A Kid’s View of the Builders St. Louis Home and Garden Show

This year at the Builders St. Louis Home and Garden Show, I want to be 4-ft high, have a cookie in my pocket, and be responsible for nothing.

I don’t want to worry about how much something costs, if it will raise my insurance premiums, or whether the homeowner’s association would approve. I just want to see and touch and dream about the castle I’m going to build someday when I grow up.

Lawn and Garden for Kids

I want to visit the Balloon Garden. I want to see a whole garden – the kind with gnomes and caterpillars and a wishing well – made from balloons. I will see all the normal garden shapes, but they will be inflated and bobbing and rendered in hyperactive cartoon colors. As a 42-year-old with a mortgage, I would think, “That’s cute.” But as a 10-year old I would think, “My garden will look like this.”

I want to talk to Clifford the Big Red Dog – in public – and act like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He’ll be at the American Family Insurance booth asking people for Big Ideas. Kids have some of the best big ideas, you know, because they still believe in wishing wells. I’d give Clifford the best Big Idea he’s ever heard about how to share, play fair, and help others. AmFam will be so impressed that they’ll help me finance it, and together we’ll change the world.

Next I’ll go to the Green Thumb Theater and listen to Joe Lamp’l talk about vegetable gardening. After his seminar, I’ll go up to the stage and whisper in his ear. I’ll ask if it’s possible to make a garden where tomatoes and carrots do very well, but Brussels sprouts just won’t grow. He’s a smart guy, so I bet he can come up with something,

Then it’s on to the Rainbow Recreation booth to ask them to design a play castle as big as my house, and deliver it tomorrow. Then I will go back to the AmFam booth and ask Clifford if he wants to come to my house and play. I bet he would say “Yes.”  

Home Furnishings for Kids

Next, I will visit the Harvest Lumber booth. They make things out of old barn wood, and I know that barns are really big. The way I figure it, these guys can design and build a bunk bed that sleeps 23. This way, I can invite all my friends and a few of their friends for a sleepover and still have room to invite Clifford.

If I want to have big slumber parties like that, I’ll need a bigger kitchen. A visit to Das Holtz Haus’s booth should be my next stop. There, I can ask them to design and build the longest breakfast bar in Missouri. The cabinet will need lots of drawers and shelves, and it needs to be the right height for a fourth grader to make pizzas on it.

Then I will stop by the Cambria booth and pick out just the right countertop. Cambria’s natural quartz countertops are certified by GREENGUARD for children and schools, so it’s one of the safest surfaces on which to prepare food. Their Bala Blue quartz will look great with either pizza sauce or macaroni and cheese on it, so that’s the color for me.

After all this walking and seeing and planning, I might need a nap. The other cool part about being 10 is that I can nap in the back seat on the way home while my adult does the driving. I’ll also let her stop at the store for pizza ingredients.

The St. Louis Home and Garden show is a great place to be a kid. Maybe I’ll go back a second day as myself, and bring along a floor plan of my real home and a few color swatches. I could find a sensible product or two that will improve my home and fit my budget. I might even find something that goes with macaroni and cheese.

Tagged as: Builders St. Louis Home and Garden Show, clifford the big red dog, home improvement, homeshows