Can Target be saved—and can home help make it happen? Even a few years ago that question would have seemed absurd. The nation’s second-largest discounter was flying high, its cheap-chic image resonating with consumers at a time when they were anxious to spend a little more to get a little more.

That was then. After a perfect storm of poor management and operational strategies, its bungling of high-profile social issues, and a rapidly changing economy that pushed consumers toward value-oriented retailers like arch enemy Walmart—which itself was upping its game—Target has found itself in a retail ditch.

Now, with a change in CEOs, a serious reinvestment program that will remake many of its stores, and a renewed commitment to its upscale merchandising strategy, Target is starting the arduous task of turning around a $100 billion–plus, 2,000-store chain. It looks like home furnishings will likely play a major role in that effort.

Home—especially soft home—was a critical part of Target’s last major turnaround a decade ago. Then-CEO Brian Cornell cleared house of a number of aging private label programs and circled his red bull’s-eyes around a new collection of names, most prominently the Chip and Joanna Gaines sub-brand Hearth & Hand With Magnolia, derived from their popular HGTV show.

Target went all in on Magnolia, creating cross-merchandised shops with their own display architecture that even today are the envy of competing retailers. The shop-in-shops featured home decor, tabletop, decorative accessories and all kinds of one-offs—from Bluetooth speakers to paper goods—totaling more than 300 individual products.

No doubt Magnolia will continue to be a foundation of Target’s home business going forward under new CEO Michael Fiddelke, and while the retailer has never talked about the total size of that business, it’s quite plausible that it breaks through the $1 billion milepost that has been considered the hallmark of a smash hit license, established by the original Martha Stewart program at Kmart in the late 1990s.

Even larger is Target’s other flagship brand, Threshold, created under Cornell and now a mainstay across the retailer’s entire home furnishings footprint. It, too, does not have revenue numbers regularly attached to it, but a 2021 analysis put the line’s total sales at more than $2 billion.

It will get even bigger with news of a summer relaunch of the Threshold brand and the debut of more than 200 shop-in-shops, which could be similar in size and scope to the Magnolia setups. Target can’t underestimate the importance of getting home right, said EVP Cara Sylvester, who was promoted to chief merchandising officer last month.

“Home is where our design ethos first became tangible, but it’s also a space where we’ve lost our way,” Sylvester told investors during the company’s annual financial community meeting earlier this month. “You see that in our recent results.” She also said that “transforming this category will be a multiyear journey.”

By June, Sylvester said, Target will have overhauled 75 percent of its decorative accessories, ranging from candles to throws. And by fall, the retailer aims to make significant changes to the entire bedding category. “We’re leaning full [in on] furniture, mattresses, rugs,” she said—historically tricky categories to get right.

One more element of Target’s home strategy is a reduction in pricing on as many as 3,000 items. It will affect sheets and other bedding products, with an eye toward encouraging seasonal updates rather than full-scale room redos.

Pricing and merchandising are only a piece of Target’s turnaround strategy, which includes full-store remodels, more sales help on the floor, and better supply chain management across its entire product mix. But Fiddelke said he understands how critical home is for the overall plan. Home, he told investors on that same call, “is where we know we can win, and [we’re] reimagining [it] to achieve greater relevance and differentiation.”