Despite a slumping economy, home improvements remain a popular investment for homeowners. With paint rollers and hammers in hand, they’re getting the most out of their home-improvement dollar with do-it-yourself projects that make a dramatic difference.

Three-quarters of Americans and Canadians plan to renovate this year, even though only one in 10 homeowners plan to sell their homes, according to the fourth edition of the annual KILZ Roller Report. Read more » »

Most of us have developed a unique personal style and we know what fashions work for us. But when it comes to decorating or remodeling our homes, particularly our kitchens and bathrooms, style preferences can be harder to pin down.

“Consumers are spending more time — and money — to customize kitchens and bathrooms,” says Ginny Long, director of online and direct marketing for Moen. So how can you identify your personal decorating style to incorporate it into these rooms?
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Lisa Spencer, a Whatcom County interior designer with experience serving residential and commercial clients, recently launched Lisa Spencer Interiors.

Spencer has been an owner and co-owner of an interior-design business in the county for 12 years. She previously worked as a managing senior designer for a firm in Carmel, Calif., and as the primary consulting designer and coordinator for The Pebble Beach Company Resort and Golf Course on California’s Monterrey Peninsula.

Lisa Spencer Interiors offers a variety of services, providing turn-key service for new construction, renovation projects and model homes that covers design coordination, planning, budgeting, purchasing and installation.

Bob’s Discount Furniture, a fast growing furniture retailer in the northeast, with stores in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, announced the grand opening of the 30th Bob’s Discount Furniture location to take place in the Crossroads Shopping Plaza in Bellingham, Massachusetts on Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 10 a.m.
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Zeroing in on one portion of the health care market and doing it well has paid off for Cindy Heit-Welch. As president and majority owner of Centerville-based Gem City Home Care, she has led the company to a jump in revenue, a pending relocation to a larger office and a healthy optimism about the future.

Heit-Welch opened the company seven years ago with a plan. Having two health care businesses behind her, one in Dallas in the 1990s and another in Dayton later that decade, Heit-Welch had the experience and a strategy to grow her third firm to high revenues.
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