We were happy to announce last week that we opened a showroom in Tempe, AZ where our local customers can visit us and view our range of tiles and designs in person. In addition, any customers local to the Phoenix, Arizona area who can pick up their orders at our showroom in Tempe will enjoy Free Shipping for any products shown on our website.

We’ll post photos shortly once we tidy up a bit and get everything moved in. Stop by if you are in the Tempe area. Our address is 6202 S Maple Drive, Ste 128, Tempe, Arizona 85283.

We took a mini vacation this past week to Boston and were fortunate to stay in a hotel located in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. We were busy with seeing parts of the city during the day which allowed for ample time to stroll around beautiful Beacon Hill by night. Not knowing much about Beacon Hill beforehand we were pleasantly surprised by the sheer beauty of the neighborhood once we walked around a little bit.

Beacon Hill is a small 19th century residential area of Boston housing slightly more than 10,000 people. The Beacon Hill area is situated directly north of the Boston Common and Boston’s large Public Garden. Charles Street and Cambridge Street are the city’s main commercial streets and we were fortunate to take a stroll on both.

The residential areas of Beacon Hill are known for their beautiful brick architecture on the many row houses and brownstones commonly found in the area. The building styles range from Federal, to Greek revival and Victorian and feature some stunning touches such as beautiful doors and door surrounds, brass door knockers and brick sidewalks, as well as the ever present gas lanterns along the residential streets. Beacon Hill is one of only a handful of communities in America still using functioning gas lanterns as the main source of residential street lighting.

Above are some photos of this beautiful community. Do take a walk through the Beacon Hill neighborhood if you are ever in the Boston area.

We are hearing from our industry contacts around the country that on a community by community basis, the Home Buyer Tax credit has in fact stimulated sales in many communities. Communities of moderately and lower priced homes are seeing the biggest boost from the first time home buyer market. Those who have been on the sidelines waiting to buy figure this is the last time that the government will offer the credit so it is now or never for those wishing to cash in on the governments generous offer.

The credit goes away on June 30th so buyers are in the final stretch of getting paperwork in, completing appraisals, and meeting any last minute underwriter requests. Watch the flurry of closings in the next 2 weeks in the Real Estate market in your community. We hope agents, banks, and title companies can actually uphold all of the commitments they made to borrowers who bought with the expectation of closing by June 30th.

Let’s see what happens!

At various points in the next several weeks we will be introducing several new product lines which we have been busy working on this Spring. We will have new ceramic tile products, new glass tile products, and a new line of bamboo tiles to compliment our Bamboo Subway Tiles. We have been so busy we haven’t had the time to add some of the better content we like to write for our Blog but we should be able to get back to our normal schedule once the calendar moves in to July.

In the meantime stay with us and as the products become available we will be sure to place them on our website as soon as we can.

As always, we appreciate your support!

We are proud to say that our Bamboo Subway Tiles were recently featured in the online version of Hospitality Design magazine. The hospitality industry is moving rapidly towards incorporating more sustainable products in their hotel projects and our Bamboo Tiles fit their product profile quite well.

Bamboo is considered by the US Green Building Council as being material from a rapidly renewable resource. Bamboo can be harvested ideally between 5 – 6 years and will re-grow naturally without the need for pesticides and other chemicals. Our customers have really embraced our bamboo tile products and we hope that the hospitality industry and other industries will follow.

Thank you Hospitality Design magazine for your support.

I guess it doesn’t hurt to take a moment to say Thank you to those who appreciate the work that you do. We’d like to Thank Betty over at the Top Online Engineering Degree Blog for recognizing the DiyThisnThat Blog as one of the top 100 DIY Blogs in her post here titled The Ultimate DIY Library: 100 Blogs to help you make or build anything.

We try to keep things interesting and change our topics from post to post to provide variety while always staying around the home improvement, DIY, Real Estate, and Housing field. We also sprinkle in some product reviews for good measure as well as a post here and there about our products and what we may have new coming down the pipeline.

Thanks again to Betty for the mention and we hope our readers will continue visiting our Blog to see what we are up to. Don’t forget to tell your friends where we live…….digitally that is.

We decided to start the week off with an offer for our Blog readers with an incentive for those considering purchasing any of our Solana Glass Mosaic Tile Blends in 1” x 1”. Beginning today through Wednesday May 19th we are offering a free Visa Gift card to those who purchase our Solana Glass Mosaic tiles in specific quantities.

For any order of 20 square feet or more receive a $25 Visa Gift card with your purchase. For any order of 30 square feet or more receive a $50 Visa Gift card with your purchase. All gift cards will be shipped separately to each customer and they will be shipped within two weeks of a customers order date. All Sales under this offer will be final with no returns allowed.

For those who have been considering the purchase of our Solana glass mosaic tiles now is the right time to move ahead with your purchase and take advantage of this special offer. To order you must phone in your order to us at 1 888 260-7371. We look forward to speaking with you this week.

The $6 billion program dubbed by the media the cash for caulkers program passed the House last Thursday and now makes its way to the Senate later this summer. The bill, officially known as the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act has been touted by President Obama since late last year as a central piece of his job creation strategy.

The bill would fund rebates of as much as 50%, up to $3,000 for energy saving efforts such as insulation improvements and the replacement of windows, doors, heating and cooling systems. The installations will have to be completed by qualified contractors. The bill also covers reimbursements for those who perform comprehensive energy audits and reduce their home’s total energy consumption.

The House vote simply authorizes the creation of the program but it does not appropriate the funds needed to run it. The Senate will take up the legislation this summer and will determine how to pay for the program. The bill has the support of the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry as a much needed boost for their beleaguered industries that are experiencing significant downturns from the deep economic recession.

We were recently introduced to a very cool iPhone App designed for the true DIY’ers out there. This app called iHandy Carpenter has 5 professional tools in one all for $1.99 which is a fraction of the cost if one were purchasing each item separately. The app comes with a plumb bob to tell you if your walls are straight, a bubble level bar, a digital protractor for use when designing your home projects, a surface level which every DIY’er needs, and the coolest feature is a digital ruler that allows you to measure things even longer than your iPhone by using the iPhones touch screen. No doubt serious DIY’ers will put this app to very good use.

Real Estate agents all across the country have seen a definite increase in business in the last several months leading up to today’s deadline to have qualified buyers under contract to purchase a home. Real estate offices report that the activity level is reminiscent of the boom years of the early to mid part of this decade.

As long as a binding contract is signed by April 30th, home buyers have until June 30th to complete the purchase. The home buyer tax credit is forecasted to generate 900,000 – 1 million home sales for first time home buyers and another 1.5 million sales for repeat buyers before it expires on June 30th. The previous credit which expired in late 2009 is thought to have added 2 million first time home buyers to make their purchases just because of the credit.

The worry now is whether the housing market can sustain itself once June 30th comes and goes. April, May, and June new and existing home sales will undoubtedly be strong but market watchers will be watching closely to see what the numbers look like for July and August – traditionally strong months for home sales to gauge the strength of the broader housing market in the US.