Paul Szmal: Good morning 750, it's FLX Morning, it's the Friday Extravaganza and JJ Church is in the studio with us. He is putting on the second annual FLX Home Show this weekend at The Cooler, the Geneva Recreation Complex. Good morning.
JJ Church: Good morning. So let's let you put in a plug for yourself and your business, Church's Flooring in Geneva. Tell us about you and the business.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, we've been in business. My great-grandfather opened the business in 1947 and started out of his garage. And we had a business on Exchange Street and then we moved over to Waterloo and then my dad and I reopened just the flooring side shortly after the business shut down. My dad and I reopened just the flooring side, yeah.
JJ Church: So how do you feel the first show went last year?
Paul Szmal: Actually last year was our second show.
JJ Church: Okay, right, this is the third.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, this is the third. Yeah, no, we got great reports from last year. We had a couple vendors there that do every home show in the area and they had more people they were able to talk with than two other bigger home shows combined. So it was a pretty big success for last year being a second year show. We weren't expecting that awesome of a turnout.
JJ Church: So this show focuses on home improvement and maintenance. Tell us about some of the vendors and products that people can check out.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so obviously other than flooring, we're going to have contractors there. We've got multiple contractors, builders. There's going to be HVAC people, landscaping companies. There are gutter companies there. A lot of pretty much anything home, home related that you would need. There's roofing, anything that you would need. You would come right down to the show and we've got a whole bunch of vendors there that people can talk with and really put their visions to life. And it's great when it's all in one place. I mean, that's the great thing about shows like this or a boat show or whatever is all the products and everything are all right in one place and you'll have a few different ones. So if you're looking at gutters, for example, there'll be a couple of different places. So some products might be a little different than others and you can get some ideas and ask questions too, which is nice. The internet is fine, but it's great to be able to talk to an expert and say, okay, well, this is what's happening on my roof. What am I doing wrong or do I need a replacement or a partial replacement?
JJ Church: So you've got the experts you can talk to.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Yeah. It's a great place to be able to come down, get different opinions, talk to multiple places so that you can compare apples to apples. You know, there's customers are looking for different things. We have some people that are budget friendly. That might be better for one company over another. You've got people that are more concerned with, hey, I really need this job done right. I want the right company to do it. I want to have a main point of contact the whole time. That's something in our business that we really try to push is the fact that we are one point of contact through your whole job. So different companies run different ways and there's benefits to both of those companies. So it's a good place to come in and compare and see what's the right fit for you.
JJ Church: Yeah. And with the smaller companies, you get that hands-on treatment. We had a roof put on our house a few years ago and it's a local company and their crew came out, the owner's on the job and you know that they're standing behind because it's like with your flooring company, your name's on it, that family name that people have known for a long time.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So tell us about, are you doing the grill giveaway this year?
JJ Church: We are. So this is our second year doing the Ultimate Backyard Barbecue Giveaway. Super easy to enter. All you have to do is come on down to the show and you just register at the entrance booth and that's it. And you're entered to win a 4-Burner Pit Boss Smoker, or I'm sorry, 4-Burner Blackstone Griddle, a Pit Boss Smoker, and a 7-Foot Open Flame Patio Heater.
Paul Szmal: Oh man. Which is, you know, that's perfect for New York. You get those cooler nights and you can extend that company over, you can extend that party during the summertime into the evening hours and still remain comfortable.
Now we talked yesterday with Catherine Price from The Bid. While this is going on, there's also a whole bunch of other First Friday things happening downtown so give us the hours for the show.
JJ Church: Yeah, so tonight you've got the show, the door's opening to the patrons at 5 o'clock. It's going to run from 5 to 9 tonight and then again tomorrow from 9am to 5pm. I've never been in the cooler when the ice wasn't down so I have to check it out what it looks like with the turf.
Paul Szmal: So is there any trend or hot thing in home improvement or maintenance that's catching on these days?
JJ Church: Well, I can speak from the flooring side of the world. You know, vinyl plank was really big for a long time. We're seeing a major shift right now. Vinyl plank comes in two different cores. And we're starting to see a major shift between the one core to the other core. And towards laminate. We always follow West Coast trends. For the past, I would probably say two years, laminate has actually been on the rise on the West Coast. And we're starting to just see that trickle effect come in over here where people are wanting more laminate and things as opposed to vinyl plank. Because laminate's come a long way from what it used to be back in the day when you walked into somebody's house and you saw laminate. You knew it was fake wood.
Paul Szmal: Like you say, those products have gotten a lot better now. So they're, you know, probably the layman might not necessarily be able to tell anymore.
JJ Church: Yeah, correct. Yeah. A lot of it goes by, you know, what do you want your house to look like when you walk in there? And then coming to a company like us that, you know, we're certified to install the floors. There's a lot of knowledge that goes along with it. Not anybody can just put that flooring in. We even have a DIY process at our store that's really cool. You can reach out to us and we will come to your house. We will measure your space for you, tell you exactly how much floor you need. And then we'll help you with the design process and teach you through how to put that flooring in. So that way you're-
Paul Szmal: I've been thinking about doing that. So my eyes are lighting up there.
JJ Church: Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. I was thinking about trying to do a project like that.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. We want to see, you know, not everybody has the money to spend to put a brand new floor in and have somebody do it. So a lot of people want to save money and be able to put that flooring in, you know, by themselves. And we want to see the best success rate for those customers that we can. So we offer, you know, being able to come out. We offer rental tools that they can take back home with them and have everything that they need to put that floor in and come out beautiful and be successful.
JJ Church: Well, start your project and start asking questions and getting answers at the home show. The third annual flxhomeshow.com is the website. JJ, thanks for coming in and thanks for your advertising business. We appreciate that a lot.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Thank you very much.
JJ Church: All right. Check out the home show. And again, that's all part of the First Friday stuff that's going on downtown. So you can check out the show and then have a lot of fun downtown afterwards.
