'They're hitting the pause button': Lumber price roller coaster forces Americans to delay costly renovations
![Allison Glass in her newly renovated kitchen](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.usatoday.com/gcdn/presto/2021/06/22/USAT/3e2e8273-7206-40db-b22f-656b3b5b3614-Allison_Glass.jpg?width=980&height=736&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
When Allison Glass bought a 30-year-old home in Winfield, West Virginia, last June, she knew she’d have to update the kitchen.
She thought the project would cost less than $10,000. But surging lumber prices during the pandemic forced her to raise her estimate to $15,000.
The price of lumber, which shot up to $1,600 per thousand board feet in May from $400 early last year, is making renovations more expensive – especially projects that involve kitchens cabinets, hardwood floors and additions that require framing. Labor shortages and supply-chain snags exacerbated by the pandemic are driving up those prices and giving Americans who are planning home remodels pause.
“We are a single-income family,” says Glass, a stay-at-home mother of two whose husband works as a high school counselor. “And we have to be really careful with where we spend our money."