Got Porches? Here are some motorized solutions for your porch.
I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

By: ronswindowsinc

View post:
Got Porches? Here are some motorized solutions for your porch. - Video

Q: How can I perk up my porch?

A: The porch is an architectural concept that has been in existence since prehistoric times. It can be traced back to overhanging rock shelters. The modern porch concept dates to ancient Greece.

In America, front porches have long been a cultural symbol of our love of nature. By creating a kind of outdoor living space, porches have become a way to greet guests and socialize with neighbors. They range from formal porticos to homey sitting areas above the front stoop.

If youve been feeling like your porch is starting to look, well, ancient, here are some surefire ways to create a space that is as functional as it is inviting.

Dress up your porch with a couple of comfy seats. Any room, even an outside one, should be furnished in a way that creates conversation areas.

Depending on your view and your preference, position the seats to look out or to face each other.

If your porch isnt protected from the elements, furniture with weatherproof fabric is a way to bring color, comfort and style to your space.

Add a table or two and dont be afraid to get creative.

Overturned crates, an old metal trunk dressed with colorful place mats, even a short bench can serve as a table.

Anything that can handle the elements and gives you enough space to place a book, a drink and perhaps a lamp can add to a look that represents your style.

See the original post here:
Ideas that add character to your porch | HomeWork

Porches thick with dust, vibrating walls, pounding headaches from the noise for four years theyve had it all.

But neighbours on a stub of a residential street that had become a service road for construction vehicles finally have peace proving the squeaky wheel gets the grease, as long as the press hears after one call to the media.

That call to The Free Press came after several pleas to city hall for help during the past two years, said Leigh Maulson, whose Trevithen St. home is one of only three on the dead-end block thats been dealing with heavy machinery since it was upgraded in 2011.

Since that summer, road crews have used a private lot at the end of the road to store supplies and machinery, while working on other roads in the neighbourhood.

From now on, city councillors get one courtesy call, then Im directing my complaints to the media, said Maulson, after learning the contractor would be moving supplies to the boulevards directly surrounding the job site.

This is amazing. Its so quiet. Its fantastic, he said. We can look forward to a summer where we can enjoy the outside of our property without all the dust and noise.

Maulson said neighbours welcomed the original 2011 roadwork, which cost them $2,700 on their property tax bills to upgrade water and sewer lines on their block. They begrudgingly tolerated the return of construction workers a year later, when crews spent much of the summer finishing and fixing problems from the previous year, he said.

But last year they were outraged that supplies for work on streets several blocks away were being kept in the lot, causing a steady stream of construction vehicles to use the block as a service route.

The answer is simple: Convenience. But certainly not fair, the city has suddenly agreed.

That lot is very convenient from a construction perspective because it is so close and a large area, said construction manager Justin Lawrence. But we recognize that three years of construction has a major social impact to these people.

The rest is here:
Trevithen St. residents finally get action from city hall

Trees and hydro poles were snapped, roofs were ripped off, and multiple porches were severely damaged as Ontarios first confirmed tornado of 2014 hit the town of Mildmay Tuesday evening.

Laurie Trelford, the owner of a womens clothing store in Mildmay, was trying to close the store for the evening when the tornado struck.

About 5 p.m. a crazy, crazy wind came up, Trelford told the Star. Ive been on the main street here for 10 years, and I have never seen the wind come like that. It was very creepy, very scary.

A series of strong thunderstorms moved across southern Ontario Tuesday evening, and numerous tornado warnings were issued by Environment Canada.

One of these severe thunderstorms produced a tornado in the Mildmay area, just south of Walkerton in Bruce County.

Geoff Coulson is an Environment Canada meteorologist. He estimates that the tornado happened between 5:15 and 5:30 p.m. and lasted only a matter of seconds, according to radar and eyewitness reports.

The storm itself was over relatively quickly, said Coulson. But it did leave a fair amount of significant damage in its wake.

Winds were estimated to be between 135 and 175 km/h. The width of damage was around 150 metres wide with a length of two kilometres.

No one was injured during the storm, but cleanup efforts are ongoing.

Half of the roof of my cousins house and his barn are damaged, said Trelford, whose own house escaped damage. Its quite a mess.

More:
Trees snapped, roofs torn off in Ontarios first tornado of 2014

MILLSBORO, De. - Neighbors said they saw it all happen from their porches. Workers recently came to the Commons at Raddish Farms, collected goose eggs, and then destroyed them. This was all part of a legal effort to control the goose population, although it's creating some debate in Sussex County.

Geese are an invasive species, and can be destructive to their environment. For that reason the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues permits for people to destroy goose eggs. At the development in Millsboro, the retention pond where they all gather is a common area, and for that reason the local homeowners association oversaw the removal and destruction of these eggs. President Steve McIlvine said the action was necessary for two fundamental reasons. "We have anywhere from 30 and 50 geese sometimes in the summer time," he said. "A few people like them but overall it's a problem. Just with the feces and the health hazards involved with them. Plus they keep the mallards away. The more geese you have, the less mallards you have." It's the latter argument that has created the most concern from The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. An official from DNREC told WBOC that the invasive species can be damaging to other wildlife. They said the population is starting to proliferate in Sussex County.

Some neighbors like Wanda Santarelli are less on board with the actions.

"They're life," she said of the eggs. "And I just don't want them to kill them because I enjoy them every year." DNREC has issued regulations on the destruction of these eggs. Those workers permitted to destroy the eggs need to drop the eggs in a bucket of water in order to see if air has entered the shell or not. If the eggs sink to the bottom, they would have permission to destroy the egg. Meanwhile, if it floated, that would signify that air was entering the shell. In that situation, they would have to leave the egg alone. This testing process is meant to make the elimination process more humane.

McIlviine said the problem was necessary to keep the community clean and safe.

"An adult goose poops every 6 to 8 minutes," he said. "They poop throughout the whole day long. And when you have kids or pets on the walking paths in the community, there are certain health concerns too." This practice goes far beyond just in Millsboro. WBOC reached out to DNREC, which said this is a national problem, but has always been an issue in Delaware.

Continue reading here:
Goose Eggs Destroyed in Millsboro

SINGAPORE: Luxury property developer KOP is perhaps best known for its Hamilton Scotts condominium, where a unit sold for as much as S$24 million.

It was also responsible for developing the Montigo resorts in Bali and Batam.

But the firm is changing its strategy to focus on building mixed-use entertainment centres.

Amid sluggish demand in the high-end property market, KOP said it is now seeing better prospects in a sector it calls "entertainment real estate".

Ong Chih Ching, group CEO of KOP Limited, said: "We think that the world is slightly anti-elitist right now. So as a company, we need to focus and look at what is next. And when we studied the market, we realised that we should go for consumer-type real estate.

I think that entertainment real estate is not something that a lot of the traditional developers have actually looked at, and that's why we think this is a good opportunity for us to enter."

KOP said it may derive ticketing or food and beverage sales from these entertainment venues.

In addition, given the rising popularity of online shopping, KOP said there is a need to give consumers a greater reason to leave their homes - be it for a concert, or for other forms of entertainment.

Ms Ong added: "There is a lot of online retail (these days), so that also will be a challenge, in terms of footfall and traffic to the malls."

Speaking to reporters ahead of its listing on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange on Monday, KOP said its first project in the area of "entertainment real estate" will come in the form of an indoor winter resort in Shanghai, China.

Read the original:
Luxury developer KOP shifts focus to "entertainment real estate"

Sixteen PORCHES. Cover
A little project I #39;ve been working on this past week. Hope you like it.

By: Ian S

Read more here:
Sixteen PORCHES. Cover - Video

Sunrooms, Decks, Garages, Porches and Additions
Otterbeck Builders Sunrooms, Decks, Garages, Porches and Additions, bathrooms and kitchen remodeling.

By: otterbeckbuilders

Read more:
Sunrooms, Decks, Garages, Porches and Additions - Video

May 9, 2014 Stamp Out Hunger Saturday

By BRAD KELLAR Herald-Banner Staff The Herald-Banner Fri May 09, 2014, 10:01 AM CDT

GREENVILLE Once each year, letter carriers collect items from mailboxes and front porches across Hunt County and the United States, in an effort to help assist the hungry in our community.

The 22nd annual National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) National Food Drive to Stamp Out Hunger, the largest one-day food drive in the United States, is Saturday and employees of the Greenville Post Office will participate in the event.

In 2013 the office collected more than 24,000 pounds to be donated to Hunt County Shared Ministries (FISH) and the Salvation Army.

Last year letter carriers across America collected more than 74.4 million pounds of non-perishable food the second-highest amount since the drive began in 1992, bringing the grand total to just under 1.3 billion pounds.

The local drive brought in a couple thousand pounds during its first year, but has collected more than 275,000 pounds of food in the past two decades.

On Saturday carriers in Greenville will collect from the mailboxes and door steps of local homes, with many area churches also planning to take part. Drop boxes are available at each of the local Post Office locations.

Monetary donations to the NALC National Food Drive will also be accepted.

The drive is held annually on the second Saturday in May in over 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Read the original post:
Stamp Out Hunger Saturday

A proposed townhouse development will be a real upgrade on its street in central Bryn Mawr, Lower Merion Townships planning commission agrees, but it has given the developer a long list of items to explore to make it even better.

The properties in question include the Devon Apartments at 859 Old Lancaster Road, two older garden-apartment buildings containing 24 units, which were put up for sale by Main Line Realty Corp., an affiliate of Main Line Health in 2013. Developer JLPH Associates has also acquired neighboring properties at 843 and 847 Old Lancaster, and will consolidate the parcels into a lot of 1.9 acres. All of the structures, including two single-family houses built in the mid- to late-19th century, will be demolished.

Replacing them will be a total 28 units: 12 townhouses set back from the street, and, fronting Old Lancaster Road, a new type of dwelling in the township. The 16 units there will be in the form of quads or stacked twins, as Assistant Director of Planning Chris Leswing described them in a presentation on a tentative sketch plan for the site May 5. That is, along the streetscape, the structures will have the appearance of twin homes, but each half will contain two units, with living space on different levels of the three-story structures.

That unusual configuration led to one of the planners questions: Would there be a market for the new homes?

Sarah Peck, whose Progressive Housing Ventures is a partner in the project, said it could be a nice variety.

With options for elevators, the quads could appeal to older, empty-nesters, or, with the location close to Bryn Mawrs amenities, to first-time homebuyers. She said the quads would be priced in the mid-$400,000s; the somewhat larger townhouses in the low- to mid-$500,000s, in the bulls eye of what the market would like to see, a range appropriate for the neighborhood.

The project as proposed has another feature, nearly unheard-of in Lower Merion for a multifamily development, Leswing noted. In addition to two parking spaces per unit in the homes garages, the plan currently provides 10 guest parking spaces on-site. That led some on the commission to wonder if there isnt too much parking, robbing the development of green or recreational space, or another desirable feature larger porches that would reflect the character of the neighborhood.

Peck had also said an attraction of the homes would be the availability of transit in Bryn Mawr, but planners noted the tight space and multiple breaks along a central driveway for garages made the project seem dominated by parking. Some commission members want one of those items for study before the project comes back for the next stage of review to be eliminating some parking spaces.

Discussion of the plans tied in with another item on the agenda that night. Because the trend of several similar in-fill or redevelopment proposals has been to build to the building envelope, creating larger, boxy structures, Leswing said porches are seen as one feature that could soften their mass and make new construction more compatible with established neigborhoods.

Township commissioners last year adopted a zoning code amendment to permit porches to extend 10 feet into the front-yard setback in R-6A zoning districts, transitional areas near commercial districts. Now a further amendment, triggered both by some recent plans and a recommendation of a committee working toward writing a new Comprehensive Plan, is proposed to apply more broadly. Continued...

Read this article:
Bryn Mawr townhouse plan raises unusual question: Is there too much parking?