Yesterday, we went to the Fenton home show. Our expressed purpose for this journey was that we want to resurrect the new upstairs bathroom project. This is a project that we initially undertook a couple of years ago. I think that its genesis came from our daily walks through the rich neighborhoods of Clayton. We call this walk our neighborhood walk. Even though most of the walk does not occur in our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is best described as the slums of Clayton. During the pandemic this was our go to walk. During these walks through Clayton, it seemed that everyone and their brother was renovating. On an otherwise quite weekday, this neighborhood was bustling with contractors. Eventually, we decided to jump on the bandwagon, but by then it was too late. The news was already full of shortages and our personal experience only confirmed this. It began well, with our neighborhood plumber proposing a novel and cheap less expensive approach for running the pipes from the basement to the upstairs. It went downhill fast from there. Only one contractor responded to our calls and his bid was way more expensive than we expected. So, we tabled the project.

Anne is not a woman who is easily denied though. This week she announced that she was going to this home show. I tagged along. It was held in a sports arena, with all the booths setup on the astroturf. They were hawking all manner of things. There was a cadre of solar vendors, but we mainly use gas, and our electric bills are not high enough to support solar. Most of the bath vendors were only interested in rehabbing, not new construction. We did come away with a few business-card-leads that we will pursue. It is going to be expensive, but hopefully, there are contractors out there that are hungrier than before.