Managing relationships during a remodel? Oh boy, get ready for some real talk because Eric G and John Dudley are diving deep into the chaos of home improvement and the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it. They kick things off by laying down the hard truth: remodeling can turn into a battlefield for couples, and if you're not careful, it might just lead to some serious relationship drama—think laundry room knockouts! From budgeting woes to the inevitable compromise that somehow becomes a festering resentment, these two are packing in the pet peeves that drive them up the wall when it comes to home projects. So grab your toolbox and maybe a glass of wine, because we’re about to dish out some hard-earned wisdom on keeping your relationship intact while you’re elbow-deep in drywall dust. And don't worry, we'll sprinkle in some sarcastic humor to keep it all light, because let's face it, we all need a good laugh amidst the madness!

When it comes to home remodeling, it’s not just about the nails and hammers—it's about the emotional roller coaster that couples often find themselves on. Eric G and John Dudley dive into the wild world of relationships during remodels, where love can turn into a boxing match faster than you can say 'open concept.' They share personal anecdotes, including the jaw-dropping story of a couple’s laundry room fight that escalated to a right hook, proving that home improvement can sometimes feel more like a reality TV show than a simple renovation. They emphasize the importance of communication and compromise in relationships, especially when both partners have different design visions, budgets, and expectations. Eric and John lay out their top pet peeves in remodeling, from DIY disasters to unqualified contractors, reminding us that a little humor can go a long way in maintaining sanity through the chaos of home renovations. Spoiler alert: if you think you can remodel without some serious discussions and maybe a few eye rolls, think again!

Takeaways:

• Managing remodeling projects is like walking on a tightrope without a safety net; communication is key to prevent disasters.
• Pet peeve alert: nothing says 'professional' like a contractor showing up in sweatpants; seriously, what are we doing here?
• Home remodeling can turn couples into boxing champions if communication fails; trust me, you don't want to see that drama unfold.
• If you're not prepared for the stress of remodeling, you might as well start prepping for couples therapy; they often go hand in hand!
• Remember, folks: when it comes to home improvement, don't let your ego outshine professional advice; it leads to chaos and possibly a divorce.
• Budget debates during remodeling are basically a recipe for relationship disaster; choose your battles wisely, or you might end up sleeping on the couch.

Links referenced in this episode:

• aroundthehouseonline.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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Foreign.

Welcome to around the House with Eric G. Your trusted source for all things home improvement.

Whether you're tackling a DIY project, hiring it out, or just trying to keep your home running smoothly, you're in the right place.

With over 30 years of remodeling experience, certified kitchen designer Eric G. Takes you behind the scenes with expert advice, industry trends, and the latest innovations for your home.

Home.

It's everything you need to know without the fluff.

Now here's your host, Eric G. Welcome.

To the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric G. And of course, we got.

I'm Johnny D. You got it, brother.

We're having a great time in here.

I hope you are as well.

In the second hour of today's show, we are gonna dive into a tachi, one for many people.

And we like steering into controversy a little bit sometimes.

Johnny.

So I thought, let's talk about it, because you and I have alluded to it the past.

We've talked about a few of our own stories, but I wanted to talk about the common battles with home ownership and remodeling with couples.

Yeehaw.

And it's going to sound a little therapy like today, but this is something that I think if more about it going in, especially for the new homeowners out there.

We have seen this stuff go sideways, and I'm sure you have seen with clients this stuff goes sideways, let alone our own personal lives.

Let's put it this way, the craziest one I had as a designer.

I showed up with this couple.

I won't even say what city.

I'm going to try to wash this a little bit because I'm not here to call anybody out.

But this couple was building a new house, and the husband had redesigned at the last minute the laundry room, because we had some dimensions.

The builder had to change a wall.

She was traveling.

He said, oh, let's do it this way, and approved it.

And we ordered cabinetry.

He never followed up with her.

So cabinets and stuff are being installed, and they're getting into an argument in the laundry room.

And I got.

I got to prove drawings, guys.

This is exactly what we ordered.

I didn't approve it.

Looks at her husband.

He goes, you were gone.

It made sense.

I approved it.

It's what we got.

And she landed a right hook on him like she was a boxer.

Yeah.

Whoa.

And she took three shots at him.

Like, solid shots.

It's a laundry room.

Calm down.

Take it down a notch.

And I'm just floored.

Going, wow.

And I. I just sat there for a minute.

I'm like, wow, here's a first.

So I literally sat there and went, all right, guys, the builder was there.

He was wide eyed.

Imagine.

Don't think it was the first time that this had happened.

And I'll say that because he didn't seem as shocked as I was.

And I went, hey, guys, I gotta go.

Meeting's over.

We gotta go to the rest of the house.

I said, you were putting me in a position where we're gonna continue a meeting and I'm gonna have to call the police or I'm gonna leave now and let you guys figure it out.

Because I don't do meetings under these situations.

No, sorry, I'm out.

And went back the next day.

They apologized.

She apologized.

At first I thought she was making him apologize.

And I was like, oh, sheesh.

But Ron, I'm like, you guys, that marriage was not going to make it through that.

And it's tough.

There's no reason for physical violence.

But at the same time, remodeling and home ownership can be one of the most stressful things in a relationship.

Yeah, I've seen some screaming and some running and some silence.

Some serious silence.

Never hook.

I'm a little jealous of the right hook.

Yeah, yeah, that was.

And, and again, I don't want to put myself in a position where I'm in the middle of this, having to jump in.

Now.

If it would have been a dude, I would have had to have jumped in.

But I was just.

If he was hitting her, I'd have gone, whoa.

I'd have broken that up pretty quickly.

But in this situation, I don't want to sound sexist with that, but I was just like, holy smokes.

I've been a little afraid of that right hook.

There's a thing if you get in the middle of that, all of a sudden the police are asking for statements.

And I didn't want to get too far into that.

No.

And so these are the things that I get worried about when you come down to homeownership and let's talk about homeownership first.

You have.

When a couple gets together, whether they're married, they're dating, or whoever this is, doesn't matter.

That situation.

But the debates on budget, who's paying the bills, who's fixing it to.

Where are we living in the location, in the neighborhood.

I want to live here.

I want to live here.

Oh, I want to have this contemporary house.

I want to have the storybook cottage.

These are Things that can get pretty crazy just in the house buying experience, let alone when you.

When somebody compromises or both compromise and get to a house that they think they can work with.

Yeah, yeah.

I was just gonna say the compromise thing is an issue.

Unless you sincerely compromise and you understand that it's about somebody else's happiness with that particular item, that compromise can quickly become a resentment two years later.

Oh, yeah, I can say that with my house.

I'm pretty resentful of my ex wife.

I'll be the first to say that.

I did all the work.

I did 99 of the work on that place.

And she got the benefit of that.

And so.

I know that story.

You know that story.

I know that story.

You know that I got the work.

Truck and she went and bought a beach house.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

And in.

In her defense, I signed up for that.

Oh, yeah, we'll get this.

I'll do the work.

It's great.

And then the reality five years later kicks in of you're watching Netflix all day Saturday and I'm on a ladder 24ft in the air by myself.

Yeah.

And so those are the things that really start to great and create those issues.

And you know that.

How many times were you working on that house with the.

That we had, the.

The last house that you guys had that was a whole renovation where you started with a house that probably should have been torn down.

They were gonna tear it down.

Yeah, yeah, they were gonna tear it down.

There's trees growing through the windows that had been boarded up for a couple of years.

It was.

Yeah, it was.

Should have been beyond repair, but I was just stupid enough and I actually took her to see it and I thought, nah, she would never go for this.

This is way too much work.

She said, oh, my God, I love it.

We gotta have it.

I was like, oh, no, what did I do?

Yep.

Oh, no.

Two and a half years later, it was spectacular.

And to be fair, she was a worker, man.

She helped me a lot with it.

Yeah, but yeah, yeah, like I said.

I remember those days.

She got a beach house.

Yep.

Yeah.

And that's just how it worked.

And you built that cool garage back with the big practice room up top.

Need an elevator.

But it was cool in the old carriage house.

Exactly.

I love that thing.

It was cool.

But that's the thing when you get into these things.

And I think the biggest problem that people have in relationships that I've seen and even mine, is that communication.

Somebody's not communicating or 2 people aren't communicating.

And if you don't have that, I tell you what, that is a recipe for disaster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got to just be able to.

You got to be able to be adults about it.

Really just work it out and go, is it that important?

Do you love it?

If you love it, let's do it.

If it's a nice to have, let's discuss what we're going to give up for that nice to have and decide together what's more important.

There's always going to be a headbutt in a strong relationship where you communicate well and don't throw pissy fits.

You can get it done and everybody's happy.

Absolutely.

And it's work.

It takes work.

That's all you.

Yeah.

And I was gonna say, I think the biggest thing is the amount of work that you're putting into that house is gonna have to be balanced with probably an equal amount of work that you have to put in the relationship.

Yeah.

And just that additional work in your life on top of your regular work.

And less date nights, less going out to dinner, less of a lot of life because your energy's going into that and people get cranky, man.

Nobody wants to work every day.

All work and no play makes Eric a dull boy.

That's.

Yeah.

You gotta balance.

Take a damn camping trip for three days.

That house isn't going anywhere.

Yeah.

Break it up.

Don't put yourself under so much pressure that it becomes an albatross.

Because that's no fun for anybody.

Make it fun.

Make sure it stays fun.

It'll be stressful.

There'll be money issues.

There'll be hard decisions.

But you gotta figure out how to make it into play as well.

Absolutely.

You can get through it together like that.

You gotta stop, step back and go, what the hell are we doing?

And be able to laugh.

Yeah.

Instead of pointing blame and pointing fingers.

Super important.

Keep it.

Keep it sonic.

Amen.

When we come back, I want to talk about that and some of the mistakes that I've learned that I made.

So we're going to dive into my personal story here a little bit because I think there's something for everybody to be learned from that, because I know I learned from it.

We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that dial.

Kids these days will never understand what it's like to play an instrument, to be in a band.

What's up?

This is Sticks it in Ya and.

Satchel from Steel Panther.

And you are listening to around the House with Eric G. Yeah.

We love Eric G. And you should too.

Welcome back to the around the house show.

The next generation of home improvement.

Johnny and I are sitting here talking about getting that relationship through the house projects, the things that can get really expensive outside of that DIY project.

And we were just talking about Johnny.

We were talking about the keeping it fun and keeping it real and being honest with stuff.

And I tell you what, that was probably.

I can look back and go, okay, my last relationship, what blew that up?

There were a lot of things that blew it up.

But I think the one thing that I can own out of it, and there's a lot of things that I don't own because it wasn't my deal.

But I think the one thing that I mistake that I made is I put too much into the house, too much time into the house, and didn't balance the work life balance, which doesn't really exist.

I was working for two and a about two years on the TV show, working what, 70 hours a week each week, no breaks.

And that's just what it was.

But during that time, I still had to.

I'd be done filming something on the house, and it was good enough for tv.

They would go back and be editing.

I had to go set up the next shoot, but still get that project from 80% to 100%.

And all of a sudden, now I'm working seven days a week on the house.

I'm taking some time off.

I'm doing it all by myself.

And that took.

Definitely took a toll on me physically, me mentally and the relationship.

And that's probably the biggest mistake that I can go.

Yeah, that was my mistake that I own, is that I made that house much more of a focus than it should have been.

And moving forward, that's something I'm definitely gonna do differently.

And I don't know if I'm gonna take on a big personal project like that where I got something down to the studs or close to it and do that level of work on it.

Yeah, I did the same thing.

Dude.

It was held up by dumps, stumps of wood, and like a couple of bricks here and there.

It dropped seven inches from front to back.

It now you couldn't fit a square window in it.

But doing the same thing, right?

General contractor at the time, a couple of jobs going, few trucks on the road, five to 10 employees at any given point, doing 12 hours a day there.

And then at around six, seven at night, go back to the Home Depot again, buy stuff for the house remodel.

Go work at the house till 4am, come home, take a three hour nap, get up, do it again.

So, yeah, there was a lot of.

Slide in band practice three nights a week and then shows on the weekend.

Throw in band practice.

Throw it.

Yeah.

And yeah, surely that's going to irritate your wife even on the weekends when she was helping me.

But.

And it's hard to balance.

Right.

For me.

Your ego gets caught up in it.

You're like, I'm gonna get this damn thing done.

And I get all man about it and stupid.

Yep.

And the wife's going, I'm getting nothing from you.

And you're going, I'm doing everything for you.

I'm doing everything right.

Trucks.

Yeah.

Okay, let's find some common ground here.

I understand you.

There is the root of the death spiral, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And you gotta pause and you gotta pull some of your man out of it and go, she's got needs.

And I need to be a husband as well as a construction man.

And.

And it's a balance.

And it's a balance a lot of people can't pull off because we're not always the best at human communication.

And at the end of the day, it is everything.

The ability to admit you're wrong, the ability to admit you're overdoing it.

The ability to admit that your partner has needs just like you do.

You got to pull back a bit.

You got to get.

It was once we changed the television show from one hour to a half hour and I said, oh my gosh, I need to balance things better.

This was a year ago, over a year ago, that all of a sudden I was there and I had time and she was going, who's this person?

Now I got time to spend with them.

And so that was a whole other issue that created up.

So guys, past that point, you get used to the.

You get used to the unhealthy and then you try to get healthy again.

And it's a ways away if it's been a two year window, working on something or.

Correct.

Yeah.

And these are things that.

And you put your best effort into it and sometimes that's just not good enough.

You know what I mean?

And so really what I wanted to talk about in this segment was just making sure, guys, that you're not paying the ultimate price for getting that house where you want it.

You know, really you're trying to build.

A house, just a house.

At the end of the day it is.

And it's your biggest investment.

So I get it for me, me, I was excited.

I had some great projects we were doing.

I was in a spot that in a house that I knew I could do it in.

A great example, I get the house where we're 70% through the first couple phases of it and now she's wanting to split and all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I got to put this house up for market.

I didn't plan for this.

And I'm a planner like you are.

So there were things that we didn't do on the house because we were going to do an addition.

And like I wasn't going to do the roof and the siding, for instance.

Right.

Because why put that on and then tear it back off in a year when you go do the addition, we'll do that at the same time, which is that common thing.

And so all of a sudden to get the house ready for sale, there are all these things that you are going to throw in the dumpster that you got to make look right and be right of the 40 years of neglect the house had before you moved into it.

So it's a challenge.

And I don't want to keep this on the negative side, but I just want to forewarn people out there that managing this right is going to be your biggest project.

Probably bigger than tackling the big project yourself.

Yeah.

And yeah, it's key.

And some of the things that I see people battle with on these things too, especially couples that are not married or whatever, is how is that house going to be dealt with?

Whose name is it going in?

Is it going in two people's?

Is it going in one?

Who's making the payment?

How's that getting split up?

And there can be a lot of animosity and stress between two people going into that that really should be communicated well.

And what happens if someone loses their job?

What happens if someone gets sick?

I think those conversations are really important to have before you get into that and understand it.

It's almost like when you do a business plan.

Okay, here is our business plan for getting this done.

What's our reaction?

How do we deal with that if it doesn't go as we planned?

What happens if you have that twenty thousand dollar roof fail that you thought was going to last you 10 years and now all of a sudden the wind blew it off and the insurance won't cover it?

Where's that coming from?

Yeah, yeah, it's a lot.

You know, how many times were you were sleeping in the truck when you didn't have a place to stay because the house wasn't a safe place to stay.

In my bathroom, I stayed in a few of those.

I stayed in a few of our down to the stud rentals more than a few times.

I mean, I started my bathroom model right at the beginning of COVID and I thought, ah, for the two weeks we're doing the shower, I'll be down at the gym because I can take showers down there.

Not a big deal.

I get it gutted out.

And four days later, they close the gyms down, and I'm like, I got no place to take a shower in this one bath, one and a half bath house.

So what did I do?

I literally took the.

I had it in the back of the trailer.

I actually took out the bathtub, built a wall, covered it in blue tarps, plumbed up with pex piping, A shower system out there, a tub shower in the garage that wasn't heated and uninsulated in the winter time.

Perfect.

And then ran the.

Cut a hole and ran out the.

Ran the drain line out and into the cleanout.

And it worked.

Perfect.

It worked.

It was cold.

All right, guys, I am going to have to cut you off around the house.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the around the house show.

The next generation of home improvement.

Well, we've been talking about relationship stuff here, and you know something?

That's about dark enough for both Johnny and I.

We're gonna pivot here and talk a little bit about our top pet peeves of construction design and home improvement.

And we haven't talked about this, so this is going to be kind of fun to hear about what his are versus mine.

And I'm going to start out with one of mine right here.

And this is the fun one.

The realtors that somehow became construction experts during the sales.

Oh, yeah, right.

And we've all seen them.

My favorite.

My favorite one of this.

I have an example, so I'm going to give you an example.

I was walking into a house that was having a showing.

It was an old Portland kind of southeast Portland house.

And in the teens and 20s, they didn't wash the sand.

And so the concrete just fell apart as it got.

About 60 years and older, I could sit there with a ballpoint pen and dig through the foundation because it's just, like, crusty sand.

There is a crack so wide in the foundation, I can put my hand through it.

And the realtor put up this crack, has been here for the entire time the homeowners have owned the house.

And it has not been an issue.

Okay, what does that mean?

Now, a structural engineer and you know.

Oh, I've seen that and the other thing and then the little asterisk on this one too, is many times the realtors, contractors they work with or laborers they work with are not licensed, bonded insured.

They are the handyman special.

So be careful.

Wife's boyfriend or something.

Yeah.

Realtors certainly seem to think they know quite a bit about what's possible and not possible in remodeling a home.

Oh, you guys could just knock that wall out and open this into a really big kitchen and that you're like, you knock that wall out, the whole house comes down, lady.

You know that or, man.

And if you just want to spend two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to do that, that'll get you started.

You've just moved this over here.

Got like.

Yeah.

Suddenly they're interior designers with zero structural knowledge.

Yep.

Yeah.

Of course, there's plenty out there that know what they're talking about that are good.

But generally speaking, more often than not, that seems to be the case.

Now they're trying to get the sale.

Definitely a pet peeve.

They are.

They are, definitely.

And the one I'm dealing with this week, I'm gonna hit this one now because it's, it's, it's a sore spot for me at the moment.

The inspectors that do the walkthrough for the real estate sale, that maybe took a class on it, that really didn't.

Know what they're talking about, as evidenced by your report.

I love when they talk about that.

My 50 gallon electric water heater is in good working order and it's an 80 gallon heat pump.

Like, did you even look at it?

So you know those kind of things where you go, really, man.

All right, mistakes happen.

But just remember, guys out there, if you're going through a real estate sale, in most states out there, if you pay $400 for the inspector to go through, their liability is $400, which is what you paid them.

Nothing more, nothing less.

So take it with a grain of salt.

Sometimes these things, they love to fill it out to produce a nice big report.

And they found some stuff that I'm like, yeah, that's fair.

I found other things.

It's like you're talking about the wrong house.

I don't even have that.

What are you talking about?

So, yeah, that's levels of confusion.

Oh, yeah.

And then I'm sure, Johnny, what's your biggest one as a contractor?

What's your top few when you are contractors with employees or anything else, let's.

Hear a few of yours, dude.

But I'll tell you what.

One thing.

It's always my first example of a pet peeve for me.

If you show up to work in sweatshirt, you go home.

I literally fired a guy the first day.

Showed up in sweats.

I'm like, you can go.

What?

What happened?

What?

I'm like, it's all good, dude.

I don't need you.

You do not go to work in sweats ever.

I don't know why it bugs me.

It just tells me you're sitting on the couch playing Nintendo all day and you finally decide you're gonna go do some work and that.

I just.

I can't do it.

I can't.

I don't know.

I. I don't know why it bugs me so much.

But yeah, sweats, Sweats.

Or in the common new day pajama pants.

Who does that?

Yeah, be a professional.

Show up and workwear.

No, that one's.

People laugh at me like I'm crazy.

I'm like, dude, if you showed up in sweats, I already know what kind of worker you are.

And maybe, you know, maybe there's guys out there that wear sweats to pour concrete and they kick ass and they work hard.

I'm sure there's some.

But.

Yep.

I've never found them.

No, I haven't seen them either.

And you know, teats are on, but you got to kind of show up and look ready for work.

I know plenty of guys out there that are concrete guys that show up in their Levi's and their boots and their T shirts that.

Or from the company or whatever.

And that's what they do.

And it could be 115 degrees outside and that's what they're wearing.

Yep, that.

That.

I'll give you first day guys, right?

First day guys.

First day guys.

That when you get them on the phone, they're dying for work.

Oh, man, that's so great.

Oh, thanks, man.

I really need the work.

I really need the work.

And two things happen.

Several times I've had guys ask me for gas money to get to the first day of work.

And numerous times, their first day of work.

They're late.

They're late to their first day of work.

I'm like, that's not good.

Yeah, my truck broke down.

Or the cancel the first day, dude.

Could I start tomorrow instead?

I'm like, no, you can't.

No, we had work to do, so.

Yeah, I mean, we had work to do.

I Could ranch or hours on crap like that.

But luckily, here's my next one too.

Over a decade since I've been running cruise.

So I've calmed and mellowed and let go a lot of that.

Yeah.

The other one I, I can't stand with contractors is when they have a payment schedule written out in the contract or even worse, if they don't and they're trying to get the completion payment done weeks before they're done.

Yep.

And people do it.

That one drives me nuts.

My ex wife down here, her parents did it, built this beautiful home.

Her dad's been a teacher his whole life.

Saved up, you know, on a pension and built this cool house.

And I told him I would help him out with it.

They're like, no, no, no.

Two different cities and I show up and there's all these things not done that I did for him happily.

Like they're like family to me.

But they did just that.

Well, we gave them the final payment.

They said they were going to come back and do this and do that.

And I'm like, you what?

Yeah, especially in Colombia, who does that?

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

You know, maybe they're not too many contracts.

I bet there's a lot of handshakes.

Is that probably keep it simple.

A lot of it.

I mean, this was a bigger project, so there was a contract in place.

But you know, it's.

The system here is like you're not, you don't really get to fight and it's not a fair one if you do have one.

And yeah, yeah, you just kind of suck it up and.

Yeah, not the best suck it up and hope you have a good son in law.

Exactly.

There you go.

Now, when we come back, man, I want to talk about some of my, my pet peeves here of mistakes that homeowners make that kind of like somebody we used to work with that was a business owner, Vern, they just can't get out of their own way to make.

Stop making mistakes.

Right.

They make it, they compound it, they make it worse and then they blame everybody else around them for those mistakes.

And so I've seen these so many times.

You've seen them, you know, and it's always an interesting one and there's something to be learned from as well.

We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that tile.

We're just getting warmed up on this one.

That's it for this segment of around the House.

Stick around.

We'll be right back after the break with More home improvement goodness.

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Around the house show.

We'll be right back.

All right.

Welcome back to the around the house show, the next generation of home improvement.

I am Eric G. Johnny and I are sitting here talking in this last segment of the show about our pet peeves here about construction, design, remodeling, all that stuff.

And we were just talking about some of the stuff on the contractor side.

And I wanted to talk about from the design side, from where I came with and for helping people out there, some of my pet peeves of people that just sometimes, for instance, can't help themselves.

There was somebody here locally that a buddy said, can you help out my friend?

He is knee deep in a remodel and it's really bad.

So he had hired somebody.

And I've talked about this on the show before, so I won't go into too much detail.

Johnny, this is one of those projects that I walked into and went, what the heck is going on?

He spent 200k and you.

It was start over.

Yeah, you got to start over.

And I knew it was sideways when the guy tried building cabinets had he used ones and they were half face frame, half frameless.

That was the deck one that we talked about that had the 50% cantilever on it.

You had to start over.

Yeah, had to start over.

And I got an update on this.

Since then, I tried to get him lined up with because the tile job was some of the worst tile jobs I'd ever seen.

And I brought my buddy from Global tile Posse.

They're this huge professional Facebook group out there that's been going on for years.

They are the upper crust of tile installers.

And I brought my buddy Jason McDaniel out there to go look at this project and said, hey, man, this guy is getting himself in trouble.

So we went out and looked at it.

He was going to get together a bunch of tile pros to come out there and do the project for basically for free to help this guy out just for materials.

And some of the guys are going to travel.

And so if he could throw in like a grand to do four bathrooms in this house to cover stuff, they were going to do it.

And then he started talking to this guy about.

And I did too, about who's Going to start over on the project.

He was already talking to another guy that was an unlicensed, unbonded, uninsured contractor.

The same type of guy that ripped him off the first time.

And he was debating between which two of these side job guys were going to do this complete house remodel.

And Jason and I looked at each other, went, we're out of.

Because he was just gonna do it over again.

And guess what?

I don't think that project ever got finished.

That thing is sitting there in an unlivable house.

And I can tell more work happened on it, but more work had gotten abandoned on it as well.

What a shame, man.

Especially in that kind of budget range.

That's just brutal.

Yeah.

Spend an extra $50,000 and have somebody that's got a license bond and insurance that's actually gonna finish it.

And instead saving 50 grand.

He's probably spending 500 and still has to get the project done.

And I think that one's tough.

The next one here, and I'm not railing on you guys out there, but these are things that we can learn from that person.

Homeowner that knows more than the architect and the interior designer because they're a professional in another profession.

You've seen that one.

Hey, Johnny, aren't you supposed to be installing this one?

I have more than a few times, including a couple of our good friends, that thought they do a couple around the house projects, and they're like, hey, why can't we do this?

Here we go.

Oh, boy.

Here we go.

It's.

It's even.

It's even more difficult when they're your friends.

You're like, brother, I love you.

Go away.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's dangerous because there's a process.

And it's just like my house inspector on my house.

Just because a little bit can be super dangerous.

Just enough to get in trouble.

Absolutely.

And that goes with plumbing, that goes with electrical.

It's so easy to make mistakes on that stuff.

You can walk in, especially with drain.

I think water lines to me are the easy part.

When you're carrying potable water.

It's the drain part that people mess up so badly.

Because you can have two drain fittings that look almost exactly the same, and one of them is completely wrong.

Yeah.

And everything is crucial in drainage.

Drainage and ventilation.

And if you don't get it right, you got a really smelly house or you gotta plug up everything.

And now I'm gonna talk about getting.

The right pitches, getting the right vents, getting the right guest gas, catching Elbows and great example.

Let's talk about spec builders, the big ones out there.

The big companies are building thousands of homes in the US Each year.

I can't tell you that.

I mean, in this house here that I'm in now, big major spec builder pet peeve is the builders nowadays are running the HOAs after they're done.

We talked about that.

Yeah.

And right now they're doing some work on the outside of the building at year six, it probably should have been some kind of a comeback and work on it under the laws of the state and the warranty because it wasn't done correctly.

But because they run the hoa, they're going to make the homeowners pay for it instead of them having to eat the faulty construction methods.

Yep, yep.

They put it off till they have to, then they actually just make more cash off you.

Yeah.

So now they're going to make money off that construction defect.

Right.

Yeah.

There is no reason why year six, you should be repainting the house completely and replacing window trim because it's failed.

There's no reason for that.

And there's no reason that a general contractor should be allowed to be leading the hoa, period.

Yeah.

I think that is a big problem because now that's going to come under the maintenance and repair stuff that should be covered under the contract.

And then you want somebody in there that's defending you, looking out for your best interests and trying to protect you, and reads all the fine print and goes back through warranty issues and calls the contractor and says you're responsible for this, not the contractor grazing over and going, no, we can just.

Let's say we push this a year, guys, and then we're out of the woods and then we can actually charge and fly for it.

This is criminal.

Bulls.

Yeah.

And that's why.

And here's my other pet peeve.

When they have the HOA meeting on a Tuesday at 1:00 clock and they give you 24 hours notice.

Right.

Yeah, thanks.

Yeah, I'll be there.

Or I'll be at my job like a normal person.

Yeah.

Because I'm having to pay for this house.

Yeah.

So those are the pet peeves of that.

But it.

That's one of those that I look at and just drives me nuts.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

At the same time, you'll see the HOA workers that are employees of the HOA walking around and sending notices to people because there's brown spots in their lawn because of people walking their dogs and telling the homeowner to take care of it.

Yeah, I would not fare well.

I would not farewell with an hoa.

Never had one.

Oh, yeah.

Doubt I ever will because.

Yeah, nobody tells me what color you're not gonna play well.

Yeah, I know.

Trust me.

I'm.

I'm gonna have to navigate this and I'm gonna be the heavy hand guy because it's gonna be interesting and they're not gonna want to mess with me and I'm not making a threat there.

I just know what I'm talking about.

And they're gonna try to because what's my email going out later on this afternoon?

I'm taking pictures of the rotten trim and sending it to the HoA saying, Are you going to repair this before next week when you come and paint this or what's the plan?

It's going to be interesting to see what the answer is.

I may not have a mohawk anymore, but that 13 year old punk still lives in me.

And that's why I can't do an hoa.

I get that.

I get that.

And you're not going to bully me around.

I had, back in my dating days, I had this HOA in a condo project that I was staying a few nights a week and they didn't have anything posted.

I came out and where's my truck?

One day and the towing company grabbed it.

I was parked in the visitor parking, but they didn't have anywhere posted around the complex that if you parked more than so many hours in a year that they could tow your truck, your vehicle.

Wow.

Not posted anywhere, just visitor parking.

Whose cousin, whose cousin was that?

Oh, yeah, and this was eight, nine, ten years ago probably.

And towing company, Predatory towing company, they sent somebody at night through there every hour and they wrote down on a spreadsheet and had numbers and license numbers and if not, it was a 450 towing bill for them to get your car out the next day.

I'm better at the ocean with a sailboat or on a mountain with a shotgun.

That's just me.

There you go.

There you go.

Guys.

Thanks for tuning in today.

If you want to hear us talk about a subject and I know you're probably tired of these two here.

That's okay.

We're going to be talking about new stuff.

If there's something you go, man, I wish you guys would talk about this.

Head over to aroundthehouse online.com and you can message us there and we'll put it on the list of an upcoming episode.

I'm Eric G. Now I'm Johnny D.

You've been listening to around the House.

Adios.

And that's a wrap.

To find out more about the around the House show, just head to our website@aroundthehouseonline.com we appreciate your time tuning in today.

We will see you next time.

Somewhere unseen and undiscovered.

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