Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

A.B.E. Doors & Windows marks its fourth decade

Forty years after founder Jim Lett started A.B.E. Doors & Windows, the former one-man business now employs 23 people and may soon be hiring at least two more.

The company celebrates four decades of operation this month and Lett says its future is promising.

"Today about 75 percent of our business is residential and the rest is commercial and industrial work," Lett said. "We sell and install windows; residential entry doors, storm doors, patio doors, garage doors and openers and we still do basement doors. A lot of today's newer homes are built to be cost-effective but after people are in a while, we find they often want to upgrade to improve the look and energy efficiency."

Lett is training his son, Jim Jr., as the heir to the business and takes pride in the approximately 17-year longevity rate for the majority of his employees. The key, he says, is to take pride in the work and give the customer an excellent product at a fair price.

Lett began his business less than a week after graduating from Bloomsburg University while he was still living with his parents. He had a separate phone line installed in his bedroom, his mother would take messages during the day and his father guided him with pricing and training.

"I had wanted to start a business but I didn't have anything in mind," he recalls. "My dad worked for Wolf Distributors and met the people from Gordon Cellar Doors at a trade show and that was the start of the whole thing. I went down to the newspaper office, took out an ad and I was up and running."

Lett would install basement doors during the day and return phone calls or do estimates at night.

One year after starting, he learned that Frantz Garage Doors on Race Street in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, was looking for someone to install garage doors, so he added that to his offerings and within a few more years, he had signed PermaDoor, one of the pioneers in the steel entry door market.

"Those first three products were really just a matter of taking advantage of opportunities that presented themselves," he said. "That was pretty much my business plan at that time."

See original here:
A.B.E. Windows celebrates four decades, and other company news

When I open my patio doors and breathe in the delicious scent of my neighbour's mock orange, with its pretty white flowers cascading conveniently over my garden fence, I know that summer is really here.

The delicious smell of this flowering shrub may only last a couple of weeks but for me it's one of the most memorable events of summer and there are varieties to suit most gardens, from the golden mock orange Philadelphus coronarius 'Aureus', which can be used to light up the back of a mixed border, to the more compact P. 'Manteau d'Hermine', which grows to just 75cm (30in), bearing masses of heady cream flowers and ideally planted next to a seating area in a sheltered spot where people can enjoy its scent to the full.

Of course, on the patio you are spoiled for choice with scented plants. Those which will grow happily in containers include night-scented stocks, clove-scented pinks and scented pelargoniums in the Fragrans Group, which have leaves with the aroma of lemon, orange and mint.

Herbs too will provide you with scent as well as flavour, including lemon verbena, Eau de Cologne mint (Mentha x piperita f. citrata), lemon thyme and fragrant rosemary. All these need to be touched to release their fragrance.

Sweet peas will also grow happily in a pot, trained up a wigwam, to give you not only fragrance but plenty of colour as well. Cut the flowers regularly and put a bunch on your patio table or even indoors if you want the scent inside as well. Cutting is essential with sweet peas if you want more flowers to appear throughout the season, as, if you don't cut them, the flowers will form bean-like pods, which send a message to the plant that flowering is over.

If you're after low-maintenance scent, pots of lavender will provide you with plenty of fragrance as well as attracting bees, and just need shearing to keep neat immediately after flowering. However, keep heavier scents such as lavender separate from other scented plants as otherwise it will dominate the group.

Plants whose scents will blend together beautifully in the border include lilies, phlox, sweet Williams, nicotiana (tobacco plant), sweet peas and nepeta (catmint).

For optimum fragrance, go for old-fashioned varieties of nicotiana, such as N. alata, which folds up its petals during the day and comes to life only at night. Modern dwarf varieties may look better but they don't have as much scent.

Similarly, I prefer old-fashioned roses which are in a bed, as I've never found that patio roses give as much scent-wise. Among my favourite roses for the border is the David Austin English shrub rose, Rosa 'Gertrude Jekyll', which bears stunning large, rosette-shaped pink flowers and has an outstanding perfume, as well as strong stems and a neat, compact shape with flowers produced throughout summer. It can be grown as a climber, reaching a height of around 8ft, and will do well combined with clematis.

Of course, there's also a plethora of scented climbers which are ideal for positioning near a door or pathway, or close to opening windows where their fragrance can be enjoyed from inside too.

Originally posted here:
Heaven scent

The cost of a Dunedin trial of ''sharrows'' - symbols painted on roads to tell motorists the roads are to be shared with cyclists - will be carried by the city council.

The five-month trial, which includes monitoring of how the sharrows are working, will begin next week, when contractors start painting the sharrows - symbols of bicycles with two chevrons above - on parts of George St and King Edward St.

Council transportation planning manager Sarah Connolly said the sharrows - part of a national trial the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) will consider before making them legal road markings - would cost the council $1684 to install and $12,000 to monitor during the five-month trial.

Monitoring involves video recordings, counters, surveys of road users and gathering feedback from businesses and residents.

If the trial was not successful and the sharrows needed to be removed, which she hoped would not be necessary, there would be an additional cost of $9000.

All the money was coming from existing transportation budgets, which are partly funded by the NZTA.

Councils applied to take part in the trial.

The sharrows would be painted in the lanes where vehicles would have to drive over them, as per guidance from Auckland Transport, which was also taking part in the trial, Ms Connolly said.

Auckland Transport had advised it was important vehicles travelled over the sharrows so their intended meaning, that the road was to be shared by motorists and cyclists, was realised.

''If drivers are able to drive past or around the sharrow, I don't think the intent of the marking rings true for drivers, and the markings stray into indicating a safe place for cyclists to ride, not that the road space is shared with drivers.''

See the article here:
Council to carry cost of sharrows, monitoring

The crack on a steel girder on the underside of the westbound Interstate 70 bridge over the Patapsco River was so small that it wouldn't catch the eye of most.

But within a half-hour of a bridge cleaning-and-painting contractor spotting it, a structural engineer with the State Highway Administration was on scene, and the bridge was closed to traffic.

About 100,000 vehicles travel over the bridge daily, and all were detoured for two days earlier this month as repairs were made. SHA Administrator Melinda Peters said her agency is "very conservative" when it comes to assessing bridge safety, and was "erring on the side of caution."

The decision to immediately put contractors to work shoring up the bridge was also in line with the agency's evolving modus operandi, officials said, of using newly available resources to bring an ever-increasing number of bridges into good condition before small issues become major problems.

"We've really been able to kick that up," said Earle "Jock" Freedman, longtime director of the SHA's Office of Structures, including bridges.

Local concerns about deteriorating infrastructure have increased recently following the collapse of a large retaining wall in Charles Village and the recent closure of Interstate 495 in Wilmington after the discovery of serious damage to several bridge supports there. The brief closure of I-70, as a result, led to more questions than normal from the already concerned public, said Valerie Burnette Edgar, a SHA spokeswoman.

But in Maryland in recent years, cause for concern should actually be going down, SHA officials said, because significant progress has been made improving the condition of state-maintained bridges largely thanks to dramatic increases in annual bridge repair funding, including from the state.

"We've really been getting good funding," Freedman said. "We've gotta be looking at these bridges and finding potential [problems] rather than reacting to things that we didn't expect."

"If you don't take care of your house, you're going to have problems," said Rod Thornton, the SHA's division chief of bridge design and rehabilitation, on the agency's "preventative measures" approach.

According to SHA data, funding for "Bridge System Preservation" has jumped from $62.2 million in fiscal 2002 to $176.1 million in fiscal 2014. In the same period, the number of "structurally deficient" bridges in the state fell from 148 to 81 or about 3 percent of the 2,700 bridges the state is responsible for, Freedman said.

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State making progress on bridge upkeep with increased funding

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by Agence France-Presse Posted on 06/18/2014 2:53 PM |Updated 06/18/2014 3:32 PM

OUTRAGE. Netizens are angry over this commercial by Hong Leong bank for domestic helper insurance. The ad depicts a Filipina maid with orange skin named 'Maria'. Screenshot from YouTube

HONG KONG A "racist" insurance commercial depicting a male Chinese actor as a Filipina maid has drawn outrage on social media in Hong Kong, with groups representing the city's legions of domestic helpers calling for an apology.

Aimed at the employers of Hong Kong's 300,000 maids, who mainly hail from the Philippines and Indonesia, the domestic helper insurance advertisement for Malaysia's Hong Leong Bank shows the Chinese actor wearing dark orange make-up and a curly wig as he plays clumsy maid "Maria." (READ: Tortured maid, migrant workers and Hong Kong)

Hong Leong did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the bank appeared to have removed the link to the advertisement from its website on Wednesday.

"I think they should make a public apology," Eni Lestari, spokeswoman for the Asian Migrants' Coordinating Body, told Agence France-Presse, describing the ad as "very racist". "You are making comedy out of someone, out of a community," she said. "For (Hong Kong residents) it's funny, but what they don't realise is what's funny is actually racist."

She questioned why the bank did not hire someone from Indonesia or the Philippines to play the maid.

Others took to Twitter and Facebook to blast the ad.

"You guys should really take down that ad and apologize for it... It's really not appropriate for a professional representation of your financial services," Kahlil Stultz wrote on the bank's Facebook page.

"Why do you have to solidify the omnipresent racial and cultural stereotypes that are hurting so many people?" added Marcin Rutecki.

Link:
Netizens outraged at 'racist' ad depicting Filipina maid

Cincinnati, OH (PRWEB) June 17, 2014

TruBlue Total House Care has expanded to include a new leader at the helm. The company has brought on Mark Cottle as TruBlues Chief Operating Officer.

TruBlue specializes in providing complete house care, including maid services, home improvement, repair services, lawn care and more. TruBlue also works with real estate professionals, general contractors and property managers to maintain homes and rental properties, improve curb appeal, make final preparations to sell homes and more.

Im excited to be part of the TruBlue team. The services this company provides really serve a huge cross section of the population and the concept is very strong. I bounced the services around with a few people while I was considering the opportunity and they all wanted to know how to get involved, Cottle said.

Prior to joining the TruBlue team, Cottle was the director of franchise operations for N-Hance Wood Renewal for close to six years. Before that, he worked with Devere International and Harris Research. In his most recent role, Cottle was responsible for leading the team that grew the brand to more than 320 independently owned franchises, built franchise network partnerships with companies like Home Depot, collaborated in the development of a suite of tools for franchisors and more. Cottle is relocating to Cincinnati with his wife Natalie and their three children.

TruBlue is part of the Strategic Franchising Systems family, which also includes Home Helpers, Direct Link, Fresh Coat Painters, Caring Transitions and The Growth Coach. TruBlue launched in 2011 and is the companys youngest franchise.

With TruBlue, Im coming in at the ground level to build the brand from the ground up. We have a few franchise owners around the country and this is our chance to create a solid foundation for future growth. Im hoping my experience can help us add some best practices to the TruBlue system and create a heightened level of business intelligence to the brand growth process, Cottle said.

Im looking to come in and work with the team to create a solid, turn-key operation thats profitable and easy for the franchisees to operate while providing a needed service for seniors and busy adults, he added.

Strategic Franchising Systems Executive Vice President Bernie Brozek is excited to have Cottle on the team of the budding brand.

I worked with Mark when I was COO of N-Hance and was lucky to bring such a talented young man to Strategic Franchising, he said. Mark brings the enthusiasm and background necessary to take this brand to the next level. He was the perfect choice to continue to make this brand profitable and stimulate a growth mode for the future.

Read the rest here:
Mark Cottle to Lead TruBlue Franchise

Hong Leong Insurance's ad was deemed as a "racist" for using a male Chinese actor to play a Pinay maid.

HONG KONG - A "racist" insurance commercial depicting a male Chinese actor as a Filipina maid has drawn outrage on social media in Hong Kong, with groups representing the city's legions of domestic helpers calling for an apology.

Aimed at the employers of Hong Kong's 300,000 maids, who mainly hail from the Philippines and Indonesia, the domestic helper insurance advert for Malaysia's Hong Leong Bank shows the Chinese actor wearing dark orange make-up and a curly wig as he plays clumsy maid "Maria".

Hong Leong did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the bank appeared to have removed the link to the advertisement from its website on Wednesday.

"I think they should make a public apology," Eni Lestari, spokeswoman for the Asian Migrants' Coordinating Body, told AFP, describing the ad as "very racist".

"You are making comedy out of someone, out of a community," she said. "For (Hong Kong residents) it's funny, but what they don't realize is what's funny is actually racist."

She questioned why the bank did not hire someone from Indonesia or the Philippines to play the maid.

Others took to Twitter and Facebook to blast the advert.

"You guys should really take down that ad and apologize for it... It's really not appropriate for a professional representation of your financial services," Kahlil Stultz wrote on the bank's Facebook page.

"Why do you have to solidify the omnipresent racial and cultural stereotypes that are hurting so many people?" added Marcin Rutecki.

More here:
'Racist' ad shows Chinese actor as Pinay maid in HK