A building supply yard in Pendleton, Oregon, spent 96 years serving the same town before it rebuilt. The old store covered 2,000 square feet; the remodeled facility spans 11,300 square feet on a four-acre lot, with 3.5 acres of paved lumberyard and a full nursery. Home remodels follow the same logic on a smaller scale. […]
Every town in Mississippi has one: a home improvement center where contractors pick up lumber at six in the morning and homeowners find the right fastener on a Saturday afternoon. These stores stock the materials, tools, and advice that keep local building going, and their ownership is changing as regional groups buy independent chains and
Expansion plans usually start with a simple problem: not enough space. A lumber distributor behind the case for this article broke ground on a new distribution center on 32 acres when its leased facility ran out of room, replacing it with a larger plant that includes office space, cutting buildings, a drive-through storage building, and
When crews started working from home, many building professionals rediscovered their garages, basements, and spare rooms. The shift put office work next to workshop work, and the home became both a place to take calls and a place to build. That combination revived interest in woodworking and home projects, a pattern that has been called
A family-owned lumber company founded in 1876 recently sold its real estate and operations to a regional dealer group that planned to consolidate two locations into one. The deal is a reminder that buildings, and the businesses that supply them, can outlast several generations of owners. For homeowners the story carries a simpler lesson: houses
The holidays turn a normal house into a full-time kitchen, guest quarters, and workshop at once. Drains that handled one family all year suddenly carry a dozen visitors, and the tool bench gets pulled into gift-making and last-minute repair duty. A short prep list handles most of it, starting with the touches that go into
The exterior of a house takes a beating that no other surface sees: sun, rain, wind-driven moisture, and the steady accumulation of dust and grime. Exterior acrylic coatings are formulated for that abuse, forming a protective film on above-grade masonry while keeping the building looking freshly finished. Self-cleaning formulations push the idea further by shedding
A full-line home improvement center serves two customers at once: the weekend homeowner and the working contractor. The building sorts them, with seasonal displays up front, lumber and building materials at the back, and a service counter set aside for pros. Retailers open these stores where population and housing growth overlap, then tune the mix
The split between new construction and remodeling has been widening for more than a decade. New home construction recovered slowly from the housing crash and still lags demand in many markets, while spending on improvements and repairs to existing homes keeps setting records. A 2019 report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, titled
A regional home improvement chain sponsored a local zoo’s newborn beaver exhibit and invited customers to name the six kits. The naming contest drew more than 1,600 online votes, and the winning names, drawn from employee suggestions, gave the retailer weeks of local conversation at a cost measured in exhibit sponsorship dollars. Community engagement of
