Author: Dan Hathaway

We recently wrapped up six months on a custom home project – the full trim package with the main focus being on the custom designed staircase which went very well.  As these types of jobs are prone to do the scope of work took on a life of it’s own and we found ourselves doing all the stain work followed by all the paint prep thru-out the whole house.

This project was a good experience for us in that since we have been doing our own general contracting for the last eight years we had forgotten how challenging it can be to work a large project with other contractors all doing their own thing!  Very enlightening!

With any luck we be able to access the job again soon and get pictures of the finished product so that we can post them here.

The investment house was finished during the course of the large project and has been listed for sale for ten weeks or so – sluggish market though so we are trying to be patient with the process. Sweat equity gains a whole new meaning when you are busy and still trying to put some time in on an investment property – …..so… we have taken on another house that we will be renting for a time until the market levels out a little bit.

Starting in December we will be exploring opportunities in Northwest Arkansas as well as still operating in the Kansas City Kansas/Missouri areas. Change is very exciting and we are looking forward to exploring the options being presented to us!

Time appears to be flying by! Seems like it was just last week that we were preparing to move to our new home/office and now it is two months later!  Things are heating up and jobs are coming in, some that were bid before the Holidays just all of a sudden resurfaced in the last week or so, and for the second year we have been invited back to the Royal’s Stadium to help them get ready for the new season and the upcoming All Star Game.

Just a quick note – Johnson County “Class A” General Contractor License # 2012-6382 was acquired last week – we will be obtaining Jackson County and Kansas City licenses as soon as we recover from our move to a new home and office location in the next couple weeks.

Hope everyone had a great Holiday Season!

As always December is proving to be an interesting month!   As with most companies this time of year we are getting our share of  customers who want something in their house “tweaked a bit” before company comes a calling, along with last minute preparations for Winter, which makes scheduling something of a minute to minute contact sport!

We finally got word back from the insurance people and are on track for upgrading the licenses immediately after the Holidays, this is expected to open up a couple doors for us in the category of being able to cater to a couple of contacts who can bring in some larger and more challenging projects for us!

Progress on the investment house has been slowly moving along due to our workload but we will be meeting with an interested investor next week – if all goes well on that front it may be crunch time for a week or so to get all the loose ends tied up there, as well as getting busy looking for the next one to take on – cautiously optimistic on this endeavor.

For those of you who have been waiting for new pictures to be posted – Sorry for the delay!  Hope to have time during the Holiday break to get those posted and we are trying to set a day next week to have the photographer do a shoot on our last completed kitchen, we will get that spread posted as soon as possible.

Luciano, (the other half of our brain-trust), will be getting back from Brazil the second week of January just in time for us to gear up for the new year which looks to be a time of change and growth as we may be doing some re-organizing within the company structure, namely some systems refinement, and sharpening our focus on the overall business plan – those who cannot adapt perish – so we will be adapting in order to make the most of the current economic climate.

Final note – Please check out our link for American Made Products for your home – the best way to improve our economy is to keep as many of the jobs as we can right here at home!  The job you save may be your own!

It has been a busy month!  Kitchen remodel is complete and turned out very nice – exceeded the customer’s expectations by a long shot! We will be using the services of a new professional photographer to do a spread for us in the hopes that it may bring her work and will also showcase our talents, all in keeping with our belief  in contributing to the local community.

Our second kitchen project this month is ready for cabinets and granite and will be completed around December 1st,  we will be completing our second bathroom remodel on the 28th, and  a new roof  project will be taking place on the 30th. In the midst of this we have also managed to get the mechanical systems up and running in the investment house, along with counter-tops being  installed and the remaining floors ready for carpet and tile.

The Solar Power Workshop was a success as we learned a lot about a growing Green technology while completing the installation of a 4KW solar array on one of our fellow area small businesses – very exciting stuff!  We have discovered that like most educational opportunities this is just the beginning in our endeavor to expand our knowledge base along with allowing us to offer more services to our customers.

Also in the interest of furthering or goal as a growing company, we will be upgrading our licenses to Class “A” General Contractor as soon as we can get our insurance upgraded and have the opportunity to get all of the applications in and processed, and hope to have this accomplished by January 1st.

Remember to periodically check the Facebook page as we will be posting pictures there that do not make it to the website, and we now have a new blog link so that you can subscribe to news from the website itself.

Complete kitchen remodel started and will run through the end of the month, pictures to follow soon – during the kitchen job,  progress on the first investment house has ground to a halt although we have managed to get it into pretty good shape so far – baths, kitchen, and entire main living areas are close to completion and with a little more time we will be able to get the house listed for sale while we complete the mechanical systems and miscellaneous items.

We will be attending classes on designing and installing Solar Power systems for residences during the month and hope to be able to offer this service soon after – this class will instruct us on all parts including design, installation, paperwork processing for tax credits, and working with power companies in order to sell back unused power – we are very excited to explore this new area of technology and the business opportunities it will open up for us!

We are also waiting on confirmation for acceptance of our most recent  bid on another house and hope to acquire and close on it around the end of November – if all goes well we will be trying a different approach with this one and be able to fine tune our strategy for future endeavors.