OC residents decide to wait for new furniture

While reports of dire home sales are all over the news, its amazing to think how the average home owner can succumb to the media hype. Dont get me wrong if home sales are sliding, they are sliding, but if you purchase your home as a place for your family to live and not as a 14 month investment, time is historically on your side. A new article from the OC Register reports that home furnishings companies in Orange County are seeing foot traffic slow down, but most are looking for a swift recovery.

NEW BUSINESS MODEL

Cordova, the housekeeper, is skittish as she watches home sales and prices fall.

"We're spending less," she said. "We're buying just want we need."

She needs new window blinds and, on a recent afternoon, she stopped by the Home Depot in Santa Ana, and then at a nearby Anna's Linens, to compare prices.

"I go here and there looking for deals," she said.

She'll take the Anna's Linens blinds because they're cheaper. Aggressive pricing is one strategy Anna's is employing to offset the negative housing impact on its business. It also recently started expanding its merchandise mix by carrying the Veratex bedding and bath brand. The same Veratex comforter set that goes for $299 to $399 elsewhere sells for $99 at Anna's, said Scott Gladstone, chief operating officer.

That new Veratex ad ran on television, a marketing medium Anna's entered late last year to reach a broader audience, including Macy's and Pottery Barn shoppers who are pinched by the slowing housing market. The TV ads are working, including in Orange County where the Anna's brand awareness is low, Gladstone said. The 250-store chain only has five locations here.

"We're seeing a lot of south Orange County residents driving up to our store in Santa Ana," said Gladstone, explaining why the company will open its first south Orange County store.

Gladstone declined to give specific numbers for the privately held company, but said business is good. If the company didn't change its strategies, he said, "Anna's would face a difficult retail environment." Full article.

Crossville Decos Gallery

Below you will find a few Crossville Decos from their website:

What are Crossville Decos?

Crossville Design

From time to time, I will get a client that has a specific design in mind and really only needs me to cook the recipe. One such client had a great affection for Crossville Decos in their remodeling job, which got me to thinking I should incorporate certain questions on my blog as a knowledge base. Below you can read more about these special decos. Enjoy.

Crossville decos incorporate a technique in order to compensate for the ceramic tile's immediate susceptibility in terms of handling tension. When properly integrated, Crossville decos are strong and durable enough to sustain floors and major floorings longer than what an ordinary ceramic tile can give.

The process of manufacturing and production of Crossville decos are normally done in three ways:

a) Tensioned Crossville decos are bonded and integrated around tensioned tendons. This technique creates a strong and tough combination of tendon and Crossville decos. The tile is able to secure the tendon from unnecessary damage and tension is safely handled by the tendons.

b) Bonded Crossville decos use the technique of the integration of the process of compression after the tile is placed and secured. The Crossville decos are bonded with steel, and the tendons are tensioned by hydraulic jacks that react against the tile member itself.

c) Unbonded Crossville decos undergo a unique and revolutionized process where each tendon is able to move in accordance to the shape or structure of the tile. For this to happen, each tendon is applied with a specialized grease and protected by a sheathing formed in an extrusion process.

Crossville decos are known for their distinct characteristics that separate them from other ordinary ceramic tiles. These include:

A) Consistency

Crossville decos are able to take the shape of the mold easily without any significant effects on its consistency as compared to reinforced concrete. In ordinary ceramic decos a significant level of water has to be used for them to take the shape of their molds. Add the fact that it is often very hard to measure the appropriate amount of water that will make ordinary ceramic decos bond with the steel reinforcement.

B) Overall Strength and Durability

The overall strength of Crossville decos is determined through its water-cement ratio. Since Crossville decos have a lower water-ceramic ratio than ordinary ceramic decos, the former makes a stronger deco than the latter.

C) Elasticity

Due to the reduction of its tensile stress, Crossville decos are more elastic than ordinary ceramic decos.

The usage of Crossville decos translates to many advantages. First, there are minimal construction costs as compared to the usage of ordinary ceramic tiles. Second, since Crossville decos make use of thinner slabs, then the floor thickness savings can be transformed into additional floors. Third, the usage of Crossville decos often translates to an increased floor space in establishments. Lastly, since the usage of Crossville decos significantly reduces the number of joints, this translates to the reduction in maintenance costs over the design life of an establishment.

On the other hand, buildings and establishments made under the foundations of poorly constructed Crossville decos are susceptible to damages. Poorly constructed Crossville decos dry faster than usual. This leads to the possibility that the tile may shrink due to evaporation. When this happens, the foundations of the establishment are put under tremendous stress, resulting in the formation of cracks within the tendons leading to its collapse.

Berenson Hardware: More Information

Berenson Hardware
For all sized households and establishments, changes in the way they perceive cabinets and furniture will be a constant because of the emergence of Berenson hardware. Technological advances in Berenson hardware, including non-technical ones, are coming more quickly than ever before, thereby affecting all aspects of a typical cabinet or furniture.

As modern technological innovations in the manufacturing and designing of cabinets and furniture progresses, there are increasing pressures on Berenson to create a new type of hardware applicable to both. The current users of Berenson hardware will experience a transition that will fragment it into myriad on-site and off-site households and establishments. Not only will the cabinets and furniture change dramatically because of Berenson hardware, but there will also be a need for support systems to support the new innovations brought along by Berenson hardware.

More specifically, there will be a need for new types of housing designs that focus on discovering the purpose of Berenson hardware that responds to the changing environments in most households and establishments. Although past and current cabinet and furniture hardware have served the needs of most households and establishments, newer types of cabinet and furniture hardware are emerging, and Berenson hardware will be at the forefront of these newer types of cabinet and furniture hardware found in a typical household or establishment. An important goal of Berenson hardware is to provide superior comfort and pleasure to its users by giving people the necessary cabinet and furniture hardware patterns and trends that affect their lives.

Berenson hardware is capable of making comparisons of other cabinet and furniture hardware. This is because Berenson hardware was manufactured through the analysis of existing trends on what people want to see on their cabinets and furniture, and with further considerations on historical and current knowledge on cabinet and furniture technologies. But more importantly, the existence of Berenson hardware enables people to analyze and understand the cabinet and furniture patterns and designs quickly and identify the most significant trends based on their own preferences. As such, Berenson hardware offers an accurate predictive method for consumers.

For example, the Andante collection possesses the essential elements of an excellent cabinet and furniture hardware for the consumer’s pleasure, which is valuable in assessing whether or not the cabinet and furniture hardware are meeting their objectives and goals. On the other hand, the Encore collection can assist people in making better informed decisions concerning cost-effective cabinet and hardware that affect all aspects of a household or establishment’s operations.

Berenson hardware follows the same basic principles as traditional commerce that is, consumers come together to search for the best and quality cabinet and furniture hardware. In some cases, consumers can immediately obtain a cabinet and furniture hardware, only to become disappointed later on. In purchasing Berenson hardware, they offer a way to cut the costs of consumers and expand their markets. Because Berenson hardware is available all over the globe, consumers have the potential to freely choose their preferred Berenson hardware products or services globally and are not limited by the physical location of a store.

Ceiling Lights

Signature Design Center Original Content:

Ceiling Lights

Ceiling lights have the capability to provide sources of lighting across a given environment while being attached in a ceiling. Ceiling lights are very effective lighting sources over certain dim and dark places and diversifies the methods of illumination for a variety of purposes.

With these things in mind, the importance of efficient ceiling lights comes to the fore. This is because in order for the ceiling lights to give their best lighting, the proper positioning of the ceiling lights have to taken into consideration through the use of world-class ceiling light kits. Without the presence of proper distances and positioning of the ceiling lights the brightness of the lights will not be felt and the resulting environment will remain vague and dim.

Different factors are needed in the selection and installation of ceiling lights. These things include lighting and meters, the type of environment, lighting equipment and other lighting factors needed in the area. To install these ceiling lights one thing that must be put into consideration is the cost of these ceiling lights. In any household or establishment the cost of the ceiling lights they purchase and use are important. Households and establishments don’t want to incur high electricity or maintenance costs just because of ceiling lights. They will tend to do everything they can so that the cost on purchasing and using ceiling lights will be minimized.

There are various types of ceiling lights that can be used. These are:

1. Bathroom ceiling lights, used mostly to illuminate large bathrooms that require tremendous brightness to give a certain positive environment;
2. Kitchen ceiling lights, one of the most in demand ceiling lights because of its flexibility and durability that makes the illumination in the kitchen more brilliant and colorful; and
3. Fluorescent ceiling lights, the most common ceiling lights being used today because of they are rechargeable, and in case of power outage they give plain and simple lighting.

Because the lights are attached to the ceiling and thus they do not have complicated wiring systems, the household or establishment can choose the proper area for the installation of ceiling lights, whether to place them in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the living room, in the conference room or anywhere suitable. Either way, the household or establishment can be assured of getting the same effectiveness and productivity while at the same time having a significantly greater satisfaction in terms of the level of brightness.

For many years ceiling lights were the domain of lighting systems, especially since they these ceiling lights were able to guarantee that any need for lighting inside a household or establishment would be satisfied. This worked well for most households and establishments, and they could all even afford savings in electricity and maintenance. However, in recent years ceiling lights have also become more difficult to maintain. As the number of lighting technologies grew in response to various lighting needs, a single flexible ceiling light proved to be very inefficient. Also, most ceiling light systems consist of a whole suite of wiring systems operating together, as opposed to a strict model where the single lighting source could handle the lighting process. Nevertheless, ceiling lights will significantly bolster the lighting needs of households and establishments when successfully installed.