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KITCHENS DEMONSTRATE HOW HOME HAS EVOLVED,

Thursday, January 24, 2008

SOMERSET, NJ – The evolution of the kitchen in the two decades since MAC Events produced the first Garden State Home Show reflects the changing American lifestyle, with a greater emphasis on its traditional function as living space, greater efficiency in use and storage, and environmentally friendly products and materials.

The 19th Annual Garden State Home Show, February 8 through February 10 at the Garden State Convention Center, also will feature tips from television host, author and one of America’s Top 100 interior decorators, Doug Wilson.

“Doug’s show, Moving Up will return to TLC for its 4th season in April and he always is a big hit at MAC Events’ home shows,” said show director and president James McLaughlin. “We are very pleased to have him back because he’s busy as a featured designer again in the new season of Trading Spaces that premieres on TLC Saturday, January 26.”

Wilson will make his appearance at the Garden State Home Show on Saturday, Feb. 9.

“Sparkee,” mascot for the Somerset Patriots baseball team, also will make a guest appearance on Saturday from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm at Five Star Home Remodeling’s booth. Sponsored by the Bridgewater remodeling company’s president, Larry Hopkins, “Sparkee” will pose for photos with children.

Wilson, a designer, author, television showman and philanthropist, probably is best known for the daring, high-impact rooms he has created on Trading Spaces. A modern day Renaissance man, the small-town boy from Broadlands, Illinois, population 350, grew up to become a design-phenomenon.

Known for taking inspiration from his childhood home, he melds organic elements with a fresh, sophisticated and inherently American sense of style that has earned him recognition as one of House Beautiful Magazine’s Top 100 Interior Designers.

A master of using intricate wall treatments and decorative painting techniques to create bold and powerful 21st century designs, his projects run the gamut; from a table suspended in midair in an elegant yellow and black dining room to an exact replica of a Pullman car.

“Doug contributes to the Home Show’s variety and helps illustrate how much homes and home-improvement options have changed since our first Garden State Home show in 1989,” McLaughlin said.

More so, perhaps than any room, the kitchen has undergone dramatic changes since that first show, although some of those changes are a return to tradition.

“Today, consumers are going back to 40 years ago with darker woods and finishes in their kitchen cabinets, even reproductions of the Old World look,” said Gennine DeMarco, office manager for Wholesale Kitchens of Perth Amboy.

“The industry has come up with many different ways to improve the efficiency of cabinets; making accessories specific to things like pots and pans or lids,” said DeMarco, who sells cabinets by 10 manufacturers, including Schrock, UltraCraft and Greenfield.

Wholesale Kitchens exhibit will include a two-tone look, combining a dark chocolate finish on maple combined with a glazed toasted-almond finish and a Corian countertop as well as various new cabinet accessories.

“Consumers are more sophisticated than they were 20 years ago. So, manufacturers are offering many choices in the type of rollers for drawers, more solid wood in their cabinets and better quality construction,” he said. “Even in the basic cabinet lines, drawers are dovetailed.”

Jim MacNutt of Knight Kitchens, a North Clarendon, VT, company that sells custom cabinets factory direct, said kitchens today are returning to the home’s focal point as they have been through the ages.

“When I was a kid, if you had a serious family talk or got in trouble, you sat down at the kitchen table,” MacNutt recalled. “Now, kitchens have revolved around great rooms, which weren’t around 20 years ago, to be more of a living space and not just a work space. Often they have islands and a full blown desk or work center for a computer and place to plug in your cell phone when you come home.”

Than there’s the explosion in appliances, even in the down to earth kitchen, microwave ovens combined with convection ovens are common as are ranges that incorporate cook-top, microwave and oven. Consider the proliferation of commercial-grade appliances in modern residential kitchens.

Customers also are looking for environmentally friendly products and materials.

Nancy Lake, a certified kitchen designer and owner of Kitchens by Nancy Inc. of Somerville, sells cabinets that have less impact on the environment.

“Green projects are becoming more of a focus today. I’m working with two manufacturers that use woods that grow back more quickly and water-based glues that are less harmful to the environment to put cabinets together,” said Lake, who also is a certified aging-in-place specialist and designs kitchen and bath renovations that enable people stay in their homes as they age.

The Garden state Home Show offers an opportunity for consumers to discuss remodeling and decorating projects with specialists in architecture and space planning, interior and landscape design and many other areas of expertise. The show also is an especially timely opportunity to find

contractors that work in your area for outdoor projects before they become booked into the summer months.

The 19th Annual Garden State Home will be open Friday, Feb. 8, from 1:00-to-9:00 pm, Saturday Feb. 9, from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm, and Sunday, Feb. 10, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Admission is $9.00 for adults and $6.00 for children 12 through 17. Children 11 and under are admitted free. Seniors can take advantage of a Friday special admission price of $8.00 and adults can take advantage of two-for-one date night admission after 6:00 pm on Friday and Saturday.

The Home Show is produced by MAC Events, a nationally recognized producer of high-quality business-to-consumer trade shows in a variety of industries and markets since 1968. The Spring Lake, NJ-based family-owned company produces approximately 20 recreational vehicle, home, boat and flower & garden shows a year throughout New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia and is a source of market research for the recreational vehicle, boating and home improvement industries.

EDITORS: Media are welcome at the 19thhAnnual Garden State Home Show. To arrange for coverage or art in advance, please contact Jack Quinn MAC Events Media Communications at 800-332-3976 ext. 122 or jack@macevents.com For coverage during the show, please ask for, Rich at the show office

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