Storage Room

Ryan Homes has opened a model of the Wellington series at Oakhurst in Columbia, where it is building 39 three-level townhouses with insulated vinyl tilt-in windows, oak stair rails, gas heat, smoke detectors and sprinkler system.Homes in the Howard County development will face the community pond and back to woodlands.Prices for the 1,800-square-foot home start at $119,490 for an interior unit with vinyl siding, and increase to $124,790 for an end-of-group with angle bay window.A foyer, 18-by-11-foot living room, 9-by-10-foot dining room, 10-by-10-foot kitchen and storage area make up the entry level.

Picture a house magnificently perched on a hill in Cockeysville with windows overlooking a garden oasis in the foreground and, beyond, a rippling one-acre lake. There is not another house as far as the eye can see from the top of a stone staircase leading off the home's large deck and winding along an alpine garden path to a swimming pool and gazebo. The path continues onto a stone bridge over a cascading stream with a 17-foot drop over waterfalls sliding toward a pond. Beyond the pebble path, a fanciful teahouse rises up from a grassy plain.

The following is compiled from local police reports. Our policy is to include descriptions when there is enough information to make identification possible. If you have information about these crimes, call the Wilkens Precinct at 410-887-0872. Hilton Avenue, 1200 block, 3:30-4 p.m. June 4. Man saw former friend's vehicle parked outside his residence and heard her voice. To avoid confrontation, he went to another section of property. When he returned an hour later, he found his laptop broken and pizza box on chair knocked over.

It wasn't the art heist of the century — "someone came in and took some artwork off the wall and left with it," the vice president of the Towson ARTS Collective said. But it was a big deal for the small nonprofit that promotes local artists and runs classes to teach others how to paint. And so the people who run the collective are trying to turn a discouraging crime into a positive event with a fundraiser to help repay the artists whose work remains missing and improve security at its basement building on York Road.

How dreadful. My husband and I are going to the home sometime this summer or fall, assuming that we sell our apartment for enough money. "The home," of course, is assisted living - a nice, bland euphemism. What it means is that we'll be leaving our lovely apartment on the first floor of a condo looking over an Olmsted garden for an apartment on the seventh floor of the retirement home, which is half the size for lots of money. Yes, I know that we're lucky to be able to do this.

A two-alarm fire last night at the Macy's department store in the Marley Station Mall near Harundale was confined to a second-floor storage room, Anne Arundel County fire officials said.County Fire Division Chief C. Gary Rogers said that the blaze was discovered about 9:20 p.m. and that firefighters quickly evacuated store employees and the relatively few remaining customers. The fire was brought under control about an hour later.Chief Rogers said sprinklers had helped to confine the fire to the storage area.

The storage room in Zora Dougherty's consignment shop has been converted into Success in Style's latest fundraiser - Charity's Closet. "I knew I wanted to do something with the space eventually," said Dougherty, owner of Second Childhood in Ellicott City. "At one point, I received services similar to those provided by Success in Style. I knew they could do something great with it." Success in Style, a nonprofit organization, has provided business attire for more than 1,000 low-income women searching for jobs over the past six years.

Several Amish building companies from Pennsylvania have quietly brought their barn-raising skills to Maryland, where homeowners are discovering the charm that timber-frame additions can bring to a house.The Amish builders' post-and-beam construction techniques, finely tuned through generations of building barns, offer an alternative for homeowners who want something different from the studs, nails and drywall of traditional framing."It's part of a very old tradition of building," says Chuck Dougherty, a building designer in Leola, Pa., who specializes in timber-frame structures and who has worked with Amish builders.

Theresa Jenkins has coupons down to a science. She knows which stores double and triple them, which let her "stack" manufacturers' and store vouchers on the same item. She holds onto coupons until the goods are on sale, then buys in bulk — from the sort of checkout clerk least likely to hassle her about her great savings. "I tend to pick the youngest boy, a teenage boy," said Jenkins, an Abingdon mother of four. "It's a thing about couponing moms: A teenage boy doesn't care what you do. … He just wants to scan the coupon and get you out of there.

East ColumbiaOakland Mills: 5800 block of Thunder Hill Road: Someone reported Wednesday that several storage room doors had been pried with a screwdriver, but nothing was reported missing.Pub Date: 3/10/97