Home Show making connections in a myriad world of design, Web and TV

It's a television show.

It's a design center.

A production company.

It's all three and on a fast track to even more.

His company is growing, says Bob Principe, chief executive officer and executive producer of Bob Principe Television, LLC.

But the key, he says, is to grow, but not too fast.

Principe launched his home design television show eight years ago.

The Home Show is in its eighth season on Reno's Channel 4, and it features all varieties of home improvement, renovation, and building the sawdust-inspired stuff home-owners can never get enough of.

Things like how to renovate an outdated kitchen, redesign a bathroom, landscape a house for curb appeal.

But underlying all of the work, on-camera and off-, is Principe's ability to make connections connecting home-owners and builders with designers, for instance, then with contractors, with cabinet suppliers,with installers.

And then putting the whole works on television and getting paid for that, too.

Principe came to the home improvement world with six sponsors for the first show, expanded that to 12, then 20, and now? There are 185 sponsors, says Principe.

Over the eight years the show's been on television, it has grown into six short segments that air during daytime news shows, and two 30-minute weekend shows featured on Channel 4.

In addition, Principe is in the second season of "The Tahoe Home Show," headquartered in an 11,000-square-foot home at Lake Tahoe, which shares the weekend time slot, alternating as show inventory permits.

The shows are all supported by a combination of advertising and show sponsors.A show on landscaping, for example, may be sponsored by one of Principe's landscape connections, such as the Truckee River Rock and Nursery Co.

and Bedlan Landscaping.

Plumbing may feature Moen faucets and Radtke Tile & Marble.

Ad packages for the company include a cross-section of media television commercials, product placements in the Home Show, space in the Design Center directory as well as on its Web site at www.thehomeshow.tv, and in the Home Design Show Center itself.

The Home Show Flooring and Design Center, just opened this month at 780 Smithridge Drive in Reno, is billed as a onestop shop for people remodeling or building a home.

Inside, in a showroom that he's been working on for over eight months, floor space is divided into design needs.

Spas,windows, floors, kitchens, bathrooms the whole gamut of home improvement have their separate places in the room.

The center's goal is to provide ideas, products, and contractors for high-end home improvement.

That would be customer in the $100,000 to $300,000 remodel category.

Or those building a home at $500,000 or above everything from small projects to complete builds.

The entire business is run by a compact crew of 14 folks, a group steadying itself now for further growth in the very near future.

On the books for Principe is a new project at Lake Tahoe, a house being built from ground up, all to be featured on the show, and sold at the end of it.

And there's a Desert Home Show in the works, with a house in LaQuinta, Calif., that will serve as the home show base there.

In the early stages, too, is a Hawaii project, a show that will, if produced, be circulated as a pilot for a half-hour weekly national show.

And, finally, says Principe, is syndication of the previous seven years of The Home Show, which he hopes to see happen by the end of the year.

And that's growth, he adds.

On a fast track, but not too fast.

On a path to even bigger things.

The Design center - grand opening Hub of a buzz of activity.

In the works: Glenbrook house.

And up next: Desert Syndication.

Pilot for a TV show.

But all on a growth of not too fast.