Home Renovation Business Booming, Even As Pandemic Causes Nationwide Lumber Shortages
WEST HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA) — While a number of business sectors have suffered in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, home renovation is not one of them.
"Business has been crazy," Melissa Gabso, co-owner of MG Construction & Decks. "It is really good."
Some of the more popular projects include pools, decks, landscaping and turf installation.
"I think people have been sitting in their homes and, you know, they've been letting projects go for a really long time," Gabso said. "So now they're like, 'OK, we've been staring at our ugly yard, we should do something."
One of the firm's current projects is a deck installation for the Levyn family, part of a larger backyard renovation the family decided to take on during the pandemic.
"This is a work in progress, but being able to be outside in Southern California now, what can be better," Allison Levyn said. "It makes a lot of sense. You can where you live, if you have to work there and if you have young children, you want it to be as lovely as it can possibly be."
But it's not just contractors that are staying busy as some people choose to take the do-it-yourself route.
"We do a lot of custom paint mixing now," Kenny Tashman, president of Tashman Home Center, said. "People are tired of the cracks in the walls and the plain white paint and they want color in their room and they want to open their doors and make their space more livable."
From painting to planting gardens, people have been flocking to hardware stores to make their homes more suitable as health officials continue to encourage them to stay home.
Tashman said people were heading to his store buying everything from new lawn furniture to grills — anything they could use to entertain in a safe way.
"Barbecues were completely sold out, we just have a few left," he said. "But it's a nationwide shortage."
Also experiencing a nationwide shortage is lumber, though the Levyn family luckily got their deck just in time as contractors are now saying customers could see delays of one to five weeks based on the type of project due to the shortage.
