Day: April 4, 2022

In an episode set in Plainview airing Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and 7 p.m., WNBC/4’s community-based renovation show “George to the Rescue” tackles what contractor-host George Oliphant calls “a herculean effort like nothing we’ve ever done before”: transforming a split-level ranch house on a hill, with a steep driveway and 16 stairs to the front door, into a home with plenty of accessibility for a young quadriplegic woman in a wheelchair.

“We’ve never done anything to this scale,” says Oliphant, 46, by phone. “This is the second elevator that we’ve put in,” he offers by way of example. “I’ve done a lot of ‘George to the Rescue’s, almost 140, and what Joe [Romano of JRM Construction Management, the episode’s renovation partner] did with his team wasn’t just on the inside, but on the outside as well. We literally moved boulders,” he marvels. 

The home is that of Syosset attorney Scott

For insights on the biggest trends in renovation and home improvement, take a look at the Rated People Home Improvement Trends Report 2022

50% increase in just two years

Since the start of the pandemic, our desire for home improvement has accelerated at an incredible pace and it’s easy to understand why. The last two years have fundamentally changed the way we use our living space, and we’ve used skilled tradespeople across the country to modify our homes for new ways of living.

In 2021, half (49%) of UK residents made improvements to their homes and demand for tradespeople increased by 32%. When compared to the start of the pandemic in 2020, demand for home improvement has gone up by a massive 50%. 

But Covid and Brexit have also presented a lot of challenges, like material supply issues, production cost increases and workforce shortages, and these have impacted both homeowners