Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Jan. 11, 1989

About 60 Gorham residents showed up at the Planning Board meeting Monday to take their first look at plans for a new Shop n Save at the old raceway property. It was the first chance people had to see the plan for a plaza with almost 200,000 square feet of floor space. The overwhelming concern of residents was the effect on traffic in the Cressey Road and Narragansett Street area.

The state Board of Education is scheduled to vote today to approve the state portion $1,086,480 of a proposed $1.8 million package of additions and renovations to the Saccarappa School in Westbrook. And in May, if the Westbrook School Committee and City Council approve, Westbrook voters will be asked to chip in another $800,000 to cover the citys share. School Superintendent Edward Connolly said Monday he expects to get the state concept approval today.

Mayor Philip Spiller showed Westbrooks Warren parsonage Sunday to Marie Rackley, and he she is seriously considering moving it in three pieces to land off the Methodist Road. He said he believes her plans are workable, and can be the hoped-for way to avoid tearing down the historic house. The City Council voted Monday to set Jan. 23 for a public hearing on the disposition or demolition of the parsonage.

The bid by retired Secretary of State and former Gorham resident Rodney Quinn to get the Gorham Town Council to pay into the Maine State Retirement System for his council service was defeated by a 3-3 tie at a Jan. 3 meeting. Quinn hoped to convince councilors to pay $100.56 for one year of his six years on the Gorham Town Council, which would enable him to buy back four years of military service and increase his annual pension by $3,000. Quinn said he would reimburse the town for that sum, as well as pay annual subsequent payments of $3 or $4. Some councilors felt that council service should not be considered employment, similar to full-time paid employees.

Charleyne Gilbert, a Westbrook High School business teacher for the past 10 years, was selected as the 1988-89 Maine Business Educator of the Year. The award was granted at the annual convention of the Business Education Association of Maine.

Gorham Fire Chief Robert Lefebvre said Monday that an electrical short circuit in the ceiling of a second-story apartment caused the three-alarm fire at 48 Main St. Friday that left 14 people homeless. No one was injured in the blaze, but Lefebvre estimated damage at $150,000 or more.

Jan. 13, 1999

A draft of a proposed new policy detailing when Westbrook will sell property it holds a tax lien against was presented to the City Councils Finance Committee Monday, and a further draft by administrative assistant Jim Bennett will likely be presented to the council for enactment. Matured tax liens give the city a clear title and the right to sell and keep all the proceeds, Bennett said. The city is scheduled to foreclose Jan. 14 on 85 pieces of property owning a total of $71,000 for unpaid 1997 taxes, plus interest.

Assistant School Superintendent Michael Kane presented to the Westbrook City Councils Committee of the Whole Monday the case for expanding Canal School. The plans go before the state Board of Education today to see if it will agree to state funding for a share of the $2.68 million project. The school department will go to the state with the council committees blessing, given in a 4-2 vote. The Canal School Building Committee and architect Stephen Blatt had first proposed at $3.26 million expansion of the grade 3-5 school, with a separate Grade 3 wing, but the committee felt that this would be too great a burden on the taxpayers.

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Looking Back

Flooring Installation - Fitting The Last Row And Board
For more DIY flooring tips, visit: http://www.ukflooringdirect.co.uk/info/Advice_Centre.html.

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Flooring Installation - Fitting The Last Row And Board - Video

Green flooring doesnt always need to shout, Im green!

Todays sustainable flooring for homes can be subtle, practical and reasonably priced. Green flooring options can includes cork, bamboo, sustainably harvested lumber, salvaged materials and many others.

Consumers have exponentially more choices now than a few years ago. But partly because sustainable flooring has evolved so quickly, selecting the best types for your home and getting them installed properly can prove challenging.

Your choices matter because green-flooring materials conserve resources, helping to prevent climate change.

Green flooring also reduces pollution from manufacturing. Using sustainable materials, along with related green products such as flooring adhesives and finishes, improves indoor air quality as well.

Find it

Make durability your first priority. Nearly any flooring material that lasts for many years, still looks good and does its job can be considered somewhat green. Get recommendations from friends, stores and contractors for durable flooring for specific rooms. Stay away from the cheapest flooring materials.

Youll conserve the most resources if you keep your existing flooring, so look into refurbishing or refinishing it instead of replacing your floor.

To explore the wide range of green flooring materials, start by visiting websites of stores offering selections of two or more types.

These include national chains Green Depot, Lumber Liquidators, Home Depot and Lowes and the Seattle store Greenhome Solutions. Some retailers will send you samples of green flooring products for a nominal fee.

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Choosing green flooring worth the challenge

Published Jan 9, 2014 at 4:25 pm (Updated Jan 9, 2014)

Sophomore students Ian Keppler, Joe Reidl and Kyle Katsios stand in front of a doghouse they built at class in their building trades class.

Members of the freshman class stand with a doghouse they built in their building trades class.

SPARTA Building Trades teacher Steve Wagner of Wantage has been donating doghouses to local animal rescues since 2008.

Its a part of the curriculum, Wagner said. It gives students an excellent breakdown of all phases of construction from flooring to 2x4 framing, trim work, staining, painting and roof installation.

Wagner came up with the idea to donate doghouses built by Vo-Tech students after encountering One Step Closer Animal Rescue volunteers at the Newton Walmart, during a bake sale event to raise funds.

The students are doing something good, and at the same time, learning part of the trade, Wagner said. Besides construction, building trades also covers electricity, plumbing, dry-wall installation, low-pressure boiler systems and industrial maintenance. Wagner explains most of the materials used to build the doghouses are either donated or recycled, and that all building trades students freshmen through senior contribute to the construction of the doghouses.

Wagner builds about two houses a year with his students. In the past, the classes have donated the doghouses to the following non-profit, no-kill rescues: Pets Alive Animal Sanctuary in Middletown, N.Y., Father Johns Animal House in Lafayette and O.S.C.A.R. in Sparta.

O.S.C.A.R., which wasnt in need of a doghouse, referred Wagner to Pets Alive, who is this years recipient of the doghouse that was built in November and December.

It is quite an experience," Freshman Brandon Hall, 14, of Wantage said. "There is a lot to do when building a doghouse. I liked framing the walls and roof the best.

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Vo-Tech students stuff the doghouse

A Beatrice woman is staying with family after a Thursday evening fire rendered her home unlivable.

Beatrice Fire and Rescue workers responded to the fire at 11:12 p.m. at 1503 E. Court St.

Fire and Rescue Chief Brian Daake said the resident of the home, Marge Gouldie, had experienced electrical problems earlier in the day, prompting her to spend the night of the fire elsewhere.

The occupant was having electrical problems through the day and wasnt comfortable staying there so she went to her sons house, Daake said. When we arrived on scene, there was light-colored smoke coming out of the attic.

The fire appeared to be electrical and Daake described it as slow, hot smolder.

Firefighters cut a ventilation hole in the roof and damage to the older home was estimated at $13,000.

A total of 11 firefighters were on the scene for roughly two hours and Beatrice Police officers assisted in shutting down Court Street.

Daake added the home was at some point remodeled, which can add challenges for firefighters.

It just was an older home and had remodeling done at some time, he said. Any time you change a room from its initial design of the building it appeared the ceilings were lowered at one time just gaining access to where the fire actually is adds some challenges.

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Attic fire damages home

QUINCY, Ill. (WGEM) - Warmer weather melts snow and ice off roofs, but it can cause problems for some homes.

Ice dams build up when melted water runs down the roof but freezes at the base of the roof just before running off. Co-Owner of Full Service Roofing and Remodeling Jonathan Schemerhorn says the problem can cause water to sit on the roof, leading to leaks or parts of the roof caving in. He says the problem can start in the attic.

"To help prevent it, you definitely don't want to get on the roof when it is icy," Schemerhorn said. "[The ice] is at the base of the roof. It's where you set your ladder. It's where you first get off. The thing is you will just have to wait it out. You can wait for it to melt or you can get in your attic and make sure the insulation is spread completely around."

Schemerhorn says spreading the insulation around the attic makes the snow melt evenly as opposed to melting at the top and refreezing toward the bottom of the roof. Co-Owner Kevin Phillips said ice damming is common in our area.

"This is just something really common every year," Phillips said. "We always have ice damming. We are kind of in that section of the country where we are just north enough to where we see it. If you go a couple hundred miles south it kind of is not so much of an issue."

Schemerhorn and Phillips say this is a problem some individuals can fix on their own as long as they are comfortable on the roof and with tools. Phillips says there is no set manufacturer guidelines on what temperature is good for working on a roof.

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Roofs could be next problem for homeowners

For travellers, these are indeed Tales of the Unexpected, and over the coming weeks we will be turning the spotlight on further examples of this much-cherished genre including the extraordinary Prada store found in the village of Marfa in the middle of a Texan desert, the almost completely unexplored ruins in the old Roman settlement of Timgad in Algeria and the artistic haven that is Fogo Island off the coast of Newfoundland.

We will be looking for more such treasures, and hope that you, too, will share with us a few discoveries of your own.

A Qatar castle filled with a sheikhs curios

Surrounded by shiny skyscrapers, five-star hotels and artificial islands, it feels like there is little here in Qatar of any great age; after all, this is a country which has seen most of its development happen in the last 20 years. Yet one man here is trying to document and preserve an idea of history. Sheikh Faisal, a close relative of the ruling emir, is a successful businessman here although his hobby, as he calls it or his obsession, as others might is less well known.

Half way across the peninsula that is Qatar, resembling a thumbs-up in the Persian Gulf, is the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum. When its namesake built this modern-day fort 15 years ago, it was the only interruption in an otherwise blank canvas of a landscape. Today it stands next to a recently completed superhighway on the outskirts of the hazy sprawling capital, Doha.

Turning off the main road, I approach the museum down a long avenue of dusty trees. At the end of the road is an imposing crenellated fortress.

It feels even bigger on the inside with a floor space of five football pitches and that is just as well because there are 15,000 objects on display from a half-century of amassing, labelling and hoarding.

Sheikh Faisal describes how he travels all over the world to add to his collection: visiting the auction houses of London and Paris; dealers offices in Istanbul and Miami, the markets of Sanaa and Tunis. Certainly there are treasures among the cluttered galleries, from Lydian coins to Umayyad pottery to an entire Syrian house brought brick-by-brick from Damascus old town and reconstructed here. The section on Qatari heritage which may be the greatest draw for tourists has a whole flotilla of traditional fishing boats displayed in giant indoor pits; there is a traditional Bedouin tent, and antique weighing scales used in the local pearling industry. There are also oddities such as the Sudanese dagger sheath made from a desiccated crocodile; a gold AK-47, a gift from Saddam Hussein; and the suit he wore for his ill-fated trial.

But the museum also houses the ordinary: there are cabinets of the sheikhs exercise books from his school days, as well as boarding cards from trips in his youth; in the gallery displaying currencies from around the world, there is a selection of modern British banknotes, which I could have pulled out of my wallet.

Ive been a collector since I was a little boy, Sheikh Faisal tells me. I want to keep everything. I still remember a toy car I had when I was small that a friend of my mothers picked up and gave to her son. I still think about not having that car in my collection.

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Tales of the Unexpected: Qatar and Japan

Burton MI Basement Finishing - Basement Remodeling Burton MI
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Burton MI Basement Finishing - Basement Remodeling Burton MI - Video

Hall County has found a place to relocate judges and courthouse staff while a costly courthouse renovation is underway.

On Tuesday, county supervisors will vote on whether to buy the former Workforce Development building at 1306 W. Third St. The county used to co-own that building but now wants to buy it back from the city of Grand Island for $600,000.

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Hall County to buy building from city for temporary courthouse

Work continues on the Texas Roadhouse restaurant on Friday, December 6, 2013, at Tikahtnu Commons. The restaurant is slated to open in February of 2014.

ERIK HILL Anchorage Daily News Buy Photo

Anchorage logged $631 mil- lion in new building permits in 2013, a 40 percent increase over 2012 construction, according to data presented by architect Brian Meissner at the Building Owners and Managers Association's annual commercial real estate forecast luncheon Friday.

"2013 was as big as the years before the bust," Meissner said.

Major construction projects under way around the city include hotels, office buildings and retail space.

Commercial vacancy rates throughout the city generally went down in 2013, said Brandon Walker, an associate at Pacific Tower Properties in Anchorage. Retail vacancy rates are just more than 4 percent, lower than the national average of 7.7 percent, he said.

National retailers that set up outlets in Anchorage in 2013 included cosmetics giant Sephora and designer Michael Kors. Walker said a number of other national brands have plans to open in here in 2014: Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, Hard Rock Cafe, Texas Roadhouse and Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery.

Industrial vacancy rates fell below 2 percent in 2013, Walker said.

Speaking of the city's available commercial properties, Walker said, "Much of the inventory right now is plagued by obsolescence. This is limiting the already limited supply of properties."

Fortunately for the city's commercial tenants, Walker said, they haven't seen an upswing in rents as a result of the decrease in vacancies.

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Commercial property prices hold up despite new construction