Store layout techniques

DESIGNING the inside layout of a new store is as much of an art as a science, and one of the best at this art-science is the Angels chain of home improve. ment centers. tain ample backup stock. The firm doesn't believe in big storerooms, they want it up front so it will move.

This new 50,000 sq. ft. operation in Long Beach, Ca., is a graphic demonstration of how one of the best in the business creates the kind of atmosphere they want.

Soft, or neutral, colors are used as a backdrop to vivid accent colors in defining areas or departrnents. Brilliant signs also highlight ideas or features Angels want the customer to know of or react to. Gondolas are mostly uniform in height, densely stocked and often con.

Store advertising, through flyers and newspaper ads, ties-in with store signs and demonstrations, especially in giving a big play to price leaders. Inventory has expanded from the original lumber and building materials concept so that today, Angels doesn't bat an eye at offering phonograph records, automotive parts and other far-afield items.

Manager of the big new Do-It.Yourself Center is Ken Lindley, Bernard Wood and Harry Winship are asst. managers.

0lsTlNcTlYE ct0rHEs identify clerks for cus- below fireplace displays, use of Amenican tomers,. (ton loft). vesls-.for men, smocks for flag in stoie. signing fl6wer lelO blasts home the girls. Promotional flyers are stacked in- store name, us6 simaller, hansins sisns to side information booth for distribution. identify departments, thd idei 6f birgain chains. in certer. foreground (top. right) sus- pricing and'name brinds, i.e., stanley Tolli, pend lamp in ligiting dept., note inventory Skil and Rubbermaid. Exterior sales'are iri this central plaza (lower righ0, displays feature bulk or odd size items such as lumber. sacted goods, ladders. Both grocery type and panel type shopping carts are seeh liired up, ready to goi thousands of small banners overhead give store a festive, fun look.

Evsns Buys Hubbqrd & Johnson

Evans Products Co. plans to buy Hubbard and Johnson Lumber Co., a building materials retailer on the San Francisco peninsulg according to Wesley L. Hubbard, president, and Chester I. Johnson, vp.. of Hubbard and Johnson, and by Mike Grossman, president of Evans' retail group.

Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in February, were not announced.

The agreement marks Evans' entry into the rich Cali fornia retail building materials market. Evans presently operates a chain of over 180 building materials stores in eastern and mid-western states. Hubbard and Johnson operates three retail building materials stores, one lum' ber yard, and a roof truss division, serving contractors, consumers and homeowners in the San Francisco metropolitan area. Management of Hubbard and Johnson will continue to operate the chain as a part of Evans' retail group.

With headquarters in Portland and operations nationwide, Evans has western facilities in Corvallis, Ore.; Seattle, Spokane, Aberdeen and Aloha, Wash.; Corona, Santa Ana, City of Industry, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Elk Grove, Ca.; Boise, Idaho; Colorado Sprinp and Englewood, Colo.; and Phoenix5 Ariz.

Northwest Hqrdwood Annuol

The seventeenth annual meeting of the Northwest Hardwood Assn. in Portland, Nov. 16-17, was very well attend. ed. More than 163 attended one or more sessions.

A. G. Powell, Cascade Fibre, was re-elected president. Jack Higgins, J. E. Higgins Lumber Co., San Francisco, was elected vp., and Eugene M. Nist, Tacoma Box & Lumber Co.. was reelected treasurer. Three were chosen as members of the board for 3-year terms. They are John W. Allen, Bloedel Timberlands Development, Inc.o Bainbridge Island, Wash.; Cecil Frazier, Great Western Lumber Co., Everson, Wash.; and Warren Morris, International Paper Co.-tong-Bell div., Longview, Wash.

Holdover Directors are Del H. Barton, Barton Wood Products, Lynnwood, Wash.; A. Bremner Jr., Export Pacific Inc., Tacoma, Wash.; Dick Lambert, American Forest Products Corp.o Cerritos, Ca.; Jack Roseo RossSimmons Hardwood Lumber Co6 Longview, Wash.; Stan E. Sherwood, Alder Mfg. Inc., White City, Or.; and Mike Starling, Tumac LumbelCo., Portland, Past President, Charles L. Slocum, Pacific Coast Hardwoods, Inc., North Portland, remains a member of tle board.

Builders Tolking Substitutes

In an efiort to show their members ways that they can use less wood and plywood, with an eye to cutting demand for wood and hence the current level of prices builders now reluctandy p"y, the National Assn. of Home Builders is offering their members a manual entitled, "Ahernate Materinl,s lor Wood and Plyunod, in Homns."

Examples are light gage, cold rolled, formed floor joists; open web steel bar joists; precast concrete joistso hollow core floor planks and a recently developed alu. minum floor joist system.