Visiting the Home & Garden Expo

WILKES-BARRE TWP. – Joy Rehatchek really loves her house in Alden. Even after she put it on the market because it didn’t have everything she wanted, she discovered she couldn’t give it up.

“The people coming through and my friends kept saying, ‘It’s such a nice house, why are you selling it?’” Rehatchek said. So she took it off the market and spent Saturday morning walking around the 8th Annual Northeastern Pennsylvania Home and Garden Show at the Wachovia Arena.

At the show, which continues today, Rehatchek checked out vendors with Corian countertops and cabinetry for the gourmet kitchen she wants. She looked at flooring options and was hoping for landscaping ideas. “I was really interested in what they had to offer in outdoor lighting, too,” she said.

Many joined Rehatchek in looking for ways to fix up homes they already have. Bernadette Maleski, her husband and two children want to renovate the Weatherly home her husband inherited. “It’s more economical to fix up what we have,” Maleski said, noting the family has a long wish list that starts with practical things like new windows. “My husband saw an insulation system he was interested in, too,” she said.

Two other Weatherly residents were also checking out ways to save money on energy. Fred and Allyne Ray hoped to find a heat pump to complement an air conditioning system they already installed. “After 30-plus years, we’ve pretty much renovated the house, but we’re looking for ways to save energy. It’s not getting any cheaper,” Fred said.

Waymart residents Nancy and Stuart French were checking out windows and insulation, too, though they considered most of the renovations to their home done. “But that hot tub was kinda nice,” Nancy said with a hint of longing, “Not for a while, though….”

For Bonnie Turner, the show was a chance to check out flooring options. “It’s one of those things you have to wait until you have the money to do it,” the Larksville resident said. Now that the time is right, she was interested in cork flooring. “I see it on the shows on HGTV,” she said, “it’s nice to come here and see some of these different things, things you wouldn’t see in the stores.”

There were lots of HGTV fans in the audience, including some who were there to check out Harry Rinker, from the network’s Collector Inspector show. Rinker offered verbal appraisals on up to two items per person, keeping up a lively and lighthearted banter with the crowd as he explained how to tell a valuable painting from “starving artist” work. “Anything with the canvas stapled to the frame—that’s starving artist stuff,” Rinker said. But he told Dunmore resident Juliann Hall that the picture of a chicken she brought in might have been done by a starving artist, but it was done so long ago that it still had some value – $400 to $600 for the picture and its elaborate frame.

“I think it’s great to get to come to this show and see everything and have an appraisal like this done,” she said. Hall said she was also at last year’s show where she discovered a furniture refinisher who fixed her dining room chairs. “For years they bothered me, he came, picked them up and fixed them, and the cost was so reasonable. I love this show.”

Some people at the show even took the opportunity to visit with some cats, dogs and rabbits available for adoption from the Luzerne County SPCA. Kim Biscotto, volunteer special community events coordinator, said the show offered them an opportunity to get the word out about pets available and about volunteer opportunities for kids and teens through the Pet Protectors Club. She said having the animals at the show was a natural fit. “If you’ve got a house, you need a pet,” she said. “That completes the home.”

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