Bart Homes Opens New Design Center

has expanded into the interior design business.

The company's new design/sales center at U.S. 30 and 143rd Street, near Fox's Pub, celebrated its opening with a ribbon-cutting and lunch Thursday.

The center is owned by Brian Bart, who got his start in the construction and remodeling business working on custom homes with his father, Tom, who owned Tom Bart Construction. He was the company's general manager until 2008, when the economy sank and he "laid himself off," Bart said in a media release on his new business.

Since then he's been doing mostly remodeling work, and the new center is an offshoot of that enterprise, Bart said.

"I am more poud to have not only created a job for myself in this tough economy but also for another two full-time and two part-time employees, not to mention all the countless subcontractors that we keep busy every day," he said in the release.

Bart's long-term goal is to hire another six or seven employees to keep up with people remodeling their existing homes and to be ready for when the housing market returns, he said.

The center's showroom features a scaled-down "Bart Home" in addition to displays offering design ideas and house components.

The business' hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.