While novice painters will have better control painting with a brush than a roller, rollers do cover walls and ceiling surfaces at least 50% faster than a brush. Painting with a roller will require more paint than painting with a brush and as with any tool, both prior practice and the quality of the tool will determine the outcome. This is just a preview...Read the rest... Read More →

The changing perceptions of the consumer and the explosion of product selection have fundamentally changed the way people acquire flooring products today. While not unimportant, the cost of the product is not as dominant a factor. Sustainability, style, longevity and practicality are now at least as important, if not more so. What many people seem to be looking for (and these different attributes are weighed differently from person to person) is value. This is just a preview...Read the rest... Read More →

Changing the lighting in your home generally requires some re-wiring, and for that you should consider hiring a licensed electrician. However, there are some simple solutions that allow you to make some changes using existing fixtures and outlets. This is just a preview...Read the rest... Read More →

We’ve all seen home additions loudly announcing their presence, like an elephant at a dog show. I’ve found in my architectural practice that most, if not all, people want their addition to blend seamlessly with their existing home. They want an “invisible addition.” After This is just a preview...Read the rest... Read More →

Beginning in the 1920s, a new kind of representational architecture developed along the busy streets and roads of America. Geared to the passing motorist, these fanciful representations of over-sized lunch pails, flower pots, jugs, dogs, pigs, soup bowls, oranges, and hundreds of other objects, were architectural images that instantly caught the eye and were not easily forgotten. Usually there was a relationship between the object depicted and the type of goods sold in the neighboring facility. But... more

Kitchens were once regarded as the utilitarian part of a home. A small room in the back corner of the house, used only to prepare food. Architects, designers, and builders (all men) gave little thought to the amount of time, organizational needs, and the ease-of-use that would be needed for decades to come in this “most important room” of our homes. “No one says, ‘I only have a kitchen because it came with the house,” states Jim Hebblethaite, owner of Affordable Kitchens, LLC. This is... more

Boy, it sure is dark outside. Doesn’t it just seem like the short days, the leaf drop and the rain all started at exactly the same moment? Weird. I guess there is just one thing to do and that is to get ready for the holidays, which makes it just the right time to light things up. This is just a preview...Read the rest... Read More →

When you want to “renovate” an old home, sometimes stuff happens, and you just have to roll with the punches. When Noel Larson’s house suffered a house fire, the first thought was to do the usual fire restoration, such as remove the charred wood and alleviate the smoke damage and smell. This would have been tough enough, on this noble 1914 French Provincial stucco home right on Alameda ridge in Portland; but things were bound to get more complicated. And then, more complicated still. This... more