Social worker, toymaker, newspaper writer, carpenter, massage therapist, dishwasher, grant writer, musician. Name a job, Todd Samusson probably has done it before.

I just cant do the same thing for a long time, says the 62-year-old, from the shaded patio of his front lawn in the Mount Tabor neighborhood of Southeast Portland.

The son of an army engineer, Samusson grew up tinkering with his fathers tools and lived in Morocco, Virginia and Texas before settling in Portland with his wife, Paula Manley, in 1988.

Since moving to Portland, Samusson has added a new occupation to his rsum: garbage collector. And then he turns it into art.

I probably went to a hundred garage sales in the course of a five-year period. I just like the look of old things and rust, Samusson says.

It all started 15 years ago, when a piece of garbage caught Samussons eye one day while he was remodeling a nearby house. There was a piece of junk, a metal flange like the type that comes out of vents, he recounts. I kept looking at it in the pile of debris every day and thinking Im going to take that home and do something with it.

And then came Bob

After some hammering, flattening, bending and sewing, that metal flange became the mouth of Bob, a metal mask made of an oven pan, a tin can, a few copper pipes and two beaten-down pennies. And after Bob, the deluge.

It opened up a whole new world, Samusson says. You cut something at an angle and all of a sudden you look at it differently.

Samusson started looking at a lot of things differently.

Excerpt from:
From junk to art

Foster City, Calif. (PRWEB) August 11, 2014

When it comes to home improvements enhancing marital bliss, a dream kitchen is the top addition on the wish list of Americans, according to a new survey of 2,000 homeowners by HSH.com.

A bigger yard, finished basement, walk-in closets and a man cave were other popular answers.

Here is how married individuals ranked their most desired home improvements:

1.Dream kitchen 23.39% 2.Bigger yard 19.06% 3.Finished basement 16.46% 4.His & hers walk-in closets 15.23% 5.Man cave 13.72% 6.Two master bathrooms 12.20% 7.Two master bedrooms 9.96%

While 58.7 percent of respondents said that a bigger house would also equal happier children, 58.6 percent said that a larger abode wouldnt necessarily mean theyd be having more kids.

These improvements dont come cheap, though, with a state-of-the-art kitchen costing $109,935, according to Remodeling.com.

"At least in this case, happiness costs money," said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com. "Some of these bliss-inducing improvements will require either deep pockets or a deep equity position and the use of a home equity loan or line of credit to make them come true. If the project will require extensive renovations, a 'home improvement mortgage' such as the FHA 203K or a Fannie Mae HomeStyle Renovation mortgage may be the vehicle to achieve some of these happiness goals. Of course, some desired 'improvements', such as a larger yard, might only be realized by finding a new home."

While a dream kitchen was the top answer both overall and for women, a man cave was the No. 1 addition that husbands would like to see. In fact, each gender had polar opposite rankings of what improvements would make them the happiest.

Mens top improvements:

Link:
A Quarter of Americans Believe a Dream Kitchen Would Make Marriage Happier

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By Mark Rutkowski Special to Press & Guide Newspapers

More than 60 years later, he admits that dream he had has been realized more than he could have ever imagined.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Italy American Construction, a company Armando started out of the basement of his home with one truck, less than $1,000 and a belief he could always do better.

I was married, and I told my wife I had nothing to lose, recalled Armando, who, at 86, still is in the office regularly. I had $600 or $700 and a used pickup.

What started primarily as a cement contracting company is today a full-service construction and remodeling business with offices at 8401 Telegraph Road. The company employs several crews who handle all aspects of residential and commercial work.

We are continuing to grow, said Antonio Mastroianni, another son and partner.

It most certainly wasnt that way in the beginning. Although he had experience working for a brother-in-law, Armando spoke little English and had no way of getting the word out that he was looking for business. With the help of a nephew, he answered a classified ad seeking a cement man.

The prospective employer asked if he was any good and to prove his abilities, Armando took a chance that would be hard to imagine today: He offered to do a garage floor and foundation for a new home on Linden Street. If the man placing the ad didnt like Armandos work, he said he didnt have to pay him. If he did like it, they could discuss other jobs.

The next day he called me, Armando said. I was afraid I was going to lose everything. He asked how many jobs I could take, so I took about four or five more jobs. Thats how it started.

The company continued to grow from that point on, and in the late 1960s, Frank Mastroianni started spending summers doing what kids do, namely helping in the family business. He later became a partner in the company, as did his brother, Antonio, in the mid-1980s. In more recent years, a third generation Franks son, Michael has joined the business. Continued...

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Italy American Construction company celebrates 60 years

August 6, 2014

Students in the organization Rebuilding Green, which grew out of the Green Buildings and Green Remodeling course taught last fall, work on the labyrinth they are building west of Boe Memorial Chapel.

In a new environmental studies course taught last fall, students learned about green building and remodeling techniques. This summer, a group of those students is putting that knowledge into action on campus.

The course, called Green Buildings and Green Remodeling, was co-taught by Associate Professor of ChemistryandEnvironmental Studies Paul Jackson 92 and Assistant Vice President for Facilities Pete Sandberg. As their final project for the course, students created a plan to renovate Swanson House, currently used as the Norwegian language honor house, to make it more environmentally sound.

Now theyre carrying out that plan, as well as several other ideas to make the St. Olaf campus more sustainable, such as constructing a labyrinth on the Hill and restoring avegetable garden behind another honor house.

We wanted to create an opportunity for students in the course to take their collaborative ideas to the implementation phase, says Jackson. It is one thing to test them on a paper and another to actually translate their knowledge into practice and to do so creatively and collaboratively.

Matt Johnson 14 (left) and Regan Keller 14 work on the labyrinth they are building west of Boe Memorial Chapel with the organization Rebuilding Green.

Sandberg was able to include a team of summer interns in the budget for the Swanson House renovations, and when he and Jackson proposed the idea to the class, the response was overwhelming.

When we asked the class how many would be interested in exploring such an opportunity, about 90 percent of the students said yes, says Jackson. Out of that interest group we ended up with a group of eight for whom the logistics and interest level worked well.

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Students put theory into practice on campus renovations

The future remains uncertain for the partially demolished three-story mansion at 360 Mountain Home Road in Woodside. The mansion made news in 2012 when it was sold for $117.5 million, a new U.S. record for a single-family home, according to news reports at the time.

The town's Planning Commission deadlocked on July 31 over what to do about the unauthorized removal of the first floor and first-floor framing as part of what was described in a staff report as a "simple remodel."

The town's stop-work order has been in place since July 3, and the mansion's second and third floors have been resting on steel beams in mid-air above a hole in the ground.

Should work be allowed to continue, but with added conditions? Or should the owner be forced to seek new permits based on what staff now considers a demolition? Both questions were voted on by the seven-member Planning Commission, and both received 3-3 votes, leaving the property owner with two paths forward: canceling the project or appealing to the Town Council. The deadline for an appeal is Monday, Aug. 11. An appeal is expected.

Commissioner Aydan Kutay was absent.

Staff reports list the owner of the 8.74-acre property as SV Projects LLC. The owner has been represented in public meetings by the Mill Valley firm Van Acker Construction Associates, and by attorney John Hanna of the Palo Alto firm Hanna & Van Atta.

What happened?

The 7,423-square-foot mansion was completed in 2009. The 2013 remodeling plans included replacing wooden siding with stone, expanding the basement, and replacing the roofs with gray slate.

While the 2009 home was considered by the Architectural and Site Review Board and the Planning Commission as "inconsistent" with the town's design criteria, the limited scope of proposed changes in 2013 led to the town's permission to expand the house, including adding 400 square feet of floor space.

The project was presented to the town by the applicant as a "simple remodel, with recladding and small additions," according to a staff report.

Excerpt from:
Woodside council likely to decide mansion's fate

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