The revelation came after months of anticipation after Sentinel Homemaker, owners of the Homemaker Centre off Bathurst Road, confirmed two national retailers had been locked in for the old Bunnings site.

Anyone who has been to a Homemaker centre across the country may not have been surprised by the initial two stores to come Orange's way though. Oz Design currently has stores at other Homemaker centres such as Penrith, Northland in Victoria and West Gosford, while Baby Bunting can be found in Queensland's Fortitude Valley as well as Penrith, just to name a few.

"These tenants will add to the already strong mix of national retailers within Orange Homemaker Centre," a spokesman for Sentinel Property Group said of Baby Bunting and Oz Design.

With the possibility for four stores in total to be located at the Orange Homemakers Centre and only two stores locked in, that still leaves open two more empty shops that need to be filled.

So what can we learn about other Homemaker Centres that could help us figure out the final two names, if and when they arrive?

Well, let's start by looking at the Penrith centre, the closest one to Orange, some 200km away from the city.

As previously mentioned, the two new stores already locked in for Orange - which are expected to open in March - are also featured at the West Sydney premises, which has 38 retailers in total. Of those 38, 12 already have stores in Orange, those being Adairs, Baby Bunting, Bed, Bath N Table, Bunnings, Chemist Warehouse, Fantastic Furniture, Harvey Norman, Oz Design Furniture, Petbarn, Pillow Talk, Spotlight and Supercheap Auto.

Another four stores already operate on this side of the Blue Mountains, being Forty Winks (Dubbo and Young), JB Hi-Fi (Bathurst), Macpac (Katoomba), Snooze (Dubbo).

That leaves us with 22 stores featured in the Penrith Homemaker Centre that currently have no presence out west and make them more likely to come to Orange. But in realistic terms, not all 22 would expand out to the city. Asuka Japanese Kitchen, S.A.L.T Cafe, T-Spoon Cafe, Phillies and Parrabey Gourmet Kitchen are all food outlets and considering there are none at the current Homemaker Centre, they would be unlikely to start now. We can also scratch Harvey Norman Lighting off the list, with Harvey Norman already located in a separate part of town.

So as far as educated guesses goes, we are left with 16 possible new stores which could come to Orange. Those are Weber, Trek Bicycles, Air Locker, Anaconda, Beacon Lighting, Beds N Dreams, Carpet Call, Curtain Wonderland, Decorug, Domayne, Frame Today, Kitchen Connection, Kitchen Warehouse, , Provincial Home Living, Roni's Home Depot and Rose Furniture.

Now, Orange is not Penrith of course and the needs and wants of people in the Central West are very different to those in Western Sydney, but based off what we know so far, those seem like the likeliest options at this point to fill the void.

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