Biggest DIY Mistakes

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekend warriors home improvement show, built by bar lumber. When it comes to big or small projects around the home, Tony and Cory have got the know how and the answers to make your life just a bit easier. Here they are, your weekend warriors, Tony and Cory. What are some of the biggest mistakes you've ever made? Tony? [00:00:28] Speaker B: Whoa. That's a huge question. Some of the biggest mistakes I ever made? [00:00:35] Speaker A: Well, in regards to projects home. Oh, DIY projects. [00:00:40] Speaker B: Good thing you clarified that. You were about to probably get an ear full of something you didn't want to hear. [00:00:44] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of things. I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes, but let's narrow it down. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Okay? All right. Some of the biggest remodeling mistakes, home improvement project mistakes that I've ever made. [00:00:58] Speaker A: You were just telling me about one before the show. [00:01:01] Speaker B: I was? [00:01:01] Speaker C: I. [00:01:02] Speaker A: What did I say about your closet? [00:01:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Measuring. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't think that I would say that's one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. But I'll tell you what I didn't properly plan before starting to build the organization. Shelves, or whatever you want to call it, inside the closet, building out the built ins. [00:01:26] Speaker A: Your closet. [00:01:26] Speaker B: In the closet. [00:01:27] Speaker C: Right. [00:01:28] Speaker B: And what ended up happening was, for some parts of the project, I needed a lot of short length material. And some part of the project, I needed long length material. If I were being smart, I would have started with the long length stuff, then moved to the medium length stuff, and then to the short length stuff. That way, all of the cut offs from the beginning would be available to me in the end when I needed those, instead of vice versa, where I started with a lot of short lengths, and then, in the end, short lengths. My footage was burned up in short lengths, and I didn't have longs and had to get more, and I wasn't able to utilize a lot of that. So had I planned better, I would have less waste with the material that I used for my built ins in my closet. [00:02:19] Speaker A: That's a good learning thing that you did there. You learned from a mistake. I've done that where you measure everything out, and you just start going to town, like, with trim. You're installing trim. [00:02:34] Speaker B: You know exactly how much material you need, theoretically. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:02:38] Speaker B: And you order it, and you bring it, and you have it, and then. [00:02:41] Speaker A: You start going along, and you're like, shoot, I need a piece that is eight foot, one inch. And you only have an eight foot. [00:02:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:02:50] Speaker A: So you're an inch short. So then you've got all these pieces, but then taking it a step further, planning it out so that you're using the pieces that are eight foot and not eight foot one inch. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:03:02] Speaker A: Or like you told me, you ran into a situation where you made your closet 48 and a half inches wide. [00:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:10] Speaker B: This one section of my closet was intended to be four foot. [00:03:14] Speaker A: And where you put your piece in your crossbar member, you made it 48 and a half. Well, now, all of a sudden, all the pieces that you have to cut are 48 and a half. That's a perfect example. [00:03:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:27] Speaker B: 48 and a half, leaving less than four foot cut offs, which now could not be used in the rest of that project. [00:03:34] Speaker C: Yes. [00:03:34] Speaker B: So I thought I needed an eight footer for these two four foot pieces, but it turned out I needed so much more than that. [00:03:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:41] Speaker A: So that's what we're talking about on the show today. We're talking about mistakes, common mistakes that happen during the DIY process. And that's the very first one, lack of planning, starting a project without a clear plan. I mean, you had a pretty clear plan. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I had it taped out on the walls. I knew what I wanted it to look like. I just didn't plan out how I was going to execute it. [00:04:07] Speaker A: Right. So that led to wasted time, wasted material, which in turn is a waste of money and all that fall off. You've got tons of literal waste in your garage that you cannot use and cannot return. [00:04:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:24] Speaker B: I'll tell you what. I stood there and stared into that closet. And I stared and I stared and I stared. And even after I had the tape up and I could see what I wanted it to look like when it was done, I really struggled with the vision of how I would get it there. Usually when I start a project, I can see myself building it from beginning to end, and I have a clear idea of how I'm going to do it. And sure, some things change in the middle, but in this instance, I started building before I knew exactly how I was going to get it done. Right now, it turned out. But like you said, it took me longer and it cost me more than it should have. [00:05:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:05] Speaker A: And that's a hard thing to do unless you've gone through it before. Unless you've done that particular project before. I've done the same thing where you cut pieces or you get into it and you're like, well, I just don't know. And without that experience, you're just not going to be able to do it. Now that you have that under your belt and you do another closet in the near future, then it'll probably go smoother for you. But that is one of those things, lack of planning. And I probably, on some things, plan too much. I'll draw it in sketchup, and I'll draw it all in three dimensions and come up with all my piece lengths. And I try to be as detail oriented, detailed as possible, but sometimes, even then, maybe I'm too tight with the material. And then you're like, oh, shoot, yeah, I need two more pieces to finish this thing up. And now you've wasted time having to run to the store and buy those two pieces versus not having the wrong lengths or having too much. [00:06:06] Speaker B: I think a little bit of this show is going to lend also to, while you mentioned DIY and remodel type projects, it's going to lend a little bit to project management as well. If this is your home, but you're not necessarily doing all of the work yourself, this is going to lend a little bit to project management as well. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. Professional contractors alike. I deal with professional contractors every day. Framers, contractors, builders, and everyone runs into this. It's not just a DIY thing. [00:06:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker B: The lack of planning on my part also ran into budgeting issues. [00:06:48] Speaker C: Right. [00:06:49] Speaker B: It cost me more than I anticipated that it would because I had to go back and get material that I shouldn't have to get, and I'm left with material that I can't use for what I need to use it for. So that kind of one thing, one mistake, led into another mistake, and that is unrealistic budgeting. Setting an unrealistic budget, which ultimately results in you spending more money than you wanted to, can be mitigated by expecting some mistakes, expecting some overages. Plan in a buffer in there, so that when you do have a mistake, which inevitably will happen, you've put a little extra money in there. The worst thing that can happen to you when you realize that you're having to spend more money than you wanted to, is running out of money. [00:07:40] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:07:40] Speaker A: Mid project. [00:07:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:42] Speaker B: It's going to happen that you're going to have to spend money, more money than you planned. But that doesn't mean that you didn't plan for a contingency. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Right. Honestly, you should always budget for the things that you cannot see, especially in a remodel. I think new construction is a bit different than remodel. When you jump into a remodel, you never know what you're getting yourself into. Most of my DIY projects in my house are can of worms. You have no idea what's going to happen until you open a wall and find the most unbelievable crap you've ever seen in your life from the previous homeowner or from the previous homeowner's homeowner. It's ridiculous. So if you just go into it thinking, all right, my budget is $10,000, and that's all I got, and hopefully there's no problems when I open this wall. That's setting an unrealistic budget. You can't do that, because the minute you do, you're not going to have enough money to finish your budget or you're going to have to borrow or pay a high interest rate. It's a bad way to go about starting out on a DIY project. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You have to be prepared for, like you said, for what you're not expecting. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Right. And some of that, especially when you're diying. We've run into this before where we're new at a project. You've done a lot of prep work, this project that you're working on for plumbing, and you wanted to take some of that on yourself. Not necessarily the plumbing itself, but the prep work. You wanted to get some of the material ahead of time, using your discounts and different things, and lo and behold, the plumber shows up, and you had to run to the store four times. So it's just things like that that if you're not terribly familiar with it as a Diyer or a new or a weekend warrior like us, then I guess underestimating your costs and your time are a lot more difficult. And that's a big mistake. And every time I learned when I started projects and my wife would say, how long do you think this is going to take you? I would say, oh, well, I should be able to get this done in two days. Now I double it. Yeah, right. Because it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, if I think it's going to take me 4 hours, I say it's going to take eight. Because you got to run to the store or you run out of time or something happens, you have to plan. [00:10:32] Speaker B: For that bit of time where you're standing in the room, look, just staring. [00:10:37] Speaker A: At it, just figuring it out. [00:10:39] Speaker B: You're just staring at it. You scratch your head and you're doing some math, and you're like, what is the first piece, and where does it go, and how do I get it there? And then where do I go from there? I mean, you have to visualize the project if you want to even be close on what you expected, that it would take time, material and money. [00:11:04] Speaker A: There have been many hours where Tony and I have worked on projects together, and we literally stand there staring or drawing and just trying to figure out our next move. Because if you just jump in 2ft and just start going to town, then you're going to miss something or you're going to do something ahead of something that you should have done. And if you don't take the time to do it right the first time, then you're going to be redoing things or not doing them in the order in which they should be done. [00:11:39] Speaker B: And if you figure your material tight, Corey likes to figure material tight and then just order a little extra. If you figure material tight and you jump before you think, you may end up using incorrectly the only material you had for that portion of the job. And now it's not just that portion. [00:12:02] Speaker A: That doesn't get done. [00:12:03] Speaker B: The whole job suffers because that one portion didn't get done right. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Planning out your cuts is extremely important. I actually ran into this a couple of weeks ago where, for a customer, I special ordered all of these rough sawn glue lamps. $30,000 in rough sawn glue lamps, and I had to do the takeoff. There was lots of three footers and four footers and twelve footers and 14 footers. There's just all over this house were these big rough sawn glue lamps. And the manufacturer requires a minimum of 8ft. So I had to combine lengths to make it cost effective because I didn't want to order an eight footer for every piece. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Right. That have four foot left over. [00:12:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So I took three footers and four footers, and then on some of the really short, like, say a six footer, six footer and a seven footer, I would combine together in order 113. But the problem with that is I didn't relay that information to the guy in the field making the cuts. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:17] Speaker A: So there was enough material, theoretically, but him figuring it out versus me figuring it out and combining the lengths, he had maybe a three footer left over from a beam. Well, there's no three footers left over, trust me. So he was cutting things in a way that I didn't imagine them being cut. [00:13:42] Speaker C: Right. [00:13:43] Speaker A: So I made that mistake. I should have relayed that information to him and saying, hey, you're going to get this 13 footer. That's a seven and a six. That was a dumb mistake on my part. [00:13:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:55] Speaker B: But I learned it's hard sometimes to think about all of the things all of the time. That's why we make mistakes. But it's conversation like this that we're having right now that makes you think when you're in the thick of it, you know what? I'm going to measure twice and avoid a miscut. I'll tell you what I can't tell you how many times during this project I said to myself, I had just measured it. And I repeat the measurement to myself, 23 and 15. 1623 and 1516. And I was just about to get up and make my way to the lumber pile and then pick that up and then take it to the saw and then lay it down and measure it and then cut it and then carry it back into the house. Only to find out it's an inch short. [00:14:44] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:45] Speaker B: So I would say to myself, all right, I'm going to measure that one more time. I said, 23 and 1516. Is it really 23 and 1516 or is it 24 and my tape is at an angle or the little tip of my tape is bent over? You know what I mean? You have to be confident with the tools that you're using and double check your measurements before you cut. And that's how you can save yourself extra money and extra time. [00:15:11] Speaker A: One of the coolest little things you can buy for your tape measure is there's a local company here in the Portland area that makes these things. They're round pieces of yellow high pressure laminate with glue on the back or with double sticky tape. [00:15:26] Speaker C: Sure. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Basically, it's the simplest thing. You peel the double stick tape off and you stick it on your end of your tape measure, where the label is. Where the round label is usually where it says, stanley fat max. Cover that over. And the thing about that high pressure laminate is you can write on it in pencil and then lick your thumb and wipe it right off. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Gone. [00:15:47] Speaker A: So it's almost like a dry erase. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Clean slate. [00:15:50] Speaker A: Clean slate. Or you could erase. And you can reuse that over and over and over as a little scratch pad. I love those things. Yeah, because if you're standing there, you make the measurement. You write it right on your tape, walk that thing outside, measure it again, and it's written down. [00:16:07] Speaker C: Yes. [00:16:08] Speaker A: I've made that mistake more than once. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Me, too. [00:16:12] Speaker A: All right, next one on the list is to. One of the big mistakes is ignoring safety precautions. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Yikes. Those have a tendency to be. To really set you back. [00:16:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm going to be honest on this show. We're honest on this show. I'm usually pretty good about putting on safety glasses. Like, if I'm cutting something that I know could potentially throw sawdust or things. I'm pretty good about remembering my safety glasses, but hearing protection I'm not so good at, I typically will forget, especially when I'm doing something that I don't think is going to hurt my hearing. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you what. About two years ago, I was working on a project in a kitchen, and I was driving a screw inside of the cabinet, and I couldn't quite get in there, so I had to kind of maneuver my body inside of the cabinet, and I was using an impact drill, and I hit that drill, hit the trigger on that thing, and it was so loud inside that cabinet. I still, to this day, have tinnitus from that exact moment. [00:17:30] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:17:31] Speaker A: I remember my ears ringing after doing that, and I was thinking, man, that was stupid. And to this day, I'll be sitting on the couch and I'll hear that ringing. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Wow. [00:17:41] Speaker A: So it's no joke. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Your ears are delicate. [00:17:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:45] Speaker A: And it doesn't come back. [00:17:46] Speaker C: Right. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Once you lose, it's gone. [00:17:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:50] Speaker B: That's a scary thing. We definitely can do a better job of being careful. I was using a box knife, and I was cutting through something that was very thick, thick plastic. And the only way to do it, because I'm not left handed, the only way to do it was to sort of cut in the direction that I was at. So I moved my body away as far as I could, and I had to brace myself because it was difficult to cut through. But my left hand, I put really low down on something way out of the way of the knife so that I would careful not to cut myself. But you know what? Whenever you're cutting something and it's not cutting, and you apply more pressure, and apply more pressure and apply more pressure, at some point your brain says, if. [00:18:36] Speaker A: This lets go, yeah, it's going to. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Rip, something's going to be in trouble. But I was cutting through that thing, and it did finally cut through, and the blade came down, hit the edge of the countertop and ricocheted. And the blade cut my finger, my other finger, which was way down. [00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:57] Speaker B: I mean, 3ft away, that blade made its way all the way over there and cut my finger. [00:19:01] Speaker A: Well, I'm sure you've heard the most unsafe blade is a dull blade. [00:19:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:07] Speaker A: And there's truth to that, and it's because you have to put more pressure. [00:19:13] Speaker B: To get it to cut, to get. [00:19:14] Speaker A: It to cut with a dull knife. So that is kind of one of the tips that I abide by. Is if I have a utility knife and I'm cutting something like boxes. I'm in my garage cutting boxes after Christmas, you got just piles of them and you're cutting them and cutting them, cutting. And next thing you know you're like kind of having to put extra pressure on and you're cutting those things. I'll swap that blade out with a brand new one. I bought 100 pack and I keep them in my garage. Whenever that thing starts to get dull, I kill it. Put a new one in because I have been there where you're putting just too much pressure on and next thing you know it breaks free and cut yourself. [00:19:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:57] Speaker B: This is a big one here. As a project manager or a do it yourselfer, if you're doing a project, a larger project that requires a permit from the local jurisdiction, skipping, skipping that step can bite you. It can. I know that a lot of us have done this. You can build a in our jurisdiction, Washington county, you can build a shed type building on your property that is under 200 peak is less than twelve foot at its highest point and that does not need to be permitted. But if you know that the shed that you're building is over 200 sqft or that the peak is going to be above twelve foot and you choose not to get it permitted, you're playing a dangerous game you could potentially have later when you're selling the house, it could impede the sale of your home because it's work that was not permitted. It's not saying that it's going to. [00:21:07] Speaker A: Right, but it could. [00:21:09] Speaker B: And that's just an ancillary project. Something that's outside. If you're talking about something that you did that's inside the home or attached to the home like a deck or a two story deck or something like that. [00:21:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:24] Speaker B: It can be costly at a time that you don't want it to be and it could cost time at a time that you can't afford it. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Well, there's two parts of that. Like you said, you're putting it up and it could cost you in the fact that it was unpermitted and you might not be able to sell your house, or it could cost you in the fact that if you do it and you get caught and the building department shows up, they could make you tear it down straight up. [00:21:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:52] Speaker A: And nobody wants that. No. But then you get into situations where, like you said, you build a second story deck unpermitted. Well, where did you get the engineering? Did you get it engineered? Did you get it designed? Are the beams spanning, are they big enough to span the distance that you have? I can't tell you how many people come into my office and say, hey, I want to put this beam in and I need it to hold up this deck and I want it to span 26ft. Well, I'll tell you right now, that beam is huge. And people say, oh, no, I'm going to put a four x eight in there or something. And they ask me, can I do that? I'm like, look, you can do whatever you want. I tell people that all the time, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, but it's going to fail. And it might not fail at first. And they say, well, it's not holding up that much. Well, I ran the calcs and I can tell you exactly what it's holding up, but the fact of the matter is, roof calculations are designed not for the everyday scenario to hold themselves up. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Right? [00:23:01] Speaker A: They might hold that roof up, but the minute you get four or five or six inches of snow on it, it's going to collapse or you might be under it and worse, you'll have to death or injury. Right. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Or some wet foliage from the pine tree or the oak tree. [00:23:20] Speaker A: There's lots of reasons that things are designed the way they're designed and the reasons that you go through the permitting process that's there to protect you, not the other way around. A lot of people, oh, they just want their money. Well, that is true. But that service, what you're paying for is a service for those inspectors to come in and make sure that it's safe and that it's done right. And honestly, it's not that expensive. So that's a mistake. Don't do it. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah, agreed. [00:23:53] Speaker A: We talked about the next one. Poor measurement and cutting. That was on our list already. We talked about it. But precise cutting. A lot of times you'll get into the situation where if you're working on an older house like we have, when you have uneven surfaces, or not level walls or plumb walls and not level floor, and when you start making cuts based on assumptions, you're making mistakes. [00:24:29] Speaker B: Hey, look, I'll tell you what, the more you do as a do it yourselfer or a homeowner, a weekend warrior, the more you do project wise, the better you will get, obviously, but the more you will expect from yourself. I remember that I built a little coffee station, little coffee stand. Yeah, I remember I bought a cabinet, I slapped some legs on the side, I put a tabletop across the top, a little trim around, and I painted that thing, I look at that now, today, that was, I don't know, close to ten years ago probably. [00:25:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:08] Speaker B: I look at that today and I think it looks like a 13 year old built it. Now listen, I used that in my house for my primary coffee bar for a long time. And I was proud of it. Honestly, I'm still proud of it. I did that at a time when I didn't know better. But I look at it today and I think, boy, that really looks like it was built by a teenager. [00:25:34] Speaker A: I could do better. [00:25:35] Speaker B: And so today when I measure and I cut, I'm looking at how sharp is my pencil, how thick is this line that I'm making? Where does the carbide tip portion of the blade line up with that mark? Not just the blade, you start seeing a much more detailed world. When you want the cut that you know, you measured three times and you know exactly that. That's 1316 of an inch. And you made your mark right where the mark was and you put your blade right tight to that mark. When that thing goes in, it's going to be perfect. And you know what, that doesn't require more caulk and it doesn't require more paint and it doesn't require more time. And it looks professional. [00:26:33] Speaker A: I know we always talk about this because you mentioned it. I came up with this thing a long time ago called the blade flex. [00:26:41] Speaker B: The blade flex. [00:26:42] Speaker A: When we're working together, sometimes we'll cut things just the slightest bit too long. Because when you're doing trim, more often than not, when you put a piece of trim in and you cut it just the slightest bit too long and it bows out away from the wall, well, you can slap it flat, no problem. It bends right in there and a 32nd of an inch is no problem. But sometimes you can't. You're getting it in there. But if you, you don't want to cut it too short, so you're kind of nibbling away at it, you cut a little bit, you cut a little bit and you make it fit perfect. Well, when you put a piece of trim, like say on your chop saw, and you run it right up against the closed, put your blade down and run it right up against the blade. [00:27:26] Speaker B: And just push on it a little. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Bit, the tiniest bit, you're flexing that blade out. And then when you lift it back up and bring it back down running, so it's cutting, you're cutting like just the tiniest bit off of that piece. [00:27:41] Speaker B: It's really just a fraction of the thickness fraction of the thickness of the blade. It's not even a full thickness of the blade. You could say you need to take a blade off of that. [00:27:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:49] Speaker A: Blade is going to be closer to an 8th of an inch. [00:27:52] Speaker C: Right. [00:27:52] Speaker B: But if you say a blade flex, it's going to be more like you said, a 32nd or not even a 16th. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah, not even. So Tony and I use that all the time we're working. We'll just say, take a flex off. Take a blade flex. [00:28:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:07] Speaker B: I love that. Those are the great measurements of a determined woodworker who wants to do a really good job. But I look at my work that I do today, and I think, I couldn't put that kind of work down ten years ago. I just didn't have it in me. Experience is everything. And the standard that you set for yourself is where the rubber meets the road. [00:28:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:38] Speaker B: If you say that's good enough, how many times have you said, that's good enough? Corey doesn't say that's good enough. I've never heard him say it. One time. He's like, no, let's get that right. It needs to be right. Good enough is not good enough if you hold yourself to a specific standard anyway. That's what I'm saying. [00:28:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:56] Speaker B: It all comes down to measurements and cuts every single time. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I rarely say good enough. I mean, I have said it, but it's in very situational projects. Know, it doesn't matter. [00:29:11] Speaker B: It's behind. You are not going to be able to see it's going to be covered up by this thing. So it's to, when Corey and I work on a project together, I get to make the cuts where it's, the items that are going to be covered up by something else are good enough. I get to make the good enough cuts. He makes the precise cuts. [00:29:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:29] Speaker A: All right, next one on the list is to choose the wrong materials. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want to do that, of course. [00:29:36] Speaker A: For a classic example is building a deck. And you don't use pressure treated lumber, you use Douglas fur or something. I've talked to people before and they say, oh, it's just temporary. I'm just building this deck. I only need it to last ten years. I'll tell you right now, a non pressure treated deck in the Portland area is not going to last ten years. I mean, you might get two years out of it. It's the wrong material for that application. And there's lots of situations like that. Would you use laminate flooring on your front porch? No, you wouldn't. That's the wrong material. But I've seen it. You know what I mean? There are DIY people that consistently don't do the research. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Do you use two and better framing material for a barge board? [00:30:33] Speaker A: No. Well, some people do. [00:30:34] Speaker B: I know some people do. This is what I'm saying. This is the difference between finger jointed and primed, clear material intended for use outside for a long time with a nice, clean finish as opposed to something with knots and cracks. [00:30:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Here's another classic example, MDF trim near your bathtub. I've seen it time and time again where people put MDF trim in a bathroom. It looks great for the first six months, and then it gets a little bit of water on it and a little bit more water on it, and the next thing you know, it's one and a half times the thickness it was when you installed it. [00:31:18] Speaker B: I'll tell you what, you don't even have to get water on it. You take a hot shower in there in the wintertime and you see the mirror that's covered with condensation. That MDF is soaking up that moisture as well. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:31:29] Speaker B: And it's swelling and swelling and swelling, and one day it's just going to fall apart. [00:31:33] Speaker A: Yep. You're setting yourself up for premature wear, premature damage, and ultimately time wasted to replace it. [00:31:42] Speaker C: Yep. [00:31:43] Speaker A: Next one on the list is overlooking professional help. There are certain things that I don't do. Certain things Tony doesn't know. Electricity. [00:31:53] Speaker C: That's right. [00:31:54] Speaker A: I always hire an electrician. When it comes to most electrical issues, if it's replacing a switch or replacing a ceiling fan or something, no big deal, I'll do it. But when it comes to wiring actual circuits or adding things, I hire it. Same thing with plumbing. If you don't plumb things correctly, installing a new drain, installing a new faucet, sure. But if you're adding a sink or adding a toilet or moving a toilet or doing anything like that, you don't have the proper fall on your drain lines and the right ventilation and wear and the heights. There are certain codes and certain things that need to be done a certain way. And if they're not, your plumbing could gurgle, you know what I mean? Your plumbing could back up because there's not enough venting in there and the water gets trapped, and then all of a sudden you get this terrible smell and they're like, oh, well, your vent is too low or something. You know what I mean? I don't know, but I've had lots of conversations with plumbers and the amount of code rattling around in their heads is staggering. And I don't know, and I'm not here to do that. I want it done right. So in that application, I let the professionals do it. [00:33:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good advice. Sheet rock. [00:33:25] Speaker A: Sheet rock. [00:33:26] Speaker B: Sheet rock. While we might be able to nail up a sheet of sheet rock, and we may be able to slather some mud on there and maybe even stick down some tape, when we are done with the project that we do with sheetrock, and we put the house up for sale, and people come in and say, I'm not buying that house. [00:33:47] Speaker A: They did this. Sheet rock themselves looks terrible. [00:33:50] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Resale value is important, which means the quality of work that you do on your own home is important. Everything is important. Don't cut corners. If you want to get the best value for your home after a remodel project, if you're doing some of the work yourself, be prepared to do professional work. It needs to look professional and be professional in order to get top dollar for the house. [00:34:18] Speaker A: That's kind of where I am. Like, the only work I do myself on my projects are as if I feel like I can get that project done. And it would be indiscernible that if I paid someone to do it or if I did it myself, that is the only work I will do on my uncertain things. Right. But for the most part, if I feel like I'm going to do it and somebody's going to say, you diy that, then I'm not going to do it. Right. That's my situation. Ignoring building codes. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yikes. [00:34:58] Speaker A: Obviously, if you're not pulling permits, then. [00:35:02] Speaker B: You probably don't know. [00:35:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:03] Speaker A: You're probably not concerned with building codes. [00:35:06] Speaker B: And if you're not using a professional for something that you don't know very well, then you're probably ignoring building codes. [00:35:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:16] Speaker A: A lot of people don't know this, but when you sell your property, Tony mentioned it earlier, there's like a checkbox. They ask you the question is, there have been any unpermitted work on this property? And you say no. And you sell the house and the buyer finds out that there was unpermitted work and that you did it, they can sue you. So it's just one of those things. If you do unpermitted work, you have to say it. You have to admit it when you sell it. [00:35:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:53] Speaker B: I mean, you don't want to get caught in that vice. [00:35:56] Speaker A: I wouldn't yikes terrible. [00:35:59] Speaker B: A lot of things get overlooked during a market where there's not a lot of inventory and people need houses or home values are attractive or interest rates are attractive. There's a lot of things that get overlooked even today, knowing what we know and with the rules being what they are. [00:36:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:36:22] Speaker B: But can you bank on that? Can you bank that? The people buying your home are going to think they don't want to miss that opportunity, so they're going to overlook some projects that were done unpermitted. It could happen. I wouldn't bank on it. [00:36:37] Speaker A: Well, I think it depends, too. Depends on what the finished product looks like. [00:36:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:42] Speaker B: If they go in there, look at it, and they're like, I don't know, it looks pretty professional to me. [00:36:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:46] Speaker B: Well, that's a feather in your hat there. Make sure the cut is tight and the measurements, right. [00:36:54] Speaker A: That's right. What about rushing? Rushing the project? I think that's a mistake that can be made when it comes to planning out your project. Time management. If you don't give yourself enough self, you don't give yourself enough time to get it done, and you're rushing through it. How many projects have you done in your life where you get it to 90%? [00:37:19] Speaker B: Countless. [00:37:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:20] Speaker A: You get it to 90%. [00:37:22] Speaker B: 90% on the one I'm on now. [00:37:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:24] Speaker A: You're like, this is good enough. Yeah, I have one right now. [00:37:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:29] Speaker A: I installed an entry door in my house, and I got it all trimmed. I got it all caulked, and I didn't have time. I didn't have time to paint it. So here it sits, and I did it to myself. We were anxious. We had a party. We put everything back, and the door sits unpainted. It looks okay, sure. But it still needs to be painted, and that is because I rushed it through and I didn't spend the time. [00:37:57] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you what, that's the least of the problems that you'll have when you rush a project. You know what's worse is when you're cutting corners to get it done. [00:38:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:08] Speaker B: If you're rushing a project, it's likely you're beginning to cut corners to get it done. And that's when the workmanship, the professional touch and finish, will suffer. And that's what you don't want. If you rush it, you'll cut corners. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Well, for instance, classic neglecting surface prep. That is a classic thing. When you're diying a project, that is a big mistake. Prime. Trying to save money. Primer or you're trying to save time, you're trying to rush it, and you don't do the surface prep. Poor adhesion, uneven surfaces, shorter lifespans. Like you said, priming. When you're tiling, you don't get all the dust cleaned off, and you put your mortar up there and it's sticking to the dust. And so now your tiles are falling off the wall because of the grout, and your wet set mortar is just not sticking to it. Oh, yeah, it's surface prep. And same thing with paint. Paint is only as good. Its adhesion is only as good as the surface you're sticking it to. So if you have paint that's peeling or cracking off or had some sort of mold or something, and you're thinking, I'll just paint over it and it'll disappear, well, you're causing yourself problems because you didn't prep that surface correctly. Now that the new paint is sticking to paint that's peeling. [00:39:41] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:42] Speaker A: What's the point of that? [00:39:43] Speaker C: Right? [00:39:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it works okay until the paint falls off. [00:39:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:48] Speaker B: And then do it again. [00:39:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:50] Speaker B: Now you're peeling and repainting, and it's costing you twice as much money. [00:39:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:56] Speaker B: I think when you talk about surface prep, I think about the floors. I'm thinking about putting down a finished flooring like a luxury vinyl tile. And you have staples or something in the floor from the carpet and pad that you pulled up before. You got to make sure that that floor is perfectly flat. There's no little rocks or dirt or staples or things underneath there. And make sure those cracks are filled and that the floor is properly prepared for a finished floor. [00:40:29] Speaker A: Here's another one. When you're installing that sort of floor, engineered wood or LVP or any of that stuff, you have to let it acclimate. You have to bring it into your property and let it sit there. Sometimes a few days, sometimes a couple of weeks, according to the package. You get to read the package. It'll tell you what to do and how long you need to let that product acclimate before you install it. Because if you don't give it that proper time, it's going to expand and contract at different rates, and it could literally pop off your floor, especially this time of year. [00:41:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:03] Speaker B: If you bought it and brought it home in preparation to use and you put it in the garage, and then the day you're ready to install it, you bring it in from the garage, you're asking for trouble, big time. It needs to be inside the house. The temperature that you keep the house regularly and be prepared to be installed and then not move around a lot after you install it. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very important. [00:41:26] Speaker B: Agreed. [00:41:27] Speaker A: I've had horror calls from customers telling me about this. I had a guy who installed that LVP. He had it installed in a rental property that he had that was four units. They installed it two floors on four units, townhome. All of it had to be torn out and reinstalled. The product was still good, but it all buckled. All of it. Every single piece, every single corner, every single seam buckled because it had expanded and it didn't have anywhere to go because they didn't let it acclimate. [00:41:58] Speaker B: I'll tell you what. Yeah, absolutely. Surface prep, very important. I just have to make a note. You were talking about buckling floor. I got a phone call from a friend who said they had their windows replaced. Had their windows replaced and then had a siding company come out and reside the house, and then had a painting company come out and paint. And he said, I had that done one week ago, and now I have water coming through the window. [00:42:32] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Water coming through the window. You know what I said? Go check your weep holes. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, done. [00:42:40] Speaker B: Weep holes were full. Water had gone in there. It didn't have a way out. It came right in the house. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Just like that happened to me. [00:42:48] Speaker B: Just exactly like happened. [00:42:49] Speaker A: So he had the house painted. They caulked over the weep holes. [00:42:51] Speaker B: Yeah, caulked over the weep holes. Just exactly like happened to you. And the thing is, it was fresh enough in my mind because of your story that I said, go outside and check the weep holes. And sure enough, they were all. He's like, what holes? There's no holes on the outside of this window. I said, yes, there is. [00:43:08] Speaker A: There's supposed to be. [00:43:09] Speaker B: Yeah, there's holes there. And then he checked a couple more windows, and he finally found one where the caulk was just underneath it a little bit. [00:43:16] Speaker C: Yes. [00:43:17] Speaker A: It's funny because windows are designed to leak, just not towards the inside of your home. [00:43:25] Speaker B: He's exactly right. [00:43:26] Speaker A: Water gets in there, it's going to. There's no way to avoid water getting inside of a vinyl window. The key is, how do you get it out? [00:43:36] Speaker B: Right? You don't want it coming out through the inside. [00:43:38] Speaker A: They're designed that way. So if you cover over those weep holes, or it can even happen with bugs, you get some carpenter bees that fill the wee poles in your windows with gook and mud and junk. Same thing can happen. So get that checked out. Or moss. Moss. Build up that's another one. What about overlooking energy efficiency when you're remodeling your house? I think a mistake people make is not putting in high efficiency windows or not putting in a high efficiency door or high efficiency insulation. They'll remodel their whole house and not add a drop of insulation in the attic. It's crazy. [00:44:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:22] Speaker B: I mean, the thing is, there is more efficient everything. We've been talking a lot about the bathroom. Obviously, I have a bathroom thing going on. How about a low flow toilet? They make toilets that do not require 22 gallons of water to flush it. [00:44:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:38] Speaker A: And they still do a good job. [00:44:40] Speaker B: And they do a great job. [00:44:41] Speaker A: It's not the olden days. The olden days. Those old toilets. [00:44:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:48] Speaker B: I think people feel like they need jet toilets to avoid a clog, but the fact is, it's not necessarily the case. [00:44:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:55] Speaker B: Low flow toilets do a good job, and they use a lot less water, saving you money and saving the planet. [00:45:01] Speaker A: I would argue the low flow shower heads, though. [00:45:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you can only sacrifice where you can sacrifice. [00:45:09] Speaker C: Right? I know. [00:45:10] Speaker B: The shower needs to be at a level of comfort. [00:45:15] Speaker A: Some of those low flow showerheads, like you go to a hotel, especially in an area of the country where, say, they have already low water pressure, and then they put those low flow shower heads. It's like, I got to stand here for 15 minutes to get this shampoo out of my hair. [00:45:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's funny. [00:45:35] Speaker A: I don't get it. Here's another mistake is poor space planning, not considering how your spaces go together and how they flow. When you talk about kitchens, that's kind of the classic one. They talk about the triangle, the workspace triangle, where your refrigerator and your sink and then your cabinet, countertop island, or whatever, they want you to have this workflow triangle. That's kind of a classic design thing in kitchens, but there's a lot of that sort of stuff when it comes to your whole house. I've been in homes where they've done additions, and they'll have these weird, awkwardly huge rooms off of spaces on other weird areas of the house that don't make any sense. [00:46:32] Speaker C: Right. [00:46:32] Speaker A: That aren't usable space for anything except maybe a pool table. It's like, oh, what are you putting a pool table in off your utility room? It's just weird stuff like that. So not considering your space planning when you're doing it, and we've talked about this on the show before, getting designs or getting a house done or getting it done by an architect that doesn't consult with an interior designer I feel like is doing you a disservice. Hiring an interior designer along with an architect to talk about workflow and how those things go together is, I feel like it's worth it, in my opinion, after all the years of talking to these people. [00:47:21] Speaker B: No, I agree with you. I think you're right. Unless you are a person who has that kind of ability, ability to look at a layout and find a more efficient thing. Some people just can do that. Some people can just look at it and say, you know what? This is better. If that's a strength of yours, then by all means. But if it's not a strength of yours, you could find yourself doing a project and the result will be undesirable. [00:47:53] Speaker C: Yes. [00:47:53] Speaker B: Less than what you were hoping for. Agreed. And you might not realize it until you get done with it. Right. [00:48:02] Speaker A: Another mistake people make is we kind of talked about this a little bit, but not hiring qualified professionals. [00:48:08] Speaker C: Right. [00:48:08] Speaker A: If there are projects around your house that you require a professional to do, it's one thing to hire a professional, but to hire a qualified professional, not checking references, not looking at pictures. When you get a reference of someone, make the phone call. If you're putting out $10,000 to a stranger that you don't know, that's on you. If they do bad work, right? [00:48:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:48:38] Speaker A: You should ask them for references and then call them and put a list of questions together. Did they finish on time? Did they finish on budget? How was the quality of their work? Did they pay all of their bills? Did you get any right to lien notices that weren't fulfilled? Things like that? Those are questions that you should be asking. The references of the contractor that you want to hire. [00:49:05] Speaker C: Right. [00:49:05] Speaker B: And before you hire the contractor, before you hire the contractor, before you check references, before you have a name, get the name from someone you trust. Start with someone you trust. Go to a reputable business, a building material supplier like par lumber company, and ask the suppliers, who are you using that you trust to do this kind of work? Put me in touch with them so I can get them to quote the job for me, and then check their references. And then call those references, and then you'll be set up to succeed. [00:49:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. Very good point. [00:49:47] Speaker B: Advice from the building material supply like par lumber is free. They will help you. They'll want to help and they'll help you. You just have to ask. [00:49:58] Speaker A: Speaking of design, we've talked about this on the show so many times, but choosing aesthetics that are trendy over timeless, I tend to choose things that are. I try to use designs that are very timeless just because I don't like to remodel that often. And if you remodel with the latest design trend, like the ship lap wall or I'm trying to think of some other ones, there's lots of them. It's really super. Like a trendy things. [00:50:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:37] Speaker A: You will find yourself having to remodel again in a shorter period of time than going with something that would be considered timeless. [00:50:50] Speaker B: Like a vessel sink. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Like a vessel sink. [00:50:52] Speaker B: Or chevrons painted on the wall. [00:50:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:56] Speaker B: Or a faux. What do they call that? They usually use a sponge and dip it in paint. [00:51:05] Speaker A: I remember the sponge, the sponge painting of the 90s. [00:51:08] Speaker B: Sponge paint. [00:51:08] Speaker A: The wall was huge. Or the accent wall. [00:51:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:13] Speaker B: There is a lot of trendy. A lot of trendy stuff out there. So overlooking lighting design. I mean, isn't a light just a light? [00:51:27] Speaker A: Man, I tell you what, I missed my calling. I feel like I could be or could have been a professional lighting designer. [00:51:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I feel like you sort of see the matrix when you look at where lights could be, how lights will enhance the look of a specific space. You definitely have that going on. [00:51:52] Speaker A: I don't know what it is. I cannot stand walking into a room that has super bright five k lights on the ceiling. And that's it. It's just harsh, blue, 100 watt blue bulbs on the ceiling piercing your skin. It's like you're in a hospital or something. [00:52:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:16] Speaker A: I like to have all of my rooms. I actually have all of my lights in my entire house almost on my siri. I have it set up on Homekit. We have talked about this in the show before. [00:52:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:29] Speaker A: And I've got these Phillips hue bulbs, and all of my switches are on. Lutron casita switches, which are amazing. And I have scenes. So I set up. It's like a little. You dial it in. Like, I want that lamp over there at 30%, and I want the overhead lights over here at 5%. And I want that light or that lamp right there at 90%. And you can adjust each one with the little dials, and then you get it set up, and then you make it a scene, and you can say, I want this to be for watching movies. And then you tell her, you're like, hey, set the movie scene. And then Siri will adjust all the lights exactly how you want them, and it's done. [00:53:21] Speaker B: So what happens if I say, hey, siri set us up for disco night? [00:53:26] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. Well, you'd have to set it up, but you could have one. I have one called party time. [00:53:31] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. That's what I figured. [00:53:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:33] Speaker A: And it's mostly for games and such, playing board games and whatnot, but nice. Yeah. I love it. If you have the opportunity to set up a home kit in your house and do it, it's like the easiest way to do lighting, but I'm a huge fan of lighting design. [00:53:54] Speaker B: What about mismatched materials and styles? [00:53:57] Speaker A: Oh, man. You remember that house? Tony and I went to a house a long time ago that was a. [00:54:03] Speaker B: Street of dreams home tour. [00:54:06] Speaker A: Remodeled two or remodeled? [00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I suppose. [00:54:08] Speaker A: This couple bought this house. They hired a contractor, and they made all of the design choices. They didn't hire an interior designer. They made all of them. And this was like a $2 million house. [00:54:24] Speaker B: You literally said it, and you don't even know you said it. They made all of the design choices. [00:54:30] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. [00:54:31] Speaker B: Starting with 20s design and 40s design and 70s design and design. Yeah, they had it all. The house had it going on. [00:54:41] Speaker A: The kitchen was, like, half industrial, half tuscan, half craftsman. Like, they had all of these different design elements in their house, and I thought it looked terrible. [00:54:55] Speaker B: Cabinets in one place, open shelving in. [00:54:57] Speaker A: Another place, very industrial. [00:54:59] Speaker B: That was the place that had the secret door. They had a bookshelf. Secret room. A bookshelf door. And when you walk to the bottom of the stairs and you look to the left in the hallway, there was a bookshelf on the wall, like, recessed shelving. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Did that go into their wine? [00:55:16] Speaker B: It went into a. Well, the room was empty for us, but they had plans for it, whatever it was. [00:55:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:23] Speaker B: I mean, I thought that was cool, but they had all of those very weird little things going on in that house. It was not cohesive. It was just disjointed, I felt. [00:55:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Not having consistency. You don't want it disjointed. You want it to be very complementary. And it's harder than it seems. You go in and you open a book or you go to the store and you pick out trim, and you just don't know. Honestly, it's to the beholder. Right. Eyes of the beholder of if it's good design or not. But I tell you what, if you get it wrong. Yeah, I guess as long as you. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Like it, it's okay that it's quality in the eyes of the beholder, as long as you're the one beholding it. But when you decide that you have to do something different and you're going to sell the place. Suddenly you're hoping the buyer sees things the way you did. [00:56:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:56:30] Speaker B: It can get bad pretty quick, it can get expensive. [00:56:33] Speaker A: And that goes along. The next one on the list is like hastily making decisions or rushing the design or the decision making process. And a lot of this goes along with giving yourself enough time planning everything out your budget. If you're making decisions on the cabinets because you don't have enough time to sit down and really make good decisions, or you're making decisions based on whatever fits in your budget, sometimes that can be a mistake. Maybe not necessarily mistake, but a regret. Maybe a regret with the design flaw or just choosing the wrong thing to go in the wrong place, buying cabinets for your kitchen and then going out and buying your refrigerator hastily and then getting it all done, getting it installed and realizing, oh, shoot, my fridge doesn't even fit in the hole. [00:57:33] Speaker B: Here's an example. I'm just one quick example of this rushing the decision making process. You start getting through the project and you are paying bills, paying contractors that have finished their portion or for the first part of their portion, and the money is going out and the project is not over. And you start to worry that maybe you have gotten in over your head or maybe it's not going to end up as good as you think it's going to. And so then you start, well, we'll start to cut back on some of the things that are left. In my example, we were talking the closet of the master bed, bath and closet remodel. The closet was the last item. It was the item that we decided we were going to do ourselves. We're going to source the material. We're going to lay out the plan. We're going to build the thing. In my mind, it started with a couple of banks of drawers, two banks of drawers, and then shelves on top of that, and then everything else. Well, we had a couple of banks of drawers in the spare bedroom in the closet, which we had to take out because we were recarpeting all of the bedrooms. And they were made out of particle board. They were six, eight years old, maybe ten years old, and they worked. But they were an inexpensive version of what I was looking for, sure a lower grade than what I was looking for. And the suggestion was made, let's just put those in the closet and build from that. It will save us some money. Well, I'll tell you what. Had I been more rushed or more concerned, I might have made that decision. But I'm so glad that I didn't. The quality of those drawer banks compared to the ones that I bought from par Lumber's cabinet outlet, actually in Portland, downtown Portland. The quality difference is night and day. Corey, I'm telling you, soft clothes with a baked on, beautiful finish, very clean lines, very nice compared to this one that when you open the drawer, it goes, and you close it. It goes. And it was made out of particle board, so it weighed 100 pounds as opposed to the one made out of plywood. So if you rush your decisions, you could end up making a decision that, like you said, will be regrettable in the end. Don't do it. [01:00:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And that's the thing. It could be considered a mistake, but I would consider it a mistake, but could also just be saving money. [01:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, in the right way, it's acceptable. In the wrong, it just doesn't benefit you. [01:00:40] Speaker A: All right, the last one on our list is in regards to contractors. And all the contractors out there that we know would probably agree with us because they are not mind readers. Nobody is. And not communicating effectively with your contractors. And that goes for everyone. Not communicating with your suppliers, with the tile person that you're buying your tile from, or the carpet person, assuming that they know what's in your brain, what you're envisioning. And for a lot of people, it's really hard to describe to someone what's in your head and without dealing with somebody professional that can properly relay information to you the way they see it or the way they understand it. I go back to this. I hired a guy one time to put in, like, a dry riverbed. I had this whole thing in my head to install a dry riverbed in this little side part of my yard where I've got this long sidewalk on the side of my house. And just water just pours down the thing when it rains. And it was a bed before, so a flower bed. So all the bark dust that we would put in there would just get washed down into the street. And it was super annoying. I hate it. I hated it. So I talked to this guy, and I was like, yeah, I want to put this dry riverbed in. I want big rocks here. And he's like, totally easy, no problem. And we agreed on a price, which I thought was very reasonable. And I came home from work, and it was done, and it was freaking terrible. It is nothing what I wanted, not even remotely close, because what he had in his head versus what I had in mine were two completely different things. So now I've added another project to my list that I needed to tear down and redo. [01:02:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:56] Speaker B: You'Re absolutely right. The most communication that you can have with your contractor about what the expectations are is going to benefit you greater. The most communication that you can have. [01:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Sometimes it comes down to drawing pictures or taking pictures, going somewhere. If you see something that you like or going to a website like Howes or Pinterest, finding those things, creating boards, printing things off, clipping out of newspapers, that's what all the professional contractors, when you go to their offices, like the guys that I deal with, the contractors that I deal with, that do it professionally, they have these books full of what they call Inspos or inspirational boards that you show them. This is what I want. And then there's no mystery, right? [01:03:53] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, this is pretty good. I hope that everybody listening to the show today got something useful out of the show. There's a lot of good tidbits in here. Things that can help you or keep you from spending the extra time and money fixing something that you could have avoided with a little extra planning and a little extra, I don't know, care. [01:04:20] Speaker A: Care. [01:04:20] Speaker B: I mean, when you're talking about the work that you're doing and the only person you have keeping you in line is you, right. When you are expected to raise the bar of your own performance, then you have to care about the result in order for the result to come out the way you want. [01:04:41] Speaker A: That's right. I think it's the difference between being a good weekend warrior and a bad one. [01:04:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:48] Speaker B: Or a new one. [01:04:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:49] Speaker B: I mean, sometimes you just don't know. [01:04:51] Speaker A: Season. [01:04:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:53] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks so much for listening. Hopefully you got something good out of this. And make sure you go and check out our Instagram and Facebook page and our YouTube channel. We're at WW home show. Leave us a comment if you want to email us. It's [email protected]. [01:05:09] Speaker B: Thanks so much for listening. Have a great week. [01:05:11] Speaker A: We'll see you next time.