On a recent trip to a Vietnamese seaside village, Laura Daily was captivated by floating woven baskets so wide they nearly swallowed the fisherman rowing them out to sea.

Daily, a merchandiser for Atlanta-based home décor retailer Ballard Designs, saw more than a musty boat basket used to transport the men to their fishing boat. She envisioned funky planters, or maybe a storage unit for outdoor pillows. And so she bought one of the vessels and shipped it back to her office in Atlanta. She had done the same with a cloche pendant lamp from France, a hand-painted wood plaque from Belgium and a ceramic stool from China.

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Laura Daily and Ballard Design’s team of buyers review various types of fabric during a meeting in the company’s headquarter in Atlanta July 17, 2008. Alexander Acosta / AJC

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Alexander Acosta/AJC

Ballard Design’s team of buyers review various types of fabric during a meeting in the company’s headquarter July 17, 2008.

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“It’s like a worldwide scavenger hunt,” Daily said.

With her team of merchandisers and designers, Daily reproduces these items to be sold in the 50 million catalogs Ballard mails each year.

Ballard has traditionally focused on English and French design (think delicate Louis armchairs, stately antiqued armoires and distressed finishes) and is known for its affordable furniture and rugs — few large items exceed $3,000. But now, as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, the retailer is looking to Africa, South America and the Orient for exotic flair.

Now you’ll find curving metal and glass Moroccan chandeliers, ikat fabrics and Peruvian painted glass tables next to traditional pieces like Italian murals and Persian rugs. Ballard is also slowly incorporating more contemporary looks, such as sleek chrome side tables, into its antique-inspired selections and expanding media and home office furniture. And this past year, Ballard Designs opened two full-priced stores in Tampa and Jacksonville, in addition to its two outlets in Atlanta and a third in West Chester, Ohio.

Founded in the 1983 by Atlanta businesswoman Helen Ballard Weeks, what began as a black-and-white two-page brochure has grown to a 100-page catalog and online home furnishings company. Ballard Weeks got her start after her home was featured in Metropolitan Home magazine and readers wrote in looking for her furniture. A dolphin-based table reproduced from one in her home became Ballard’s first big seller.

Ballard Weeks sold the company in 1997 and it later became a subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp, owner of Ticketmaster, Match.com and HSN, the Home Shopping Network. IAC is expected to announce this month that it will split into five units; Ballard Designs’ parent company Cornerstone Brands (owner of Frontgate, Garnet Hill, and Smith & Noble, among others) will become a subsidiary of HSN.

Though Ballard Designs is a fraction of the IAC pie, the company is looking for ways to reach new customers.

For example, shoppers will see teases from the catalog to Web decorating options, such as designing their own home office online.

But with just 80 employees at its corporate headquarters in west Midtown, Ballard executives say they’re in no hurry to become the next Pottery Barn. Williams-Sonoma, which owns Pottery Barn, has 600 retail stores and posted annual revenues of $3.94 billion in 2007.

Ballard executives won’t release sales figures, but in a ranking of home accessories sales by trade publication Home Accents Today, Cornerstone Brands is No. 42 behind Williams-Sonoma’s eighth position. (Wal-Mart is No. 1, according to the magazine.)

Home Accents Today revenue estimates include decorative accessories, luxury sheets and pillows, and accent furniture — but not items such as large furniture or housewares. Cornerstone also ranked 26th in home textiles with estimated sales of $181 million in 2007, according to the same publication.

James Pope, Ballard’s director of new business development and retail, says the company is eyeing more stores over the long term, though he’s mum on how many.

“We have to get the concepts right before we roll them out,” Pope said. “We’re in no rush. We want to do it the right way.”

Marketing analyst James Tenser of VSN Consulting Strategies said having stores in addition to catalog and online shopping is vital in today’s “multi-channel” market.

“Ballard has done a great job in finding its market with catalogs and online,” Tenser said.

“But there’s a portion [of consumers] they can’t break through who will say, ‘I won’t buy a chair without sitting on it.’”

Staci Mase, an Atlanta flight attendant, makes almost weekly stops in the Ballard Backroom in west Midtown, where she has filled up on Ballard’s rugs, bedding, tables and other home accessories.

But Mase said she’d shy away from ordering large furniture items like a sofa through a catalog.

“I think anytime you can see something up close, and not just displayed in a catalog, you can tell a lot about it,” she said.

In a sense, this need to see and touch is no different from with Ballard’s team of merchandisers and designers, who for five months each year comb flea markets and villages for old objects that will find new life in the modern world.

(At home in Atlanta, they look for local goodies from such places as Scott Antique Market or the Bennett Street Design District in Buckhead.)

Savvy Ballard shoppers know that their antique finds are often sold beside reproductions in the outlets. That’s where you may find the original Vietnamese boat basket this fall when its $400 reproduction joins Ballard’s globally eclectic inventory.

“Great design spans many styles,” Daily said. “We’re getting there.”