Expressive Tile: Helping Homeowners Pick the Perfect Luxury Tile

This is episode number 243 of The Homeowner Show. 244 of The Homeowner Show. 243 of The Homeowner Show. You have no— guys, listen. This episode is 243.

Yes.

But I thought it was 244.

It's 'cause I gave you the finger.

You gave me 4 fingers instead of 3. It's a long story. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

I got no music, and I'm not gonna say the thing.

Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm doing all the things.

You used up all the music.

If you're watching, all the things are happening, and here I am again. This is what I look like.

Okay.

This is what Craig looks like.

Nat beards and all. That's right.

Y'all, this has been a crazy start to a show already.

Yep.

But Craig, how you doing, man?

I'm doing all right. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, we just lost a baseball game.

That was true.

I'm kind of irritated about that, but I'll get over it via the bourbon.

The 4-finger bourbon.

That's right. Definitely put 4 fingers in there. No, no, we got— we're having fun tonight because we got our friend Christy Dupuis in the studio because, you know, she can't not be on the show.

I know.

Twice in one year.

This is number 4 for me.

Number— well, do we count the live stuff that we've done at Baker Street?

No.

No. Okay.

Like legit, like actual times in the studio.

This is number 4.

4 times. And which, which is still to date the most number of times someone has been.

It is. She holds the record. And I imagine if somebody like surpassed that record, she would start including the Baker Street appearances.

Exactly.

Exactly. Those would come into play.

Nobody can beat me.

It's like this. What is that? The sign? I'm the Wiz.

I'm the Wiz. I'm the Wiz.

I'm the Wiz.

I'm the Wiz. I'm the Wiz. I'm the Wiz.

Alright. So I, I have a couple of, of news stories I wanna hit at the top. Just to be— we, we talked about a couple of weeks ago about them increasing the interest rates in order to— so if they decrease the interest rates, it's gonna increase unemployment.

Right.

Remember us talking about that?

I do. That was like 2 episodes ago.

Christy, you remember that? Because you listen to the show every week, right?

Yes. Yeah, I totally remember that.

So for those of you that don't remember, there was an interview at the Capitol. They were interviewing— what's the guy's name? I don't know. He's the head of the Fed. Oh, yeah. That guy. And they were grilling him saying like, okay, so if you want to cool inflation and reduce interest rates, that's necessarily going to increase unemployment.

Right. It, it was going to do the opposite of what they really wanted to do. So basically, don't do it.

But yeah, but he was, but he was saying, we're gonna do that.

Yeah.

And so unemployment's gonna go up.

It's gonna go up.

Which sent me on a path of going, okay, how do we even calculate unemployment? And because I was curious what actually counts as like unemployed.

Okay.

So I looked it up.

All right.

Um, there are So the big thing for me was, is— let me— okay, let me ask you guys this. Do you think part-time is included as an employed person?

In my opinion, it should be.

Uh-huh.

I'm guessing that it probably does, actually.

Okay, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean In my mind, if you're part-time, you're not making enough to actually like pay your bills.

Support your family.

Right.

Yeah. I mean, I would agree with you.

You're not going to work a part-time job and support an entire family. So to me, I would think that that would be considered unemployed.

I would 100% agree with you. But I bet because of laws, I bet it is.

It is. It is included in the employed statistics. So when they give the employment percentages, it's not full-time people. It could be nothing but part-time people.

Wow.

Yeah. And so that, that was, that was a big deal to me. And it's not, it's not to, uh, look down upon anyone that's part-time, right? You know, because some, I mean, some people, they're, they're supplementing their spouse's income, or that's really all they have time for, or, or whatever reason. There's a multitude of reasons why you might be part-time, but you're really not contributing as much as a full-time person, right, to the household income, to the marketplace.

Yeah, no insurances, no benefits, that sort of thing. Yeah, I understand that.

So it— but it is included in their statistics. So there are other things that are not included in the statistics. People in institutions are not included in those statistics. They're not considered unemployed.

Okay.

So people in prison.

Okay.

People in mental facilities.

Okay.

People in assisted living facilities. All right. People in the armed forces are not included in those statistics.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

But they are employed.

Yeah. I was like, if you're in the armed forces, then you are employed.

You are employed, but it doesn't count towards the employment rate in the US.

Okay.

Yeah. And it only applies to non-civilian workers.

Okay.

Oh, which I thought was weird.

And they're basing that rate on people that are drawing unemployment? Because, I mean, there are some people that are unemployed that you would never know they're unemployed. Right?

Right. And they say that they don't— they don't use the unemployment numbers, the people who are drawing on unemployment, because people can run out their unemployment benefits and still be unemployed.

Okay.

And so it's not a reliable data point. And that being said, they do it like most other surveys where they will only survey like 33,000 people for these percentage rates to represent the entire nation.

Okay.

33,000.

33,000 people.

That's out of millions, right?

Well, no, out of billions. Billions.

Yeah.

We now live in a world where there's 8 billion people in it. So yeah, I mean, it's—

But you're talking about the United States only.

The United States only.

Agreed. Agreed. But still, like, the number is staggering when 33,000 is like a 0.001%.

Yeah. And so as I was—

Don't check my math because I'm really bad at math. Like, somebody is like, I'm going to calculate that. And they're going to be like, she really doesn't know what she's talking about. No, I don't. Because math is not my strong suit.

But here's a bet I'd be willing to make. I bet if we included civil servants and armed forces people, but cut out the part-time people in that statistic, right? I bet you unemployment would be a lot higher.

I bet you're right.

Yeah. Well, I mean, they're doing that for a reason.

Sure.

Sure. Yeah.

And like, and what all— one of the things I could not find is if they would double count someone who's working like 3 part-time jobs. You know what I mean?

Interesting.

I couldn't find anybody to say what they do when they come across somebody who's doing something like that. Because if you count the part-time person once, should you count the one person who has 3 part-time jobs as 3?

Yeah. Well, it just depends on how many times do they show up in 33,000.

Yeah.

And how many hours are they working in those 3 part-time jobs?

Right. Yeah. I mean, because you, you can have a part-time job where you're only working 5 hours a week.

Yeah.

Oh, easy.

Yeah.

And like, I, I'm of the opinion that shouldn't count, right?

Yeah.

I think they're— I mean, like, I think you could, I think you could have a threshold. I think you could say, okay, like, if you're part-time but you're only working like 25 to 30 hours, that counts, right? Anything below that threshold doesn't count.

Yeah.

Because I— now, now we're dealing with like just wonky math where like a person who's working 2 hours a week can be considered. You know, and like, but I— and there may be a threshold on that that I just haven't found. And so if somebody out there knows that, let me know. So the other weird bit of news on another podcast that I was listening to this week, and I'm not gonna give them any airtime, and I'm not gonna give the company any airtime because if you want it, you can pay for it.

That's exactly right.

So, but I heard an ad in the podcast for batteries. and a very specific battery ad about how their button batteries now have a safer coating that is less likely to hurt you when you swallow it.

What?

Now, and I will, I will tell you, this is a battery brand that everyone knows. Everyone knows. And I didn't hear it just once. I have now heard it several times on different podcasts.

Why are people swallowing batteries?

It is a major ad campaign that this company is running about how they have improved their button batteries. And for those of you that don't know what button batteries, they're little itty-bitty tiny batteries.

Like the 2023, 2032s.

And some even smaller than that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Like watch batteries and different things like that. Right.

Goes in your key fob.

And so it got my brain kicked into gear. It's like, what is going on? Why are we running ads like this? Why are we virtue signaling about the, the efficacy of the safety of swallowing batteries for your brand? Like, our brand is safer to swallow than other brands, right? And so what I found out is that there has been a class action suit against some of these companies. There are nonprofit organizations that have been established to educate people on the dangers of swallowing batteries. So I have some numbers. I have some numbers for everyone, everyone out there. Okay.

How do I sign up to be a tester? That's what I want to know.

Are these adults or children? I mean, children I can understand.

Adults is— We'll get to that. We will get to that. So since 1985, we have a number of recorded incidents. 55,000 recorded incidents of people swallowing batteries since 1985.

Okay.

Of those, 181 have sustained major health problems because of that.

181.

Since 1985, there have been 25 fatalities related to swallowing button batteries. Okay.

Oh my goodness.

So there have been over 3,300 incidents of children under the age of 19 swallowing batteries. Okay. And the way the math actually works out is it's one child swallowing one button battery every 3 hours right now.

Oh my goodness. Wait, so you're talking— you said 33,000-something?

55,000 total incidents since 1985.

Right. But, but how many of those are children? 3,000-something?

They did not say of the— so what I do know, okay, what I do know is that there have been 30— so the math works out to where it's like one child swallowing one battery every hour right now.

Okay.

Based off the number of children that have swallowed a number of batteries. I don't know when they started keeping track of that, but I do know that since 1985 it's been 55,000 incidents. Okay. And but over— since 1985, there have been 25 fatalities.

Well, so our friend Eric was like, wow, swallowing a battery. Powerful. Good one, Eric. Good one.

But like, put this in perspective, right? I mean, like, I don't want to diminish the death of anyone, right? And there's actually an organization out there around— it was the little child that died that they've, that they've built this organization around. And good for them for educating people that, like, on the obvious, that, like, you shouldn't let your children swallow batteries or leave them out in the open where they can swallow them. Sure.

Um, which I'm fine with.

Sure, do your thing. Like, is this, is this worthwhile of a multi-million dollar ad campaign, which I know the brand, I know that they're spending gobs of money on this thing. And I'm not, I'm not making this up. Y'all can go look up the ad.

So what's the dollar amount on the class action lawsuit?

No idea. But if you, if you do a Google search, you will find the law firm that is representing the class action suit. And they have pages of stuff where you can go, do you qualify?

And that, and that might be where like the ad dollars come in where it's like, okay, this is worth us spending the ad dollars on it because a of what we could lose off of the class action lawsuit.

Could be, could be. I don't know.

Well, again, Eric G brings it in because he says, powerful, that could be a negative experience. Oh God, again, again, Eric G, well done, sir. Well done, well done. I applaud you.

And if he does a show on this, I want to get brought on.

That's what— exactly. Well, I mean, here it's It's one of those deals where in many ways I'm just kind of like going, okay, call me a horrible person.

Horrible person.

I am a horrible person. But, but so 25 in the last almost 40 years, a whopping 25 people have died.

Yeah.

Like, what? I don't even know. Like, I'm sure more people have been like trampled by a muskrat.

I think more people have died from like pancakes.

Right, exactly.

Like, this does not seem worthy.

Not only does it not seem worthy to like make a class action suit against, but now we're gonna advertise to get around it.

Hey, we've been killing y'all for a while, but it's way safer now.

Exactly.

But still, still not the— not so safe that you should still swallow it and you may not die, but it's just a little bit safer than our fake batteries.

It's a little safer, yeah.

Your chances are better. If you do want to swallow a battery, swallow ours. That's right.

If you're going to make a bad decision, make the best bad decision you can.

It's like the new Tide Pod, right?

Did they do something with that?

Well, now they have all the commercials where they're like, oh, keep your kids safe so they don't eat these little pods. And I'm like, well, why do we even have these pods to begin with? Because we've been doing laundry for hundreds of years without a little pod that dissipates in the laundry.

Keep your kid off TikTok.

Yeah.

You know, that's, that's one thought.

Or, I mean, you know, the laundry detergent is not normally on the floor where your toddler is like playing.

So, um, I just don't know why Craig has to bring logic into this. Why would you bring logic into a conversation?

Like with the battery thing, it's like they're dumping out a box of Legos on the ground and be like, here, kid, stack them up.

I know, man.

Crazy.

So anyway, good stories.

Yeah, so that's all I got in the, in the, uh, in the news world for this week. I'll bring some fun stuff next week.

There you go. So, well, we'll, we'll go— I mean, we've already introduced you. Everybody who's ever really listened to our podcast already knows who you are.

You should know me.

But—

Kind of famous.

Yeah, exactly. Kind of a big deal.

Kind of podcast famous on The Homeowner Show.

Trying to really, you know, toot my own horn.

I made you guys. Exactly.

But, uh, yes, so welcome to the show again.

Thank you.

And, uh, I mean, she likes the new lights, by the way.

Oh, I do. The lighting is phenomenal in here, although I don't know if it'll help me look any better.

But you look fantastic. You look much better than either one of us do, that's for sure.

Well, that's great.

She's like, she's like, that's not saying much, Kevin. You did not give me a compliment just then.

And a little bit more than that.

Exactly right. Well, in case people don't know, let's go ahead and tell people who may not know, what do you do? What do you, you know, let's talk about you for a while.

Because it's different than what she was doing before.

It is.

It is. It's quite, I mean, I think the last 3 times you were on the show was a different business altogether. You shut that business down for a few different reasons, but then you're like, well, I can't not do stuff. So you found another avenue.

I mean, we're not completely shut down because we still have a project, a house we're building in Meyerland. But yeah, so I mean—

It's not that same one, is it?

It is.

Is it? Okay.

It is.

We won't bring that up.

No, we won't.

Even though you did.

Sorry, I didn't mean to. It's a labor of love and it's going to be fantastic when it's done. So we just, we had a few hurdles we had to go through. So But yeah, so I used to have Expressive Builders and, you know, I'm not like saying I won't ever do construction projects again. I'm just not in my forefront now. But I did last May open Expressive Tile and Stone and it's a tile showroom that we have here in Montgomery County and we offer some really amazing tile that you can't find at the big box stores or anywhere else. We do a lot of custom stuff. And so, I mean, I just feel like, you know, a lot of times you have to go to Houston to get that kind

of stuff. And I mean, I had to go to Houston this morning and it was awful. I mean, it took me 2 hours to get to where I needed to go. And normally it would take me an hour and 20 minutes to get there. So 40 minutes was just sitting in traffic on 45 and 610. So who wants— nobody wants to do that.

And plus that hour, I mean, that hour and 20 minutes alone. I mean, There's so many new, new developments up here. And, and frankly, like the Woodlands area and around the lake and Montgomery, like there's some— and even, goodness, even Willis and some of these areas, like they're really growing to, to build these beautiful homes. And people want something nice for a little backsplash, or they want, you know, their, their, uh, their shower to look different, or maybe a little something behind the stove, right?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, like there's all different things.

Yeah, and I mean, the thing is, is like, you know, I worked in the tile industry 20 years ago, 17 years ago, and I worked for a lady that had a showroom in Houston. And, you know, she had phenomenal tile. And, you know, it was at the start of my kind of my career when I just got my degree in interior design. And I just, I loved working there, just couldn't do the drive. And so I kind of started working in other different areas and You know, last year, the year before that, I kind of said, you know, what's something that I can offer to this area that we don't have? You know, I mean, we've got a lot of great resources for tile and flooring, but, you know, I'm really trying to source

things that you can't find everywhere else, you know. So when you come into my showroom, you're going to see stuff that you haven't seen anywhere else. And, you know, it may not be the cheapest thing, and that's really not what I'm offering. I'm offering something that's really high quality. I really vet my vendors so that we are getting stuff that when your installer goes to install it, it's not going to, you know, different sizes or thicknesses and they're going to have some issues with installation. I really try to make sure it's high quality and, and unique.

Well, I mean, it really is. I mean, if you, if you go even on your website, but really on Facebook, you put a lot of stuff out on Facebook. Some of the cool things that I've seen on Facebook are these, uh, the time, uh, time-enhanced videos that you do where you just kind of speed the time, you know, as you're, as you're unboxing something or whatever. And you can see some— I mean, what I love is that some of these tiles, like, you can do different things with them, and the same tile will offer multiple patterns even. That's you. That's really crazy.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, and that's the other thing too, is like, we offer design services in the showroom, so you know, if you bring your pictures or your plans, if you're building a new house or you're doing a remodel, bring your pictures or whatever you have. And, you know, we'll really like sit down and design something for you. So it's not just like you walking into, you know, a big box store and having to say, oh yeah, I really like this. Okay, but should it go on a shower floor? Should it go on a shower wall? Is this okay for us to walk on? You know, there's certain applications that not all tile is good for. And so it's really about like trying to

teach people like, this is where you can use this, this is how you need to use it. And also trying to come up with some unique designs, you know. I mean, we have some really, really expensive tile in the showroom. If you fall in love with it, you don't have to do your entire bathroom in that. Let's do like a really unique panel, or, you know, do it in some sort of like an accent or something like that, so you can still have that tile that you really love without, you know, blowing your budget.

I've seen, I've seen a lot recently that are like these contrast tile like almost, almost like pieces of art on the wall, you know, where like you have like a— and the one I walked into recently was like this really bright green tile going into this really, uh, flush white tile. Yeah, you know, and there was like a weird like line going through the wall. It was like a hexagonal tile going into like subway. Yeah, and it looked really cool. Um, I mean, are you seeing lots of people do kind of stuff like that?

Yeah, so the installers have gotten really, really good at like— it's called Scribing. And so they can take, you know, like an odd-shaped tile, like a pebble, and they can scribe, you know, like a subway tile so that it's, you know, it matches in with that tile.

So making that cut is called scribing?

That's called scribing.

Okay. Vocab test at the end, Kelly.

Okay.

I'm learning a lot of stuff too. I mean, I've been in the industry for, you know, 20 years and I'm still learning stuff, but I mean, I think the thing about it too is the installers are just getting more creative and it really is, it's not just an installation for them.

It's an art form. It's an art piece.

And I really, really love that kind of stuff. And, you know, I mean, we have a mosaic tile that I can take somebody's picture and they have a robot that actually takes that picture. They will scale it to your specific size of like a backsplash or in your shower. And it will actually make a, it will take that picture and put it in mosaic tile that you can put on your wall.

Really?

Yeah.

Like any picture?

Yeah. Like I have an example on, I think on my Facebook page and it was an interior designer that did it, but it was her daughter that was, she had goggles on and fins and she was underwater and they took this picture of her underwater and then they did it in black and white and they put it in their wet bar in like their pool house area. and it was so pretty. It was really, really neat.

What do they call that? Do you know?

It's just a mosaic.

I'm gonna see if I can find it.

Like, I mean, Lego does it too. So I'm like, way to bring it down to lowbrow.

I don't know what you mean, what do they call it?

Yeah, they use the little pieces.

Yeah, well, and it's really interesting too because they're one of the only companies that does this like robot arm and they kind of put it into a computer program, I'm sure. It's beyond me. But, and that you can see this robot arm that just kind of like takes a tile, places it. He has like a whole scheme of all the colors and he knows exactly where those tiles are supposed to go. It's really, really interesting and so innovative.

It's like paint by numbers whenever you get like, you know, like you get like this little sheet and it's like a puzzle to put on the wall, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it's very, very unique stuff. So, um, you know, I mean, I have the normal stuff. I have, I have, you know, wood-look plank tiles and subway tiles and that sort of thing, but I want people to learn how to use that in an interesting way because I feel like so many times people are like, oh, I really love gray subway tile, and they just, you know, do it in a normal, you know, brick pattern or something like that. And I I want you to do something that makes you happy. You know, I want, I want people to walk into their houses and just have that awe feeling or just, you know, feel like they're getting something special. And I think a lot of times

people are so scared to use something different and unique because they're like, well, what's the resale value of this? And the thing is, is, you know, if you're doing a backsplash in your kitchen, it's really not that expensive to replace a backsplash.

Yeah.

And if you're not looking to sell your home in the next year, Do what you really love.

Yeah, make it, make it something that you can enjoy. So my mother-in-law, we just got through moving her into her home, and it's a small 1,200 square foot, uh, barndominium. So it's small, kitchen's not huge, but you know, she's got a like a 2-wall backsplash, and she really wanted the subway tile, but she wanted something that was, um, kind of a, kind of a country feel. So the You know, not the straight lines, you know, that kind of thing. And she found what she was looking for. But what's interesting is, and this is gonna sound like a knock against her, and I don't mean it to be, but it will sound like that.

Don't listen to the show.

Exactly. No, but it was—

Skip this podcast.

So it was one of those deals where she was like, yeah, it was so expensive. And I'm like, really? Like, how much more? She was like, well, for like the whole thing, it was like an extra $160. And I was like, I was like, uh, yeah, you just built a hundreds of thousands of dollar house here and you're talking about $160. But, but it was at the end. It's like one of the last things that she was putting in. She was like, we did this, we did that. And now—

Well, and when you go over budget on everything, and then it's like—

She had not gone over everything, but it, but it gets down to the point. But it's one of those deals where it's like, okay, kind of to your point, I mean, you can spend all kinds of crazy dollars for, for tile. Uh, and she got, she got her, uh, her shower tile for— it's really nice tile, and she paid like 97 cents a square foot.

Oh wow.

Because she was on a closeout. Yeah, she got a really, really ceramic, but it's really, really, really high-end looking. And, um, so I'm like, we can, you know, splurge a little here, splurge a little here. But like, I think that what, what you don't realize sometimes is whenever you're talking about a, a fairly, um, low number as far as like how many square feet you're looking at, yeah, it's not going to change the price so much that it's like, I can't afford this.

Yeah.

And at the end of the day, like, I, I'm with you. Like, who cares if, if it resells? Like, just do what you enjoy now. Yeah, if you want yellow backsplash, put a yellow backsplash in, you know, whatever you want.

I mean, I've had— I mean, I had so many people with all the remodels that I did, you know, in 2020 where it was like, oh, I really want something that everybody's gonna love. And I'm like, I mean, you're not selling this house now.

Yeah, what do you enjoy?

You're gonna sell it in 5 years. And honestly, whatever you pick now is is it's going to be so overdone. Even if it's not outdated, they're going to see it in every single house. They're going to want to redo it anyways.

I mean, I know so many people that worry about that. And then like, what they don't realize is most people, like, if they don't like it, they're just— and they like the house, but they don't like what you picked. They're just going to tear it out anyway. So I mean, like, do what you want.

Well, I mean, you know, because you were I want to hit on this for just a minute. So you were a builder remodeler, um, before this, and I, I mean, I don't know how many times I've said this, like, I've never met another, like, full-blown builder remodeler that was a female.

Yeah.

I've never met one. I'm sure they're out there. You probably know, like, 3, and, uh, there's just not that many of you out there. But what's so unique—

They have their own Facebook group.

Yeah, they do. Yeah, they're, they're on a text message thread together. Um, but like, I, I think that that's one of the things that I've always felt was so unique about you is that alone, but then you bring in this interior design aspect. And so people, they got a different experience with you. They got it. They got a much different experience with you because, you know, at the end of the day, you can hate me for saying this if you, if you want to, but like, Females have a different, different presence about themselves. They care about your project differently than a man does, and they listen differently.

Yeah.

And so all of those things tie into the way you were able to build homes. And so now, I, I'm sure that you— I, I can't— I'm sure you had plenty of people that were buying a home from somebody else, and they were like, before we move in, Christie, would you just please remodel this whole thing? Because I, I I love the house, but I hate the interior. You know, so they're gonna rip it out, like to Craig's point.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and the thing I was just talking to an architect today about it and it was like, you know, and not to knock any male or gender or whatever. I'm not, I don't care, male, female, whatever. I think there's amazing contractors in all shapes and sizes, but you know, a lot of times women kind of think a little bit more about it, you know? And so we were talking today, it's like, You know, when I go into a shower and they, you know, the wife would say, oh, I want to put a bench here in the corner. Okay. So most male contractors are like, all right, get it done. You know? And that's great because they're like, all right, let's get it done. This is what she wants. Let's do it. But for me, I'm like, okay, well, what are you

going to use this bench for? Are you actually going to sit on it? Do you think that you're going to be in a wheelchair?

Is it for a leg to put there?

Are you going to shave your legs? You know what I mean? Like there's, There's different reasons for using it. And so my thought process in that is like, how am I going to use the shower? If I'm in the shower and you want to put it in this corner and the water's going to be beating down on you while you're trying to shave your legs, that's not efficient, you know? And so it's like, yeah, I think that's the thought process that I'd always try to bring to all my projects, even with the tile. It's like, how are you going to use the space?

Yeah.

And making sure that What you're getting is something that's not going to be, you know, like, you know, oh, it's a steam shower and I want to do marble everywhere. Well, that's not efficient because marble doesn't do well with a lot of moisture. And so it's just not just saying you love it. Yes, let's do it. I'll sell it to you. But like, really, are you going to use it this way? Like, let's, let's really talk about the usage and the efficiency that you can get out of a space.

The exact thing that you're just talking about happened to us when we remodeled our shower. Like, we decided to put a bench in and I told the guys to put a bench in and the bench wasn't for me, it was for my wife. Well, they built the bench for them to sit on and she can't use it because they built it too high because they didn't ask her. They just kind of sat over it and goes, no, this will work for me. And but they were, I mean, my wife's not very tall.

Yeah.

And I would get that a lot too. They're like, well, what's the standard size that you would do a bench in? And I'm like, Depends. I mean, I'm 5'4, my husband's 6'2.

Right.

Yeah.

Who's going to use this bench? I mean, Daniel's probably not going to sit on a bench ever. He usually puts body wash bottles and all that. He clutters it up. And then I'm like, okay, we've got to find a way.

That's essentially what ours— it's a shelf.

Yeah. And that's what ends up happening.

And at that point it's too low.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. And to another point is everybody wants to do these like big shampoo niches or niches, however you want to say it. Yep. And they want to put this like really gorgeous decorative tile behind it. And I'm like, you don't need that. You're going to put all your shampoo bottles in front of it. Nobody's ever going to see that. So why are we spending the money to put this like gorgeous glass tile in a shampoo niche when nobody's actually going to be in there?

So I actually don't know what you're talking about. What, like what?

So like when they kind of do like a square knockout in the wall.

In between the studs?

Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, you have like a built-in shelf area. Well, a lot of people want to put decorative tile in that square at the back that no one ever sees because you fill it up. Yeah, you put all your stuff there.

And how many people really go into your master bathroom anyway? Yeah, besides you, they don't.

But that's the thing is you want to go look at the beautiful tile in there, but that's—

I mean, like, your stupid shampoo bottle, you can carry that on down the road because like if you're like, okay, I want to put this beautiful mosaic behind my shower, it's like, are people Photographing like you while you're taking a shower.

Exactly. I hope not.

No, but you know, but I mean, but if you enjoy it, enjoy it, you know what I mean? So that's, that's the whole thing about it. And, you know, I'd rather have a shampoo niche where it's like hidden in a pony wall or something where you don't see it when you walk in the shower. And you just see gorgeous tile, your gorgeous plumbing fixtures, and none of the junk that we have to have when we take a shower.

That's really that. I wish I would have thought about that because my mother-in-law just Like her, I need to show you a picture of her bathroom. But because I mean, small house, but the bathroom is really nice and the shower is huge. And there is a pony wall.

Yeah.

And it would have been great if she would have put it right there because no one would have ever seen it because she doesn't really like them. Yeah. She's like the shampoo niches or whatever. Like they don't— she doesn't like the way they look. But I'm like, well, no one would ever see. That's okay. Yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

You should have called me.

I should have called you.

I mean, I've only been on here 3 other times besides this one. It's not like you don't know who I am.

Well, let me ask you this. Do you, do you know anything about slab porcelain?

Yes, I, I carry slab porcelain in the showroom.

Yeah, how does that even work?

I need to know what that is.

Uh, so it's porcelain. It's a, it's essentially a huge porcelain tile. The ones that I have, I think, are like, they're probably 4 feet by 6 or 7 feet.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and so they, they basically like epoxy that to the wall.

Okay.

So it like, but it's like a huge chunk cut out of an even bigger chunk that you use to make like a monolithic tile basically, right?

Oh, I mean, essentially you could do that, but that's not how they're producing these. It's like getting a slab of granite.

Okay.

It's porcelain.

Right, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Well, so we—

But they're manufacturing it like that 'cause it's manmade. It's not like granite.

Oh, it's manmade.

Okay, yeah.

Porcelain's manmade, so.

Okay, so we, First house we built, we redid a bathroom and we chose to do, instead of like doing tile on the wall, instead of doing a built-in piece of plastic, we did, it was like a marble.

Yeah.

Like a marble surround. Is it similar to that?

It's similar. I mean, if you remember kind of back in the days when they used to have cultured marble.

Yeah, that's kind of what it was.

A lot of people don't understand that that's pretty much what quartz is now.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? They just, they take natural materials and they, you know, run it together with epoxies and glues and all that stuff. And then they make these, you know, slabs out of it.

Right.

It just looks a lot better than cultured marble used to look because back in the day it used to be like yellow with these like brown ugly veining.

So price per square foot is more?

It depends. I mean, the quality of the ones that I have are, they're going to be, you know, similar to what you could do with a tile. But you're just gonna get kind of a different look. It's a little bit more seamless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I also have, I mean, I have tile options in my showroom that are 24 by 48s. So you can kind of get the same look from that. And I mean, those are pretty good priced. I mean, you're looking at maybe $11 to $15 a square foot.

That's not bad at all. So like, okay, let me ask this. So in your showroom, let's say that I'm, I mean, I'm just gonna do regular like porcelain on the, on the floor of my bathroom. I don't necessarily need, like, I'm not necessarily looking for high-end tile. Can I get that at your place? Or is it just like, hey Kevin, why don't you just go ahead and go to Home Depot and get those things, or Floor Decor, get those things, but like the decorative stuff, that's really what you need to get from me?

I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this, for the quality that I carry in the showroom, the prices are really great.

Sure.

What you're getting at, say like Floor Decor, I mean, they buy these containers in bulk from China and the quality is not there. So yes, you may save on the material itself, but your installer is going to have such a difficult time installing that because it's, it's not what we call a rectified tile, which means it's perfectly rectangle.

Okay.

You know, a lot of times if you don't get a rectified tile, if it's 1/32 off, by the time you get from one side of the room to the other, you're crooked. They have to make that up somehow. So usually they'll make it up in like a grout joint or something like that.

But, um, my house is crooked anyway. It doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Everybody's house is crooked. So, I mean, you know, you're just kind of, you know, making sure like, hey, it is really So I mean, you just made someone's day.

They're like, oh, that's why I'm gonna buy the crap tile because my house is way off. It's gonna look perfect.

Let's at least make it look straight.

That's right.

So I mean, you know, my prices are not going to be like a Home Depot or Floor Decor, but my quality and the customer service that you get from me is going to be better. Plus you get the design services that you, you won't get those at the other stores. I mean, you go into Home Depot, nobody's there helping you pick out your tile and telling you what's going to work in your space. And they don't know their vendors either. If I have an issue with any of my tile, I have direct relationships with all my vendors and I can just call up my rep and say, hey, this is what happened. It came in broken, whatever. We got a new one sent out.

Or if we, I mean, I haven't had any issues with any kind of the quality issues or anything like that, but they're always there. I have I have really good relationships with my vendors.

Cool. Hey, Eric G actually just, uh, said that he has slab porcelain on his kitchen counters, on his outdoor kitchen, and in his master shower. Like, he loves it apparently.

So yeah, I mean, it's pretty stuff. Yeah, well, and his, his outdoor kitchen is fantastic.

Well, everything that, that guy's house— like, his shower alone is to be envied. That shower is— that shower.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't always recommend it for countertops just because it can chip a little bit easier because it is porcelain. But I mean, people do it all the time, so it's not something that you can't do. It's just you have to know that going into it.

So like, I was, I was looking at this, this website, uh, that has the— let me see if I can find it again real quick. Anyway, it was saying that there's like levels of porcelain. It was like book-something porcelain and like super nano porcelain and nano porcelain and And all these like different grades of porcelain. Is there like— are those grades or are these just different ways in which they put them together?

Uh, so if you have like a bookmatch porcelain, that—

bookmatch, thank you.

A bookmatch porcelain is basically to replicate a, um, uh, a stone that comes out of a quarry. So when they pull like a natural stone out of a quarry, it comes out, they, they cut it into a block.

Okay.

And then they slice it like you would bread. So if there's any veining in it, one slice and the next slice, when you open it, that matches.

It's a good match.

Now, as you go through that block that they have, that veining starts to change.

Okay.

Um, so what you can— and I do have bookmatched porcelains in the showroom, um, that are spectacular. Um, but so when you put them side by side, they kind of have the same So you can get like a pattern going. Okay, I got you.

Yeah.

And then, you know, there's, there's grades to porcelain, just kind of like a diamond grade would be, you know, like the hardness and stuff like that.

Well, that's one of the things, just real quick before I jump—

No, go ahead.

Eric, Eric just mentioned, you know, in, in reply to this, he said it's tougher than quartz, the, the porcelain.

The porcelain that he has. Uh-huh.

At least that's what he was saying.

So like in durability?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she mentioned that it could chip and And you mentioned just now that there's different grades almost.

Yeah, there's different grades to it.

So you get the right grade if you're gonna put it on a countertop, for example, just make sure you're getting the good stuff, right? Yeah.

I mean, and that goes to like, he obviously researched it and thought about it before he did it. Not everybody's gonna do that. So you just have to make sure you're going to somebody that knows those kind of things.

And that was kind of the question I was gonna ask. Is there a reason to use porcelain versus like, ceramic or clay or any of these other, you know?

Yeah, I mean, ceramic and clays, they're not as hard, they're not as durable. So porcelain tile is a little bit better. I mean, a ceramic tile, it depends on like what the body of the tile is made from. So you can get like a red body ceramic.

Really?

Yeah, so there's a lot that goes into the way tiles are made and manufactured. It depends on your application. And it really depends on the look you're going for. Like, I have some hand-painted red bodies ceramic tiles that are absolutely gorgeous. You cannot put them on the floor.

Oh, really? How come?

Just, it just, it doesn't stand up to the wear and tear.

Okay.

Yeah, because of the hand-painted.

Yeah, it's hand-painted and the clay is a little bit softer. So if you drop something, it's more likely to chip.

Yeah.

So it's something that you want to maybe do for like a backsplash. or something.

Because I know that for a long time, it was like a, it was kind of like a trend. And like, this is, this is gonna date me a little bit. But like, it was a trend for a while to put clay tiles on the floor. Like you could get those big, you know, like—

Oh, yeah.

Okay, so that's a Saltillo tile, like the Spanish tiles. Yeah. So those are actually pretty durable because of the way that they're created. And you also can seal those tiles.

Is it the same kind of stuff that they use to make like clay roof tiles?

I don't know, because I don't really know how they make clay roof tiles.

Come on, Christy.

I mean, I'm trying to answer all the questions. I know. Why are you asking me questions? I don't know. You're supposed to make me look like I know what I'm talking about here.

It's fine to say I don't know. That's the most honest answer.

Yeah, I just, I mean, I don't, I don't know about clay roof tiles, but the Saltillo tiles, I mean, my parents built their house in 1973 and they have Saltillo tiles in the kitchen.

That's awesome.

And they look just as beautiful as they did.

So I'm curious, I mean, based on what you just said, like, I don't know, like, you're sitting here talking about stuff, I'm like, holy cow, like, how much of this did you have to learn? Because I mean, you've been in the industry for a long time, you've been interior design for even longer, but like, now you've super niched down.

Yeah.

Like, this is a super niche down at this point. So like, how much of this did you know? And how much are you like, oh man, I've expanded my horizons so much?

Well, I mean, I have learned a lot lot lately, but I mean, most of it I learned when I was in the tile industry 17 years ago. And I mean, look, my dad's a master electrician and I started working in construction in some sort of facet when I was 19.

Okay.

And I'm 45. So that's a long time to be. I mean, I worked in all kinds, HVAC, all kinds of stuff. So I just kind of picked a lot of stuff up along the way, but you know, the stuff I learned in the, in the tile shop that I worked in previously was invaluable. I mean, it was— I really just kind of absorbed all the information that the owner could give me. And, you know, a lot of it comes from my vendors. And, you know, I go to tile shows in Vegas and stuff like that, and I really talk to people, you know, about their tile and where it comes from and how it's made and just really researching that kind of stuff. And,

you know, I— look, I don't know everything about tile. I can't. There's so many manufacturers. I'm going to India April 7th, and so I'll be meeting with some tile manufacturers.

That's awesome.

So yeah.

All right, so I actually have an answer to this.

Okay. Oh, yay, you know something more than I do.

Well, no, I just Googled it. I looked it up. So it actually has very little to do with how it's made as much as it is where it's from.

Oh, okay.

So it's like champagne.

Yeah.

So as long as it comes from Saltillo in Mexico, the region, then it doesn't matter if it's a floor tile or a roof tile.

Okay.

Oh wow, there you go.

There you go.

See, I just learned something.

I've always said Craig knows so much. I've always said that.

I know how to type.

Google knows so much and Craig knows how to do that.

I tell people all the time, I'm like, did you know that you have unlimited Google searches? Did you know that? It's free.

See, when that changes, that's what it's going going to get bad.

Yep. Don't give him ideas.

Nobody's going to be doing stupid searches anymore.

I mean, we don't have to go to Encyclopedia Britannica. That's what I had to do when I was a kid. I had the whole set.

I am much more comfortable with old dusty books than I am this computer. Let me just tell you that right now.

Do you remember that episode of Friends where Joey buys the— like, what is it, the V? He buys the V of Encyclopedia Britannica. He couldn't buy the whole thing, so he just buys— so like his whole— like, he's like, well, do you want to talk about volcanoes or whatever it is? He's like, everything he— because he the entire V and he knew everything.

It's the only book he could afford.

That's a good episode. Oh man, I derailed this pretty badly.

Yeah, you did.

No, that's okay. I've already clicked into Terracotta, so it's fine.

I have no computer in front of me to research anything, so thank you guys.

You're, you're at a distinct disadvantage right now.

I know. Google will You always know more than me.

Saltillo has been around since 1580.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, so the company I used to work for, um, we used to actually get, um, uh, Saltillo tile that they would take out of churches in Italy. So it was reclaimed Saltillo tile.

Let me, let me tell you a crazier one. I had a client one time that decided to build a home in a particularly wealthy neighborhood in the Houston area, and they had gone to school at Princeton, and Princeton was in the process of tearing down a building, and they had taken a class in that building.

Oh my gosh.

And so they imported the roof of that building to be put on their house here in Houston.

What in the world?

So if you'd like to remodel your home, please call me at—

She suddenly got back into the game.

You can reach me at Express Interiors.

It was, it was a slate roof.

Oh my goodness, that's awesome.

Yeah, the building, it was gorgeous.

Yeah, and a slate roof will last forever.

Yeah, well, and they ran in— like, I'm not mentioning names because they ran into some problems because the slate wasn't attached very well, and occasionally it would like slip off and hit people.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, and those can be rather heavy.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

I mean, if you'd like to redo your roof in metal, I can also do that for you too.

From India. From India.

It's gonna come on a container ship.

That's awesome.

Okay, so one of the other design things that I've seen recently— okay, so like, we've kind of— I think we've kind of burned through subway, you know, like that's been done. And I even did it, like it was— it's pretty— I still would probably do it again if it was like a guest bathroom or something like that. And we've had— we've had lots of different trends. One of the ones I'm seeing right now is honeycomb.

Yes.

Are you seeing this a lot? Yeah. Like, what's, what's the deal with this?

Well, and a lot of times too, they'll do like that honeycomb effect and then they'll, you know, scribe it in with like a wood. Yes. Yeah. And it'll just kind of like, you know, it looks like it's going from wood to this honeycomb. I, I think it's going to get old fast.

You think so?

Yeah. I think I, to me, because I'm seeing people produce really tired of it fast.

Well, I'm just, I'm seeing people in, you like tile producers, they're like, okay, so like this is what the market's doing. So we're gonna make some stuff that's kind of funky and different. That's honeycomb.

Yeah, I actually, I did a video this week. It just didn't turn out. So I didn't post it, but I did get 2 new samples in the showroom and I have one that's kind of like some brown and tans, honey, a tan honeycomb. So it's like dark brown on the outside and then it kind of goes to a lighter brown and then one that's kind of, I think it's like green colors or whatever. So Um, but, um, I don't know, it's kind of retro-ish feeling to me.

Yeah.

So I mean, it's— I think it's cool. It's funky.

I mean, I mean, I've, I've even seen them and it made me think about you when I saw it because I remember you coming on the show and talking about how like a rose gold was kind of coming back and it, it definitely has.

Yeah.

But I've seen some of these honeycomb tiles have like a rose gold lining. And I'm like, oh, I see what Kristen's talking about because that looks— that actually looks kind of cool.

Yeah, I have some that are, you know, like marbles with some like, you know, metallic like silvers and golds in them that are really, really cool. Um, we had one that we sold last year and it was kind of like, uh, some black and white marble and it's, it's really, really pretty. I think it depends on the application one This one we did in a powder bathroom on the floor and then went all the way up the wall. So it was something that was just really striking.

Right.

And I think a powder bathroom is like, you can like really go all out in a powder bathroom because all your guests are going to see it. They're small. So you're not spending a ton of money in there. But I think the material too kind of makes a difference because in the all marble, it was, oh, it was just gorgeous. absolutely stunning.

Well, and, and with, with some of these like custom printings that you're talking about, like you're telling me about like the, the— what were you—

The mosaic ones.

Well, the mosaic ones, but also the—

what were we just talking about?

The porcelain.

Oh, the slab porcelain.

Yeah. Are we, are we kind of getting to a point where we can do curves?

Uh, yeah, you can do curves. Yeah, we've always been able to do curves.

Really?

It's just your installer has to know how to do it. I can, I can actually teach an installer how to take a subway tile and create an arch out of it.

Really?

It depends on how they actually cut it.

So, so could you take, could you take like a 90-degree turn in a wall and actually create a curve in that wall?

Uh, you could. I mean, you probably want to do something that's a little bit smaller, or they're going to have to like make little strips to go around it. But yeah.

Because in my mind, I'm thinking, could we go from floor to wall?

You could. Yeah.

Yeah.

You totally could.

Okay.

Yeah.

That would be super cool. Have you done anything like that?

I have not.

Yeah. We need to, we need to make that happen.

Yeah. I mean, I'm in a couple of Facebook groups that are like all installers all over the country and they are doing some amazing stuff. And I just want to say too, I think here in Texas, we're kind of like not really like getting with the trend. I think everybody here is just so like, they're so worried about like, is everybody going to like this? Or is this something I can live with? Or do I want to redo it in 5 years? And, you know, in some of the, like, you know, northern states and stuff like that, they're doing some stuff that is just absolutely amazing. I mean, I look at it and I'm like, that's the client I want. I want somebody that

wants to come in and they're like, let's do something different. You know, let's do something that's striking, amazing. When my guests come in, I want to take them to my master bathroom.

Yeah.

Because you never do, right? You're the only person that sees your master bathroom. Make it something where you're like, hey, come in and see my master bathroom. absolutely gorgeous.

Yeah, well, I would assume that like you have the ability to fit most people's style too. Yeah, because like, like I know a lot of people, to your point about like, you know, people around here are concerned, you know, are people gonna like it? But part of that is like we're very like farmhouse type of place, or like, like, like a muted modern. Like there's not like a, like full-on modern or mid-century modern. Yeah, and like it's, it's all kind of like kind of basic and then farmhouse, right?

Yeah.

And so, I mean, I even look at like our, our, the house that I live in that we just recently bought. Um, my wife hated the countertops. She hated them because they were brown and she was like, these are awful. But the cabinets were like a birch that was like shellacked. It was like, like it looked like, like you could like, like comb your hair in the, in the cabinets. And, um, well, we, we painted them all an off-white, and we did the, we did the, um, island in like a, like a seafoam green almost. Uh, and so the brown actually looks really good now.

Yeah.

But the backsplash on it is just a brown square tile. But what's unique, and I didn't know this till like, like months after we lived there because I didn't ever— I just, I'm a dude, I didn't pay attention. But like, there's— there are little diamonds of the countertop.

Oh yeah.

And I'm sure that's like a super— like, that was a thing back in the day, but there's diamonds of the actual, uh, countertop in there. And I told my wife, I was like, look, that's unique, different. It actually looks really— it ties everything in really nicely. If, you know, it looks fine now, but, um, but I, I'm, I'm assuming that if someone wants just a farmhouse, you can take some really cool designs and just do— it's plussed up a little bit, right?

Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is like, you know, with that architect I was talking to today, it was like we were talking about shiplap and how like everybody's doing shiplap here in Texas. And he was— he's in California. He was like, we're actually doing shiplap in California. We're just now starting to do shiplap in California. And he was like, and it doesn't fit the style of house here. You know what I mean? And so it's like, you know, Chip and Joanna Gaines type thing.

Gosh. Yeah. Wait. Well, it is.

We won't talk about them.

No, and I get it. But like, that's like, people watch that kind of stuff and they're like, well, I want that, you know?

Yeah. And the thing about it is too, is like when people start doing like their Pinterest boards and when you, the way, I mean, it's an algorithm, right? So when you start looking up, you know, oh, you liked a picture with shiplap. Let me show you 17,000 other pictures of shiplap. And then all of a sudden you're like, Everybody's doing shiplap. Well, not everybody's doing shiplap. It's just the algorithm made you want shiplap. And I'm pretty sure that we're all going to leave here and we're going to get ads on where we can buy shiplap.

Thanks a lot, Christy.

Shiplap, shiplap, shiplap. I left my phone in the car because it died on the way, so I won't be having that on my phone. But, you know, some— I just want to encourage people to just kind of think outside the box a little bit and just see like, what can we do that's going to be unique to your home? to your style, you know, and, and not that we can't take those, like, inspiration photos. On my Facebook page, I haven't done one lately, but I was doing Magazine Mondays. So I would take one of the magazines like Cottages magazines or House and Home magazines. And I would find a photo of a kitchen in there. And then I would actually put the tile

that I have in my showroom that would actually give you that same inspiration. So, you know, I mean, I'm all for like, you know, helping you with your inspirations. But I also want— I just want to encourage people, like, do something a little bit more bold. Just, you don't have to go completely crazy. You don't have to have a yellow backsplash, but—

Right, you know, come on, do it.

But maybe we can do something that's like a cream color with like a yellow design on it or something, you know what I mean? So let's, let's kind of like play around with tile a little bit.

But I think that's— again, I'm going to say it again, I think that's what makes you so unique. is that you bring an interior design feel to it. So like someone can walk into your showroom and they're not just going to get a tile salesman.

Yeah.

They're going to get someone that not only just sells tile but like actually knows how to put it together and make it look good.

Well, and you know, my background in construction helps a lot because I can tell you like, you know, I've had conference calls with other you know, contractors telling them how they're going to finish this tile off and how they're going to tell their, you know, installer how to install this tile and whether or not it can go here on the floor or whatever. And not to knock contractors because there's so many products that you have to put into a remodel, so you can't, you can't be well-versed on everything.

Right.

So I encourage contractors and designers to come into my showroom because we have this big huge conference room that's adjacent to the showroom You can bring your plans, you can bring your fabric samples, paint samples, whatever. You can spend the whole day in my showroom if you want. Conference room is yours. Y'all can have your private meeting and then come in and, you know, pick out your tile and see what works with the design that you're doing. Or if a contractor doesn't really want to deal with it, send your client in, give me a budget, bring my plans or pictures, and I'll do all the design work. I do all the takeoffs. I'll, I'll help, I'll help people in the in the industry as much

as I can.

Are beverages served?

Yes.

Okay.

We have sodas and champagne.

Okay.

I like to drink a little champagne with my clients. Beer, if you're a guy, if you want to come in and have a beer, I'll have a beer with you.

Nice.

Let's work it out.

Yeah.

Okay. So one other question, and because some people are thinking this, and if you don't, if it's not fair to ask this question, then just tell me, Kevin, stop it. But like what you mentioned budget, like what should I, if I wanted to do something unique, what should I think about like per square foot? What are my, some of my ranges?

I mean, I'm gonna tell you just because I have had a lot of people come in with new builds and these are custom new builds and they're giving them as an allowance of $3 and $4 a square foot and that's not gonna work.

It's not gonna do it. I mean, you can barely do that at Home Depot.

I know.

Like that's, I mean, really. That's really unreasonable. Yeah.

And that's for everything. Flooring, backsplashes.

Yeah, that's not going to work.

This is the thing. When you're sitting down with your builder, encourage them to give you a true allowance. Because listen, if you're going to build a million-dollar home, you don't need a $3.50 budget. That's not going to work. And you're going to go over your allowance. So tell your contractor, give me an allowance that is going to actually give me the home that I want. If I'm telling you I'm coming from a million-and-a-half home and I want a million-and-a-half home, don't give me $350,000.

Are you, are you using the term allowance because when they're working with a builder, they've already established a price and the builder is sending them in going, you have this much to spend?

Well, because a lot of times the way a contractor, like a custom builder, will, will, you know, work their bids is, okay, you have a plumbing allowance, you have a tile allowance, you have a countertop allowance. Because when you're working in a custom build, you don't know. You don't know, are they going to pick, you know, quartzite, which is like really, really expensive, or onyx for their countertops, which can get— I mean, you can spend $7,000 a slab for countertops.

Right.

Or are they going to pick quartz, which is, you know, more like $2,000 a slab? So they give them an allowance, but a lot of times the allowance they give them is not really reasonable for the type of home that they're building. So yeah, okay, if you're going in and you're like, okay, my budget's $1 million, and their contract comes out at $1 million, but you have $3.50 for your tile allowance, you're not getting a million-dollar house.

So the way that works with the builder then, so like you come in and you're like, I've got $3.50 a square foot to spend. Can that, can that person then go to someone like you and go like, look, I've got this allowance. I'm willing to spend this much more in order to do this project.

Yeah.

And I mean, there's ways that we can kind of work with that a little bit. I mean, you don't have to spend that. in guest bathrooms, you know, I mean, we can do something a little bit more simple. I will say a lot of times people are like, oh, it's just my kids, I don't care.

Sure.

I'm like, well, you know, still do something nice. It's still a million-dollar home. So let's, you know, we don't want like, you know, bathrooms that it looks like we just didn't care about. But maybe we can kind of like cheat the budget a little bit where we're taking from one to the other. So that's why I like, for me, I can sit down and do the takeoff. everything that you picked out and kind of say, okay, look, we went over budget on the flooring, but we went under budget here. Or if they're, you know, picking out a tile that's, you know, $11 a square foot for their master bathroom, it's like, okay, look, we kind of like, we spent a lot of money

on the bathroom. Let's, let's kind of try and find something that's a little bit more economical to go in a different bathroom or something.

Is $11 a square foot, is that a high end for you?

No.

No.

Okay.

Yes. So what?

Yeah.

You've done a really good job of not answering my question.

My most expensive tile in the showroom is $400 a square foot.

What's that?

It is a stamped marble.

Okay.

It's gorgeous. Yeah. I mean, I would say for, you know, for flooring and, you know, that sort of thing, I'm in the $7 to $15 square foot range.

That's what I was thinking.

Backsplashes, I mean, that can go all over the place because you can, you can get $7 a square foot for a backsplash, you can get $400 a square foot for a backsplash.

To me, to me though, that like that, first of all, that's very helpful. Thanks. Because I think that in my mind, I, the number I had in my mind was like $7 to $12 is reasonable. $15 is maybe, you know, reasonable as well. $7 to $15 a square foot for something that for most people is not going to be their whole home.

Right.

I mean, we're— you can probably find something for $3 to $5 a square foot for your flooring. And again, so many people are, are not doing, you know, ceramic tile anymore on their floors. If anything, they're doing like a porcelain, porcelain like wood grain or something that, that looks a little bit nicer. It's going to last a little bit longer. It's got a different feel to it on your feet, whatever, than a laminate.

Or like a luxury vinyl tile. I mean, we have those there. We actually have luxury vinyl planks which look like wood, but we have something that's pretty new that I haven't seen a lot. But we have like a luxury vinyl tile that looks like marble. Whoa. So, and it actually comes in a 24 by 48 as well.

Interesting. That's really cool. We did luxury vinyl on my mother-in-law's house. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, it's very different. Like, whenever you think of vinyl, you're not thinking of like— you're thinking vinyl, like, why would I do that? But it's not what you think of.

They have just like changed the way that— I mean, I know whenever that stuff first started coming out, everyone was like, well, I don't want it, it doesn't look like real wood. Now it has like some grain to it.

I mean, it feels like real wood. It looks like real wood. It is waterproof. Yeah, like it's incredible.

Yeah, it's a great product. And I have a huge line of luxury vinyl stuff in the showroom too. And then countertops, we do countertops too.

Oh, okay.

Quartz and acrylic countertops.

Oh, nice.

Is that really expensive marble piece? Is that like a medallion? Or is it something else?

What really expensive? Oh, no, no, it's actually, I think this size of it is like a 4 by 8 or something. It's not a huge tile.

Okay.

Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.

Is it really thick?

Yeah, it's pretty thick. I mean, it's not even— I mean, it's not like super thick or anything, but it's— I think it's the process of which they— it has like this intricate design on it.

And I feel like I need to come have my picture made with it. I know.

Well, I didn't even realize how much it was until somebody picked it out, and then I like, you know, priced it out and I I was like, okay, well, maybe you might want to check something out because this was not in their budget.

This house is more than your house.

Yeah.

I was like, this may not be in anybody's budget.

I don't know.

We'll see if we ever sell it. But I mean, it's, I mean, $400 a square foot is crazy for me.

That is crazy.

I asked because like, I know that there's like these intricate things, you know, like, like penny tile almost. Like, like it would seem like it shouldn't be that expensive.

Yeah.

But it, I mean, like, like, like I even remember back in the day and I assume there's still people doing this when people would like epoxy pennies. to their floor. And it can still, it can look good. But like, that's an expensive floor.

Yeah, there's a lot of pennies that have to go on that floor. Well, I mean, even the stuff that I was telling you about where it was like the custom mosaic, I mean, those are running maybe $125 a square foot. So I mean, it's not crazy. I mean, you're doing, you're not going to do an entire room in that. You're not going to do your floor in that. You're going to do like a specific space. And then they even have, that company even has some that are You know, kind of like pre-pattern designs that kind of look like rugs and stuff, and those are running around, you know, $45, $47 a square foot.

So, geez.

Well, I mean, as we're running up towards the, uh, the— we're past the hour now.

Yeah, sorry.

No, you're fine.

We always do this.

Yeah, yeah, we do. Um, I, I actually, I, I had— and, and Kevin, if you come up with any along the way, I'd like some, some pointed ones I wanted to Shoot. To hit you with. So what, what is the worst kind of tile I can use in my shower floor?

So I mean, not necessarily the worst that you can use in your shower floor, but a lot of people want to put marble on their floor. It's not the worst that you can do. It has to be maintained. You have to seal it every— I would say even if it's your master shower, I would say every 6 months.

Okay. Wow. It's a lot of maintenance.

It's easy to seal it. It's like a wipe-on wipe-off kind of thing.

What happens if you don't?

Um, you're— it'll start discoloring.

Okay.

So, um, it's just not gonna look as pretty as it is.

And you can't bring it back once it starts to discolor? Yeah. Okay.

Because, uh, marble's soft. So I, I don't recommend that anybody puts marble in their bathrooms on the counters or even in the kitchens. Like, just a water— like, if you set a glass of water down that water ring can leave its mark.

Okay.

Because it's just a really soft stone, so it just absorbs everything.

Yeah. So then the inverse of that, what would be the best, like, high-end stuff that you could put on the floor in the shower?

I mean, we have some really, really pretty ceramics and porcelains. I mean, they stand the test of time, you know.

And those are easier to seal?

Yeah, you don't— well, you don't have to seal them at all.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, there's no maintenance in it. You know, I mean, there's not really a right or wrong necessarily. It's just how much work do you want to put into it?

Yeah.

And how are you going to maintain it? If you're somebody that, you know, it's kind of like with shower glass. It's like if you're not going to squeegee your glass all the time, do you want, you know, the whole thing in glass? You know, you might opt for not that much glass.

So.

And so I'll ask this selfishly because this is what we did in our master bath. Is there, is there a reason you shouldn't do something like river rock in the floor of your shower? Or, you know, like a penny tile, or what are the other ones that they're doing now?

Well, any, any of that, any of that kind of the, the mesh-backed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, the rocks are super popular. I mean, they, they do really well there. You do, um, you can seal those, and I kind of recommend that you do.

Yeah.

Um, but you have to know that it changes the color of the stone. So when you're going to a place and you want to pick out the stone, if you wet like a paper towel and you rub it across it, that's what it's going to look like when it's sealed.

Okay.

Um, so, um, and I have a video on my Facebook page or a post or something where I actually took and I just wiped, you know, half of the side of the sample just so that people could see what it's like. And then they have sealants that are enhancers even that will even draw the color out more. So just, you know, keep in mind if you're trying to like say, okay, this is what I'm doing on the shower walls, and then I want to do this river rock on the floor. Okay, well, make sure if you're going to seal it that that's the color that you want, because a lot of times it'll bring out a lot

of yellows or browns, or, you know, like a gray will turn like blue or something like that. So you just want to make sure you're taking care of that.

And, and you may have already answered this with the marble one, but are there any like trends out there that people should avoid for practical reasons?

I don't think so. I mean, you know, some of the rocks that I have seen out there, like the river rocks, are like really like rounded on the top, and I just, I don't know if I would want to stand on that, you know. Yeah, but I mean, some people may like it. It may, you know, feel good on their feet. But, um, for the most part, I don't really see anything that's, you know, anything too crazy that people have been doing out there. You just need to know the product that you're purchasing and how to, how to take care of it.

Yeah, I mean, what I'm hearing, what I've heard you say consistently throughout the show is like, if it's installed properly Yeah. I mean, it will be okay.

Yeah. And, you know, I, I don't do the installation in the showroom, but I do have, um, you know, a list of installers that I recommend. So, um, you know, and, you know, one of my installers has worked with me for 3, 4 years now. So he's done so many showers and backsplashes for me that, you know, I can really stand behind his work. I just don't have the time to visit job sites and, yeah, you know, do all that kind of stuff. So I just kind of let him take, take control of that part.

Well, and, and then so for people that don't live here and, and have access to your installers, like, you know, you got somebody living in Ohio or, you know, New Jersey, wherever, like, how, how could they vet a good installer? I mean, because you, you can design stuff anywhere, right? You don't have to necessarily be there. But like, if you need a good installer, you've got like, you know, something a little bit more intricate of an install. How could those people then find somebody there?

I mean, it's, it's kind of like the same thing to me with, you know, like vetting a contractor. Ask to see their work. I don't just look at a picture if they're doing an installation in a new house and new builds. Obviously you don't want to like encroach on somebody's personal space. And so that's kind of hard sometimes, but, you know, ask to really see their, their work. I mean, I'm going to be honest. I saw on one of the Facebook pages that somebody was like, hey, I'm a tile installer. And he put, you know, 5 pictures of his work up. 4 of them looked great. The last one I looked at was a hack job.

Hmm.

And it was all the same backsplash, but I could see where cut marks were made and grout joints weren't, you know. So I mean, if you're, if you're in Ohio and you're buying tile from me and I'm helping you design it, then, you know, say, hey, these are the 3 installers I have. This is the work that they've sent me. let me look at it. Because a lot of times you'll just kind of look at it overall and you're like, oh, that looks really nice, right? But I kind of know like to how to like look in and see those details. The details are what really matters.

Yeah.

And what I would imagine if someone you've never worked with and all they have is pictures, like, can I actually like— yeah, can I talk to somebody? Do you mind if I go, you know, go ask them if I can look at it?

Yeah.

Like, because you'll, you'll probably find out real quick whether or not that that is that person's job.

Yeah, and again, you also want to make sure your installer has, I mean, there's certifications that you can get out there from tile associations in the United States. And you also need to find out what is their process. It's not just about the installation in a shower, it has to be waterproof. So are they going to pour a mud pan?

Are they going to do You know, I know that's even changed over the years. Yeah, it has.

Yeah, it has. And I mean, to me, I'm, I mean, I'm an old school. I think a mud pan is always going to work just because there's nothing underneath it. But now they're coming out with all these new products and stuff. And so I am learning a lot about a lot of the installation products that are out there from other installers all over the country. And if they know how to do it right, it's great. But if they don't, yeah, I mean, it could be total failure in 5 years.

Aren't a lot of them, I, when I, I don't know if it's like code in some states, but aren't some of them having them put like a membrane behind the mud pan now?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, like, um, there's Schluter, which makes, um, like a metal trim. That's kind of what they're known for, but they do whole shower systems now. So they do all of the walls and taping and all that kind of stuff that they can get. And they do like the niches and everything like that. So, I mean, there's a lot of new stuff that's coming up, but you just want to make sure that your, your installer knows the process and not just how to install tile.

For sure.

Yeah.

Anything else, Kev?

I don't have anything else. I think this—

You're supposed to be coming up with questions while we're talking.

You're sitting here, I'm like, well, I probably would have asked that. That's probably the only one I got. No, I think it's been really good. I think that it's crazy to sit here and talk for an hour about tile, but, but at the end of the day, like I think it's one of the most, like, unique things that you can do to your home, and people just completely overlook it, and they think, well, this is just— this is just this, or it's just that, you know. But at the end of the day, like, legitimately, there, there are 2 places that you spend most of your money, and it's your kitchen and your bathroom.

Kitchen and bathroom.

And, and guess what you put in kitchens and bathrooms? You put tile in there. And so like, just think about it, you know? I mean, make sure that you're considering your options.

Or let somebody else think about it.

Exactly. Well, that's a good point.

Yeah, I mean, and a lot of times people are like, oh, you know, I'm doing this with my cabinets and I'm doing this with my countertops. And then the backsplash is like an afterthought. And I'm like, let's work it all together. Bring in your cabinet color, bring in your countertop color or buy countertops from me.

Or put your countertop in your backsplash.

I mean, whatever. I mean, like, Let's do something cool.

Just a slice. Yeah, exactly. Just some little diamonds. Well, no, it's been really good. Uh, thank you again for, for being here.

Of course. I always love coming and talking to you guys.

Well, good, good, good, good. Well, uh, yeah, so we're— we'll, we'll wrap it up. Uh, thanks for everyone, uh, listening and, and, uh, viewing our, uh, show for today. We're here each and every Tuesday, and if you've not already, Go like the page, like our YouTube channel. That's really what you need to do. Subscribe and leave us a 5-star rating and review. That would really, really help us. Thanks for being here. Until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.