More than 50 years ago, Robert and the late Virgie Kinch bought a 1928 farmhouse nestled in seven wooded acres. Together they made it their own. They removed walls to create a spacious, open floor plan, and added cedar-shake siding to the exterior. They planted a lush vegetable garden and cultivated an orchard that includes apple, pear, pecan and walnut trees, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries — and a Japanese persimmon tree with fruit as big as tangerines. The yard is a testament to Virgie, a master gardener who taught horticulture at Forsyth Tech and started the annual greenhouse plant ..read more

Renovating your home is a choice, but sometimes the decision is made out of necessity. That was the case for Dr. Burton Reifler and wife Frances, whose renovation projects started with a broken step. It began one day when Mrs. Reifler was taking out the trash. . As she descended the stairs of her home’s wooden deck, a step broke underneath her foot. The potentially dangerous situation prompted the couple to replace the wooden deck with a solid deck. Realizing the large scope of the project, they looked to professionals for the job. Residents of Winston-Salem since 1987, the Reiflers knew the name ..read more

“I wouldn’t have done anything different,” says Dolores Rider about her kitchen renovation by DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen of Winston-Salem, a division of Anderson-Moore Builders, Inc.  Although the couple liked the house, they were not crazy about what Dolores describes as the 1980s look of the kitchen. They knew they wanted to overhaul the kitchen, but were uncertain which remodeling company to hire. “Since we were new to the area, we did not have the database of local knowledge that comes with living in the area for several years,” Dolores explains. When the time came to renovate, the ..read more

In the last week, I could tell I was getting one of those minor sicknesses floating around. I went running in the morning and about a quarter mile from my house, I was thinking, “Man, this is going to be tough run, for some reason.” I ran for about 45 more minutes. The whole time I was running, I was trying to think of why I felt so bad. Was I not eating properly, did I have some soda the day before, maybe I didn’t sleep enough the night before. All I know was I couldn’t wait to finish this run! When I got back to my house, I was flat worn out. I didn’t eat much for breakfast and then when I g ..read more

Recently, something reminded me of a story about Lilian Gordy Carter, Jimmy Carter’s mother. I remember watching this on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, so it was quite a few years ago. Johnny was asking Mrs. Carter about her son, Jimmy. She was probably in her 80’s at the time. She walked out onto the stage and the audience gave her a long applause. She and Johnny said the typical pleasantries. He welcomed her to the show and she said it was nice to see him again. Then Johnny did what he was so good at doing, having fun with his guests. It was quite a show. If you remember, one of the th ..read more

This past week, I was in Raleigh for some State Home Builders meetings. I stayed overnight in a hotel room and the next morning, I watched news. I don’t have television at my house, so watching the news is something I don’t do very often. All I heard about were all these bad things going on in the world. Here were the topics of the 8:00 news: • Video of a plan crashing into a shopping center where 4 people were killed • The security breach at the TSA and how that affects travelers • A discussion on the security advisor President Trump selected • The travel ban for various Muslim countries • FB ..read more

I’ve received some positive feedback regarding my Best Of comments, so I thought I’d discuss some more items I think are the best. The best thing we can do individually is simply helping another person. The community in which I live is a small, rural community in Surry County. I belong to an organization called the Ruritan Club, it’s like the Civitan club, but just out in the rural areas of our country. All we do is raise money to give to those in need within our community. I heard a long time member (I think he’s been a member for over 45 years) describe the fundamentals of our Ruritan Club ..read more

Today I’m going to discuss 8 items clients are looking for in bathrooms and kitchens. Number 1 – Having an open floor plan. This has been around a while and isn’t fading. Homeowners are looking for connected spaces that allow visibility and interaction across the living areas Number 2 – Making it pop with color. Whites and grays are still popular in baths and kitchens, but our clients are starting to venture outside of this color palette. We’re seeing more and more people choosing to go with a different color for the island cabinetry or even having the base cabinets be a different color than t ..read more

This is a unit that will provide purified drinking water by taking water out of the air. It produces a few gallons a day. See the link below Home The post February 2017 Product of the Month appeared first on DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen ..read more

Well, I guess this is what happens when you have been brainwashed to think like an engineer – I end up discussing calculators!! I have often said most regular calculators do math incorrectly, while scientific calculators do it properly. The correct process to do math is you do multiplication and division first, then you do addition and subtraction. So here is an example: 2+3×4. If you put this into a regular calculator, the answer you will receive is 20. This regular calculator simply does the math left to right. 2+3=5, then 5×4=20. Now, a scientific calculator will do the multiplication first ..read more