4th of July 2010 — What are we doing at home?  What else, but working on our own “curb appeal”, ha!  You know the saying about the shoemaker’s kids and the plumber house or what is it,  wife?  Anyway, we are usually so busy that my driveway is filled with what else . . , the concrete graveyard of tested products?  Thank God my driveway is in the back and not seen but by those invited in back.   We are constantly testing this and that new concrete mixture and of course prototypes for new mold dies.

By FAR the best improvement we have made to our home has been installing our own History Stones Baluster & Rails. We had regular old wooden railing, not attactive, needing painting and not at all appropriate for a Mediterranean architectural style.  We’ll get out the camera and upload a photo and maybe I can even find an older “before” of the house with wooden railing to share.

In the meantime I hope you will be inspired to consider concrete balusters and rails for a needy porch or patio.  Check out the how to video at  http://historystones.com/instructional_videos#railing

Take time out to give thanks for this beautiful country we live in and all who have striven to bring us the best life possible.

When we are looking for ways to improve our business one of the first things we try to do is to put ourselves in our customers shoes (not so hard since we began this business making garden features for our home), and ask ourselves what other items do customers want, what do I hear back from them, etc Read More...

I came across a website today that has information for those interested in starting up a lawn care and/or landscape business.  See the information at :  http://www.landscapebug.com/247/how-to-start-a-lawn-care-business A book on the industry is described there along with software for landscape design, as well as some articles and comments.

I ran into Lisa Christopher the other day and she wanted to know if hypertufa works with our molds.  The answer is yes, and we've had customers excited about their results with our sphere and planter molds.  Hypertufa mixes form well inside our plastic molds, and your finished item will be lighter weight and usually rougher in texture than regular concrete Read More...

Check out this month's article on our sphere molds in Better Homes & Garden's Do It Yourself Magazine!  We were surprised to be included since we had not heard from them before publication. We've been fortunate to be included in other BHG, Sunset, Handy, Family Handy Man, Gardening How-To and articles in other publications and newspapers Read More...