Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

(Shenandoah) -- As a major construction project continues at Shenandoah Medical Center, officials are putting the finishing touches on the hospital's emergency department.

The new and expanded emergency room is expected to be fully operational by the end of this week. The improvement is part of phase two of the hospital's $22 million upgrade. The new ER includes five exam rooms, three trauma bays, a triage room, a specialty room for psychiatric patients, secure facilities and a new ambulance bay. Dr. Santosh Kumar is medical director for SMC's emergency department. He says with the added space comes several new services the department can offer.

"We have included quite a few new services which includes things for our surgery side, psychiatric and mental health services, better trauma beds, more trauma rooms and a physician-staffed ER 24/7, which is a huge accomplishment for us," said Kumar.

Kumar says the new ER was in the planning stages for quite some time.

"My guess that thousands of hours went into the planning for this," said Kumar. "We spent six or seven months where all we did was plan. We visited big ERs and small ERs at lots of hospitals. I personally went to Nebraska Medicine because they were doing renovations, and we wanted to learn what mistakes they made in planning or what they did which worked well for them."

The new department is near where the old ER was located on the west side of the hospital. ER staff has been in place using most of the remodeled space for the past couple months, as the finishing touches are being put on additional space. Kumar says his staff is delighted with the increased space and modern facility.

"It's like we were driving a Chevy and now we have a Cadillac," said Kumar. "You can just feel the excitement. We are all very, very excited. More than that, we are all from the community, so it's excitement for us in two ways; as a staff working here and as people in the community. This is huge for us."

Kumar says a hospital's emergency department must be equipped with the latest technology, because it's often where people are most nervous when they visit the hospital.

"Most healthy people's visit to the hospital is either for well-check or you come to the ER for some reason," said Kumar. "When you come to the ER, it's the most anxious part of the hospital. Either you or your family member is sick and they need help right away. That's when the ER makes a difference. It leaves an ever-lasting impact. If you have a good experience with the ER, it sticks with you for a long time."

Kumar says he hopes the community and surrounding area will take pride in having a state-of-the-art facility in their backyard.

"This is not just one person's dream," said Kumar. "This is the whole community, every staff that works with us and some staff who left, this is all their dream. It took a lot of effort from every one of us. I really thank our board for making this happen."

The completion of the new emergency department is part of phase two of the remodeling project at the hospital. Phase one included a new medical office building, clinic and front entryway, which was unveiled last December. The rest of phase two includes remodeling of the surgical center, which is expected to be completed this winter. A $20.35 million USDA loan is covering the cost of a majority of the project.

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SMC emergency room gets remodel as part of construction project - KMAland

A popular local fast-food restaurant soonwill temporarily shut down as part of a major remodeling project done by the company.

The Chick-Fil-A at 1332 Jeffreys Road in Cobb Corners will be closed for a month. Franchise owner Bob Lehnes said the restaurant will close after Aug. 12 and re-open sometime in mid-September.

Lehnes said the company will be investing about $1 million in the renovation of the local restauarant. Lehnes, who moved Chick-Fil-A to its current location in 2001, said this is usually around the time when the company remodels its restaurants.

Were approaching right at 16 years, Lehnes said.Typically, when a store is about 15 years old, Chick-Fil-A looks at remodeling it. For the most part, theyre going to gut the store.

The upgrades to Chick-Fil-A will involve plans to add about 20 feet or more to the back of the building to expand and upgrade the kitchen area.

The kitchen will be truly designed to handle the volume of business that were doing, he said. When we re-open, we will have roughly 30 percent more capacity to cook. We will also have two grills instead of one. If one goes down for maintenance reasons, we will still have a backup and not be losing product.

The Chick-Fil-A will have double drive-thru lines to help accelerate service for customers.

We will have two ordering points and two lanes approaching the ordering points, which we feel will help expedite and speed up the drive-thru a little more, Lehnes said.

Lehnes added the revamped look will have the front counter being a little further out, but the restaurant will maintain five registers on the counter plus a special dedicated register for pick-up and catering orders.The condiment bar at the front of the restaurant will be replaced by smaller condiment bars that will be located in both the front and back part of the dining area, Lehnes said.

A big bench table will be added in the dining room, which can accomodate up to eight to 10 people, Lehnes added.

Its always nice when they put this in other stores, Lehnes said. That usually seemed to be well-received by your larger families, youth groups or large groups of teenagers that come in and want to sit together.

The renovations will cause some seating impact in the dining room.

That push-out of the front counter will have us end up losing about 10 seats in the whole scheme of it all, which is probably the only negative, Lehnes said.But were one of the larger Chick-Fil-As as far as seating capacity. We usually dont have as many challenges with inside seating as some other restaurants.

The remodeling will impact 90 to 100 Chick-Fil-A employees.Lehnes said the plan is to have some employees placed at nearby Chick-Fil-A restaurants in Wilson and Roanoke Rapids and possibly at Greenville. Some full-time employees, who have known about the remodeling coming for the past two years, will take paid vaction time, Lehnes said.

Lehnesalso will be taking staff to a few Chick-Fil-A restaurants in the region, which have both the new kitchen design and multi-lane drive-thrus for them to observe the operations. There are also plans to add additional staff.

Were going to be hiring during that four-week down period, Lehnes said.We always expect a good bump up in sales after we re-open. We feel this is going to set us up for future success and growth of the business.

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Chick-Fil-A to close temporarily for remodeling - Rocky Mount Telegram

Dining rooms have long served as mainstays of American homeowners, but at some point in our recent history, we stopped using them with any frequency. In that light, in the remodeling world, we often ask homeowners whether they still need a dining room.

Our lifestyles have radically changed regarding the traditional notion of a family gathering, eating together at a set time in the evening. Its now easier to do grab-and-go meals or stay in the kitchen to eat and chat with whoevers around; theres just no need to go into the dining room on a daily basis. People also eat out far more than they did even 10 years ago. When they do entertain at home, they congregate in the kitchen and casual living spaces open to the kitchen.

The dining room, in short, has become a victim of its own isolation and formality. Even its placement in older homes creates a barrier from the kitchen, and when that room opens onto a seldom-used front living room, its close to dinosaur extinction!

The remaining purpose of a traditional dining room is to accommodate large, infrequent gatherings of family and friends, typically at the holidays. So how do you expand a dining rooms life beyond Thanksgiving dinner?

Making the dining room a multipurpose space is a useful option. Create a home office or library that can easily convert into a dining room when needed. Built-in bookcases can hold a combination of dinnerware and books. A large dining table easily becomes an excellent desk or work surface with a change of accessories. Dining chairs needed only for large gatherings can be placed in other areas of your home, such as a pair of dining chairs creating a conversation area in an empty corner of a great room. Or you can completely change the function of a dining room. If you remove the dining table and chairs and simply view it as an extra room in the house, what would you do with it?

In a recent project, my colleagues and I knocked down a wall between the kitchen and the living room, and the dining set moved into that new open space, which left the dining room empty. We conferred with our clients about what type of room they always wanted but couldnt have, and the answer was a fully decked-out home office. They now have a room they love which gets used every day rather than just a few times a year.

Just as our lifestyles have changed, so must our thinking of what to do with a dining room. Its just too much valuable square footage to let go to waste.

Becky Trent is a designer and Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (through the National Association of Home Builders) with St. Louis remodeling and design firm Mosby Building Arts. Her passion for kitchen and bath design has resulted in several local and national remodeling awards.

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Inside Design: Do You Still Need a Dining Room? - Ladue News

MARQUETTE Design is more than just a pretty space. It really can impact the way we live our lives, the way that we run our business and the way that we feel in a space.

Allison Clark loves to design things. Whether its a home or just one-room, the Marquette native has been doing it professionally the last five years through her business, Curio Design Studio.

Clark came up with an idea she coined, Blueprint for Change, a way to give back to the community by designing and remodeling a room for one lucky person.

I think everyone is in to HGTV, Extreme Home Makeover and all of those shows, said Clark. People could get involved and businesses could get involved in making a difference in someones life.

Over sixty nominations came into Clark. In June, the decision was made to redesign a room for Charlotte Newcomb, 7, who suffers from cyclical vomiting syndrome, a chronic condition that causes recurring attacks of intense vomiting.

We really wanted to make sure that the design elements we were putting into the space really spoke to the specific needs; storage needs, clean-ability, durability, the ability for the space to be darkened, said Clark.

Clark worked with local small businesses, corporate sponsors and volunteers to make the renovation happen. It took six weeks of planning and a week of construction to transform the playroom at the Newcomb residence into a multi-purpose room.

It was amazing. It was a huge payoff to a lot of work and a lot of planning from every person who volunteered their time, their services and donated items, said Clark. It was really gratifying to see it come together.

The room was put together to not only benefit Charlotte, but her sisters as well. Clark says the first Blueprint for Change was successful.

Shes looking forward to being involved with another one next year.

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'Blueprint for Change' works to change lives & living spaces - ABC 10 News NOW

PRINCETON People hoping to add a cat or dog to their households got their first look Tuesday at new and more comfortable quarters for felines at the Mercer County Animal Shelter.

We started the remodeling last Monday, Assistant Director Stacey Harman said. We finished up last night and today were reopening.

The remodeled cat facilities gives the felines more room to roam and interact. Enrichment items such as shelves for lounging and cubes they can enter are part of the new arrangements.

Weve made all the cats in there cage free, Harman said. We have eight cages in there, but only for those that dont get along and everyone else is free to run.

Getting the cats out of cages decreases the chances for them to get sick, decreases their boredom and keeps their stress levels down, she said. There are plans to give the shelters cats even more space.

We didnt get to do this today because our supplies didnt come in, Harman said. Were going to have an outside patio area.

A pet door in a window will allow the cats to go outside and into a caged area. The cats wont be able to get out, and nobody except for shelter personnel will be able to enter it, she stated. Plans call for starting the patios construction this week and finishing it by next week. A donation from an estate helped fund the remodeling projects.

Dixie is held up by new owner Kim Smith as she waits for her new family to finish adoption papers at the Mercer County Animal Shelter Tuesday. The animal shelter hosted an open house where they encouraged the community to come and check out their remodeled facilities and look for a new pet.

We also have the dog play park that didnt get finished, Harman added. It will be started this week. Theyre actually getting an exercise/play yard. The whole goal behind this is to get them some exercise and out of the cages. What we see happen a lot of times is if they stay in kennels day after day, they get kennel aggression. This will give them exercise and fresh air.

The animal shelter currently houses about 47 cats, but the goal is to get this number down to 30. Between 40 to 45 dogs were at the shelter as of Tuesday.

We put a fresh coat of paint on everything, Harman said. We try to make the shelter more appealing to the public. Its really been amazing, what weve been able to do.

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

Originally posted here:
Shelter pets get more room to roam - Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Orange County and Los Angeles residents spend about a third more on kitchen remodels and nearly twice the national average to redo their bathrooms, according to an analysis by HomeAdvisor, a home servicesmarketplace.

Room additions, meanwhile, can set you back more than double what it costs in the U.S. as a whole, the analysis shows.

HomeAdvisor based the analysis on service requests to the site between July 2016 and July 2017 and costs provided by homeowners.

HomeAdvisor didnt disclose the exact number of projects it reviewed, but said it received 14 million service requests in the past yearand looked at hundreds of thousands of data points throughout Los Angeles and Orange County.

The findings correlate to Southern Californias higher home prices. The median price of an Orange County home the price at the midpoint of all sales was $695,000 in June, tying with May for an all-time high, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic.

Nationwide, home improvement is increasing at nearly 6 percent a year, the Leading Index for Remodeling Activity shows.

With home equity rising, owners are completing larger, discretionary projects, said Brad Hunter, HomeAdvisors chief economist. In 2016, they spent an average of nearly $2,000 more than they did in 2015, he said.

Expected to keep the trend going: Millennials putting money into fixer uppers and aging Baby Boomers making modifications to their homes so they can stay put. And, Hunter said, rising mortgage interest rates likely will create anadditional impetus for home improvement spending.

Heres a tool to help figure out remodeling costs in different places.

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How much could your home remodeling job cost? More in OC and LA than elsewhere - OCRegister

DANVILLE Danville Public Library officials seek library and non-library users to answer surveys, with the results used to update the librarys strategic plan.

About 200 surveys have been filled out. Library board members handed them out at the recent library book sale. The survey also is available at the library and will be put on the librarys website at http://www.danville.lib.us after more questions are added.

DPL Director Theresa Tyner said the initial survey was very minimal and they have been in the process of adding more questions. She said the library usually updates its strategic plan about every three to five years or more.

Were looking at future services and asking (respondents) how do you use the library now and if not, why not, Tyner said.

We really want to know if people are using the library or certain services or certain collections, she said, this includes whether patrons use electronic collections or only prefer physical books.

Survey questions also ask about library programming, if the respondent attended certain programs and what programs respondents would like the library to offer that haven't been offered in the past.

Another strategic planning meeting will be 4-8 p.m. Sept. 13 in the library's first floor meeting room at 319 N. Vermilion St.

Also at a recent board meeting, library board members approved a $27,984 contract with Dewberry Architects Inc. that outlines services for the construction documents, bidding and construction administration phases of the library's interior remodeling project. Project funding comes from the Danville Library Foundation.

The approximately $412,000 renovation project will include a dedicated Teen Space on the first floor across from the childrens area, two meeting/study rooms in the second floor archives area, a facilities office and additional storage. There also will be sound insulation added to the study room areas and some lighting changes.

Library board members have requested fundraising assistance up to $500,000 from the Danville Library Foundation for the project.

Tyner said theyre still not sure on a timeline for the project. Construction could take six months, with the project possibly being bid this fall. The project planning process started under former library director Barb Nolan.

In other library board business, the library will refill the assistant director and outreach department director positions when Mike and Leslie Boedicker leave within the next two months. Tyner said they will be moving some tasks around with the positions.

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Library to update its strategic plan - Danville Commercial News

IF YOU GO

What: 3rd annual Ave Maria Village Family and Friends Community Fun Walk When: 9 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 5 Where: Ave Maria Village, 501 19th St. NE Info: The cost to register is $25 for adults, $10 for Heritage Centre residents, and Ave Maria Village residents and children 12 years old and younger can enter for free. Registration forms may be picked up and returned to Ave Maria Village.

The 3rd annual Ave Maria Village Family and Friends Community Fun Walk is raising funds for phase one of Ave Maria Villages private room campaign.

Lisa Wagner, who came up with idea for the walk three years ago and is a walk organizer, said about 65 people have registered for the walk so far this year. Last year there were 100 participants, but this year Wagner said she would like to get 120 to 150 participants.

Wagner said same-day registration for the walk will be allowed. People wanting to register on the day of the walk should arrive between 8:30 to 8:45 a.m. to allow for extra time.

Participants will walk along a paved path starting from the Ave Maria Village pavilion area, which is located north of the parking lot for employees. The path is 1 mile long. Prize drawings will start at 10 a.m.

Jan Barnes, development and volunteer director for Ave Maria Village, said phase one of the private room campaign is raising funds to improve the rooms and other physical amenities the long-term care facility offers to its residents. She said a new phone system was just installed so each resident has a new phone and his or her own phone number.

Its a more versatile phone system, Barnes said.

Barnes said she has raised enough money through the private room campaign to create two bath suites. The work, once it starts sometime in August, will renovate the bathrooms in two rooms and make those bathrooms more spa like, she said. The estimated cost to create the two bath suites is $57,000 each.

Barnes said the next project is remodeling the kitchen for the Ave Maria Village building. She said the building is 55 years old and the kitchen has never been remodeled. She had no estimate on how much the kitchen remodeling will cost. The last thing to be done as part of the private room campaign is to remove all the wallpaper in each room and throughout the building and paint the walls.

We want to give the building a new look, she said.

colson@jamestownsun.com

(701) 952-8454

Excerpt from:
Fun Walk raises funds for private room campaign - Jamestown Sun

VIDEO: Hope Restoration project... Also...

KINSTON, Lenoir County - The Hope Restoration project, which started in 2016 by giving those having a hard time finding jobs a chance to work on home for those in need, has expanded exponentially sine then.

Last spring, the project had four homes slated for restoration. Now, they've restored 25, with more on the way.

Lawrence Wilson, who works for the project, said this job has been all about second chances.

"I started doing drugs, I didn't have a place to stay, they gave me a place to stay at the Flint home to live in a fellowship program, the same as the church," Wilson said.

Hope Restoration founder Chris Jenkins said stories like Wilson's are why he started the program in the first place.

"We are trying to give employment support to folks who really need and have a hard a time being hired elsewhere," he said.

It's been a life-changer for those that end up living in the homes, too, like Jeff Richardson, who was one of the first to get a Hope Restoration home last year.

"That's the American Dream - you raise your family, and you know you own a house and you know that is one of big goals you know to own a house," Richardson said.

Jenkins started buying and restoring old homes in low-income neighborhoods in 2014 as a way of healing after his son's death. The 17-year-old committed suicide after battling a substance abuse addiction.

He's hopeful that this project can provide more stability for families and jobs for those on the path to recovery as a means of combating substance abuse. The goal is to be able to get to 45 homes and make the program financially self-sufficient.

"The more in the neighborhood that own their home the better things are like crime rates and health rates and scholastic and performance and performance of their children," Jenkins said.

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Hope Restoration project changing lives on multiple fronts - WCTI12.com

Home Canning Tips From the Food Safety Blog A government blog recently published a number of tips for people interested in home canning this summer's produce. The blog lists vegetables with a low acid pHs that are not acidic enough to prevent the growth of botulinum bacteria. Some vegetables in this category include asparagus, green beans, [...]

Home Canning Tips From the Food Safety BlogA government blog recently published a number of tips for people interested in home canning this summer's produce. The blog lists vegetables with a low acid pHs that are not acidic enough to prevent the growth of botulinum bacteria. Some vegetables in this category include asparagus, green beans, and potatoes. The site also provides a list of medical conditions that individuals suffering from foodborne botulism exhibit. To learn more about home canning safety, click on https://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/2017/07/home-canning-and-botulism.html. I wonder if President Trump's budget provides funds for these types of blogs. Just saying.

Military Research Homes In On Vision and Hearing LossAccording to the website Armed with Science, a Defense Department science information site, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, recently awarded five research grants to develop a high-resolution neural interface as well as to develop systems supporting sensory restoration. Sounds like Star Trek medicine to me. Brown and Columbia Universities as well as the University of California, Berkeley and two additional research facilities will focus on hearing and vision by linking these body functions with the brain to treat sensory loss. To learn more about this fascinating research project, surf over to http://science.dodlive.mil/2017/07/24/darpa-launches-program-that-could-one-day-treat-vision-hearing-loss/. The Pentagon supports this research as part of the Pentagon defense budget appropriation. Your federal taxes at work.

New Research Finds Rising and Shrinking Income Cities The website Wall St 24/7 recently published a list of 10 cities where personal incomes are shrinking the fastest. While some areas of the country are booming, cities such as Peoria, Ill. and New Bern, N. C. are now experiencing dropping personal incomes. The article mentions a number of causes for the decline. Drops in construction, as well as government payroll cutbacks, caused an average income drop of $1,000 in New Bern, N.C. The report also lists 10 cities where rising incomes are the norm. Merced, Calif., for example, experienced an income growth of 14.3 percent from 2008 to 2013. To learn more about income levels in these 20 cities, click on http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/07/14/10-cities-where-incomes-are-growing-and-shrinking-the-fastest/2/.

Old Ironsides Restoration Nearly CompleteEvery school kid knows that the USS Constitution, a Revolutionary War vessel, is the oldest ship still commissioned in the U.S. Navy. The ship has now returned to its birth in Boston after a two-year restoration that included replacement of 100 hull planks with the required caulking as well as repair of the ship's rigging. To access a picture of the ship as well as the resulting account of the renovation, visit http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=101588. Some military hardware becomes icons for the nation. Any visit to Boston should include a visit to the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Cancer Patients With Inexpensive Health Plans May Be Denied Access To Top-Tier Cancer CentersConsumers who choose less expensive health insurance plans may forego access to top-tier physicians caused by a 'narrow network' health plan limitation. These 'narrow network' plans may systemically exclude treatments by NCI-affiliated physicians. This possible exclusion may adversely impact treatment of rare or difficult-to-treat cancers. To learn more about this health issue, click on https://medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_167327.html. Just so you know.

A New Book Tells The Story of The Library Card CatalogA Library of Congress employee recently published a book on the history of the card catalog. According to author Peter Devereaux, the card catalog proved to be one of the most versatile and durable technologies in history. Devereaux relates the story of S. N. Cramer, a Sumerian historian who found a piece of a cuniform tablet about 2 inches by 1 inches that served as a clay library index card. Cramer found the tablet near the ruins of Nippur and dated the tablet to 2000 BCE. For those contemporary students used to looking up references on a library computer, this book provides a picture of how earlier societies organized information. To read the interview, click on http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2017/07/inquiring-minds-the-unheralded-story-of-the-card-catalog/. And so it goes.

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Home Canning Tips; Researching Hearing, Sight Restoration ... - Wellsville Daily Reporter (blog)