This photo provided by The Home Depot shows students training at the The Home Depot Foundation and HBI’s Ft. Stewart Program on a job site in Ft. Stewart, Ga. The Home Depot Foundation announced last year that it was committing $50 million to skilled trades training with plans to attract 20,000 people by 2028. (Samuel Hodges/Samuel Hodges Photography/The Home Depot via AP)Lynn Osborne has been remodeling two homes. They are different styles, in different states, with different contractors. But there has been one constant: delays due to a shortage of skilled labor.
The two-year remodel of her primary home in Fort Collins was to update and upgrade the ’90s house, and it included a small extension. It was completed last year, except for the landscaping, which is still under way.
That general contractor relied heavily on sub-contractors, she said, and sometimes they wouldn’t show, or would arrive days late, or did shoddy work and were fired.
Her remodel of an old family beach retreat in New England took a Sears kit home down to the studs. The completion date was June 2018, but it’s still not done because the contractor, who has been doing most of the work himself, is stretched and unattentive.
“He’d say, ‘I’ll be out there next week,’ and next week would turn into next month, and next month would be six months,” she said.