Here at ACE we’re finally pursuing the recent trend, the trend to “live green.”  It seems like in today’s society this challenge faces us everywhere, from our commute to work straight to the television shows we watch.  Yes this year even the Emmy’s went “green.”   Several of our new products have been eco-friendly; such as the recent Fresh Wave Odor Neutralizer.  Many of us here have incorporated the earth-friendly products into our lives and find value in using them.  Not only do they work great, but they also lack harmful chemicals.

In continuing to go with the trend, our new earth-friendly product is Ecos Earth Friendly Products.  The company is exceptional when it comes to their quest to be green.  They maintain their four manufacturing centers across America; where they recycle wastewater and source their ingredients domestically.  All Earth Friendly Products are made with replenishable and sustainable plant-based ingredients, making them safe for people, pets and the earth. 

The products we carry include: Dishmate (Almond and Grapefruit), Creamy CleanserToilet Cleaner, Floor Cleaner, Wave Auto Dishwasher Gel and Powder, Furniture Polish, Ecos Free and Clear Laundry Soap

Take a look Earth Friendly Products website.

Guess what company is a new member to not only the BusinessWeek top 25 Customer Service Champs, but the top 10 on the list… you guessed it, ACE Hardware. None of the other home improvement chains made the list of course. Here is a link to the BusinessWeek video featuring ACE Hardware’s #10 finish.

http://feedroom.businessweek.com/?fr_story=FRdamp250708

We just received the line of Fresh Wave Odor Neutralizing products that Peggy discovered at the Fall ACE show in Denver.  She has tried every air freshener/odor neutralizer in our housewares section to no avail.  She purchased this product at the show and placed it next to her litter box in her laundry room; this area as always been a problem due to her three cats.  Since she’s been using the Fresh Wave Crystal Gel the smells of her cats are nowhere to be smelled! 

Fresh Wave Odor Neutralizing Products come in a variety of products, from candles to Pearl Packs.  All their products contain a mixture of soya, purified water and natural extracts of lime, pine needle, aniseed, clove and cedarwood.  The exceptional thing about Fresh Wave is it’s earth-friendly, natural, effective, yet still safe for using practically anywhere, even on your hair!  

Visit our store for Fresh Wave or for more information visit www.fresh-wave.com.

Are you tired of cleaning with harmful chemicals?  With many of us striving to live our lives more “green,” Green Works cleaners adds in this push.  Green Works cleaners are all natural powerful cleaners.  The Green Works products were developed with three core principles in mind: a product that was sustainable, biodegradable and not tested on animals.

Green Works cleaners are 99% natural and work the same (or even better) than the traditional cleaners that contain harsh chemicals.  Currently Green Works has an all purpose cleaner, toiler bowl cleaner, glass & surface cleaner, and a dilutable cleaner.

Look in our cleaning aisle (aisle 10) for these new upcoming products!http://www.greenworkscleaners.com/

A single-coat faux finish.  Yes, “forget what you know about faux finishing.”  Michelangelo is a single can of paint that lets you achieve the faux finishing look that you desire.  All it takes is just one coat of paint and a simple tool to create “endless possibilities.”  Once the paint is applied, apply pressure and movement with a basic tool, such as putty knife or sponge, to create depth and darker shades.  The color range is created by what tool you select.  You can work with the paint as much or little as you’d like to create the right look.  And if you mess up, just paint right over it and start over again.

 This is a great product for the first time faux finisher.  Not only is it cost-effective, but it’s easy to use and far less time consuming than other faux finishers.

For more information visit www.MichelangeloHome.com or come visit our helpful paint department.

We’ve just received an innovative new masking tape called Frog Tape. What could be innovative about masking tape you ask? You’d be surprised. It’s green. No, that’s not the innovative part. The innovative part is the way that frog Tape actually seals on the edge and does not let paint weep in.

We’ve all painted with masking tape being very careful to lay down a clean straight edge. Then you peel off the tape only to find that some paint has seeped under the edge of the tape and now you have a not so clean line. Frog Tape is designed to eliminate this problem. Frog Tape has polymers embedded in to the adhesive layer of the tape. These absorb the liquid paint and expand to seal off the edge of the tape, not letting any paint get underneath. Peel off the Frog Tape and you’ll see a very clean edge - just what you wanted in the first place.

For more information visit FrogTape.com, or come see the tape here at our store!

So Long story short for us this year is that we owe our customers a great deal of thanks. After something like 18 years in Loveland; and the construction of new stores including Home Depot, Lowes, and (another) Super Wal-Mart in our little town; we just ended our best year ever. Our total sales were 7% from 2006.

We had some help from the weather among other things a few times but the fact of the matter of is this kind of performance just wouldn’t be possible if Loveland wasn’t a small town community where our friends like to come in and shop us year after year. We are doing everything we can to make our store better (we all know there are things we need to do better), but here at the beginning we just want to say THANK YOU for a great year.

We look forward to another great year in 2008! We’ll keep you bringing you more service, more knowledge, and more new products… hopefully it help us to get you thinking of us just a little more often. Thanks again, see you in the store!!

I use what is called a feed reader (Google Reader in my case) to keep an eye on interesting news feeds from around the internet. Well I’ll be darned if yesterday in my feed reader didn’t find an article from the Coloradoan (the Fort Collins newspaper) featuring our friends at Downtown ACE Hardware and the fact they are the last store in town to find LED Christmas lights.

You can check out the article by clicking here. Nice seeing a local business get recognized, especially our friends Tom, Jeremy, and the crew over at Downtown ACE!

Shiny New Pot Rack, originally uploaded by dzvette53.

I recently moved in with my girlfriend Shannon, and as a result, for the first time in my life I live in a place that actually has a touch of class. So just to show that I could contribute to our great looking townhouse (and since I have ugly but NON-STICK pots and pans that are good for cooking and she has beautiful stainless pots and pans that are terrible for actual cooking), I brought home from the store this black pot rack with silver grate that looks fantastic hanging over our island. The rack is cool product #1… it looks great and is easy to install with a few drywall anchors.

But what I was really impressed was cool product #2 I found as part of this project. That was MAAS metal polish. The old stainless pans needed a face lift going from production cooking duty to purely display and WOW did MAAS do the trick. Totally impressed, so much so I ran around the house doing all the faucets and most anything else that was shiny metal I could find. Anyway, I highly recommend it (and of course it came from ACE also). More info on it available at www.maasinc.com.

ACE Bag Sale, originally uploaded by dzvette53.

So some of you may have been for the ACE bag sale we had where anything you could fit in the bag, you got 20% off on. Well, I’m not exactly sure this was what all of us ACE stores had in mind but what the hell?!

How could you NOT give this guy the discount!!! This is a fun sale every time we do it, hopefully a few of you got in on it and got a 20% discount.