Whether you are building, remodeling or just updating your interior or landscaping, the annual home show in Lafayette is the place to find information and inspiration.
Acadian Home Builders Association has been giving homeowners a yearly blueprint of the best home services and products available in our area for almost 50 years. Once known as “Blueprints,” the annual event is now called the “Home, Garden and Lifestyle Show—Your Blueprint for Better Living.”
Don Pippin Jr., owner Fast Signs, and chairman of this year’s show, says the name change serves two purposes. It helps celebrate the AHBA’s 50th year, and it better reflects the wide range of the show, as it has grown to include all aspects of outdoor living, construction and interior décor. This year over 175 local exhibitors will fill the Cajundome Convention Center to showcase what they can offer Acadiana homeowners. Exhibits include interior décor and furnishings, outdoor furnishings, appliances, flooring, health and fitness, finance, builders and developers, cabinetry and much more.
“We’ve maximized the space we have available,” says Pippin, “and we’re putting up a pavilion in the lobby for vendors who promote healthy living and lifestyles. Outside we’re creating an outdoor living environment that you can register to win at the show.” AHBA is partnering with the Regional Medical Center of Acadiana in the Healthy Living Pavilion, and it will include opportunities for quick, medical screening tests and healthy eating tips. The outdoor living prize showcases the things that enhance outdoor living spaces, including a grill, stone patio and furniture.
“The show is very good for the consumer,” says Denise Domingue, Coburn’s Supply Co. “They get an idea of trends and get to see all the new things available. We’re always trying to make our display new and better. We have appliances and plumbing, and visitors will get to see all of that, but we’re also going to have a beautiful candy apple red range on display.” The exhibit will allow an up close view of the new colors and features available in kitchen and laundry appliances and bath fixtures.
Coburn’s Supply Co. is a Gold Sponsor, along with LUS Fiber, and has been participating in the show since its early years. Domingue has noticed that compared to last year, when many home projects were put on hold, this year there is already more interest in building and remodeling. “I think this show will be one of the biggest,” she says.
The show is all about helping homeowners make dreams come true. Exhibitors will display their wares and explain the benefits of the latest in environmentally friendly building materials, floor treatments, energy saving appliances and new trends in landscaping. Visitors to the show are invited to bring house plans, pictures and questions with them and get answers and helpful tips from the seminar staff on hand each day. In addition, there will be cooking demonstrations by area chefs from favorite restaurants, educational seminars led by AHBA members and fingerprinting for children from the Lafayette Sheriff’s Dept.
AHBA serves as a consumer information agency to residents looking for a licensed builder or subcontractor. The annual Home, Garden and Lifestyle Show provides a showcase for members to interact with the public and give information on new products and services. For more information, visit www.ahbaonline.com or call 337-981-3053.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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