I have always said the best project start out with the best planning. We sit down with legandary landscape designer Steve Griggs. Steve is not your typical landscape designer. He’s been getting dirt on his hands ever since he was 16, cutting grass to earn some bucks. Working hard got him through school, where he got advanced landscaping degrees from Mississippi State University and SUNY Cobleskill College of Environmental Design and Horticulture.

He founded Steve Griggs Design when he was 25. Having previously worked with his father in the industry, he got some powerful values instilled in him: make no excuses, keep your promises, respect the deadline, and make things happen for the client. But what he saw happening in the industry was a different story.

He decided to change the status quo for good. This customer-centric approach got him the reputation of the best landscape designer in New York.

We sit down and talk about what makes a project turn out the best and what you can do to improve your space. For more information: https://stevegriggsdesign.com/

To get your questions answered by Eric G give us a call in the studio at 833-239-4144 24/7 and Eric G will get back to you and answer your question and you might end up in a future episode of Around the House.

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Information given on the Around the House Show should not be considered construction or design advice for your specific project, nor is it intended to replace consulting at your home or jobsite by a building professional. The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed on the podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Around the House Show.

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[00:00:26] Eric Goranson: artwork.

[00:00:32] Steve Griggs: depth. Yeah. There's there's backlighting, there's uplighting, there's downlighting. You don't want to like, you want to make it like along the house in the front. You shine the well lights up to access the soffits and all.

[00:00:44] Eric Goranson: to it. Yeah. That's why there's great lighting design out there that makes it look spectacular. But. Man, if you get good quality lights and like, when it

[00:00:58] Steve Griggs: This is [00:01:00] Around the

[00:01:16] Eric Goranson: This guy has been killing it. You've seen him on television shows out there. He is all over the internet with his wisdom. Steve Griggs, welcome to around the house show, man.

[00:01:27] Eric Goranson: Thanks brother. You have been since the beginning of time building in your entire life, building and designing beautiful places.

[00:01:54] Eric Goranson: Sounds good. All right. What got you started in, in landscape design? What got you going into [00:02:00] this?

[00:02:23] Steve Griggs: And I'm not going to be somebody else's slave. So hence 40 years later, I'm still here. That's a bridge, right?

[00:02:39] Steve Griggs: grass and college mowing grass for a landscape company.

[00:02:50] Eric Goranson: come on. Sleeping in on a Saturday did not exist

[00:02:56] Eric Goranson: of the lawn. We had four boys in my household too. I get [00:03:00] this. I get this.

[00:03:02] Steve Griggs: He didn't do his side. You didn't do your side. It's

[00:03:18] Eric Goranson: And so I was walking that my dad's lawnmower for miles getting from house to house and my dad's you're wearing the wheels out of the thing, man. And I'm like, let's. I'm making money. Yeah. Back then you cut somebody's grass. It was good money. And then, then they'd have the, nobody'd be watering or something.

[00:03:39] Steve Griggs: so you were

[00:03:55] Eric Goranson: Beautiful spaces. And there's some designers that I look at coming from the world of interior design. I can see it. [00:04:00] There's some people that quite frankly, over design it, but I've noticed with your projects that it looks natural and it's not over the top, overly done. It just looks like a natural space.

[00:04:13] Steve Griggs: don't notice it. Yeah. So that's one of the techniques we like to use is that I tried to explain to the client is that. Pretend the house wasn't here, right? Pretend we built the house around the landscape. Instead of the landscape around the house, just flip it, right?

[00:04:44] Steve Griggs: It's not what it's about. Right. So that's, it was worked for me for the last

[00:04:48] Eric Goranson: years. Yeah, I get that. It's like the best design is the one that doesn't go noticed. Cause you just walk out and go, it's stunning, but you don't go, wow, that's crazy.

[00:05:07] Steve Griggs: Yeah,

[00:05:18] Steve Griggs: Yeah, it has to all flow and you have to look in place and it looks like it's always been there.

[00:05:27] Eric Goranson: that makes sense. One of the biggest things I think we're seeing now is with people staying home more often. I think the whole COVID thing got us going into outdoor living a lot more. What kind of recommendation do you have for privacy?

[00:05:52] Steve Griggs: We come across that a lot.

[00:06:14] Steve Griggs: Those are very popular. It's a green giant arborvitae, put those between your properties and they'll grow three feet a year. That is your fastest way to get privacy between the neighbors. So you have your typical fences and all, but people like to have the greenery between not just a wooden fence,

[00:06:28] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And then that way it's not seasonal where you're like, Oh, lost the leaves. Now I'm looking at my neighbors. I'm jumping in the hot tub.

[00:06:42] Steve Griggs: Hey, I have a lot of clients that say, I don't want to see them starting today. So, you get a bigger plant. Absolutely.

[00:07:00] Eric Goranson: I

[00:07:17] Steve Griggs: I think we

[00:07:27] Steve Griggs: one of those in my house. I'm surprised out there. You don't have that because it's stuff grows so fast.

[00:07:33] Eric Goranson: Or just something that we just haven't invested in it out here. I think it's probably a good prime for somebody to come out and do as far as a landscape company to invest in one of those, just haven't seen them around for some reason on my area, it's a little tougher in my. Local neighborhood.

[00:07:58] Eric Goranson: What's your best [00:08:00] great thing. If you've got a homeowner or a remodeler or a builder, and they're sitting here looking at it going, I'm going to start a project this spring. You're almost late on the design side of it right now, but how should somebody get started on that?

[00:08:17] Steve Griggs: If it's a basic planting job or patio, you can get that banged out. Once you start getting into like custom hot tubs and swimming pools and waterfalls, that takes a little more planning. Right? So you want to get a design like you would think about it. I find that most people understand the interior of the house better than the exterior.

[00:08:54] Steve Griggs: And then lighting, same thing with lighting. So they can, it's easier for them to relate to the inside because [00:09:00] they just have done it more

[00:09:10] Eric Goranson: Cause I think that seems to be one of the things that I've noticed on DIY projects outside is. People get these things outta order where they put in the beautiful sod lawn and then have to take all the machinery across it to get to the other side when they're doing something else.

[00:09:27] Steve Griggs: They don't realize that white pine's gonna get 80 feet tall next to your front door. So you have to end up ripping it out. You got, you have to a little bit, know a little bit about the plants and how they grow in order to do it

[00:09:40] Eric Goranson: There's a little farm store in the corner from me here that's uh. That, uh, has got a really great horticulturist in it. And I know my plants fairly well, but I just go in and lean on Craig in there. Cause that guy knows more than, than I've ever known. And it's awesome because I can just lean on somebody like that.

[00:10:00] Steve Griggs: what they'll do. Yeah. He'll know, you know, if they're going to grow tall, the deer are going to eat. And we have a lot of deer around here and they eat all the plants. You have to be very careful on the selection of the plants.

[00:10:25] Eric Goranson: You don't mow your lawn here. Oh, you started laughing. I'm like, excellent point. Forgot about that. Forgot about the natural beings.

[00:10:36] Eric Goranson: You have elk with the horns the whole place. Oh, they're massive in Cannon Beach, Oregon out here.

[00:10:47] Steve Griggs: Is there different times when they're like, well, more

[00:10:53] Eric Goranson: We just picked that house up in the fall, so we'll have to see what the cameras do, but it seems like they're in town. It's almost like a resort [00:11:00] town in a way that the elk just hang out there because they know there's food and there's green grass and it's easy for them.

[00:11:09] Eric Goranson: one of the biggest challenges I had in the Pacific Northwest too, is I'd plant beautiful roses in the front yard.

[00:11:20] Steve Griggs: him. Yeah. So they'll eat the roses too. Sure. They'll eat the buds right off them. Yep.

[00:11:29] Eric Goranson: Cause I know in the Northeast you've got that similar problem. Yeah.

[00:11:46] Steve Griggs: And people don't like low maintenance, high maintenance is it's just like designing inside. Most people want a lot of color. They don't want bees and they don't want a lot of maintenance. It don't work. It doesn't work that way. So you have to, you have to

[00:12:07] Eric Goranson: You just put up. Yeah. So four star party out there. What do you expect?

[00:12:22] Steve Griggs: You can mix it up with the different textures and colors of the

[00:12:31] Steve Griggs: No. Natural grass, Kentucky blue sod, fescue sod. That's awesome. I find that turf is, I'm surprised how hot it got. It's hot. Like

[00:12:43] Eric Goranson: Yeah, my, one of my best friends lives down the street here and he has, gosh, he's probably got 4, 000 square feet of it in his backyard with no trees. And I, every time I'm out there standing, I'm like, man, it's like, it was like asphalt out there.

[00:13:02] Steve Griggs: I noticed that the first time when we were playing soccer with the kids on the soccer field, there was the artificial turf field of real, I'm like, man, it's super hot down here. And the heat just comes

[00:13:12] Steve Griggs: Good thing. You don't have to water it. You don't have to cut it.

[00:13:15] Eric Goranson: definitely has a lot of benefits. It does. Yeah. On my neck of the woods, I've got an area that I designed off the side of my house for my dogs with artificial turf. So, if they want to go out and use the bathroom in this little area, they're not, I'm not having to chase them around the whole backyard and figure out where they went to the bathroom, but I've got this little area.

[00:13:46] Steve Griggs: So what happens with that turf? When the dog urinates on it, like, where does that go into the gravel?

[00:14:18] Eric Goranson: So it's just, I can't, it's not going to live. So for me, it works out really well that way. And it's a lot easier to clean stuff up and worst case you get the hose out. You can clean up a mess out there, but being plastic, it doesn't really pick up the dog smell that you would expect it to. So it does pretty well with that.

[00:14:52] Steve Griggs: After five, eight years, whatever life is, they roll it up and they throw it in the landfill.

[00:15:09] Eric Goranson: I get it. If you're in like Southern California or Arizona or someplace like that, where it's a really big deal and you've got a natural landscape, you want to have the green, I can understand it maybe there, but it's still going to be hot as blazes. And it's still

[00:15:26] Steve Griggs: There's certain, there's xeriscape and certain plants that you can plant that don't need a lot of water. And the truth of it is, once those plants get established, here, at least here in the Northeast, they'll, mother nature takes over. Like you don't need to overwater it. Overwatering is worse than underwatering it.

[00:15:47] Eric Goranson: Yeah, I, what's funny with watering. I found some new technology this last year. I don't know if you found it yet, but I put it in my backyard when I did my yard and it's called Irrigreen and they're not paying, they're not sponsored here, but it was an interesting one.

[00:16:19] Steve Griggs: water without watering

[00:16:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah, so you can water and basically what you do is it's a full line pressure that goes out to the sprinkler head and you run a control line out there so that's always on at the sprinkler head. And the sprinkler head has a little computer in it and you set it up by using the app. So it's a play in a video game where you can arrow out arrow back and you can put points out there as it goes and you can control the stream of where it goes and where it goes.

[00:17:07] Eric Goranson: Pretty cool. Uh, so I'll send you some stuff on it, not to make this a commercial, but I knew that I, I always like testing out new stuff at my house, especially home tech. And that's one of the ones that passed the test this year. I'm like, okay. That's cool. That's new stuff. And as

[00:17:26] Steve Griggs: Otherwise, it's just going to be, but the irrigation contractor should be able to dial that. Oh, yeah, just

[00:17:42] Eric Goranson: If it's 40 and rainy and goes, Hey, we're going into rain, skip mode today. So you don't need to water today. Cause you're going to get too much.

[00:17:55] Eric Goranson: stuff. That's good.

[00:18:06] Steve Griggs: Yeah, you start getting bills like that. You'll learn how to

[00:18:13] Eric Goranson: So I wanted to talk about what I think one of the most important things in design, at least inside, but lighting is one of those things that you can have a pretty nice designed backyard and all of a sudden you throw some lights at it and you've made it look like a million bucks. Like it should be on a TV show.

[00:18:49] Eric Goranson: artwork.

[00:18:55] Steve Griggs: Yeah, there's backlighting, there's uplighting, there's downlighting, you don't want to like, you want [00:19:00] to make it like, along the house in the front, you shine the well lights up to access the soffits and all, you don't want to just go out there and stick lights everywhere, there is a little technique

[00:19:08] Eric Goranson: That's why there's great lighting design out there that makes it look spectacular, but Man, if you get good quality lights and like you and I were talking earlier, you don't go down to your home center and pick up the kit there, but if you go into your lighting store and get the good stuff, it'll last you decades if you're not careful.

[00:19:23] Steve Griggs: the solid brass, get them online, LED, you know, 10 2 wire, 12 2 wire. The lighting is again, like I said, if you DYI want to do it yourself, that's something you can definitely do yourself. Like we said earlier, don't put a swimming pool in by yourself, but you can certainly tackle a night lighting

[00:19:40] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it's people don't, my little brother did this house over in Eastern Washington, did his. Pool by himself and at least dug the hole out himself. And he had a bunch of high school kids came over that he paid with wheelbarrows because they couldn't get an excavator in the backyard because the way the houses were, so he basically went in there with kids and they had a dump trailer out in the front and they were just [00:20:00] digging and wheelbarrowed it out there.

[00:20:16] Eric Goranson: He had a dugout and I was like, all right, you got it

[00:20:20] Eric Goranson: enjoy, enjoy the pool and stuff. Exactly. So I was laughing about it going, dude, that's a lot of work. It's hard just even repairing pools by yourself, little, I'm putting one in. What

[00:20:33] Steve Griggs: Well

[00:20:38] Steve Griggs: a handy guy. He's like you. He's a handy guy. Yeah. And I'm not

[00:20:52] Eric Goranson: It's got to be right. You don't have another second shot at it.

[00:21:08] Steve Griggs: I'll fix the stove. I'll fix the washing machine. I'll Google it. I'll get it done. But it's not, I'm not allowed to paint anymore. Wife, she squashed that. I'm hiring a general contractor to do my inside of the house. I could do it. It hurts me to pay.

[00:21:25] Steve Griggs: But if I take it over and it don't, if something goes wrong, she's going to, I don't want to hear.

[00:21:37] Steve Griggs: It's common. I'm just going to leave it alone. I got the guy. Just, but yeah, I'm just going to take it like a man and just pay him what

[00:21:45] Eric Goranson: That's wisdom. Yeah. That's it. That's free marital advice. Oh, it's good. Cause I do TV. You've done TV. I do TV. It's one of those things with TV show. My biggest battle in life is getting those projects that are TV ready to a hundred [00:22:00] percent done. Right. Everything's done. It looks good for television. But there's all the little details that you wouldn't hand off.

[00:22:17] Steve Griggs: They like it long as it looks good for the shot. They say like it, it looks good for the shot.

[00:22:32] Eric Goranson: schedules of the thing, right? They don't want to have the crew sit around for another six hours. Will you bang stuff out? That doesn't look any different behind the camera, right?

[00:22:40] Steve Griggs: they would come out, shoot a little bit and say, okay, we'll be back tomorrow morning, eight o'clock. And then the reveal is tomorrow afternoon or whatever that was. So you had to, and they would leave and come back and we'd be stuck. Yeah. It was lot of work. Lot of work. Not as much glory as you would think,

[00:22:58] Eric Goranson: of pressure and it's, you know, oh man, [00:23:00] I do it every week. I do 52 shows a year. I, I get it. It's just, it's uh, and there's no room for air. You do 50, you do one a

[00:23:09] Eric Goranson: one hour show a week. Yep.

[00:23:13] Eric Goranson: So they, we shoot three days a week basically.

[00:23:32] Eric Goranson: Who's building it? Oh

[00:23:37] Eric Goranson: the whole thing together? Oh yeah, 900 degrees and it takes two hours to get it warmed up and man, you're cooking a pizza in 90 seconds. So, so speaking

[00:23:58] Steve Griggs: Oh, I don't want that. So they [00:24:00] like the, they like the, yeah, if

[00:24:14] Eric Goranson: They like to throw up a couple of burgers and dogs on two different people. Most of the time. If you're the burger and dog person, don't do a wood fire pizza oven.

[00:24:22] Steve Griggs: because it takes, yeah, we got to chop wood. No, people just want to turn it off at the party, impress their friends. They got a pizza oven and be done with it.

[00:24:31] Eric Goranson: First question. Now, my secret for doing the wood to get it up to speed, what I do is I do this Jenga thing where I actually stack the wood up. So I could actually get it heated and I put wood in the back of the thing and I stack it up and light the fire at the top, let it burn down.

[00:24:57] Steve Griggs: So at your own home, are you one of those? [00:25:00] Guys that do everything in themselves and run the house.

[00:25:08] Steve Griggs: yeah, so you just, one of those guys that just been born with, there's some guys that I know that just got it right. Like they just have it like my expertise. And then I planted trees. I've done all that, but there's just some guys with the handiwork.

[00:25:26] Eric Goranson: yeah. No, I'm not kidding. I built, uh, last spring. I knew I had, I needed some more covered space out back, because I had a little cover over the, or where my outdoor kitchen is. So I've got an 8x8 bar out there, but I'm like, I need some more covered space here, because it wasn't that it's the rain, it's the The junk that falls out of the trees, it gets on the lawn furniture and stuff.

[00:26:00] Steve Griggs: it out.

[00:26:07] Eric Goranson: plan. And sometimes things go, sometimes things don't go perfectly. That's the TV show. I thought, Hey, I'm going to take this interior door, see if I could save it and refinish it.

[00:26:30] Eric Goranson: That's

[00:26:45] Steve Griggs: How do you get it efficiently? That is. Executing of the project is the most, also the second most important. How does it all pieces fit together, especially when you're spending a lot of money on a

[00:27:00] Eric Goranson: And I'm like, dude, you're going to destroy that whole yard. Just trying to get the pavers over there, let alone the equipment, everything else, and all the materials you need to bring in to do it right.

[00:27:18] Steve Griggs: Because you want to enjoy it in the summer.

[00:27:32] Eric Goranson: And you've got a whole different climate zone and everything else you're working with.

[00:27:49] Steve Griggs: And then you go out there in the summer and it's beautiful. It's amazing how it can go from that to the beautiful summer in six

[00:28:05] Steve Griggs: months.

[00:28:16] Eric Goranson: snow out there. We don't. It'll come in waves where we don't get it for four or five years. And all of a sudden we got two feet in the ground and nobody knows what to do with it.

[00:28:24] Steve Griggs: Northwest, you would get a lot of snow. Yeah. You would think a lot, but no, we haven't got, we got a little bit this year, but not like it used to be

[00:28:40] Eric Goranson: So they're not as cold where you guys get all the, those beautiful gifts out of Canada dropping down. And then all of a sudden you get all that cold air.

[00:28:47] Eric Goranson: rain, whatever. I'm ready for spring. And then by the end of the summer, you're going, I'm ready for fall. That's how we do it here too. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:07] Eric Goranson: question for you. It's curb appeal. That's such a huge deal for the value of homes and things like that.

[00:29:31] Eric Goranson: And it looks a little yawner. What would you do with that? A lot

[00:29:45] Steve Griggs: If you're selling your house, people don't even, they're not going inside. They do a drive by. They'll come and look at the house. By far, curb repeal is you can, for minimal dollars, you can knock it out of the park, right? For instance, make sure [00:30:00] everything's trimmed properly. Don't have trees like we spoke about earlier, like you're planting the wrong trees that grow 20 feet in front of the front door, blocks the light, right?

[00:30:24] Steve Griggs: You can get mulch at Home Depot flowers, keep the bushes trimmed. Just make it look neat and clean. Neat and clean. Yeah. And if you have natural grass, throw a bag of fertilizer on that. Green that up. People love

[00:30:43] Eric Goranson: That's a good weekend project for most people. And you just transform the whole front of the house. And that's great. So are you seeing any trends out there when it comes to backyards or pools or hot tubs or outdoor kitchens? What's the hot stuff that you're seeing these days?

[00:31:06] Steve Griggs: And what happened was a lot of these people that never owned homes before they lived in apartments for their whole life now live in the suburbs. And now they used to call the super to fix everything. Now they're clueless. Okay. So now they don't know what to do with the house. They don't even know where to begin on the outside.

[00:31:37] Eric Goranson: home and working from home air quotes.

[00:31:41] Steve Griggs: did a job. I was doing a walk through on a job over the summer and the girls, the younger college girl, she's hanging out by the pool on a laptop. I'm like, what are you working? She goes, yeah, Fridays. It's they call it something Fridays where they can like work from home, but like you're sitting by the pool.

[00:32:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah. No, that's nice, man. That's nice. Cause yeah, it's, and it's the cheapest addition you can do to your home, right? That's living space.

[00:32:26] Steve Griggs: Yeah, I try to explain to them, listen, basically it's an extension.

[00:32:38] Eric Goranson: It used to be like that pool was always a horrible investment in that. But now as soon as you put that as part of a outdoor living space, that's changed over the last five

[00:32:47] Steve Griggs: Absolutely. Since, since actually it's had people looking for pool, like it was crazy back then people wanted swimming pools. And I think they're really grown to appreciate the outdoors more because it was taken away from us for so [00:33:00] long. Right. Like it was like now everybody just. Wants to be outside, which, Hey, it's helped my, help my

[00:33:06] Eric Goranson: It put a waiting list in your world, even more so than it was before.

[00:33:12] Eric Goranson: TVs and entertainment outside. That's a big thing too, as far as music and, and watching the game outside or whatever. That seems to be another big thing that's grown too, is just the electronics outside.

[00:33:43] Steve Griggs: It's the same thing. Living room, kitchen. Outdoor TV. It's the same thing as just being outside. And we have, we use a lot of the outdoor Brahma a lot of times and they can sit outside and

[00:34:04] Eric Goranson: It's covered at my place. And so I'll be honest, I just put a regular TV out there and for as cheap as TVs are, I can go buy another one. I sound like a horrible person, but I just, I don't go out and buy all the expensive, it's too cheap. I did the

[00:34:27] Eric Goranson: it works great.

[00:34:44] Eric Goranson: Let's see how it worked. Good. It just, I just upgraded TV's analogy are. It's still working great out there, but I haven't changed it out of it. It's cheap on it going. I need to change it out, but I'm like, it still works great. The picture looks good. So why mess with it?

[00:35:00] Steve Griggs: You don't really care. If you spend 10 grand out there, I guarantee you'd be absolutely yeah. So yeah, like you say, it's a few hundred bucks. You can get a brand new TV. It's not the end of the world as opposed to those. Years ago, though, they used to be like 10

[00:35:14] Eric Goranson: And then to get the outdoor rated one and the cabinet and all the other stuff, how you wanted to put it in there, it got pretty crazy, but mine's in the shade. So you don't have the issues that's undercover it's protected. So it's, it's not that out of the ordinary, what a normal TV would be at. Hey, we're starting to run out of time, brother.

[00:35:48] Eric Goranson: So we're in your backyard. So we need to make sure people find you.

[00:36:04] Steve Griggs: I'm at Steve Griggs design do com. It seems like the Instagram is the biggest thing at Steve Griggs design. Yeah. Any questions, whatever. I'm here and I appreciate what you're doing with the podcast because I'm listening to your tile episode now because I'm about to hire the tile contractor for my own

[00:36:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that is one of the, that's. That there's those things in the project where you go, okay, there's these key people that are, maybe the painter, you'll get an okay paint job or a great paint job, but boy, that's how contractor is one of those that we were talking about that got to be really careful to get the right one, because there's a big difference between good and bad

[00:36:39] Steve Griggs: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:36:52] Steve Griggs: Good luck with those Elk.

[00:36:57] Eric Goranson: All right, guys, you've been listening to around the house.