Home show vendors say business is slowly rebounding

at Allentown's Agri-Plex on Saturday.

Linda Cahill is an avid HGTV watcher. She particularly likes the Property Brothers.

The charming TV duo helps families buy and renovate tired homes. And you simply can't watch "Property Brothers," Cahill mused, if you don't have granite countertops.

She set out to change that shortcoming in her own home Saturday and found a few vendors to choose from at the Eastern Pennsylvania Spring Home Show at Allentown's Agri-Plex. The show brings together companies specializing in custom cabinets, pools and spas and other home products and services.

Linda and John Cahill came looking for ideas to update the 18-year-old brick colonial they built atop a hill in Klecknersville, north of Bath. Perhaps granite countertops, she said. Or a new driveway, he added.

Rick Hauler of Penn Windows, Doors and Siding is used to the kitchen vendors being the belle of the ball. People want a new kitchen or a renovated bathroom they can show off, whereas energy-efficient replacement windows aren't the most glamorous part of home improvement, he said.

While there were signs of the economy's comeback in the people at the show who, like the Cahills, were looking to spend money on renovations, real economic recovery would have drawn crowds to Hauler's display as well, he and his wife, Beth, noted.

After holding off on home improvements for a few years, homeowners are looking to splurge not on practical new windows but on vanity projects, Beth Hauler said.

Back-to-back mild winters were bad for the Haulers' business too, cutting down on the cold drafts that remind homeowners their windows need replacing. More and more, doors have become a larger share of their family-owned business.

"Doors have been very hot," Rick Hauler said.

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Home show vendors say business is slowly rebounding