next generation — into their business.

When the time arrived to let his children take leadership roles, Mr. Rubin was "the kind of parent who said, 'You know what? I love you all. It's your turn,' " said Kerry Lebensburger, senior vice president of Ashley Furniture. "His strength was that he believed in his kids. I don't think there's anything more a father can do."

Along with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Mr. Rubin and his wife supported causes and agencies such as the Pine Street Inn, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, and the Home for Little Wanderers.

In addition to their financial contributions, they provided furniture for Roxbury Village — transitional housing the Home for Little Wanderers runs for young adults aging out of foster care, said Rick Houpt, the agency's manager of corporate relations.

And Mr. Rubin periodically hosted up to 20 children at Fenway Park for baseball game outings known as Bernie's Baseball Buddies.

These are kids who don't get to go to Fenway ever. That's an enriching experience for them," said Houpt, who added that Mr. Rubin "was a special guy."

For Mr. Rubin, sharing his good fortune with others was important.

"We are the luckiest people," he told The Boston Globe in 2010, when his wife went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. "There's a lot of ups and downs in life. Nothing ever goes smoothly. But when all is said and done, we've had a nice ride."

Information was not immediately available regarding a service for Mr. Rubin, who in addition to his wife and three children leaves 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

With a gift for friendship and a love sports, particularly baseball, Mr. Rubin and a companion at a game "could easily fill all nine innings with conversation," Fine said. "Bernie was as great at answering questions as he was with asking them.

And perhaps inevitably, given how recognizable he was from his TV commercials, work sometimes followed Mr. Rubin into the ballpark.

"We were at a Red Sox game one time and there was a family that sat behind us — a couple of young boys, they were probably 10 or 12," Ansin recalled. "Bernie was sitting right in front of these two boys, and I turned to them and said, 'Do you know you have a celebrity in front of you?' Bernie turned around to see them, and the boys immediately started singing, 'Quality, comfort, and price – that's nice!' "

Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.

Senin, 13 April 2020

Major Italian Furniture Companies Warn It Could Take 20–30 Years for Their Businesses to Recover

Though there's no doubt that the current COVID-19 situation remains a pandemic, certain European countries, including Italy, are at least starting to imagine and plan for what life after a lockdown would look like. Though restrictions remain in place, a makeshift consortium of Italian design and furniture brands have come together to ask for the chance to get back to work, warning of dire consequences for the industry should a shutdown continue much longer.

Last week, representatives from nine Italian firms—B&B Italia, Bisazza, Boffi, Cappellini, Cassina, Flexform, Giorgetti, Molteni Group, and Poltrona Frau—issued a manifesto asking to reopen production efforts April 14. On April 10, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extended Italy's full lockdown to at least May 3. While some governmental concessions are set to allow timber companies and book shops to get back to work, factories are still closed for the time being.

The Italian firms are worried that a mounting backlog of orders and competition from other countries with fewer current restrictions on production could end up causing long-term devastation to Italy's famed furniture industry. If the chance to get back to work is delayed much longer, the manifesto warns, "We could lose 20–30% of our industrial heritage and witness serious damage to the industry. All of this would inevitably result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs." In conclusion, the group asserts that "it could take 20–30 years to recover what we would lose in a few weeks."

Become an AD PRO MemberArrowThis image may contain Logo, Symbol, Trademark, and Text

Though the idea of large-scale furniture and design production may seem odd at a time when the country's death toll is reportedly still rising, the petitioning firms point to several structural characteristics of furniture production and sales that could make it possible to get back to work while maintaining social distancing. Beyond more typical measures, like the use of certified personal protective equipment, temperature scanning, and regular deep cleanings, the companies note that "our plants are safe spaces, thanks to the layout of the production areas that respects social distancing." Additionally, the location of their factories allow employees to reach work without relying on public transportation.

Furthermore, the firms believe it's possible to safely operate furniture showrooms with some restrictions still in place. "We usually have very large shop floors with a small and distributed influx of people, not at all concentrated at the same time. The risk of overcrowding is practically nonexistent," the manifesto reads, adding that they're willing to adopt a temporary appointment-only model if need be. The manifesto's signatories note that they've already banded together to request a 50% rent moratorium for the rest of 2020 on all of their rented properties across the world. But convincing the Italian government of their need to prevent COVID-19 from becoming an "industrial and economic catastrophe that would destroy thousands of businesses" may prove more difficult.

AD PRO is currently offering free access to all news stories about the coronavirus outbreak.

Key & Peele - Al Qaeda Meeting

Minggu, 12 April 2020

Shropshire couple to raffle off £650000 home complete with furniture and hot tub for charity

an old brick house with trees in the background © Provided by The i

A Shropshire couple have decided to downsize from their spacious, Grade-II listed farmhouse - but instead of putting the property on the market, the pair are to hold a prize draw and intend to give tens of thousands of pounds to charity.

a kitchen with a dining room table © Provided by The i

Nigel and Jane Chalenor have lived in their six-bedroom farmhouse for 18 years and now it is time to move on. Set in three acres of land, the house is located in the village of Loppington, 10 miles from Shrewsbury.

The house is set on three acres of land (Photo: winmydreamhome.co.uk)

Hot tub and lawn mower thrown in

Three independent valuations have put the farmhouse at £630,000 to £650,000, the couple said. They want to raise an additional £100,000 on top of the property's value and donate 10 per cent of all ticket sales to the Severn Hospice in Shrewsbury, which has cared for several of their family members and friends.

The new owners will enjoy scenic views and plenty of space. What's more, the Chalenors are throwing in all the furniture too. Top features include a four-oven Aga, an oak garden room and a solid wood kitchen. A hot tub and ride-on mower are also included in the prize.

Fancy winning a 6-bedroom farmhouse set in three acres of 🌳land and 💐gardens? Well, why not try your luck🤞Two of our supporters, Nigel and Jane are not only supporting us from their sofa, they are throwing one into their raffle for their Grade II listed, furnished farmhouse in north Shropshire too.They have decided to raffle off Grafton Farmhouse, which has been their home for the past 18 years.And they are giving us 10 per cent of the total from the raffle ticket sales. They both have both been hit by the coronavirus and their son and daughter are key workers. Jane said: "In recent years Severn Hospice has been there for our friends and family at the worst moments in their lives. We know how much Severn Hospice takes the pressure off the NHS. In this dire time, we felt we all need some hope and being able to make a difference on this scale makes all the sense in the world." The stunning farmhouse is the perfect country retreat – scenic views, space for 🐓chickens and 🐕dogs and a beautiful, furnished home complete with a four-oven Aga, an oak garden room and a solid wood kitchen. A hot tub and ride-on mower are also included in the prize. The raffle opened today and tickets cost just £2 each. The raffle is set to close on May 31 with a live draw on June 3.Go to winmydreamhome.co.uk or facebook.com/winmydreamhome.co.uk to enter and for more information.

Posted by Severn Hospice on Friday, April 10, 2020Valued hospice

The Chalenors, who have two adult children, were previously foster carers - they have looked after 22 youngsters - and want to downsize and work with deprived communities.

Ms Chalenor said: "In recent years Severn Hospice has been there for our friends and family at the worst moments in their lives.

"We know how much Severn Hospice takes the pressure off the NHS. In this dire time, we felt we all need some hope and being able to make a difference on this scale makes all the sense in the world."

The raffle opened this weekend, with tickets costing £2 each. It will close on 31 May and a live draw will take place on 3 June. Participants can enter by visiting the website.

Shropshire couple to raffle off £650,000 home, complete with furniture and hot tub, for charity

Sabtu, 11 April 2020

Coronavirus: Federal prisoners made furniture and license plates during the pandemic

FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2006, file photo a person drive through the gates of a federal prison in Oakdale, La. The federal Bureau of Prisons is locking all its 146,000 inmates in their cells for the next two weeks in an unparalleled effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, as the focus shifts to the Louisiana compound, where two inmates have died and nearly 20 others remain hospitalized. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2006, file photo a person drive through the gates of a federal prison in Oakdale, La. The federal Bureau of Prisons is locking all its 146,000 inmates in their cells for the next two weeks in an unparalleled effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, as the focus shifts to the Louisiana compound, where two inmates have died and nearly 20 others remain hospitalized. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis, AP)

This investigation was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

As the coronavirus spread across the country, Patrick Jones kept reporting to his job in the textile factory at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. 

He'd worked there for years, sewing tidy buttonholes on government uniforms. Though the highly contagious virus was creeping into prisons by mid-March, Jones and his fellow inmates were working without masks, according to interviews with family and prisoners who knew him.

He collapsed on March 19 and was taken to a hospital. About a week later, he died from COVID-19. 

Shortly after his death, the pandemic's first in a federal Bureau of Prisons facility, the agency announced a nationwide 14-day "lockdown," saying inmates would be mostly kept in their cells to decrease the spread of the virus. 

But prisoners in several locations were still reporting to work at Unicor, a federal program that runs prison factories, as the number of infections grew and those stricter rules were announced, The Marshall Project learned through interviews with dozens of prisoners, their families and correctional officers. Some factories were still running this week. 

They said factories operating deep into March as the pandemic spread were making office furniture in Florida and stamping and shipping license plates in Maryland, which some prisoners and relatives criticized as non-essential functions.  

Some textile factories remain open still, though they have turned to making face masks, according to workers and their relatives. But some of the prisoners at those jobs said they did not get their first paper face masks until this week, as did the correctional officers who supervise them. 

A inmate works at the Edgefield Federal Correctional Institution Monday, July 8, 2019, in Edgefiled, S.C. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

A inmate works at the Edgefield Federal Correctional Institution Monday, July 8, 2019, in Edgefiled, S.C. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) (Photo: AP)

Running the factories left many prisoners unable to keep social distance, and risked spreading the virus around a prison or infecting people from outside the prison who do business with the factories. The practice also appears to go against special guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued March 23 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 behind bars. 

Bureau of Prison officials did not respond to detailed questions about the assertions the prisoners and their families made, which Unicor facilities were still running and what kind of safety precautions were being taken for workers. 

Jeff Ormsby, a union leader for state prison employees in Texas who spent 25 years working for the Bureau of Prisons, including as a Unicor supervisor, said letting some factories run as long as they did seemed irresponsible.

"I'm real big on Unicor, but they need to shut it down during this," he said, calling for a complete lockdown of the factories, except those making masks. 

To provide our community with important public safety information, our newsroom is making stories related to the coronavirus free to read. To support important local journalism like this, please consider becoming a digital subscriber.

"It's a factory, social distancing is almost impossible in there as well—it's no different (than) inmates working on the rec yard or the dining hall," he said. 

To be sure, a number of Unicor prison factories have been shut down. Plants stopped running last week in federal facilities in Michigan, Texas and New Jersey, according to family members of the prisoners who work there. And producing masks to help protect others from COVID-19 is an admirable use of the textile factory workers' skills, their families said. But they worry that their relatives are not being properly protected while making them. 

Unicor, historically called Federal Prison Industries, is a nearly 90-year-old program to employ the incarcerated in more than 50 factories that made $531 million in sales last year, according to its annual report. The program's goal is "to reduce undesirable inmate idleness" and provide prisoners jobs skills. Unicor pays for its operations from sales of its products and services, not using taxpayer dollars. 

Federal Corrections Institute in Three Rivers.

Federal Corrections Institute in Three Rivers. (Photo: Alexandria Rodriguez/Caller-Times)

It's a big business, employing more than 17,000 prisoners who earn between 23 cents and $1.15 per hour for their work, making it one of the better paying gigs behind bars. 

When bureau officials announced the two-week lockdown, starting April 1, they said group gatherings would be limited "to the extent practical to facilitate commissary, laundry, showers, telephone" and access to some computers. 

Several factories across the country were operating in late March, and some even past the lockdown announcement, said the prisoners, families and guards. 

At the Cumberland federal prison in western Maryland, dozens of men who make license plates in a Unicor factory worked until last week, according to a prisoner who asked to remain anonymous, and Naomi Mekeel, whose fiance, Nicholas Gaworski, works at the factory. They said workers were told April 6 that someone at the factory had tested positive for COVID-19, so many of the workers are now in quarantine. But they said other workers were still going to the factory this week, apparently to ship orders.

"What is the urgency in shipping license plates and putting the entire camp at risk? Who's even worrying about their license plates right now?" asked one of the prisoners in an email to The Marshall Project. 

Several relatives of prisoners who work at Unicor's factory in the Coleman women's facility in central Florida, said their family members were still working earlier this week. The factory normally makes furniture, according to Unicor's promotional materials, though it was unclear if that remained the case or if the factory was still running Thursday.

Some relatives said prisoners feared that if they did not report for work they risked losing sought-after work assignments. Families said they are concerned that the work made quarantine or social distancing impossible. On Thursday, officials reported the first COVID-19 case there: a staff member at the low-security unit. 

Several prisoners and relatives said work is still going this week at textile factories in Terre Haute, Indiana; Jesup, Georgia; and Waseca, Minnesota. They said the factory in Waseca, which normally makes Navy and Air Force uniforms, and the plant at Jesup are now making face masks and protective gowns. At Terre Haute and Jesup, officials have also reduced the number of prisoners working at any given time—from about 200 to about 35 at Terre Haute, the prisoners and families said. 

It was not clear if Terre Haute has also switched to making masks, or whether the Unicor-made masks will be used for prisoners and officers across the nation, or shipped to shield workers at other federal agencies.  

At Oakdale, the Louisiana prison where Jones and four other men have died from the virus, several prisoners and their families said the Unicor workers are now housed in a separate facility that is under quarantine. There are so many cases inside the prison that officials have  stopped testing. Those interviewed there did not know if the Unicor factory was still running. 

Prison labor expert Heather Ann Thompson said prison factories are unsafe in the best of times, with incarcerated people getting no workman's compensation if they are injured. Thompson, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the 1971 Attica prison riots, said prisoners typically can't miss work for illness without facing discipline, and they cannot elect to skip work for fear of exposure to the virus.

"Working conditions (in prisons) are always terrible and super-oppressive," she said. "You add onto that the possibility of disease and you realize that those things that are already bad become worse."

Not all prisoners feel that way. Paula Pates said her 31-year-old son, Jonathan Pates, works at the Unicor furniture factory on the men's side of the Coleman federal prison and is upset that his unit went on lockdown last week, preventing him from continuing to work building office cubicles. He's worked his way up to $1.02 per hour, a good wage in prison, and is worried about losing his position and salary if he can't show up. 

She said he told her on the phone: "We have to spend the day together inside anyway. Why can't we spend the day working?"

Prisoners and their families told The Marshall Project that most people at federal prisons did not start to receive masks until about April 2, and some were not getting them until earlier this week, even as COVID-19 cases in federal prisons have spread so far that the government started using a nationwide map to document them. 

Mekeel, the fiance of the Unicor worker at the Maryland prison, said that as the threat of the virus grew, workers at her fiance's license plate factory got so desperate they tried to forge face shields made out of materials in the plant. 

They didn't get paper face masks until this Monday, she and several others said. 

Read or Share this story: https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/2020/04/11/louisiana-coronavirus-update-federal-prison-factories-running-covid-19/2975931001/

Watch Full Coronavirus Coverage - April 6 | NBC News Now (Live Stream)