Building excitement: Local home show highlights improvement ideas

Building excitement: Local home show highlights improvement ideas

Published on March 17, 2013

By Courtney Mabeus
News-Post Staff

Alberta Issaq stood before the outdoor brick-oven on display at the Frederick County Fairgrounds Saturday and spoke of love.

“It’s a pizza oven,” Issaq said. “However, my husband wants to buy it to make bread in it.”

Issaq was one of many home improvement-minded people seeking ideas who turned out Saturday for the 38th annual Frederick County Building Industry Association’s Home Show and Builder Olympics. She stood outside a display set up by Frederick-based landscape design-build firm PorterBrook II that included the brick oven and a rain chain water feature under a wood awning.

The company’s set up won Best Landscape at the event earlier in the day.

“I think it’s so cute,” Issaq said as she gushed about the brick-oven display. “I love it.”

Issaq was accompanied by her husband, Haleem, and son, Sam. The family is renovating its living room, so they turned out to the show to gather ideas, Issaq said.

Saturday’s chilly wind and clouds provided the perfect backdrop for the event. It wasn’t so nice outside that people would have preferred to start their home-improvement projects, but it also wasn’t so dreary that people chose to stay home.
Kitchen and bath remodeling and landscaping were among the popular projects Donna Kraft, the association’s executive administrator, said she was hearing about.

“People that are coming are here for specifics,” Kraft said.

About 160 exhibitors set up for the two-day event, just slightly below the number of vendors that turned out last year, Kraft said. Exhibitors ran the gamut of home improvement — from builders to vendors offering energy efficiency, roofing, counters, cabinets and landscaping.

Exhibitors said they were pleased with the turnout, too. Dave Marvel, a lead generator from Gaithersburg-based Capital Remodeling Inc., said he had already booked about 15 appointments with potential customers.

“It’s because we have a bathtub here, that’s the attraction,” Marvel said.

Steph Butts and Keith Kohr stopped at MTV Solar. The couple said they were looking to add solar panels to their Market Street home and had already visited several exhibits offering such products Saturday.

Butts said she likes solar because it’s “better for the environment, theoretically cheaper in the long run.”

In one building, Stephanie and Kenny Whitmore of New Midway gathered information from Dorcus Construction Co. The couple is planning to remodel and add on to their home. The work will also include moving the laundry from the dining room, Stephanie Whitmore said.

“I have to fold my laundry on the dining room table,” she said.