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Complete these home improvements over the weekend Home improvement projects ramp up when the weather warms up, as homeowners channel the rejuvenating feelings of spring and tackle their home to-do lists. Large-scale renovations can greatly affect a home, but smaller projects can yield impressive results and be completed over the course of a single weekend. If time is of the essence, these weekend or one-day projects may satisfy homeowners’ desires to fix up their homes. • Create an accent wall. Painting a focal wall in a home can create a serious impact. The bonus is it will not take as long or require as many materials as painting an entire room. Accent walls frequently feature a bold color, so decide on placement and tackle this project in less than a day. • Install stair runners. Dress up hardwood stairs with decorative carpet runners. Runners come in elongated pieces of carpeting or individual pieces that can be placed on each step. If carpeting doesn’t fit with the home’s design, painting individual stair treads also can create visual appeal. • Dress up the entryway. An entryway is a guest’s first impression of a home. Many entryways can use a minor overhaul, both inside and outside. Paint the front door a different color so it pops from the curb. Install a new mailbox or decorative house numbers. A new welcome mat can change the look as well. Inside, consider laying a new floor. Resilient vinyl tiles come in many different patterns and can mimic the look of wood, travertine or marble. Installing a floor can take a day or two. • Install a new faucet. Instantly improve a kitchen or a bathroom with new fixtures. New faucets can provide aesthetic appeal and lowflow faucets can help conserve water. • Create a gallery on the staircase. Gather and arrange framed photos, artwork or wall accents so that they ascend the wall of a staircase. This creates a designer touch and can dress up an often barren area of wall space. • Install a fresh light fixture. Improve drab spaces with a little illumination. Better Homes & Gardens suggests replacing an existing fixture
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with something new and vibrant. If hanging a new fixture is not within one’s skill set, freestanding table or floor lamps also can cast a new glow on a space. • Add molding. Molding can add instant aesthetic appeal to a room. Molding is appropriate near the floor, at the top of walls where they meet the ceiling, or even mid-wall as a chair rail. Some homeowners like to create framed molding on walls in formal living spaces. • Update kitchen or bathroom hardware. Replacing hardware is a fast and easy project, but one that can have immediate impact. Swap out tired or outdated hardware for newer brushed metals and more impactful shapes and designs. Home renovations do not need to take weeks or months. Many projects can be completed over the course of a weekend.
DV Enterprises provides curb appeal ELLY GRIMM • Leader &Times “I always tell people from the gutters of your home to the curbs and from the sprinklers underground to your tallest tree, we can take care of everything.” This from Mindy Brunkhardt, one of the employees with Liberal’s own DV Enterprises, which has been part of Liberal for several years. “My dad is a farmer by design and by trade and my mom went along with him. He worked with John Deere for a while and he had hours and hours of daylight left in the summer and didn't know what to do with himself,” Brunkhardt said. “So he started mowing yards and found out there was a business here in Liberal through a newspaper ad and they talked with the company selling it and my parents decided to go ahead and buy it, so that's how they got started here in Liberal, and that was in 2004. Then a little while after that there was another man in town with a business he wanted to sell, so my parents bought that too.” The company started small by mowing yards
and then people were having problems with their sprinkler systems and then it grew from there into many other services including edging, trimming, weekly yard maintenance, sprinkler work (including repairs to current systems, expansion of sprinkler systems and installation of brand-new sprinkler systems). Crews are currently also working on checking all customers' backflows due to the city's requirements for those annual checks. DV Enterprises also does landscape installations for new houses, landscaping renovation, tree installation, trimming and renewal, stump grinding and removal, drainage work, and fence repair work. “My dad as a farmer was always doing spraying to control weeds in his fields and it was natural for him to take that knowledge and put it into keeping grass growing as a landscaper. So it all kind of went from there and then trees were the next step. We became certified arborists - we have three certified arborists, four certified sprinkler technicians who can test backflows and the like, two certified chemical applicators, and we're always looking for ways to gain more knowledge.” Brunkhardt talked more about the transition to
Liberal. “We were coming here pretty frequently working on yards in the summers and then we ended up here,” Brunkhardt said. “We had a few different places in Liberal – originally we'd rented a place when we were still going back and forth to Sublette and then in 2005 or 2006 was when some of that transition was and then in 2007 was when everything moved to Liberal and we purchased this property to house all of our equipment for the projects we work on. We still go to Sublette, Satanta, Ulysses, Garden City, Scott City, Dodge City, Meade, Kismet, Plains, Guymon, Okla., and we even go all the way down to Keyes, Okla. and some spots in Texas. We have a very large area we cover. It's more tree work the farther out you go since there's not very many certified arborists in Western Kansas.” Overall, Brunkhardt said, she thoroughly enjoys working for the company. “The best thing is no two days are ever the same, every day is different,” Brunkhardt said. “One day you might be taking a tree down that's huge and then the next you might be planting new trees somewhere. Or one day you'll be
mowing a yard and the next you'll be laying sod or putting in an irrigation system. The best thing is driving by the yard you worked on and seeing the work you did look so beautiful. It's definitely a long-vision line of work and the real beauty of it all comes later when everything is fully in and can stand on its own. Seeing a tree grow and last for many years, that's the best part.” So what’s in store for Liberal in the future? Brunkhardt said the possibilities are nearly endless. “For the future, I see us continuing doing what we're doing like working more landscapes. I would also love to see an irrigation system in every yard in Liberal, that would be fantastic,” Brunkhardt said. “I would love to see every yard maintained and I would really love to see the curb appeal that can happen in town because it just improves the overall community morale. When you drive down a residential street and don't see a bunch of dead trees or dead landscaping ... I would love to see Liberal stepping up and working on that and making Liberal look good. As a business I see us helping beautify Liberal and Southwest Kansas and continuing to add beauty here in this area.”
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3 ways to use your lawn to improve curb appeal Returns on home improvement projects vary. In its annual Cost vs. Value Report, Remodeling magazine notes the projects that yield the best returns on investment in a given year. But a host of factors, including the type of market (buyers’ or sellers’) and the region where the home is being sold, ultimately combine to determine if homeowners’ investments in home improvement projects will provide the returns they were hoping for. Though there’s no way of guaranteeing a home improvement project will yield a great return, real estate professionals often cite improving curb appeal as an excellent way to attract prospective buyers and potentially get the asking price or more when selling the home. Improving curb appeal makes even more sense in today’s real estate market, when many people do their own searching via real estate websites such as Trulia or Zillow. When using such sites, buyers will likely be less inclined to click on a listing if exterior photos of the property are not eye-catching. Various projects, including tending to lawns and gardens, can improve curb appeal. An added benefit to focusing on landscaping to improve curb appeal is it promotes spending time outdoors in spring and summer. In addition, many lawn- and garden-related home improvement projects need not require profes-
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caused by fungus, which can produce circular areas of brown, dead grass surrounded by narrow, dark rings. Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences notes that removing dew that collects on grass leaves each morning, which can be accomplished by mowing or dragging a water hose across affected areas, can be an effective way to reduce brown patch. Homeowners without much lawn care experience can consult professional landscapers to address the issue. But those looking to sell their properties should note that buyers often walk the grounds of homes they are considering buying. So addressing any issues on the lawn should be a priority for sellers.
3. Confine dogs to certain areas. sional expertise.
1. Maintain a lush green lawn.
Lawns that fall into disrepair may not give buyers a correct impression about how homeowners maintained their homes. Lawns with multiple dead spots and grass that appears more brown than green may lead many buyers to assume that the home’s interior was equally illcared for. Maintaining lush green lawns is not as difficult as it may seem. Applying fertilizer and aerating at the appropriate times of year (this
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varies by region) can promote strong roots and healthy soil, making it easier for grass to survive harsh conditions like drought. When watering in summer, do so in early morning or evening so as little water is lost to evaporation as possible.
2. Address brown patch.
Even well-maintained lawns can fall victims to brown spots. According to the lawn care professionals at TruGreen, lawns in regions with hot temperatures and high humidity can be infected with brown patch, a common lawn disease that is
Dog owners may want to let their pets roam free in their yards. But homeowners about to put their properties up for sale may want to confine their four-legged friends to certain areas. That’s because dog urine can be high in nitrogen. Nitrogen itself is not harmful to lawns, but in high concentrations it can contribute to yellow or brown spots. Also, highly acidic dog urine may even adversely affect pH levels in the soil. Curb appeal can go a long way toward helping homeowners sell their homes, and a lush lawn can be used to catch the eye of prospective buyers.
Mead provides the supplies for home projects By ROBERT PIERCE • Leader &Times Started in 1910 with a lumber yard in Ashland, Neb., Mead Lumber now has 45 locations in the states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming combined. One of those locations is in Liberal, and like the others, it is a local lumber yard, with everything from doors and windows to floor tile and flooring and much more. “We have rental equipment available, from sewer snakes to tillers to scissor lifts,” current store manager Nora Rubio said. “We have chain saws, STIHL products, grills. We have cabinets, kitchen cabinets. We can do bathroom vanities. We can do all kinds of countertops. We can do flooring, any kind of flooring. We having plumbing, electrical, lawn and garden, tools.” Rubio officially became the Liberal’s store manager this week, and she said Mead Lumber can even special order products for any project. “If we don’t have anything that’s available here, we can definitely get it,” she said. “We can get any kind of door with decorative glass or a fiber glass door or a steel door, any kind of doors. We can get garage doors.”
This means Mead Lumber is here to help with any project, including remodels, decks, additions and roofing. “We can help them with anything they have,” Rubio said. With storm season currently in progress, Rubio said it is important for construction workers to
know Mead Lumber is there for roofing projects. She said some of the store’s more popular products begin selling well in spring, and those sales stay steady throughout the year. “Spring on, our fencing and from the rental department, our tillers, our post hole diggers, anything that has to do with grass, that’s really
popular,” she said. “Our tents and chair rental, that’s pretty big this time of year, especially with the graduations and stuff. During the summer, that’s big for us too.” Rubio said Mead Lumber also has both treated and cedar fencing, and the latter kind is available in thicker sizes. Rubio said having many longtime employees in place is part of what makes Mead Lumber different from other hardware stores. “We have a lot of people that have been here a long time,” she said. “We know everybody that comes in here on more of a personal level because we see them on a daily basis. We try to give the best possible customer service that we can give people.” Rubio emphasized that just because a product is not seen in the Liberal store does not mean you can’t get it here. “There’s a lot of stuff that we don’t stock here, but we can get it,” she said. “There’s nothing that we cannot get, whether it’s brick, stone, whatever.” Mead Lumber is open from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. The store is located at 2000 N. Kansas Ave. in Liberal.
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Home decorating projects start at J&M By ROBERT PIERCE • Leader &Times Jim and Maurita Koerperich started J&M Paint & Decorating Center in 1974, and through conditions of rainfall and snow or lack of that can make or break an individual, the business in Garden City has preserved. Maurita said J&M has many products, including flooring, paint, window treatments, custom picture framing, lighting fixtures, home accents, cabinets and wall coverings. “They have professional floor covering installers, knowledgeable sales people and designer home staff,” she said. J&M prides itself on good-old fashioned service, and Maurita said the business has been recognized in the Garden City community for its efforts. “We were voted Best of the Best in Garden City,” she said. “This is the first year it’s been called Best of the Best. Before, it was Number One. We were Number One in paint and flooring.” J&M is the only locally-owned store of its kind in Garden City, and Maurita said operating a business for nearly half a century takes much
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dedication and work. “We just operate on customer service,” she said. “Our customers come first.”
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J&M offers many paint products, including Benjamin Moore, all with good quality and a wide range of prices.
“We have all price ranges,” Maurita said. “We have all brands. We have a wide range of quality.” J&M also has knowledgeable sales staff and professional floor covering installers, so whether your children are wrestling on the floor or you enjoy the solitude of an empty nest, the team of professionals is able to assist in selecting flooring options to suit individual needs. The showroom has a multitude of styles, textures and colors to accentuate the beauty of a home, and J&M has the perfect flooring choice for you and your family. The business also serves customers from many area communities, including Dodge City, Hays, Goodland, Lamar, Colo., Springfield, Colo., and Guymon, Okla. Through their great customer satisfaction report, generations of families have returned for quality products at a fair price. J&M Paint & Decorating Center is located at 1615 Buffalo Jones Ave. in Garden City. The store is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, call 620-276-3811. The store can be found on the Web at www.gardencity.abbeycarpet.com or on Facebook at J&M Paint and Decorating Center.
The basics of mulching Mulch is available in various forms. Like other land and garden products, mulch can go a long way toward helping plants thrive.
Mulch comprises just about any material that is spread over the surface of soil. Its purpose is primarily to help soil retain moisture. In addition, mulch can staunch weed growth, keep soil cool, improve the aesthetics of garden beds, and even improve soil nutrient composition. When the right mulch is chosen, it can reduce the amount of time homeowners spend watering and weeding their gardens and insulate plants from dramatic changes in weather. Gardeners may not realize that mulch also can prevent garden soil from becoming overly compacted, according to HGTV. This can mean beneficial earthworms can move easily through the soil, creating channels for water and depositing their nutrient-rich waste products. Gardeners can choose organic or inorganic mulch. Organic mulches are derived from natural materials that will decompose over time, lending organic matter as well as various nutrients to the soil. Organic mulches also may contain beneficial microorganisms that can fight against plant diseases. Inorganic mulches may be made of stones, landscape fabrics and plastic. Both types will need to be amended or replaced as they degrade. Those who want the most environmentally-friendly mulching materials can choose
all-natural mulches instead of synthetic alternatives. To work effectively, mulch should be applied in a two- to three-inch layer of material, state the experts at Old World Garden Farms. This is the ideal amount to retain soil moisture and suppress weed growth without choking plants. Also, mulch that is too thick may make it impossible for water to penetrate, or it may prevent the soil from airing out, causing continuously wet conditions that lead to root and stem rot. The University of Connecticut Home & Garden Education Center says mulch should not be placed directly against plant crowns or tree bases, as this can promote the development of disease. It may also serve as a habitat for bark- and stemeating rodents. The center also suggests watering newly installed bark or wood mulches to prevent fungi from colonizing in dry mulch and causing problems like a waterrepellent surface on the mulch. Home landscapers considering mulch types may find that compost, manure and grass clippings (from nonpesticidetreated lawns) can be inexpensive and versatile in garden beds. The home advice site The Spruce notes that newspaper may also be effective. Many newspapers have switched over to organic dyes, especially for their black and white sections. Newspapers are an inexpensive way to suppress weeds and act like organic mulch in beds. They can be covered with other organic mulch, like shredded bark, for more visual appeal. Mulch can be a versatile asset when doing gardening projects around home landscapes. And the benefits are more than just aesthetic.
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The benefits of child-safe home improvements Install locking cabinets
All family members should be considered when home improvements are being planned, especially the youngest household residents who may not be responsible enough to avoid accidents and injuries.
Locking cabinets can keep medications, household chemicals, home improvement paints and solvents, and other potential poisons out of reach.
Erect fencing around pools and yards
According to a recent Vital Signs report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accidental injuries are a leading cause of death among the country’s youth — with one fatality occurring every hour from something entirely preventable. The CDC notes that the leading causes of child injury include suffocation, drowning, poisoning, fires, and falls. More can be done to keep children safe, and many strategies start at home.
Install security systems
A security system can be just as effective at keeping little ones inside as it is at keeping unwanted guests outside. Alarms can be set to sound anytime a window or door is breached, which can deter curious children from trying to leave the house without permission. Pair the alarm system with secure locks and high latches that can also stop children in their tracks.
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Install fencing around pools to keep children from wandering close to the water’s edge. Towns and cities may require certain fence heights or self-latching gates to keep little ones safe. Young children should never be left to their own devices around any source of water, whether it’s a pool, tub or toilet.
Remove fall hazards
Safety devices installed on windows that are above ground level can keep children safe. Stair rails should be secure and in good working order. Temporary gates can block kids from getting on stairways. Improve lighting around staircases to help children and adults avoid falls, and remove any obstacles.
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Anchor heavy furniture
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warns that unanchored televisions and top-heavy furniture can tip over onto children and cause severe injuries and even death. Everyday furniture can be tempting to climb; therefore, using anchors to secure furniture to walls for security is a must.
Test and replace smoke alarms Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are only useful if they are functional. Homeowners should inspect such devices regularly to ensure proper operation and promptly replace old or faulty detectors to improve safety.