E16: What's Up With the BNCW Home Show?

Welcome to another episode of What's up Wenatchee where I talk to local business owners, organizations, nonprofits, and influencers all about what is happening in our hometown. On today's episode, I got to sit down with Danielle Martin who handles all the events for Building North Central Washington. And they have the BNCW Home Show [enter jingle here]. So their home show happens once a year and it's coming up this weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and it couldn't have been more perfect timing because literally the day I sat down with Danielle, I was going through my own searching for houses, maybe putting an offer down on a house, putting our house up for sale. Are we selling, Are we building? Are we buying? Are we remodeling? Are we just going to scrap the whole thing? We have no idea. So we're dealing with all of that in our own personal lives right now. We're running out of space because we have a seven month old who has a crib in the living room and then a 17 year old who is just yelling and urging for more space. So we eventually are going to need another room for the baby to have his own room and eventually to have more space for all of us to coexist. It's all good and fun stuff. I have to remind myself this, but it is difficult when all of your resources are spread out all across different areas, different businesses, you need a realtor, you need a real estate agent, a listing agent, a stager, maybe an interior decorator. Maybe you need a remodeler. Maybe you need a carpenter. Maybe you need an architect, there's so many different options and maybe you don't even know what your options are. I can talk about this from experience because this is where I'm at in my head. So when something like the Home Show comes up and all of these vendors come under one roof for more than a day, it's like you're a kid in a candy store. I get the same feeling that I got when I would walk into a library when I was a kid. Nerd alert, a nerd alert, nerd alert. I would get really excited because you walk in, there's so many options, so many choices, you get overwhelmed by the variety, it's all there and you get all the information and I feel better when I can make an educated decision. When I can make a decision when I have all of the information. I feel much more confident in what I'm doing. So it was a pleasure. I had never met Danielle before. She's apparently new to this area from the Tri-cities but she's a-darling, a-mazing and a-fantastic. If you get a chance to meet Danielle, tell her that you heard her on the podcast and enjoy the BNCW Home show this weekend.

I literally know nothing about you.

Well I'm an Aries. I'm 32. I have three kids.

You do not look like you have three kids by the way. Oh my goodness.

I had three before I turned 30. My God, I just got it done.

Good for you. I did it completely backwards.

Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, I did I did career, career, career, career career and now I'm 38 I have a seven month old baby.

So you're not sleeping? Not at all. Not even a little bit because I have him and then I also do morning radio.

So you're not sleeping but I'm assuming you meant about BNCW. Alright, I'm Danielle Martin and I work with building north central Washington. I handle all the events and membership. So I plan parties and talk to people.

Man, that's got to be a really cool gig.

It is, yeah, I love it. It's great.

How long have you been doing that?

I'm going on eight months, so I'm still fairly new. But I think I was just made for it, so it works.

So this is your first home show.

It is my first home show. Yes, but they've been doing it for, I think this is year 18, so they've been doing it for a long time, but I'm putting a different spin on it. I'm doing a lot more social media, we're doing a lot of things kind of differently marketing wise and then we're just trying to make our vendors really, really noticed by all of our attendees, so we're just going to pump up the volume of this year.

And you're doing a podcast.

And I'm doing a podcast like, oh my goodness, I've never done a podcast before.

Just dust off your shoulder a little bit. There you go. I like it. Alright, so we don't have to talk about the history of the home show. We we know that it's been here for a while. It has a really great history and I don't own a home, but we are house hunting right now.

Perfect.

Yeah, exactly.

It's perfect. So we don't know if we want to buy or if we want to build or what's going on and my boyfriend has bought a home before and he's just like, can't we just look at the pictures and then buy something online, you can buy a car online now, you buy anything online. It's true. I mean you can have bottled water sent to you and show up at your doorstep. And I'm a window shopper.

You need to see it, you need to touch it. Yeah, I got you.

I feel like we need to look at at least 50 houses before we pick which one. We don't know what, you don't know what style you don't know all that, all that fun stuff. Yeah. Now I'm thinking the home show is perfect.

Totally. If you're looking if you're thinking of remodeling or just even redecorating, I mean our vendors, we have from real estate agents who are going to help you too. New construction to remodelers. We have a gentleman who does fireproof safe rooms, we have Ag Supply, we have Valley Tractor, so if you want to take care of your home and your garden, we have like everything pretty much. Lumber - Marson and Marson. For your pool, they're going to have a spa there, so you can buy yourself a hot tub.

Yes, please.

And then we also have lenders, financial advisors, we have it all under one roof. I mean really that's what you really need, right?

And it's a scary process every day. We have this list on the refrigerator. It's actually a spreadsheet because I'm a color coded spreadsheet freak. So we have this spreadsheet on the refrigerator and it has his name, my name and the documents that we need to get together for a financial lender? As we get them, we check them off.

Yeah, exactly. I am similar. I love organization. I'm not always organized but I love organization so I totally can get on that train. It's perfect. I love it. I'm trying to think who else is going to be there as far as like new houses. If you need somebody to kind of figure out your plans, Complete Design their main sponsor this year and he has a huge display and he's so friendly, Ryan Kelso, he's amazing. We love him and he'll be there just meeting and greeting people. So if you want to purchase a house great. But if you want to design your own, that's always an option too.

Well, it is definitely an option for us. But we're always like, where do we start?

Exactly, yeah, exactly. You don't know where to build a house.

Like where do we even go, Who do we talk to? So, you will see us there for sure this weekend.

Perfect. I love it. It is located at the Town Toyota Center. Yes, which is a great venue for something and they've been amazing working with us. We've held it at the Town Toyota Center I think for about 12 years and they just, they do a great job of transforming the ice, turn it into that arena and they work with us. Just making sure vendors are happy and getting everything organized. It's been really nice working with them.

So what is the one thing that you are really super excited about?

The one? I mean I can't pick one thing.

Okay. Top three. Top three.

Okay.

Top 5. Top 10.

Top 80. (laughing) I have a new upcoming designer. We usually do a designer face off at the home show and this year I wanted to change it and just highlight a new upcoming kind of interior decorator. So this year we have Mastermind Staging and Design. She is a new company with her husband. They're really great. They have kind of this rustic Joanna Gaines feel and I really enjoyed that. So they do staging and then also design as well which is, you don't really think about selling your house and putting staging in it, but it makes a huge difference. So she's new and upcoming and that's going to be right as you walk into the front entry. Second thing - we're partnering with the Y. M. C. A. This year, our first every year and they're going to be bringing crafts and fun legos and different building things in our kids zone. So it's really family friendly. The third thing um we have a beer garden this year!

You didn't lead with that?!

I know! We usually have concessions going but I thought why not take it a step further and have an actual beer garden. So we have a beer garden open Thursday afternoon, Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon and they're going to be serving up some specials from Columbia Distributing.

Very cool. Okay, so give us the days and the times again and where we can get more information.

February 10th, 11th and 12th at the Town Toyota center. I have these lovely programs all over different businesses in the valley. So they will be everywhere. And then as far as times go, we are doing Thursday  2pm-7pm; Friday we open up at 9am and we're going till 7pm, so that's our long day. And then Saturday we're doing 9am to 5pm.

Anything going to be outside? I know sometimes you show up and there's a swimming pool.

You know, just a swimming pool in February. I know we have the Vets Serving Vets are going to bring a really cool old pickup for a photo op. So you can hashtag #homeshow2022. And then I believe Valley Tractor is going to have some stuff, not in the parking lot, because we don't want to take up the parking lot, but they usually bring some big equipment and put it on the sidewalk leading up to the main entry. I think we're going to have some of that out there. We're going to have a lawnmower from Lowe's, that's somewhere in the building. I think maybe a boom lift from Star Rentals is going to be hanging out in there. Go big or go home is kind of my motto at this point.

Well go home and then go big, go home and go big. That should be the motto for next year's home show. Because people are spending more time than ever at home. Either working from home now or just home more because we can't really go out as much as we used to and people are taking a look at their houses or their backyards or their shops or their farms or whatever it is. And you're going, well, we could do this or I'd like to do this or this would be better or I need to get out of here.

Exactly. Well in like home office, that's a big thing for people who started working from home and they didn't have a home office. So then it was the kitchen table and now they're thinking like, well I like this, but I need an office. So you know, we have people who can do that - storage systems, all sorts of fun things.

Oh, storage, storage. You said the S word Danielle, that's a dirty word in our house.

I have three kids storage. It's very important. It doesn't always happen.

Well, awesome. We'll definitely see you there. Is there anything that we missed?

There's going to be lots and lots of, there is so much, I'm trying to think of anything off the top of my head and really it's just gonna be so much fun. I mean get out, Enjoy the hopefully nice weather, fingers crossed and just get some different ideas.

What's the entry fee to get in? It is $6 to get in kids I believe 10 and under are free. But if you bring a canned food, you can get a dollar off and it goes to our vets serving vets program and they kind of spread the wealth with the canned food, different families in the area. Or I have discount coupons out at different businesses too, they can show and you'll get a dollar off. So it's $5 with that dollar off coupon. So not bad. I mean have a little date, take your lady friend or your man friend out and go look at home stuff, have a drink, there's going to be concessions going, You know, a little date night, something different, a family day out. Your kids can go in the kid's own, it'll be great.

We were just talking on the radio, you know, it's going to be a little bit warmer. The temperature is starting to get up into like the 40. I know girl, I love the beach though, but it's still not warm enough to do a lot of things.

So yeah, it's not like hiking weather, it's not boating weather, we're not there yet. No, I fully agree. So it's a nice change of pace and just something that you can, the kids are screaming at you and you can go and just walk around and of course people are vendors at this home show, They love bringing goodies and different kind of freebie stuff and kids always get a kick out of that. So going around and doing that while you're actually like, okay, I need maybe a remodel and you can talk to somebody and know that your kids are going to have something to do to.

It's nice and doing a little wink wink nudge nudge to the guy who's selling you a hot tub, wink, wink nudge nudge. Yeah, exactly. That's what I really need. Well Danielle, thank you so much for taking a few minutes out and coming over and reminding us that we need to get out to the home show and it's going to be even better this year than it has been. So thank you.

Thank you for having me on. This was awesome. I love it.

How was your first podcast? It was great. I want to do it again. Oh my God let me just come on. We'll just talk. We'll talk. Yeah, well we have our home tour to I can do this during tour. I mean we have all sorts of fun.

We're taking Danielle on tour. Who what's up?

Wenatchee is now in its second season. It's so exciting, thank you so much for listening and all of your support up to this point. If you're from a business or an organization or nonprofit and would like to be a part of the podcast we're booking now for interviews and guests up until July. What's up Wenatchee? is produced and distributed by the Darling Podcasts network.