Tony and Corey from the Weekend Warriors podcast join us for a lively chat about all things construction and home improvement! After years of wanting this collaboration to happen, Eric G finally makes it a reality, and boy, do they cover a lot of ground. From the latest products in the industry to insider tips that can save you a boatload of cash on your next DIY project, these guys are the real deal. We dive into the nitty-gritty of home renovations, share some hilarious mishaps, and discuss innovative solutions that can transform your space without breaking the bank. Whether you're a weekend warrior yourself or just curious about home improvement, this episode is packed with insights and a sprinkle of good humor that you won't want to miss!

Tony and Corey from the Weekend Warriors podcast join Eric G for a lively discussion that feels like eavesdropping on a chat between old friends. They dive into the nitty-gritty of home improvement, sharing insider tips, product reviews, and personal anecdotes that will make you chuckle and think, 'Hey, I could do that!' From the trials of installing glass tiles to the dangers of DIY projects gone awry, the boys cover it all with a playful banter that keeps the pace brisk. Eric, Tony, and Corey reminisce about their early days in the industry, revealing the quirky oddities they've encountered on job sites, and the absurdities of unlicensed contractors. By the end of the hour, listeners will not only be entertained but also armed with valuable insights to tackle their own home projects with confidence (and maybe a good laugh or two).

Takeaways:

• Eric G finally got his wish with this long-anticipated episode featuring Tony and Corey from Weekend Warriors, and boy, it was worth the wait!
• The guys spilled the beans on their favorite new construction products and shared insider tips that can make any home improvement project a breeze.
• As homeowners, we often forget that maintaining our homes is crucial to preserving their value; neglecting issues can lead to costly repairs down the road.
• Tony's wild tales about past renovation disasters remind us that not every DIY project goes according to plan, and sometimes it's better to call in the pros.
• The unique insights on the evolving trends in home design and materials are a goldmine for anyone looking to make informed decisions for their next renovation.
• With the ever-changing lumber market, understanding the impact of tariffs and sourcing materials wisely is key to keeping costs down for any home improvement project.

Links referenced in this episode:

• monumentgrills.com
• parlumber.com
• wwhomeshow.com
• weekendwarriorsar.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Monument Grill
• Par Lumber
• Baldwin Hardware
• Timbertech
• Rail Effects
• System 3E

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.

Thanks for listening to Around the house if you want to hear more please subscribe so you get notified of the latest episode as it posts at https://around-the-house-with-e.captivate.fm/listen

If you want to join the Around the House Insider for access to the back catalog, Exclusive Content and a direct email to Eric G and access to the show early https://around-the-house-with-e.captivate.fm/support

We love comments and we would love reviews on how this information has helped you on your house! Thanks for listening! For more information about the show head to https://aroundthehouseonline.com/

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.

Mentioned in this episode:

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YouTube Around the House HQ

Foreign.

It's around the house.

On this episode of around the House we have Tony and Corey from the weekend warriors podcast.

Hold on tight.

This is going to be one wild ride.

I chose glass tiles.

Never fun.

Yep, Looks good, but it's tough.

And then, and then I used contrasting grout instead of matching grout.

And all three of those one I.

There goes my bar stool.

That's awesome.

Or anyway, listening.

That was Tony's chair going apart, literally collapsing.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to hand you my other one over here.

These are my 70s bar stools.

I'll put that over there.

Okay.

We'll kick that over into the call pile and put that one together.

Usually that stuff happens when there's a drink in the hand of my house.

So this is what's crazy.

When it comes to remodeling or renovating.

Your home, there is a lot to.

Know and we have got you covered.

This is around the house.

Welcome to the round the house show.

The next generation of home improvement improvement.

I'm Eric G.

Thanks for joining me today.

This hour is brought to you.

My friends at Monument Grill.

Check them out for that brand new barbecue at Monument Grills.

Calm and now we have a show here that I think we've been talking about for a number of years that's probably about eight or 10 years overdue.

We have another show.

We're like co mingling here.

We got Tony and Corey from the weekend warrior show.

And if you're in the Pacific northwest or across the country, they're brought to you by Par Lumber.

Welcome to around the House guys.

It's been a while since we've been talking about this.

Glad to be here.

I cannot believe we are on around the house with Eric G.

I feel like Corey and I have been talking about this for a long time and it sounds like you've been thinking about it for a long time.

But we finally put it together.

We got together, did a little bit of video.

Absolutely.

Talking about a product or a door or something.

And.

And you said, you know, I really would love to have you guys on the show.

And we were thinking we wanted you on our show.

Yeah.

It's a pairing that's made in heaven.

Yeah.

It's awesome.

And if you were to go back five years ago, it was probably a Coke versus Pepsi thing or a Ford versus Chevy thing, right?

Absolutely.

Now we're in the same room doing this.

So it's always been fun.

Many times I would see you guys on the other side of the convention center in Portland doing your show.

And Handyman Bob and I were over doing ours or vice versa and having a good time.

I ran into Handyman Bob like a month ago.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah, at an event right around the corner from here, actually.

Nice.

How's he doing?

How do you look?

Yeah, look great.

He looks like Bob.

He looked the same as he did 10 years ago.

Exactly, exactly.

I love that guy.

He's.

It was so funny when I got the around the house show from him.

I was an advertiser.

That's how it started out is I moved to Portland.

I had my kitchen, a bath company that I started, and I went, hey, I'm going to advertise in the local improvement show because it worked in Seattle so well.

Came down.

Bob goes, hey, you're really good in the radio.

And I go, yeah, I used to work on the radio in high school and I used to fill in up in Seattle all the time.

And he goes, you want to be my co host?

Then a couple weeks later, I meet him at a.

I don't know if it was the National Kitchen of Bath association or a nary event or whatever it was in our area.

Wife.

He introduces me to his wife, and his wife looks over and goes, oh, Eric, I'm so happy you're taking the show on because Bob's gonna retire next week.

And it wasn't next week, but it was like six months later.

And I was like.

I'm like, oh, cool.

We didn't have that conversation.

But okay.

And then here we are.

And it was 10, 10 years ago that he brought me on as the co host.

And then we hung around for a bit and here we are.

But around the House in Portland has been coming on in April here 37 years.

Wow.

And the fourth host.

So it's been a bit.

Yeah.

Oh, the fourth host.

It was a guy.

Oh, there was other people.

Well, before Bob.

So Bob was a decade and or so and on round numbers and two guys before that.

And how Bob basically got it.

Is the guy before, I think I heard, just had him come in and fill in and he never showed up again.

There's a weird pattern with it.

There is a weird pattern.

That's how we got our show.

Yeah, our show was the exact same way.

And the guy that we got the show from had got it from another guy.

And I think they, you know.

But the show that we had changed names a few times.

We of course were sponsored.

Yeah.

And so we changed the name again.

But yeah, it is interesting.

We, Cory and I Used to worry that the information that we were bringing to the radio every day was.

We would worry that it would be too much of the same.

Or we talked about this last year or I feel like we keep bringing the same thing up over and over.

But the.

The reality of it is that the audience is changing all the time.

We have to keep telling the same truths over and over.

It is really us repeating a lot of the same stuff, introducing new products and new techniques.

But we have to go back to the well over and over.

Because a lot of things about our industry don't change.

Exactly.

And there's some things that we hope change and they finally change and we get excited about it too.

Like self cleaning gutters.

Exactly.

Where is that from?

Right.

I.

It's funny, we talk about Sprinkle every year we do spring cleaning show.

Every year we do fall cleanup show.

Like all of these things that you're supposed to do, maintain.

Yeah, every year.

And it is true because Tony said it's the same.

It's different audience.

Sometimes it's the same audience, but it's having the reminder that what you own is a half a million dollar investment and if you don't maintain it, you're losing money.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's so crazy because I'll do a show and you guys, I know, probably do the same thing.

And then you get 10 emails in over the next week or so and you're like, they're like, hey, can you do on this?

I'm like, two weeks ago.

You did it two weeks ago.

Here's the link.

Here's the link.

Got it.

But then I get stuff like I had one.

One great listener come in and go, when was the last time you did something on radon?

And I'm like, oh, it's been a bit.

And then you topic and it's a.

Good topic and you dive in and do it.

And I love those because that ball is always changing.

And when you're out of it for a year or two, they come back and you're like, oh, yeah, it's fun to learn that stuff too.

When you're like, okay, there's nothing interesting.

The new things that are out and the things that matter.

A specific thing like radon.

Yeah.

I actually saw.

Speaking of radon, I saw this crazy map of cancer.

It was like a kid's cancer map.

And they like these hot spots and they overlaid a radon map.

And it's shocking.

Yeah.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Like specifically say this is what caused cancer.

But when you Overlay the maps on top of each other.

Kind of.

It was incredible.

Yeah.

You're going, wow.

Okay.

Those red spots are right where the layers of that is.

I think I saw the same one and I was like, whoa.

I think that demands some extra attention.

Yeah.

You know, I don't think you could say causality and say, this is what's causing it, but worth looking into it is.

Another cool thing is you can jump on Amazon and buy one of the portable radon Things for 150 bucks.

Yeah.

And throw it around your house.

And if it starts going off like a smoke detector, hey, we might have a problem.

I.

When I bought my house 10 years ago, the one I'm in now.

Yeah.

And my real estate agent thought I was crazy because I demanded a radon test.

Sure.

Because being in this industry, we know all about radon.

Yeah.

And he was like, nobody does that.

I'm like, I am.

Yeah.

What are we talking about here?

$150 or whatever it was.

You want to sell this house, you're going to get it done.

Exactly.

What is the big deal?

I'd rather know ahead of time knowing that I have to put in some sort of mitigation system or.

Right.

It's not that hard.

You put a fan down there in a vent.

Vet.

No.

You must be up in Washington then.

No, I'm actually in Southwest Beaverton.

Are you cool now they.

Now they do it as part of the real estate.

When you do a real estate transaction now.

So if you go to buy another house in Portland, they force you to do it now.

Oh, good.

So it's good.

It's.

I like that.

And I'm not much for saying, hey, we should have all these little hoops to jump through when we do this.

But I'm like, okay, that one I'll get because.

Sure, I'll give you that one.

You know.

Yeah.

You should be able to know what it's like.

Anything.

Air quality, black mold.

If there's black mold growing in your roof, in your attic, you would want to know that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

My brother and I have been working on a project.

We just got it done about Halloween this year, but we went out and bought a house out of the coast out Cannon Beach.

Oh, nice.

And this house, it.

When I did the walkthrough, I was like, we might have just bitten off a little more.

We could chew.

This house in the neighborhood was known as the Blue Tarp House.

Oh.

Oh.

I have never taken off a single story house.

10 layers of blue, brown and gray tarps.

Wow.

20 years.

As far as I could go back on Google Maps.

And there were tarps on the roof for 20 years.

Unbelievable.

And you just could put another one on.

Is it an rv?

That's how I store my rv.

But this was.

And we walked into the house, and I've never seen oak hardwood floors so buckled that the two and a quarter hardwood was back to back because it had pushed them up, and they were three inches up in the middle of the floor, and they had sprung out so much from the water, and there was like a hose running in the living room.

Oh, my goodness.

Like, all right, here we go.

And we had to mask up and Tyvek suit up to go in there.

Yeah.

And the neighbors loved us, though.

They were like, what can we do?

Can we make you lunch?

Because this had been just the eyesore for 20 years in the neighborhood.

And when the wind blew, which it always does out there.

Right.

All they could hear is tarps moving.

Yeah.

24, seven.

And I'm like, in the wind.

Oh, yeah.

So sometimes the shows that Corey and I decide that we're gonna cover are inspired by things that we see when we're just driving around.

Corey had a house not too far from his house that he would see daily as he drove by, and there was a tree growing out of the gutter.

Right.

And so, Corey, we need to talk about cleaning your gutters and the importance of keeping organic material trimmed back so that it's not making contact with your house.

I think at the point you have saplings out of your gutters.

Yeah.

It's a good time to say, should clean my gutters.

Yeah.

Or at least pay someone to do it for you.

Yeah.

When the county comes by and goes, you know, you might have a Christmas tree farm going, Time to clean the gutters.

That reminds me of another one of our favorite shows that we did.

We did a show a long time ago, and we actually tried to repeat it.

You know how sometimes you try to repeat a show but you can't get the magic back?

Oh, no, totally.

This show that we did this one time was called Outdated Design Trends.

Outdated Design Trends.

I think I actually heard that one, and it was solid.

We had this list of all these things.

If you've got more popcorn on your ceiling than the local theater has on the floor, it might be time for a design change.

So anyways, we had a really good series of jokes, really good time with that show.

Who's the guy?

Who's the comedian that does the.

Might be a redneck.

Oh, Jeff.

Foxworthy.

It was based around that.

Yeah.

That is awesome.

The Foxworthy jokes.

I had one that I did when I was on KXL over there, and I had Clyde Lewis come in, the paranormal guy, on Halloween.

Oh, really?

And we were live.

And I was like, this is either about halfway through the show, about hour one, I was like, this is either going to be the best show or this is my last time on the.

Air, or you're going to find out you're possessed.

Oh, by aliens.

Oh, it was worse.

Clyde's wife Janine, wonderful lady, calls in and goes, eric, do you realize from your stories that you can speak to the dead?

And I'm like, this is getting a little bit over the top.

Get a little weird in here, you know?

And it was just ghost stories and.

Yeah, it was ghost stories and paranormal.

And it was like.

I replayed it a couple times for great.

Just when showing it up on Halloween.

There was no way to recreate that again because it was just.

We had his.

He was doing a live show on the same station, so his people during the day were like, oh, we got quiet on the air.

And so they were all calling in.

He's still doing it.

Oh, yeah, he's still.

Is.

He's actually a cap.

Yeah, Yeah.

I got him that gig over there, actually, because during COVID something happened with KXL and he got escorted out of the building.

You know how that stuff goes.

He got possessed.

Yeah.

I don't know what they were doing.

And KPM over there.

Awesome.

People love those guys.

They're great over there.

I think they told him, as long as you don't do seances in here in the Christian OWN Broadcasting building, that we're going to be good.

And they've put up with him and he's done a great job over there.

And he's got great.

He's got some crazy topics.

I subscribed to him last year.

He's got like a.

A whole thing and a subscription where you pay and get like, all of his shows.

Really.

I drive a lot, so that's perfect for that.

Last year I was like, I'm gonna do it.

It was.

Whatever it was for the year.

And I subscribed and I got.

I downloaded all of his episodes and they're.

Some of them are three, four hours.

Really?

They all are.

I think they all are.

Show is on the radio for.

Pretty riveting, huh?

Must.

Must be pretty interesting to keep.

It is like, watch.

It's like going to the fair and watching people.

Sometimes you're like, this is going to get deep.

Wow.

They go into some crazy topics.

Yeah.

Like, it's crazy.

Yeah.

I've always wanted to do on tv, do a haunted house episode with him and for my TV show and go over and do that and just go, let's see what happens.

Like, Ghost Adventures.

Reimagine with Clay.

Ghost Adventures was one of our.

One of me and my wife's favorite shows for years.

Oh, ye loved that show.

I don't know why.

It's totally ridiculous.

It's totally ridiculous.

But I went to.

So I work with Baldwin Hardware a lot, and those guys are cool guys.

And.

And I, like, I did my show that you guys will be hearing up here in another week or so.

We recorded at the building show down there in Vegas.

And.

Okay.

So I've worked with these guys for years, and they had.

They were messing with us.

We had this design council that where we were designing hardware with them.

They brought all these designers in, and afterwards I went to him and I went, aaron, why did you pick haunted places?

For all the houses?

We were doing stuff in, and we were at the house that the Black Dahlia murder supposedly happened, which was Frank Lloyd Wright's kids designed house in the Hollywood Hills.

And we had the Greystone mansion where they filmed, like, the big Lebowski mansion scenes and Batman and all those things up there.

And I'm like, every house we went to was haunted.

And they just smiled and they go, you caught that?

And I'm like, yeah.

And.

And I'm not a big paranormal guy, but I walked into the.

I walked into the media room there at the Greystone Mansion, and I got three steps in, and I was like, this room's never restored.

This is wild.

I walked in three steps.

I was like, oh, I'm out of here.

It was like I was getting tased.

It was just like, out of here.

Wow.

And it hit from nothing to that.

And I just come around and the guide goes, wow, three steps.

That's the farthest I've seen anybody go in years.

And I was like, my wife went to Zach Baggins.

Yes.

He's the host of Ghost Adventures.

Yes.

And that guy, he's got some crazy stories.

He claims to.

That he has gone blind because of some paranormal stuff.

Yeah.

From some thing that he did.

I actually haven't seen it.

No.

I never really got into that show.

But he runs a museum in Las Vegas.

Yep.

I might go hit that in a couple weeks.

And it's got like, the crazy stuff, like, you know, like, what's the Dollar.

Yeah, that's.

There's.

They have this whole movie based off the doll.

Yeah, Crazy doll.

Anyway.

They have the doll.

Yeah, they have.

You're not talking about Chucky.

Yeah, we're talking like, he's fake.

Yeah.

We're talking like, what is this doll?

My wife was here.

She would sheep.

But they have a whole thing in the basement.

This whole thing where you walk through.

They have you pay for the vip.

And it's a little better because my buddy from Blaze.

Tell me about it.

Yeah.

But anyway, they've.

They've got serial killer stuff there.

John Wayne Gacy's this.

And they have the van of.

Oh, who is the suicide guy.

Oh, yeah, they got Kevorkian's van.

Death van in there.

Oh, yeah.

No, it's crazy, crazy stuff.

And there was a couple rooms where my wife was like, I'm not going in that room, period.

And there was several people.

They would get to the edge and then say, turn around and walk away.

And they were like, you guys, go ahead.

I've never had that feeling before.

And tell us at that.

I was like, oh, no, I'm out of here.

This is.

It was just like.

Almost like somebody was taken when they put, like, those.

Go to physical therapy.

They put those, like, shock things on your TENS machines.

It was like somebody took the TENS to your body and just went.

Turned it right up.

And you're like, I'm out of here.

240 volts running through.

Yeah, whatever.

It was wild.

And I just walked out of there going, whoa.

And here's what's funny is another designer who comes on the show all the time.

Her and I were talking.

Right.

I wish I would have had record on this, because sometimes the best stuff happens when the mic turns off.

But, yeah, she's.

Oh, I've only worked on one house, been in one house that was just haunted as hell down in California.

I said, don't walk in the media room in the Greystone Mansion.

And she screamed.

She goes, that's the wand.

And I'm like, oh, man.

No way.

Really?

Absolutely.

That is.

And I was like, oh, there we go.

There we go.

Proof.

In the roof, in the building.

Okay.

Not just me, but those are crazy stuff.

And just like when you go.

When you go to job sites, we always run into wild stuff.

I've gone to job sites where I've almost fallen through the floor to.

When you go in there and it's been a house fire or one of those kind of things, it just.

I hate going in those projects.

But sometimes you have to.

Yeah.

We talk sometimes about a project that we went to take a look at.

This person that owned the home wanted to get their deck replaced.

It was not a second story deck, but it was like a daylight basement.

So it was about 10ft off the ground or so.

And you walk out of the patio onto the deck which was probably a 16 by 20 or something.

Yeah.

And as soon as you step on it, you feel it go.

Yeah.

And you're immediately thinking, I don't want to be on this deck.

1 and 2.

It should not still be here.

We made our way down and around underneath the deck and up to the house where the ledger was attached to the house.

Are you ready for this?

Yep.

With 12 penny nails.

Oh my favorite.

And there were about.

Each nail was about four feet apart.

Oh yeah.

And we ultimately helped with that deck.

And when we pulled it down we just each stood at a 4x4 and just gave it a push.

And that whole thing just came right off the house.

I was one piece.

I was on one that was up in kind of Salmon Creek area north of Vancouver, Washington.

Up there for any you locals around here.

I stepped on and this thing had.

It was second story but it was this weird daylight basement thing on the back that was.

And it dropped off.

So these were like 24 foot four by fours coming up to the bottom of the deck.

Four by fours?

Yeah.

Stepped out on the deck and the whole thing did the jello move.

And I reached up and grabbed the gutter because I'm like I gotta have something to slow me down because I'm going for a ride.

And then I just slowly walked back in.

I'm like, I'm never going out that door again.

Yeah.

And crazy.

It was just jello.

And then I had one in Seattle.

I was at.

This was a house that was water damage.

It was the worst water damage I've ever seen.

Beautiful mid century house that literally got no maintenance for 40 years empty.

And I went down in the daylight basement down below.

And they're like, hey, can we put up like a.

Is there any way we could put.

Take a couple rooms of this and make it into a person to stay here so they could guard the property because it was beautiful view property.

And they're having people breaking in.

They didn't want to get all the stuff stolen out of it.

Which I was like doesn't matter.

But all the two by fours and everything on that exterior wall, including the one holding the beams up above were like gray.

I'd call it like gray.

Porridge.

But just standing there, and there were four of them.

It was oatmeal.

I was just literally putting Four.

There's four.

Two by fours.

I kicked it with my boot, and it just went splat.

Oh, no.

And I'm like, okay, that's load bearing.

All right, guys, we're out of here.

Yeah.

And it was.

I'm like, no, it was gonna fall in on itself.

And it couldn't have made it more than six months if they would have got any kind of snow load up there.

It was just gonna all come down.

And it would have been a very easy cleanup because you could have just hauled it off.

But it was just brutal.

But what about another one of those?

What about.

Tell me a story of the worst DIY project that you've ever seen.

That need.

It was absolutely.

Shouldn't be standing.

Oh, wow, That's a big one.

And this was actually.

I saw one couple years ago.

Actually was a year and a half ago.

That was a unlicensed contractor that took 275,000 bucks from somebody on the way back to your showroom from here.

And I'm not going to give too much information, but there is no way this person should have been doing any work.

And I think they might have been a former drywaller or painter, because that kind of looked halfway decent.

But in the double oven, they wired in with 142 wire for the big double oven.

Oh, man.

I mean, it was.

They had drywall in the showers that they had started to tile over, but they didn't get the.

The.

The drain in the right spot.

So you look down under the tub, and the drain was in the middle.

Like it was a shower at some point, but they never moved it.

They put the tub in anyway.

And I'm like, no, how are you.

Gonna get in there?

And it's just.

And the outside, they had taken the siding down to that felt almost that homasote board that was underneath it.

Yeah.

And then they tried to put Hardy plank over the top of that, and it was just wavy like the ocean.

Nothing was caulked.

Nothing was flashed.

They had a fifth.

They built it.

Started to build a deck out the back off the second story, and it had a 50 cantilever on it.

Oh, my goodness.

And I'm like.

And I had to look at the guy and go, dude, this all has to go in the dumpster.

There's no saving it, because I got $250,000 into it.

I'm like, oh, my.

And I just looked at him.

I go, hey, brother.

That's on you.

Yeah.

Because.

And then I started.

Let me try to help you.

I tried to help him out.

And sure enough, he goes.

I said, okay, talk to this contractor.

This guy will do it.

He goes, that's a $400,000 project.

I'm like, yeah.

And so what's he do?

He goes and finds another unlicensed contractor for $200,000.

And I just went, all right, brother, I'm out.

Yeah, I.

I can't help you.

You can lead them to water.

You can't make them drink.

Yeah.

And.

And I'm sure if I went and drove by that house, it's going to look the same or worse.

I mean, they were using.

Trying to use the stucco waterproofing sealant in the shower.

Oh.

Over drywall.

It's just.

Oh, it was so bad.

And did you guys see.

I don't know if you guys saw this.

Did you guys ever see on the news the sledgehammer contractor?

He was the guy, and he was a bathroom remodeler in Colorado, and he decided that he wasn't getting paid fast enough, and he repoed the shower with a slam.

Seen that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Around the house.

Was involved in that on the cleanup.

So we.

I had friends.

Friends of the show that went.

Flew back there and helped Amber on that.

And so I got to see the whole story.

Got to see the demo stuff where we were sitting there on video and actually looking at it.

It looked like a blind 8 year old tried to do their first tile job.

It was.

They made the bench out of drywall and just laid the tile over the top of it.

Oh, my.

And it was just.

It was the most janky tile job I'd ever seen.

So the guy actually did himself a favor.

Yeah.

By coming in there with that because he just helped with demo.

But I felt bad for her because again, hired the wrong contractor again.

And that guy did some time for that, so.

Oh, yeah.

Which he should have because he was already told not to go in there.

And this wasn't the first time he'd gone and demoed his own project to repossess it.

This time he got caught.

So I had.

We.

I'm not gonna say who did this, but we hired a reputable company.

Sure.

To come in and do redo our bathroom.

And it's the worst tile job I've ever seen.

It's bad.

I have to tear it all out.

Yeah.

We ended.

They ended up giving half our money back.

And it wasn't enough because now I have to go back and tear Everything out and have somebody else come out and retile at least the floor.

I don't know about the walls.

It is entirely one of those things.

It's such an art.

And we have.

You guys are going to laugh at me because we talked about this in last week's episode.

Listening out there.

But I've got my buddy William White, who here in town is.

He was the Ardex rep, but this is the kind of guy.

And now he's back working for Ardex at corporate back in.

In Pennsylvania.

But he's the guy that can take a tile and with a grinder, cut a 45 degree miter on the end freehand to make it look beautiful.

Yeah.

And it's just like I said, every.

Time if I want to feel bad about my tiling skills, he comes over and helps me.

And then I just go, okay, I'm disabled here.

I cannot do what this guy can do.

I always say the same thing about sheetrock.

Oh, God.

There's a few things that I will not do.

I will do tile.

You did a really good job on the tile in your kitchen remodel.

I think it's all about patience.

It's absolutely beautiful.

Prepping patience.

Corey totally showed me up.

I did a kitchen remodel at my house, and then I know more than got it done.

I was super proud of it.

He came over and looked at it, said it looked really good.

And then he had to do a kitchen remodel in his house.

And by the time he got done with his tile, I was so jealous because of some of the fundamental decisions that I made that were wrong.

Sure.

I chose a quarter inch spacer instead of an eighth or three, 16 or whatever.

I chose glass tiles, which is never fun.

Yep, looks good, but it's tough.

And then.

And then I used contrasting grout instead of matching grout.

And all three of those when I.

There goes my barstool.

That's awesome.

For anyone listening, that was Tony's chair going apart.

Literally collapsing.

I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna hand you my other one over here.

These are my 70s barstools.

I'll put that over there.

Okay.

We'll kick that over into the call pile and put that one together.

Usually that stuff happens when there's a drink in the hand of my house.

So this is what's crazy.

Halfway through that story, I was like, what is happening?

What is happening?

He's.

Look at this.

Screw sheared.

Screw sheared right off.

All right.

Maybe you should make them out of steel.

So it's had a good life.

But, yeah, I definitely felt after I saw Corey's beautiful tile job that I had not made all the right decisions.

And now I just want to tear that backsplash out and redo it.

Except then you have to do more tile work again.

I get the same way.

It's like the same thing with sheetrock.

People want to try and do their own sheetrock because they think that it's going to save them a ton of money.

It doesn't.

It really doesn't.

When you have someone who comes out that knows how to do sheetrock and is good at it, they are fast, and it just looks good.

That Cannon beach house, my brother's.

Do you want to do this?

I'm like, oh, heck, no.

Yeah.

And we got some numbers.

And even out at coastal prices, everybody knows the coast is a little bit more money out there.

Those guys were.

Take my.

And I'm like, take my money.

Absolutely.

Nobody has time for that.

And they did it with 5 8, which I was like, I wouldn't have done that, because I don't want to carry five eights around.

Absolutely.

And those guys, they're just good at it.

They're just at it.

Yeah.

And they make it look easy.

Oh, that's the worst.

But if they make it look easy, definitely not.

And so they got that all dialed in.

And in five days, by the time everything was dried and out there, it's the coast.

So it's a little more humid, so it's a little harder for that stuff to dry.

But they had it done.

And I walked in, I'm like, I'm so happy.

I don't like doing drywall insulation.

I'd rather pay for that.

And it's cheaper anyway.

Yeah, I said the same thing.

I looked at.

We did a little remodel in the kitchen, and we did some other stuff.

I had.

I priced out everything to do it by myself.

To blow it in.

Priced it out.

Yeah, by myself.

We're gonna rent the machine, get the insulation.

And it was like eighteen hundred dollars.

For materials.

Yeah, just for the materials.

Yeah, the insulation.

And that's how it was at my cost.

Yeah.

And I called a professional in insulation company.

It was like two, three hundred dollars.

And I was like, times worth more than that.

There is no Chance, I am doing.

This to save 500 bucks.

No, no.

Same thing with the crawl space.

Oh, my God.

Space, same thing.

I had them do my entire crawl space, and it was like.

Like a few hundred dollars more than what I would have done if I would have just bought it myself and spent hours and hours doing it.

And there's nothing I like more than going in a crawl space and hanging out for a day or a weekend.

Both of my crawl spaces.

Yeah.

You know, I'm here in what's Lake Oswego, Oregon, and we have the rockiest soil known to mankind down here.

Oh, really?

And yeah, it's these rock they have.

We have rocks in the neighborhood here that are the size of a Vita bug that are just below the surface.

Wow.

And it's crazy, but my crawl space is like the moon because there's huge rocks.

And so it's like 24 inch here, 16 here, and it's 30 here.

And it is the worst to crawl on because it might as well just be broken glass down there.

Just going across it.

It's just miserable.

And then I'm out at the coast, and it's white, pure sand out there.

This is the best crawl space ever, because I could just move around and just like you're playing at the beach.

That was easy.

We have a house up in Gearhart.

Oh, nice.

And same thing.

We did an addition remodel on that thing a couple years ago.

Shoot.

Hold on.

Four years ago?

Yeah.

Time flies, right?

Time does.

But yeah.

Everything you just said.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Oh, it's so much better.

And out there, it was cool because we did the house right out there.

We put in rockwool insulation just to keep it.

So it's like, hey, no mold.

Just gonna do all that stuff.

We saved a lot of the cedar siding, did a lot of framing out there.

We probably reframed 40 or 50% of the house out there just because it was like, it's punky.

Let's just rip it out and do it.

And we did a lot of that.

But it's funny, those coast ciders.

I'm in the building materials world.

I have 20 years experience.

I worked for Par Lumber.

Tony's been at Parliament for 35 now.

Yeah, yeah, 35, 35 years.

And when we did this remodel, I did my own siding material because we had to do the same thing.

We had to reside almost the entire house to this addition.

And it was all three quarter by ten, clear cedar.

And I was like, I want to make sure that we're not wasting any money.

Because I.

Expensive.

Holy smokes.

We'll talk about that in a second.

With cedar and lumber prices here.

But.

But I wanted to do everything in Tyvek, plus tar paper over the tie that I like.

I had this whole thing.

I talked to all the reps and everybody and I said, this is how I want to do it.

And the ciders were like, no, I'm not doing that.

They did it their way and they wouldn't do it any other way.

They used double 30 pound felt and that was it.

Yep.

They went old school.

Yep.

Old school.

And it works.

I know.

And unfortunately, with the labor pool at.

The beach, you get what you get.

You can't really say no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No.

You usually have one or two guys to pick from out there and that's leaked.

The very first winter, of course.

100.

It leaked.

Yeah.

Oh, well.

But they came out.

There was a.

There's a couple things.

We have a 60 foot long deck along the back of the house.

Yep.

And it was just.

It was a couple missed flashing opportunities.

And then I got those fixed and hasn't leaked since.

Yeah.

I saw some crazy stuff at the builder show with flashing out there.

There was a.

A clear flexible flashing.

Oh, interesting.

I think Typar had that.

I thought that was cool.

Really?

I'm like, okay, that's cool.

I could see the application for that.

Especially when you've got colors and layers and stuff.

I'm like, all right.

If you've got some kind of a metal trim going on there and you want to flash over it, you're going to see maybe between a.

Like a composite cladding or something.

I'm like, okay, I'll give you that.

So there was a lot of new flashing stuff like that.

I think.

I think a vantech had just about every known new kind of material out there that they were pushing.

Again, their booth is about the size of an acre out there.

Oh, my goodness.

So all that incredible product.

I love tech.

Yeah.

Good stuff.

They make the Zip.

The Zip system, which is uber engineered woods.

Yep.

Good people.

But it's crazy with that.

I wanted to ask you, though, before we get too far into this, let's talk the lumber industry out there and what's going on with tariffs.

No tariffs at this point.

At this time.

We know what tariffs are for today, but God only knows what it is tomorrow or the day after.

Yeah, yeah.

Everybody's talking about tariffs.

Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it now.

They're definitely it's affecting some products in the Pacific Northwest.

At least.

We don't buy a lot.

We don't buy any lumber.

Hardly any framing lumber.

Yeah.

From Canada.

Yep.

The only thing we're really getting from them is OSB and the decking.

Decking.

And cedar.

And cedar is like gold.

Cedar has been there.

There has been tariffs that have gone on cedar for the last umpteen years.

Yeah.

They just.

They've gone up several times over the last 10 years.

Yeah.

All administrations put tax on cedar.

The thing about the cedar market is it's finite because we just can't.

We can't mill enough of it here.

Yeah.

But unfortunately, I guess, fortunately, more and more people are moving away from cedar.

It's just one of those things that is.

It's caused the prices to go up so exorbitantly that everybody's switching to Hardy to lp.

Of course, we're not a vinyl market.

That's funny.

I was just talking about that recently and I was looking at the.

We do a thing on the show here.

We'll go over the cost versus value report.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was so interesting to look at that cost versus value report and show in New York that vinyl siding is worth more than hardy.

And it's the exact opposite here.

100%.

You know, house with vinyl here in the Pacific Northwest, you're like, ew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then you go, oh, that's going in the dumpster.

Yep.

And it's the opposite out there.

And it's why that is.

I grew up in Michigan, and every house has vinyl in Michigan.

Almost brick or vinyl or old school tin aluminum siding.

But I don't know why that is.

Honestly.

I think they just had some really good vinyl sales people out there in the 80s and 90s, and they just got it going and they wrote it.

I mean, I tell you what, I do see vinyl here.

Yeah.

In very small quantities.

And very certain apartment complexes.

Sure.

And it always looks like crap.

Always.

It always looks terrible.

And it's covered in mildew and moss and mold.

Oh, yeah.

Nobody's taking care of it.

Maybe that's why the color that they.

Chose 20 years ago when they built it is now an ugly color and oxidized and chalky and see, every kid.

Maybe that's part of it.

Is just our climate here in the Pacific Northwest.

We literally live in a rainforest.

Yeah.

So it's hard to make it look good.

Yeah.

Justify using a product when in.

In 10 years it's not going to be good.

And then I love the people across the country.

And this is one of my pet peeves in the industry.

The people that go, oh, I'm gonna paint it.

I'm like, I get that you're buying the Sherwin Williams paint to paint it.

Yep.

But you're still painting vinyl siding.

And when it expands and contracts.

Or my favorite is when they have the white siding and they paint it charcoal.

Oh, no.

And then it looks like there was a house fire next door when it falls off the side of the house from the sun and oh, yeah, that didn't work.

Or when somebody.

When the sun is shining on the neighbor's window.

Yeah.

And the reflection is not cleaning on your house.

Yeah.

They've got that low E coating reflecting all the UVs.

The neighbor's house next door.

Just not a product that stands up to.

No to what it should be standing up to.

To be sighted.

Especially when you have party.

That is less expensive.

Yeah.

In our market anyway.

Yeah.

Far less expensive than vinyl.

I think it's way easier to put up.

Yeah.

Bugs won't eat.

It won't rot.

Yeah.

I don't know.

There's resistance to it.

It won't burn.

There's some vinyls on the radio.

I'm listening to this right now.

Just.

Oh, I know.

I'm getting.

I can hear it here.

I can just hear the.

I can hear the companies going, oh, Eric, what are you talking about?

The emails are filling themselves out.

Absolutely.

But, you know, I don't care.

This is what.

This is what I'm thinking.

If you're vinyl sighting salesperson, you can probably get a job at Hardy.

Yeah.

Just make the leap, baby.

Everybody else is doing it.

And I gotta make fun too, the vinyl sighting companies, because they.

I get emails every time about this year going, hey, we'd like to send our vinyl sighting people on there to talk about the hot colors for 20, 25.

And I go, crates.

We're going to talk about beige, mauve and off white, beautiful beige grays.

They need the people that named trucks decking colors.

Yeah.

That's what you need.

That's what you need.

Yeah.

Seafoam excursion.

Another example.

Another example of cedar finding its way out of the market in this part of the world.

Cedar was the number one decking choice for exterior deck.

20 years ago when I started at Parlumber, every deck was cedar.

Every single deck was cedar.

And if you want, on the eastern side of the state, it was all redwood.

Yeah, redwood.

Redwood was big over there.

It was really Big on the redwood.

And you had clear or heart or whatever.

And that was a big eastern Oregon, eastern Washington thing over here.

Not so much anymore.

Right now it's.

Now it's composite and there's composite or.

So many composite companies out there now.

And there's some beautiful stuff.

I recently saw a number and I feel like it was 300 in some odd composite decking company.

Yeah, it's got to be more than that.

It's like breweries in Portland.

Yeah.

It's just.

I don't understand it because I feel like.

Yeah, it's crazy.

You're going up against a very crowded market.

I don't know.

With a product line that has had a tumultuous past.

Oh, my gosh.

If you're about to start manufacturing something and competing with other companies, do you choose a product that's flooded, that could ultimately be.

Yeah.

Fail.

And then cost you all of your money?

I'm gonna make you guys cringe.

Yeah, I'm gonna make you cringe.

My mom.

My dad's passed years ago, but my mom still in the tray cities.

She has the Trex fencing in the backyard.

Oh, my.

In that.

And it looks like Play doh.

Yeah, it's a Play doh.

It's wonky.

It's.

And my brother was managing over there.

I would have probably talked to him and tried to do something with that.

It's still standing, but it's first generation composite.

Not saying anything bad about Trex.

It was one of those things that.

They learned their lesson.

They learned their lesson and they stopped making it like they should have.

But yeah, you don't know until you try it.

And it was one of the ones that got installed.

It only made sense when you have a product that's made to last forever.

Yeah.

You look at fencing that needs to be replaced every 10 years and you think, oh, that'd be great.

I'm gonna use this application.

Not understanding.

Fully understanding the expansion and contraction and.

The bleed out and the bleach and.

Yeah, it's.

And the degradation because it ultimately just starts falling apart.

Yeah.

But.

But they have continued to spend money and do R D.

Oh.

It's a completely different product.

Make the product better.

And so they.

Yeah, you had.

They had to go through that to get to where they are today and to be who they are.

Oh, I believed.

And I signed off on them.

Parents were like, what do you think?

I'm like, like, awesome.

I'm not over there fixing your fence.

I'm not staining it.

I'm not Painting them.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Any new product that comes into the market.

As a salesperson.

Yeah.

Par Lumber.

I'm very skeptical.

I always look at it from.

Especially in our climate here.

I always look at products and go, there's no way.

I just don't trust it.

And when you have especially.

I hate this time of year, springtime.

It'S new product time.

Yeah, right.

Right after ivf.

That's where I'm talking about.

Absolutely.

All the tens of thousands of people that went to the International Builder show last week in Las Vegas are coming back going, have you heard of this?

And I go, nope, let me look into it for you.

And we're looking into it and it's.

Oh, it's six to eight weeks lead time.

It's based in Alabama and you got to buy full truckloads.

Do you still want it?

No.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's move on.

It's like ces, the Consumer Electronics Show.

There's a lot of companies there that roll stuff out that they made one of it.

Yeah, yeah.

And we're just, oh, coming soon.

And then you quietly go, when's the production on that?

Oh, we're just looking at the reaction right now.

Yeah.

Okay.

Soon.

20, 27.

So get 1.5 million orders.

Yeah.

To be able to crank even with that.

If you were talking about some special piece of electronics, you can ship that from China.

Exactly.

Ship that from wherever.

Right?

Yeah.

If somebody's coming at you and they need 120, 20 foot pieces of composite decking that's only available in Massachusetts.

Oh, I know.

You're not paying for that.

And they've been in business for two years.

They have something that's amazing and who knows?

Distribution's a nightmare.

Is a nightmare.

And.

And that's my go to all the time when I'm talking to people.

It might be great.

But the problem is, are they going to be in business in five years when you need 10 more pieces?

Yeah.

Are you going to try to color match something for the front deck now that you're doing the back?

And you try to match the back deck and the company doesn't even make that color anymore or whatever it is.

Or the home center is delivering appliances and they screw up the front deck on there.

Whether they drag something across and they're like, hey, we'll take care of it.

Just get some more deck boards and we'll come out and send her.

Yeah.

It doesn't exist.

Doesn't exist.

We have run into that countless times over the years with every Known product.

Yeah.

And it's tough.

You have to balance that line of.

Especially coming from a manufacturer side.

When a manufacturer is coming up with a new product.

Yeah.

They really need to focus on, like you said, the distribution rather than that direct to consumer.

Oh yeah.

Never works out.

It never does.

And like you said, it's that warranty stuff later that you're trying to figure out.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's got a 20 year warranty.

Awesome.

But you only made that product for two years in that color.

What are we going to do?

What are we going to do?

Yeah.

Get a good look at the steak.

You stick your.

So what are you guys seeing hot right now?

You guys really have a pulse on what's going on at least here in the Pacific Northwest because you know, you guys are the big guns up here as far as moving product and stuff.

What are you guys seeing that's hot out there?

It's getting to be deck season already.

I'll tell you what, I got my eyes on a product that is really revolutionary in my opinion.

Okay.

And I'm going to ask you a question to set this up.

Okay.

Most expensive exterior deck railing, glass.

Okay.

Second most expensive cable.

All right, here it is.

This product is called Rail Effects.

Rail Effects has got this express mount hardware.

Yes.

And if you're at the outside, where it goes around the outside.

I love this.

If you're looking at that from the patio door, you can't see any of that hardware.

Always the cable.

And you barely see that.

Yeah.

And this stuff is coming at you about 30 bucks a foot, which is dirt cheap.

Unheard of.

Now you have to set the.

You have to buy the wood posts or whatever.

You have to build the wood posts into your deck.

But that's the easy part.

It's a beautiful, sleek, almost non existent railing system.

And.

And it's inexpensive.

Yeah.

I did their full metal system as stairs inside my house.

Oh, you did?

All right.

Which was cool.

The thing that people don't realize when they come at you with the cable system.

Yeah.

Cable railing is stunning.

It's amazing.

But each cable run, every time you have a start and stop.

You have these little stainless steel tensioners.

Yep.

That are very expensive.

Yeah.

And 20, 30 bucks a piece.

And you've got eight to tension cables.

So you've got $300 on every post.

And then you have an opening to go to a staircase.

And you have another set on the other side.

Again, you restart that.

And so that's where Tony, like when we talk about this rail effect stuff it doesn't have any of that.

No.

It has these little vinyl clips that go on the outside.

Those are black, I think.

Right.

They're just gorgeous.

It's a really cool product.

It is a very cool product.

Very well designed.

The.

The feed from feeding it from the.

Start side to tensioning it on the backside.

Yeah.

Clipping it off and tensioning it.

It is.

It is a very good product and pretty inexpensive and easy to install.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Looks good.

Yeah.

Anybody ever tried to do their own cable railing system?

I did something like that 25 years ago.

I went, I'm gonna build my own cable railing system.

That was a pain.

It's not easy.

It's not easy.

Yeah, yeah.

A little bit of patience.

Cutting steel, aluminum, then cutting the stainless steel cables.

And I made a system where I had a bolt and a spring to help tension them so they could hiding in a corner post that I built.

And it was way over engineered.

But I wanted to not go over there and have to for my parents on their old house and worked out pretty good.

I was like, cool.

And they sold the house.

I was like, all right, that worked.

But there's a lot into that.

There's a lot into that.

And I love the new systems, but.

Yeah, that's a killer one.

Yeah, it is a great product.

So there you go, guys.

There's your saver on the deck right there.

Yeah.

Now when you save all that money, you can spend it on this.

Timbertech makes a.

A.

We'll call it a patio cover or a louvered patio cover.

And this thing is electric and the louvers open and close, right?

Yep.

And it can be completely closed and water tight, waterproof.

Or it can be open to wherever you want it.