BANGOR, Maine — With historic snowfall totals and bitterly cold temperatures, a lot of people have not been thinking about spring renovations, but the warm weather is changing things, vendors at the 45th annual Bangor Home Show said Saturday morning.
“It’s been a long winter,” Bud Bruns, owner of the Greenworks Landscaping of Bangor, said standing at his display just inside the Cross Insurance Center. “We’re going to be probably 10 days, maybe two weeks, behind.”
“You can’t install windows. You can’t get next to the house because of the 3 feet of snow,” said Troy Pearl, owner of Pearl Contractors of Corinth, which is the new regional affiliate for Renewal by Andersen windows. “We will do our first install this week.”
“Nobody is thinking about painting in the winter,” said Braeden Sickles of Orrington, the branch manager for Collegiate Entrepreneurs.
All three said potential customers who went to the Home Show on Friday and Saturday morning are ready for the snow to be gone and to start of their projects, whether it be installing a sun room, such as Karen and Greg Bisson of Skowhegan, or adding on a pantry and expanding a garden, such as Sonia and Wayne Mallar of Bangor.
Others talked to vendors about installing a fence, a deck, a hot tub, a walkway, a foundation or adding insulation or other home improvement projects.
“New construction is one of the big things people are asking about [this year],” Pearl said. “Over the last couple of years, it’s certainly been renovations. That’s good.”
With more than 200 vendors lining the concourse and the arena on the lower level of the Cross Center, there was something for everyone at the event.
Outside on display was a modular home, a log cabin and various sheds, along with a company offering stonework.
“When the sun pops out and the weather turns warmer, the phones go crazy,” Pearl said.