storage space – Page 27 – Dino's Storage

Are Dining Rooms Becoming Extinct?

The dining room appears to be going out of fashion. Meals are eaten in the kitchen, at the island or table or, perhaps, on a coffee table at an hour our grandparents would probably consider to be “bedtime.” We’re all busier than ever, working longer than ever.

The formal dining room is used perhaps two or three times a year – Thanksgiving, maybe the holidays. But the rest of the time it serves as a museum for china and glassware, or simply a reminder of how families used to eat.

Blogger Pam Kueber of Retro Renovation has a theory behind the demise of the dining room. “In the early 20th century and prior, many homes had servants,” she writes. “The kitchen was their separate domain, while the family ate in the dining room. As that tradition died away – and as Mom began to do all the kitchen work herself – we wanted to hang with her and she wanted to hang with us, so the lines between kitchen and dining room began to blur and design evolved towards the ‘open concept’ kitchen so popular today.”

Despite the declining use of the dining room, it remains a fixture in modern day homes. According to a U.S. Census survey that focused on the evolution of new American homes by decade, 46.9 percent of homes constructed before 1960 had dining rooms, compared to 50.6 percent of homes constructed between 2005 and 2009. Keuber chalks up these numbers to the fantasy that often is involved with decorating and designing a new home.

“We buy and furnish our home the way we imagine we want to live,” Kueber says. “Today, I think people still like the idea of a separate dining room because of idyllic visions of Thanksgiving Day and big family gatherings that rarely end up happening.”

A Quicker Stroll?

If you have ever been walking down the street and thought, “Gee, I wish I could get to my destination quicker,” a French company called Rollkers thinks it has a solution.

Inspired by the moving walkways found in airports, Rollkers clip onto your shoe, much like the old roller skates, and use a small motor to help you walk at speeds up to 7 miles per hour, about twice as fast as your normal rate.

According to Rollkers, there is no training needed. They’re “self-balancing,” so you just walk like you normally do. The device was on display this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And while the model displayed was clunky and heavy, the company says the final product, due out early next year, will be much lighter. They will cost around $400.

If You’re Planning a Move, Call Movers Early

MovingCompanyReviews.com, which provides consumers with information about moving companies, recently predicted how housing trends will impact the moving industry in the year ahead.

Among MCR’s predictions:

1. Mover availability is likely to be tight in the spring and summer months. Consumers are urged to book a moving company as soon as they know their moving date. A shortage of nationwide truck drivers is expected in the spring and summer months, according to MCR. The average consumer books the mover only two weeks in advance. But the busiest times of year are between Memorial Day and Labor Day, with moves peaking in August, according to MCR.

2. Major metros will be popular moving destinations. MCR reported the highest number of moves in the nation’s largest cities in 2014, including Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Denver and Dallas. MCR expects continued urban population growth and the return of post-recession new construction will continue to make these major moving destinations in 2015. Also, MCR anticipates growth in some midsize cities, such as Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham and Nashville. MCR advises consumers moving in or to such areas to book a mover at least one month ahead of their move.

3. Square footage will flatten. In 2014, MCR reported that more movers upgraded their home sizes by a median of 628 square feet. But MCR is projecting that trend won’t continue in 2015 with significant upgrades to square footage from movers. Also, MCR’s forecast projects that the rental market will remain strong with many moves being into rentals.

4. Mover scams remain a threat but will moderate some. The past two years has seen the rise of illegitimate moving companies that offer consumers low prices and then scam them by drastically increasing the rate at the point of delivery or even holding their items hostage. The American Moving and Storage Association and state moving associations issued warnings to consumers in 2014 to watch for such scams and urged consumers to more carefully vet their movers and look for a licensed one.

In 2014, MCR reports the top five states that most consumers moved to were:
1. Florida
2. Texas
3. California
4. New York
5. North Carolina

At Dino’s we unhesitatingly recommend Black Belt Movers to our Des Moines and Omaha area customers. The Omaha-based company also serves Lincoln, Denver, Phoenix, Kansas City, Sioux City and San Diego. They do an outstanding job and are top-ranked by the Better Business Bureau. You can call them in Omaha at 402-709-0970 or in Des Moines at 515-393-4253.

Dino’s Helping with Toy Drive

No child should go without during the holidays.

That’s why Dino’s Storage has teamed up with the Salvation Army and KMTV 3 News to collect toys for needy children.

Drop off new unwrapped toy donations at the KMTV Studio or any Omaha-area Dino’s Storage location through Dec. 12.

Your donation will help provide needy children toys this Christmas.

And, it will bring some huge smiles as well!

We Highly Recommend Some Great Movers!

As you might expect, a whole lot of moving goes on in our storage business – items coming in, items going out – on a continual basis. And sometimes the amount of goods our clients have is substantially more than the clients can handle on their own.

We make this recommendation to our clients – Call Black Belt Movers. They are a great bunch of hard-working folks who can handle anyone’s needs from packing to moving at competitive rates and with courteous, friendly and efficient service.

Black Belt is an all-around terrific outfit. A young entrepreneur, Luke Taylor, launched the company as FlatRate Movers from his Elkhorn home in 2007, operating with a small crew and a single 26-foot truck.

They recently changed their name to Black Belt Movers and today they have a fleet of more than two dozen trucks and operate in Omaha, Lincoln, Des Moines, Sioux City, Denver, San Diego, Phoenix and Kansas City with more than 60 crew members. The company still is run by Taylor, but now from a corporate office in Elkhorn.

In just the past two years, Black Belt has moved more than 10,000 families! Black Belt is licensed, insured and bonded. They are accredited by the Better Business Bureau and are preferred vendors on Angie’s List. They also have been rated Best of Omaha by Omaha Magazine.

They serve communities large and small in a radius of roughly 50 miles from each of the metro areas where they are now established. So if you have a move in your future, be smart and be happy, call them.

Black Belt Phone Numbers:
– Omaha 402-709-0970
– Des Moines 515-393-4253
– Sioux City 712-522-5344
– Denver 303-656-1888
– Kansas City 913-305-5430
– Phoenix 480-878-7457
– San Diego 619-567-5497

Family Fun for Fall

Kids and parents need time together. And it can be fun and inexpensive for all. Forget shopping or mall walking. Get with it and have some fun.

Here are a few ideas:

Bring out the hidden architect or builder within you. Let the creativity flow with Legos – the building blocks for kids of all ages. Try a Lego building party. Come up with a theme with the kids, like a medieval dungeon, battling ninjas or a futuristic neighborhood. The whole family can work on Lego creations to fit the theme. One family member can be chosen as the narrator to weave the Lego creations together. Or each participant can take a turn telling a story about what’s being created.

Fall weather can be a bit nippy for a camp-out, so try a camp-in instead. Set up a tent with sleeping bags. Stay up late eating treats, make shadow puppets and tell ghost stories. Then sleep the night away in your in-house campsite.

Many couples have a weekly date night. How about trying a parent and kids date night. The possibilities are endless. Take in a movie at the theater, spend some time at a miniature golf facility, go play some laser tag, bowl a few games or take in a high school football game or a play. Look for discount coupons to hold down the cost.

Take a nature night walk. When the stars come out, head out on your night walk around the neighborhood or head to a nature preserve or large park to do the same. Kids and parents alike will enjoy being outdoors when everyone else is inside. Look at constellations, observe phases of the moon, watch cars go by with their lights on and listen to the cacophony of crickets, frogs and other creatures. When the weather turns colder, a night drive can work well – especially when Halloween decorations or a bit later on Christmas decorations light up the neighborhood.

Scavenger hunts never go out of style. You can have great fun with one indoors or in your own yard. Mom or dad can compile a list of things to be found and the kids can do the hunting. Try it in the yard at night when flashlights are needed for the hunt. The hunters will feel like detectives searching for odd-ball items such as a yellow crayon, a fringed washcloth, a stuffed animal, a mini-shovel, a 2012 quarter etc.

Customer Satisfaction, Community Service Are Dino’s Guides

At Dino’s, storage is our business. But customer satisfaction and community service are our guiding lights.
Treat our customers right and they will be customers for life. Be proactive and cooperative in our community and our name will be a point of pride.

Our Center Street facility recently received a note of thanks from one of our customers.

“You were so helpful and personable, and we appreciate your attention to detail and to providing great customer service,” our customer told us in a letter. The customer and her sisister came to the facility to arrange storage space for their parents’ belongings. That was accomplished.

Heartland Family Services recently was the beneficiary of a gift of office furnishings from McGrath North law firm. But there was a hitch, the law firm had to vacate its old quarters before the space for Heartland Family Services’ new programs was ready. That created a pressing need for short-term storage for the incoming furnishings.

In a recent blog, Heartland Family Services said “another wonderful supporter of our agency, Dino’s Storage,” stepped up to the plate. “One call to owner, Dave Paladino, led to a quick conversation with Jena Erickson, Operations Manager for Dino’s Storage. Jena not only agreed to help us find short-term storage, but made it possible at a 50 percent discount! Her quick problem-solving helped us to create a cost-effective solution that will allow our agency to acquire much-needed, high quality furniture using almost none of our existing cash resources. As a result, we have more money to put into our programming and can serve more people.:

Letters and comments like these from customers and community organizations make us proud. Remember, we are here to serve you and our community.

Make Saturday a Red Kettle Day!

Omaha’s Salvation Army has scheduled a 5K Run/Walk for 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 at Zorinsky Lake. Join in the fun for a good cause. The run helps stock pantry shelves during a time of overwhelming need.

No pre-registration is required, but if you want to save time the day of the run, you can get more information at www.redkettlerunomaha.org or send an e-mail to RedKettleRunOmaha@gmail.org for additional participation information.

There are some great prizes, including an Apple iPad mini 16GB, Creighton Men’s and Women’s season basketball tickets, Men’s season baseball tickets and more. Dino’s Storage will be handing out water bottles to the first 300 finishers.

The entry fee is just 10 non-perishable food items or $10 for The Salvation Army pantry. The run location is at the 156th & F Street entrance to Zorinsky Lake.

Think Again: You’re Not Good at Multitasking

You might want to rethink texting while trying to hold a conversation. Multitasking actually makes you less productive than doing one thing at a time, and may even damage your brain, according to a study conducted by Stanford University researchers. Forbes.com recently highlighted a series of research studies that show multitasking is not a skill to boast about.

In the Stanford University study, research participants who regularly multitasked and were bombarded with several sources of electronic information failed to pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who just focused on one task at a time. Those who tend to be “heavy multitaskers” – who do it a lot and believe it helps their performance – were found to pay the biggest price.

“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” says Clifford Nass, one of the researchers and a communication professor at Stanford. “Everything distracts them.”

Indeed, researchers found that “heavy multitaskers” tend to struggle more at organizing their thoughts, filtering out irrelevant information and are slower at switching from one task to another.

Besides just slowing you down, multitasking has also been linked with lower IQs. In a separate study conducted by researchers at the University of London, researchers found that those who multitask during cognitive tasks had IQ scores similar to what you’d expect if they had smoked marijuana or didn’t get any sleep the night before. In fact, multitasking men were found to have IQ drops of 15 points, which put many in the average range of an 8-year-old child.

Some researchers using MRI scans even suggest that multitasking on multiple devices – like texting while watching TV – can damage your brain, although more research is needed to confirm. Researchers at the University of Sussex in the UK found that high multitaskers had less brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain responsible for empathy and cognitive and emotional control.

“I feel that it is important to create an awareness that the way we are interacting with the devices might be changing the way we think and these changes might be occurring at the level of brain structure,” says Kep Kee Loh, a neuroscientist and the study’s lead author.

Six Rising Home Design Trends

What home-design trends will likely catch on in new construction? Builder Online recently spoke to Mollie Carmichael, principal at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, and Nick Lehnert, executive director at architecture firm KTGY, about the design trends that are gaining popularity in the new-home market this year.
Private space
Baby boomers, empty nesters and Gen Yers are showing a preference for homes that have more private outdoor spaces, straying from the traditional “public” backyard, according to surveys. One way some builders are fulfilling this desire is by positioning the home’s architecture strategically around the outdoor space to enclose it more and allow it to be more open to the interior living spaces. They also are creating more covered outdoor spaces.
The Super Kitchen
Besides being a place for cooking, the kitchen is also the entertainment/conversation area in a home. Open-kitchen layouts have continued to grow in popularity, putting kitchens more front-and-center and visibly exposed to other areas of the house. Kitchen islands are offering extra seating and prep space while larger pantries are offering greater storage. “As the hub, it becomes a consumer’s dream to design these elements together with function, practicality and flair,” the designers say.
Bigger Media Hubs
More home owners are looking for a place for their large flat-screen television. Larger television sizes are prompting more builders to realize the need for greater wall space to hang the televisions and larger entertainment rooms to accommodate more seating.
Larger Garage Spaces
If home owners had their way, garages wouldn’t be just for parking the cars. More home owners want spaces for hobbies and storage. Builders are taking notice by creating larger garages for multi-use purposes.
Home Offices
An office and den space is becoming a bigger desire among home buyers, and the location of it in the home is becoming increasingly important. Placing the home office off the entry is no longer considered the most practical location for it, but builders are experimenting with moving it closer to the “living” area, such as off the kitchen or the family room.
Two Homes in One
As multi-generational living gains popularity, builders are responding by carving out more separate spaces for several generations to live together. For example, some builders are offering semi-independent suites with separate entries, bathrooms and kitchenettes.