Confusing Messages at the Builder Show

Peter Miller, president of Restore Media, the folks that bring us the Traditional Building Exhibition and Conference and a roster of magazines on restoration reports on this year's International Builders' Show on his website. He learned that consumers "want smaller, urban, energy-efficient homes. They want them well appointed and within walking distance to work, schools, shops and restaurants. They want houses in close-in neighborhoods. And while they crave new technologies, especially work-at-home connectivity, they prefer houses 'like the one their grandmother lived in.'"

He has an interesting, realistic and dispassionate take on the show that is well worth reading. He concludes with the thought that, "The 'reset button' is on. We are all trying to figure out what to do next amidst the conflicting, often contradictory advice we get from the experts. We start a new decade as uncertain as the last. We are afraid because we do not know what's next or what to do about it."