I am Diane Dennis...

When my husband and I started our suspended ceiling T-Bar construction business in 1995 (C and D Acoustics), we were very fortunate that our supplier, Cal-Ply of Redlands, totally supported us 100%. The people there "took us under their wings" and taught us so much.

Although my husband had many, many years of in-the-field construction experience, I didn't know a darn thing about it and he didn't have any experience with the office and paperwork side of the industry.

The paperwork was overwhelming to say the least. Many thanks to Bob Baxter, Cathy Northcutt and Barbara Walker (all three of Cal-Ply Redlands), for showing us the processes involved with generating preliminary notices, which release to use when, how to process progress invoices, etc.

In 2000 I (Diane) started this website because there was so little out there at the time to help contractors to succeed. I started out with posting information based on our and other contractors' experiences and gradually I added downloadable construction forms.

I was amazed at the response I received, it showed that there really was a need for the information and forms that I was posting here.

From 2000 through 2004 I ran the office portion of our construction business and did everything I could to keep up with the ever increasing demand for the website.

Finally in 2004 (due to his and our son's health) my husband made the difficult decision to close the construction business and allow me to focus on the website 100%.

My husband has Epilepsy with active grand-mal seizures which makes working on a scaffold that much more dangerous and that, combined with our son's deteriorating health (read more here) and my Fibromyalgia, dictated that we both needed to be home as much as we could. This website and the incredible amount of support we've received has allowed us to do that. :)

I used to publish a monthly newsletter but our son's health and increasing needs have caused me to have to cut back severely on that (currently I publish no more than once per quarter).

Although I've had to cut back I still plan on keeping on "forever" (76,000+ orders and still going), until I'm no longer of this world. It's the only thing that has allowed us to work with our son and bring him along as far as we have. With all the time we have to spend on him and his needs, there's no way we could hold full-time jobs out of the house.

In December of 2006 we moved our family from California to Washington, sight unseen, with the goal of getting help for our son. While I miss California (I was born and raised there) I absolutely love the island we "landed" on. I really don't like the house we bought (we bought it online), it's old and rickety, and needs SO much work, but as they say, as long as your family is together and healthy (in our case as healthy as can be) ;-) it doesn't matter what or where home is.

We are on beautiful Whidbey Island and the support we are now receiving for our son is absolutely tremendous. Our days and nights are still extremely difficult but we can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, and for once it doesn't look like an on-coming train! :)

We sincerely hope that you find this website useful. We are always open to suggestions, comments, questions, complaints, etc. so please feel free to email us!

Have a great day! :)
Diane Dennis

P.S. We also have a beautiful, smart, talented, loving, giving daughter and we are so fortunate to have her. :) She maintained straight A's in both California and Washington, she scored incredibly high on her PSAT and SAT, finished in the top 10% of all Washington state students, and is now out exploring her opportunities. We are so very proud of her. =)