Show Is Full Of Homey Touches
Jill Spurbeck and her daughter flipped through the carpet swatches at Spokane’s 1995 Home and Yard Show on Saturday.
Blonde-haired Brittany, 5, liked the berry-colored one.
“But that’s not the color we’re getting,” Jill Spurbeck said. “We’ll probably go with one of the tans or golds.”
The Spurbecks were two of an estimated 22,000 people who will visit the 17th annual show, which began Thursday at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds and ends today.
From $20 wind socks to $8,000 hot tubs, stained glass windows to lawnmowers, home show organizers advertise “that we have something that goes in, on, around or over the house,” said director Jim Custer.
It was shufflingroom-only in the aisles Saturday afternoon. A line of people waiting to pay the $4 admission stretched out the door.
Vendors pitching their wares competed for passersby. “Come on over and I’ll show you how to take a stain out of your carpet,” one man yelled.
A woman selling mops said she had to keep an eye out for other vendors who might copy her sales pitch. “It’s very competitive,” said Deena Quesnell, a saleswoman for Shami-mop, a Puyallup, Wash., company.
Browsers could sample goodies from an outdoor grill, step into a sauna, or ride a lawnmower.
“You could really jazz up a house if you put some of those up,” said Mark Donais to his wife, Juanita, while inspecting stained glass windows.
The show wasn’t just for homeowners. Two landlords from Cocolalla, Idaho, came looking for awnings to spruce up their rental units.
“We were looking at something like this,” said Pam Ratz, touching a blue awning over her head in the `Skip’s Awnings’ booth. “But you still get the (rain) dripping, which is what we want to solve.”
In a corner booth, dozens of colorful wind socks hung beneath a sign. One for $19.99, two for $38. Frogs, flags, flowers and other designs adorned the socks. One spun, blown by a small fan. It was a real child-pleaser.
“They all want to touch it,” said Pam Minielly, owner of The Sky’s the Limit, in Kennewick.