"We are pleased to report our eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth"
Jeffrey R. Scheffer, president and chief executive officer

Stanley Furniture Company today reported higher sales and earnings for the first quarter of 2004. Both sales and earnings exceeded management's upwardly revised guidance for the quarter issued in mid-March. Customer orders exceeded management's expectations for the second half of March and, due to the Company's ability to respond quickly, resulted in higher than expected sales.

Net sales of $70.2 million increased 14.6% from the first quarter of last year. This marks the eighth consecutive quarter of sales growth over the comparable prior year quarter.

Operating income rose to $7.8 million in the first quarter of 2004 from $6.1 million in the first quarter of 2003. Higher sales, increased production levels at the Company's domestic facilities, although at a slower growth rate than sales due to the growth of sourced items, and savings from sourcing initiatives drove the improvement. Approximately 26% of sales came from sourced items in the first quarter of 2004. Management expects sales from sourced items to level off around 30% of sales for total year 2004.

Business Outlook
"We are pleased to report our eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth," commented Jeffrey R. Scheffer, president and chief executive officer. "As we have previously reported, the significant sales momentum which began last summer continued through the first quarter and into early April. It appears that improved economic conditions are finally producing positive industry growth. However, we believe a large portion of our sales growth continued to come from market share gains. While it is difficult to forecast market share gains in advance, this has caused us to raise our sales and earnings guidance for 2004 as outlined below."

"Our focus is to create exciting designs, produce high-quality product and provide excellent service," Scheffer continued. "Best product is determined by both design and price. Blending efficient domestic manufacturing in highly focused facilities with intelligent outsourcing of certain component parts and finished goods allows us to offer a compelling value proposition. This combination gives Stanley a competitive advantage by offering higher value and well-styled product, without sacrificing our culture of high quality and fast delivery. Our market share gains provide encouraging evidence that our customers are responding favorably and that we are executing the strategy well," Scheffer concluded.

Management offers the following guidance for total year 2004:
* Net sales are expected to be in the range of $280 million to $290
million, an increase of 7% to 11% over the prior year.

* Operating income is expected to be in the range of $30.3 million to
$31.9 million.

* Earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $2.75 to $2.90
compared to $2.34 for 2003.