Category: Kitchen Renovation

MARTINVILLE, VA — SCHOCK GmbH, the global supplier of quartz composite kitchen sinks, will establish its first U.S. manufacturing presence with the construction of a factory in Martinsville, VA, the company announced.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be embarking on this expansion,” said Ralf Boberg, CEO of the Regen, Germany-based company. “SCHOCK’s new facility in Virginia represents a bold, special new step for our company. While our sink products have been available worldwide for years, this is our first manufacturing plant outside of Germany.

“Adding manufacturing in the U.S. will allow us to serve one of our strongest growth markets and meet demand stateside, Boberg added.

The facility will manufacture quartz composite sinks, a category the company pioneered in 1979, SCHOCK officials added.

The post Schock to Open First U.S. Factory appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

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WASHINGTON, DC A pair of prominent industry-related trade associations have issued pleas for Congress and the Biden administration to help ease global supply chain bottlenecks that are stunting housing affordability and hindering the availability of key products used in new construction and residential remodeling.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) last month each issued separate calls for government policymakers to eliminate current trade barriers and seek solutions to port congestion and major delays in truck and rail transportation.

Testifying before the House Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations, NAHB Chairman Chuck Fowke told government lawmakers that disruptions in the building materials supply chain exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic are having “a disproportionate” impact on smaller homebuilding firms.

“Without large economies of scale, small businesses generally cannot negotiate bulk discounts on lumber and other key building materials,” said Fowke. “The effects of this uncertainty trickle all the way to the (prospective) homebuyer, many of whom have balked at projects due to unexpected price increases.”

According to the Washington, DC-based NAHB, historically high lumber and building materials prices continue to serve as “headwinds” for the U.S. housing sector, significantly impeding housing affordability.

“From steel mill products and plastic piping to cooper pipe and wood windows and doors, prices are up dramatically year-to-date and are exacerbating the growing housing affordability crisis,” Fowke said. “Until a long-term solution can be reached, Congress and the administration should temporarily suspend duties on a wide array of imported building materials and goods, from Canadian softwood lumber to Chinese steel and aluminum.”

In addition, “policymakers must continue to aggressively explore solutions to ease building material supply chain disruptions that are causing project delays and putting upward pressure on home prices,” Fowke added.

Days before Fowke’s plea, AHAM joined several other trade associations in telling Congress that ongoing supply chain challenges “are hurting the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers, stalling the economic recovery (and resulting in) unprecedented damage to the global product supply chain.”

“The ability to produce and deliver home appliances to consumers has been dramatically hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic and other supply-related issues, creating hardships for consumers and businesses at every step in the supply chain,” said Joseph McGuire, AHAM president and CEO. “The result is ongoing shortages of products, materials, components and labor, leading to delays and increased costs.”

The post U.S. Action Urged on Supply Chain Bottlenecks, Tariffs appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

CHARLOTTE, NC — SEN Design Group, the Charlotte, NC-based kitchen and bath industry buying group and business education resource, has revamped its membership structure to increase access to business education opportunities for industry professionals, the organization announced.

“Under our previous structure, the majority of our educational opportunities were add-on expenses for our members, but we wanted to make sure our members had access to as much educational content as they wanted without added expense, so we have updated our membership structure to provide this much-needed resource at a minimal monthly investment,” said Catherine Daugherty, director of membership at SEN Design Group.

SEN Design Group will now offer three tiers of membership with differing benefits based on the member’s specific needs:

n Associate Membership includes basic access to industry-specific business and sales education opportunities; this level is targeted for industry firms and independent designers who may not want to participate in a buying group or attend semi-annual conferences.

n Signature U Membership includes increased access to industry-specific business and sales education opportunities, as well as access to SEN Design Group’s purchasing power and networking community.

n Executive U Membership ($399 per month) includes everything in the Signature U Membership with additional benefits for industry leaders, such as dealer roundtables, a business development manual, personal profiling assessments for better hiring and communication, maximum quarterly rebates, and more.

Additional details are available at www.sendesigngroup.com.

The post SEN Design Group Expands Educational Access appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

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CAMBRIDGE, MA “Strong growth” in home improvement and maintenance expenditures is expected to continue over the coming year, according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA), released last month by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

The LIRA projects year-over-year gains in annual improvement and repair spending will reach 9% in the fourth quarter of this year and maintain that pace into 2022. Annual improvement and repair expenditures by homeowners could reach $400 billion by the third quarter of 2022, according to the Joint Center, which warned that “several headwinds” – including the rising costs of labor and building materials, as well as increasing interest rates – “could still taper expected growth.”

“Residential remodeling continues to benefit from a strong housing market with elevated home construction and sales activity and immense house price appreciation in markets across the country,” said Carlos Martín, project director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Cambridge, MA-based Joint Center. “The rapid expansion of owners’ equity is likely to fuel demand for more and larger remodeling projects into next year.”

In related remodeling market news:

n The U.S. building products market will continue building on its “exponential growth” of the past two years, gaining an additional 2.9% from 2023 through 2025, with the professional sector increasing by 4.6%, according to a newly released forecast by the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI). The Indianapolis-based HIRI predicted that the total U.S. building products market will increase by 13% in 2021 over the previous year, with the professional sector growing by 18.2%. The total building products market is forecast to grow an additional 2.3% in 2022, with the professional sector growing by 7.1%, HIRI added.

n Businesses in the residential construction and remodeling sectors anticipate “strong activity” through the balance of 2021, although many companies report steady increases in backlogs since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with wait times of nearly three months before new projects can begin, according to the Q4 2021 Houzz Renovation Barometer, a quarterly gauge that tracks market expectations, project backlogs and recent activity among U.S businesses in the construction and architectural/design services sectors. Results of the survey were released last month by Houzz Inc., the Palo Alto, CA-based online platform for home remodeling and design.

“Confidence prevails across the industry through year-end,” said Marine Sargsyan, Houzz senior economist. “We’ve seen some settling of home renovation and design activity following record high performance earlier in the year, yet many businesses are struggling to catch up with heightened demand as they navigate supply chain challenges and labor availability, leading to record-long backlogs.”

n Demand for remodeling remains strong, and remodelers “are doing quite well as long as they can adequately deal with material and labor shortages,” according to the latest Remodeling Market Index (RMI) compiled by the National Association of Home Builders. The NAHB last month released its NAHB/Royal Building Products Remodeling Market Index (RMI) for the third quarter of 2020, posting a reading of 87, up five points from the third quarter of 2020. The finding “is a signal of residential remodelers’ confidence in their markets, for projects of all sizes,” the NAHB said.

“We are seeing strong demand and continued optimism in the residential remodeling market, despite the fact that supply constraints are severe and widespread,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz.

The post ‘Strong Growth’ Foreseen for Remodeling Through 2022 appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

WASHINGTON, DC — Single-family home sizes are reportedly rising as an offshoot of the COVID-19 pandemic, reversing a recent trend toward downsizing, as homeowners are seeking additional residential space for a wider range of purposes, particularly teleworking and school-related activities.

At the same time, trade association officials are reporting a continued shift in new residential construction away from urban areas to lower-density, lower-cost suburban markets.

According to the latest analysis by the National Association of Home Builders, the median size of a newly built single-family home increased to 2,297 sq. ft., while the average size for new single-family homes increased to 2,540 sq. ft.

Since Great Recession lows, home sizes rose between 2009 to 2015 as entry-level new construction was constrained, according to the NAHB. In contrast, home sizes declined between 2016 and 2020, as more starter homes were developed, the NAHB said.

“Going forward, we expect home size to increase again, given a shift in consumer preferences for more space due to the increased use and roles of homes in the post-COVID-19 environment,” said Robert Dietz, chief economist for the Washington, DC-based NAHB.

The NAHB also reported that residential construction continued its yearlong shift toward the suburbs and lower-cost markets, a trend that’s especially pronounced within the multifamily sector.

According to the association’s latest Home Building Geography Index (HBGI), multifamily residential construction posted a 14.3% gain in small metro core and suburban areas during the second quarter of 2021, while large metro areas experienced a 0.5% decline for multifamily building activity.

“The trend of construction shifting from high-density metro areas to more affordable regions, which accelerated at the beginning of the pandemic, appears to be continuing,” said NAHB Chairman Chuck Fowke.

“There’s a marked increase in new apartment construction outside large metro areas, as people have greater flexibility to live and work in more affordable markets,” added Robert Dietz, chief economist for the NAHB.

The post Home Sizes, Suburban Shift Seen Increasing as COVID Offshoot appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

WASHINGTON, DC The National Association of Home Builders has renewed its calls on Congress and the Biden administration to help ease building material supply chain bottlenecks that are stunting housing affordability by eliminating trade barriers and seeking solutions to port congestion and major delays in truck and rail transportation.

Testifying before the House Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations, NAHB Chairman Chuck Fowke this week told government lawmakers that disruptions in the building materials supply chain that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic are having “a disproportionate” impact on smaller homebuilding firms.

“Without large economies of scale, small businesses generally cannot negotiate bulk discounts on lumber and other key building materials,” said Fowke. “The effects of this uncertainty trickle all the way to the (prospective) homebuyer, many of whom have balked at projects due to unexpected price increases.”

According to the Washington, DC-based NAHB, historically high lumber and building materials prices continue to serve as “headwinds” for the U.S. housing sector, significantly impeding housing affordability.

“From steel mill products and plastic piping to cooper pipe and wood windows and doors, prices are up dramatically year-to-date and are exacerbating the growing housing affordability crisis,” Fowke said, suggesting that the Biden administration address two fundamental problems.

“On the trade front, until a long-term solution can be reached, Congress and the administration should temporarily suspend duties on a wide array of imported building materials and goods, from Canadian softwood lumber to Chinese steel and aluminum,” said Fowke. “In addition, policymakers must continue to aggressively explore solutions to ease building material supply chain disruptions that are causing project delays and putting upward pressure on home prices.”

The post NAHB Urges Action on Supply Chain Bottlenecks, Tariffs appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

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WASHINGTON, DC — Reflecting continued gains in new construction and residential remodeling, domestic shipments of major home appliances continued their year-long upward climb through the third quarter of 2021, despite a modest July-through-September downturn, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers reported.

According to the Washington, DC-based AHAM, a July-through-September decline of 2.4% compared the same quarter a year ago was not enough to thwart an overall year-to-date gain of 16.0% in major appliance shipments compared to the same nine-month period in 2019.

Year-to-date shipments through the third quarter of 2021 totaled 66.7 million units, compared to 57.5 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2020, AHAM reported.

Gains through the third quarter were posted in all key product categories, including food preservation (+17.8%), cooking (+12.6%), kitchen cleanup (+9.1%) and home laundry (+19.1%), the trade association said.

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CHARLOTTE — SEN Design Group, the Charlotte, NC-based buying group and business education resource, has begun accepting registrations for its industry-specific Business School, to be held in-person Nov. 8-11 at theMART in Chicago.

The four-day event, sponsored by Custom Wood Products and Bridgewood Cabinetry, is aimed at empowering owners and executives in the kitchen and bath industry with business management tools aimed at growing their businesses, according to SEN.

“The Business School is the kitchen and bath firm owner’s opportunity to move the needle in their organizations. It’s a truly transformational, poignant program that brings industry owners and partners to the next level,” said Dan Luck, SEN Design Group’s senior v.p.

“The program covers critical topics to maximize returns, master financials, leverage marketing strategies, improve personnel relations and implement proven methods to quickly and profitably grow kitchen and bath businesses,” Luck said.

According to SEN Business School, attendees “will develop strong strategic planning skills and learn how to manage business financials, build a successful commission system, learn how to forecast sales, create an effective pricing formula, increase profits, build a powerful sales team, win bank financing requests, develop a three-year budget and more.

Additional information can be obtained by visiting www.SENDesignGroup.com.

The post SEN to Host Four-Day November Business School appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

INDIANAPOLIS — The U.S. building products market will continue building on its “exponential growth” of the past two years, gaining an additional 2.9% from 2023 through 2025, with the professional sector increasing by 4.6%, according to a newly released forecast by the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI).

The Indianapolis-based HIRI predicted that the total U.S. building products market will increase by 13% in 2021 over the previous year, with the professional sector growing by 18.2%. The total building products market is forecast to grow an additional 2.3% in 2022, with the professional sector growing by 7.1%, HIRI added.

“The home improvement industry had explosive growth during the coronavirus pandemic, due primarily to DIY projects, but that may now be driven by pros,” said HIRI Research Director Matthew Craig, adding that growth in the DIY sector is expected to decline as an overall share of home improvement product sales in 2022, since “many homeowners completed planned projects throughout this year and the last.”

However, growth “will continue further in the professional products market as COVID-19 restrictions ease and projects put on hold resume, HIRI said.

“The strong home improvement outlook provided by pandemic behavior has been given new life by improved employment gains, increased access to vaccinations and additional stimulus measures,” said HIRI. “A continuing strong economy suggests that spending (in the professional sector) will improve, as households feel more comfortable with contractors in their home.”

The post Continued Growth Forecast for U.S. Building Products appeared first on Kitchen & Bath Design News.

Over the years, the term in-stock cabinets has become a little synonymous with the kitchen. Having become a staple of the room over the last few decades, many homeowners simply believe them to be suitable for that one room.

However, that is not the case, and utilizing them in other rooms can help to you transform your home. As technology and materials advance, in-stock cabinets are able to offer you with some truly beautiful designs and styles that can help you to elevate any interior.

Still not sure? We thought we would take a closer look at how they can enhance some of the most popular rooms in your home…

In-stock Cabinets for Bathrooms

Your bathroom is one of the most-used rooms in the home, and storage is an incredibly important feature. Installing in-stock cabinets in your bathroom can provide you with a wide range of benefits, including:

Allowing you to enjoy a unique design that combines storage with countertop space. This will let you display things such as cosmetics or various décor options.In-stock cabinets for the bathroom can also help you to make better use of your existing space. If you find your bathroom has unused nooks, then adding a cabinet can help you to add the perfect finishing touch.Adding an in-stock cabinet can also help you get rid of the traditional pedestal sink storage, reducing the clutter in your bathroom.

In-stock Cabinets for Laundry Rooms

The laundry room is another very important space within the home. However, for many homeowners, this room remains a functional, if slightly uninspiring, area. In-stock cabinets can help you to transform your laundry room in multiple ways:

By providing greater storage and organisation for your essential supplies. They can also help to keep supplies out of sight from children or pets.They can also add additional countertop space to fold or iron your clothes.In-stock cabinets can also help to provide seating space for your family, which can be useful if you are putting on shoes or getting ready to head outside.

In-stock Cabinets for Wine and Coffee Bars

Looking to create a truly unique wine or coffee bar in your home? In-stock cabinets are a fantastic way to transform any space:

Help you to create a dedicated bar space to entertain friends and familyProvide you with additional storage and organisation to keep ice buckets, glasses, and anything else you need.Boost the visual appeal of any room by creating a tidy and stylish bar area that is both eye-catching and functional. They can also be tailored to meet any interior design, ensuring you have the perfect matching cabinets.

In-stock Cabinets for Home Offices

As more people work remotely, in-stock cabinets are quickly becoming a must-have accessory for any home office. These unique solutions can help you to:

Enjoy a clear workstation, allowing you to quickly create the perfect home office solution to store everything you need.They can also help you to improve your organization and reduce any clutter by giving you a secure place to store them.In-stock cabinets can also create a more inviting space to work from, making it more enjoyable to work from (while also looking far better on your next Zoom call!)

In-stock Cabinets for Dining Rooms

No matter whether you are eating with your family or entertaining friends, your dining room is often the heart of any home. Adding in-stock cabinets can help you to:

Enjoy an ample serving space, allowing you to serve guests directly at the table or creating a delicious buffet spread for those more relaxed occasions.Not only do they help you to bring more dishes through to the dining room, but in-stock cabinets can also free up space on the dining table, helping to make it feel less cluttered.In-stock cabinets can also help you to transform the aesthetics of your dining room, allowing you to create a modern and stylish interior that your guests will love.

In-stock Cabinets for Bedrooms

Whether you are looking to store accessories and cosmetics, or you just need more space in your bedroom, in-stock cabinets can help you to transform your bedroom in multiple ways, including:

Acting as a makeup station. The flat surface is the perfect spot to add a mirror and lighting, allowing you to stop trying to apply your makeup standing in front of the bathroom mirror.For students, an in-stock cabinet can also double as a fantastic desk for remote learning, allowing them to complete homework and lessons in a private space.In-stock cabinets for bedrooms can also help to reduce clutter by providing ample storage space for a huge array of items.

In-stock Cabinets for Playrooms

Children’s playrooms can often be a messy space, so adding an in-stock cabinet can transform your interior in multiple ways:

They are a great way to neatly store and organize all of your child’s favorite toys. Allowing you to keep them out of sight while remaining easily accessible.In-stock cabinets can also double up as a fantastic desk space that your child can use for their drawings and colorings in.They are also a very stylish solution that can help to either enhance the existing décor or add a splash of additional color and texture.

In-stock Cabinets for Entertainment Rooms

Do you regularly host fun nights for your friends and family? If so, in-stock cabinets for entertainment rooms can provide an array of benefits, including:

Increasing the amount of usable storage space. No matter whether it is storing your favorite DVDs or records or keeping some of your favorite drinks out of sight, this storage space can be invaluable.With all that storage space, you can remove the messy and unsightly clutter, helping to create a cleaner and less distracting room for your guests.In-stock cabinets for entertainment rooms are also a great way to transform the interior of any room, allowing you to create the perfect décor for your home.

Looking for in-stock cabinets?

If you are looking to transform your home with some beautiful and stylish in-stock cabinets, then Explore Kitchens is here to help you. We provide our customers with the very best cabinet solutions, operating across Northern Virginia.

So no matter which room you are looking to transform in your home, our experienced team is here to help you create the perfect interior. Want to find out more? Get in touch today!

The post How In-Stock Cabinets Can Transform Your Home! appeared first on Explore Kitchens – Kitchen Remodeling in McLean, VA.

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