Homeowners slowly open wallets for improvements

Home show exhibitors say they’re seeing cautious increase in purchases

People are starting to spend money on their homes again.

Not a lot, but enough that paint store owners, home designers and kitchen refinishers are hopeful that this year represents a turn away from the disastrous depths of the recession last year.

“We’re not taking as many vacations, so we’re stuck at home and we want it to look pretty,” said Debby Doyle as she looked at interior design displays during a home show Saturday at the San Diego Convention Center.

She said she was looking for ways to redo the landscaping around her Escondido home to save water and save money. Doyle has decorated many of the rooms inside the home with the help of interior designer Kathleen Lilleeng, who was also at the show.

More people are looking for help decorating this year than last, Lilleeng said, but it’s not like it was during the boom times.

“It’s always about the budget,” she said. To cut costs for her clients, she shops at consignment shops and reuses pieces from their homes.

“People are definitely saying business is picking up,” said Kellie McCormick, president-elect of the San Diego Chapter of ASID, the American Society of Interior Designers.

Big chains are starting to see a difference as well. Both Home Depot and Lowe’s reported increased profits last week. People are spending more on home improvement projects and buying expensive items such as gas grills and mowers, they said.

Those results reflect a small part of what homeowners are doing, said George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants in Carlsbad.

“They’re spending some,” he said. “We’re nowhere near back to where we were before, or what any of us would call normal.”

Much of the spending, he said, is for things that simply cannot be put off.

“They’re spending money on repairs, but they’re not spending much money on anything else,” he said.

The difference between today and what things were like just a few years ago was reflected in this weekend’s home show.

Six years ago, when she last put on the San Diego Interior Design and Landscaping Expo, Penny Domschot had more than 500 exhibitors and 29,000 visitors.

She sold that show to a company who later decided not to hold it any longer. With this weekend’s show, called the Stylish Spaces Interior Design & Outdoor Living Expo, there were about 150 exhibitors. Traffic was light Saturday afternoon.

The National Association of Home Builders said last month that its members are anticipating an end to declines in remodeling activity. Remodelers are working more this year, the organization said, but they’re not making more because competition has driven them to lower their prices.

At the high end of the business — remodels costing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars — times are still tough, said general contractor Jim Sweig.

“There’s a lot less work and a lot of guys vying for the same work,” he said.

Where his company used to have a two-year backlog, it’s now six months. And contractors are giving away services they used to charge for, he said.

That goes for smaller jobs, too.

When Donna Mulcahy of University City recently remodeled her kitchen, her contractor told her she was getting a deal. She is now thinking of getting work done on a patio.

“We’ve really wanted to do it,” she said. “We can afford it.”

And, she said, she feels it’s important to spend money to keep other people working. “It’s our job to feed the economy,” Mulcahy said.

Some people are opting for less expensive re-dos, said Jim Fay, whose Escondido kitchen business, Granite Transformations, installs custom counters over existing counters, eliminating the cost of demolition.

“Our business exploded in April,” he said, crediting prayers and tax returns. And May has been better still.

Another kitchen remodeler, Randy Zeller of El Cajon, said his business has also picked up this year, but it’s different from years past.

Today, it’s people at or near retirement who are planning to stay in their homes for a while and are paying cash.

“Three years ago, you were dealing with people who were writing equity checks,” he said.

Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com