Since the economic slowdown reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C., remodeler Ed Castle has had to take an uncharacteristically proactive approach to marketing. More
Although it can be difficult to fit into the budget at first, the benefits of having office space outweigh the extra overhead. More
About five years ago, Ed Castle began managing all his projects using Microsoft Excel. "It's such a powerful program that nearly everyone with a PC already has at their fingertips," says Castle, of E.M. Castle Construction, in Kensington, Md. Castle creates a separate Excel file for each project, and each file contains 30 to 40 spreadsheets separated by tabs at the bottom of the screen. More
I use 10% of what Excel will do, and the average person probably uses 2%,” says Ed Castle, owner of Ed Castle Construction, a design/build firm in Kensington, Md. Castle creates fairly sophisticated spreadsheets and uses the software, which is a part of Microsoft Office, as a project manager system. More
Not all of our Reader Panel respondents do jobs where the homeowners supply at least some of the materials (known as buy-it-yourself, or BIY). But most ó 84% ó do. In fact, fewer than 10% say they have never done any BIY work at all. More
Lonnie Cox of Brothers Strong was looking for a way to ventilate upper-story additions along existing roof lines. More
My office looks out on a park, and there is a pond right next to me with a fountain and goldfish. More
