Remodeling

Spring cleaning is turning into spring remodeling this year for many homeowners. Home improvement projects are starting to make a comeback after frugal consumers pulled the plug on remodeling and renovation work during the downturn. With the economy showing signs of stabilizing and retailers and contractors continuing to offer good deals, many Southern Californians are sprucing up their homes' appearance and value by repainting their bathrooms, installing new floors and carpets, and upgrading their kitchens.

Thousand Oaks-based Homestore.com Inc. on Wednesday launched a Web site dedicated to remodeling and home improvement in conjunction with the industry's two main trade associations. The company hopes its Remodel.com will build on traffic from the firm's other sites, which include Realtor.com, the leading real estate Web site, and sites focused on apartments and home building. Remodel.com is sponsored by the National Assn. of Home Builders, which holds a minority stake in Homestore.

Owners of the Mission Promenade and the Moonrose have been honored by the City Council with the 1996 Community Pride Awards. Owned by developers Steve Nordeck and Richard J. O'Neill, the Mission Promenade won for outstanding building design. The shopping mall at Ortega Highway and Camino Capistrano was converted from Depression-era buildings, including the town's first City Hall, newspaper office and post office.

New officials at Stoner Park in West Los Angeles announced this week that they are planning to renovate the aging city park and add recreational programs in hopes of attracting more community members. The large park, in the Sawtelle area, has been neglected, said Bob Albert, the park's new recreation director. Graffiti, unkempt buildings and a scarcity of community programs have kept residents away, he said.

The city has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn what preservationists say is a precedent-setting decision to let former Mayor Lee Prentiss expand his historic home. Preservationists and city attorneys say a Court of Appeals ruling April 23 weakens the state historic building code. The court ruled that listing a home on the historic registry should not restrict an owner's use of the property.

Bought a new home? Remodeling? A large construction project is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but with as many as 10,000 pieces that don't always come together exactly as they should. Thus, some contractor flubs are to be expected. Here are some common problems to watch for: * Interior and exterior painting goofs, such as wrong colors, poor preparation and skimpy coverage. * Drywall cracks (from moisture or settling) and nail heads that protrude above wall or flooring surfaces.

Westminster builder Dennis D'Ambra likes to point out that nobody ever said a blueprint was worth a thousand words. Yet, for generations, anyone planning to build or remodel a house has had to rely on blueprints as a primary indicator of what the finished project was going to look like. The problem, D'Ambra believes, is that many homeowners don't know how to read blueprints. "They'll tell me, 'I saw the blueprint, but it confused me,' " says D'Ambra, 47, president of D'Ambra Inc.

Carnegie Hall plans to renovate its Studio Towers and backstage areas -- but the expansion would require doing away with residences that have been used over the years by artists such as Leonard Bernstein. To accommodate its need for new classrooms, rehearsal spaces, practice and large ensemble rooms within its existing footprint, it will need to occupy all the available space in its two Studio Towers, now occupied by longtime tenant-artists, the venerable New York venue said.

Workers started removing seats from the Ahmanson Theatre Monday, the first step in the long-awaited reconfiguration of the Music Center's northernmost hall. The project, which was postponed for years in order to accommodate the lucrative run of "The Phantom of the Opera," is primarily designed to turn the 2,071-seat auditorium into a hall with a flexible seating capacity.