Well, I'm gonna run through the— while we wait for the next person to show up, I was talking with Richard earlier in the show about the number of states that had an increase in migration. And one of the things that we're seeing is a change in the way in which people are making their decision about migrating. But one of the things I thought that was really interesting about this is that it used to be the case that only about 20% of Americans were moving annually. And what they mean by moving is moving from state to state, moving from one state to another state. It used to be the case that if you moved, it wasn't— they didn't necessarily consider it a
move because you were moving within the same city, county, or even really state, because some states are small enough that they can move within that state and still work in the same place. I start thinking about places like Delaware, Rhode Island, even places like Maryland to a certain extent. But what we saw was a massive uptick in people who are willing to migrate between states. Huge, huge number of people willing to do that. And so, I want to run through at least the top 10. We covered the top 4, which was Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina. Okay, and so then after that, number 5, Tennessee, uh, with 81,000. Georgia with 81,000, just a little bit
less than Tennessee. And then Arizona. I think we talked about Arizona a couple weeks ago. Uh, Goldman Sachs was predicting that Phoenix is going to be one of the cities that sees a 25% decrease in market value on the housing there in Phoenix. So that's an interesting one. So people have moved into Phoenix, but yet they're still predicting that they're going to see a massive crash in the real estate valuation. Right after that, we've got Idaho. And, and this is, this is where it's a steep drop-off, because with Arizona, you had almost 71,000 people moving to Arizona. The next one down is Idaho with only 28,000 people. Alabama with 28,000. Oklahoma with 26,000. Nevada with 20,000. Arkansas with 18,000. And Montana with 16,000. And I'm gonna count
this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So that's the top 13. If we keep going, Utah at 12,000. Delaware with 11,000. That one's surprising. And then Maine with 11,000. So that's the top 15 right there. On the, on the bottom end, what was interesting is there's, there's states that even though they saw a decrease in the number of people moving there, they still saw an uptick in population, but a very minuscule one. So like you, you have places like North Dakota that lost 2,700 people, but they still saw an uptick in population change overall of 0.2%. So there's weird anomalies in there. Come on, Alan. Hey, man. I'm going through some Census Bureau data here right now. One of the other ones I thought that was really weird—
sorry? Are you not jumping on? Oh, yeah. Oh, come on. Yeah. One of the ones I thought that was really, really weird is Hawaii. Yeah, grab that headset right there. Hawaii saw a 0.5% decrease in population, and over 15,000 people actually left Hawaii. So some new Census Bureau data came out from 2022, and probably not surprising to you, Texas was number 2 as far as influx of people. Yeah, I understand that. Over 230,000 people in 2022. Yeah, a 1.6% change in population density in the state of Texas. The only one better than that was Florida at 1.9%, and they got over 318,000 people. Wow. Yeah, nuts. But the one I thought was weird was Hawaii. Hawaii lost over 15,000 people and 0.5% moved out of there. I have to imagine some of that is
affordability and opportunity. Yeah, Hawaii is very expensive. It's expensive, and there's just not a whole lot of industry there. while it's a beautiful place and a lot of people like to go visit, I can't imagine it being— I actually have a friend that moved there. It was either 21 or 22, but she was an attorney. She can really work from just about anywhere, and her firm offered to let her work wherever she wanted to. Nice. And so she was like, well, I've always wanted to live in Hawaii, so I'm going. And if that's what you want, knock yourself out. There you go. So, well, man, you just, you just got back from a fun trip. Yeah, I did. A cruise to Mexico. Was that your first cruise? Oh no,
I've been on many. Been— I mean, okay, many, many. Have you been on a Mexico cruise before? Um, no, I stayed in Mexico for a while. I flew down there with my ex and we rented a really nice place down there and we traveled around Mexico, but this time it was a cruise. But her and I did Bunches of cruises over about a 2-year period. We went all over the world. Okay. And we usually went on smaller cruise lines like Windstar. That's a lot more exclusive. Oh, I've never even heard of that one. Are they smaller boats? Um, yeah, yeah, they're quite a bit smaller. Okay. But they're awesome. What's, what's, what's, what do you think is the big
difference other than the size of the boat? Um, the personalized service, larger staterooms. Oh, okay. Better food. I mean, everything about it was, but it costs quite a bit more money too. Do they sail out of Galveston? No, they don't. Where do they sail out of? Usually you've got to fly down to Florida. Where else? I know in California, I guess. Okay. I'm gonna be looking into this. That sounds intriguing to me. Morningstar is incredible. Yeah, I had such a great time on their cruises. It was awesome. Have you ever done an Alaska one? No, I have not. Kevin's been on one. I've not been on one, but I've heard they're awesome. And Alaska is one of those places I haven't been, so I got like— seems like a boat might be a fun way to, to see that state. I think it would
be. Yeah, well, the right time of year. Yeah, that's right, because I flew into there once and, and got stuck there for a while. Yeah, well, for, for people, I know you've been on the show before, but for people that don't know, remind everybody what you do. I'm in the solar business. My company is Texas Energy Saver. I'm a service-disabled veteran-owned company. We do solar systems. I'm— we do residential and we do business. Now I'm working on some government contracts because— Oh, really? Service-disabled veteran-owned businesses get, you know, get head-of-the-line bids on contracts and stuff. So I'm working on a couple of pretty large bids for contracts with the Department of Defense. That's cool. Yeah, that's very cool. So like solar projects for like government facilities? Yes. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, because there's some places
they really need it and they're building new military bases in these places and the, uh, the infrastructure just can't handle it. Yeah, well, with, uh, with— and I want to talk about solar, but I, I'm in— have you heard some of the stuff that happened over the last weekend with Montana and all that? The balloons and stuff? Well, there was the balloons, but then they shut down airspace over Montana And I think North Dakota. Shut it down. Yes, over some— what did they call them? UFOs? No, it weren't UFOs. They called them something else. Well, that was the thing is they did like a press briefing where the White House secretary said these are not aliens. And then so everybody's— the whole meme
was like, okay, the government said they're not aliens, so it must be aliens. Yeah. So, but yeah, it was— they were basically unidentified objects. And I saw some reports from Dan Crenshaw that were saying, like, here's what we know is some of these objects were so small it was really difficult for our radar to pick them up. It's not that they were moving so fast, it's that they were really small, so we couldn't see them. But that— and they were pretty high, but they weren't balloons. Huh. And so they, like, that's pretty much the information that we have. But we do know that they shut down airspace over Montana and I think North Dakota. Montana I know for sure, but I don't— I think— That's curious. Why would they shut down airspace? Well, because they've had a lot of sightings.
Yeah, the balloon thing was freaking people out already. So, well, I don't know. Yeah, I've got some serious doubts about a whole lot of that because I know what they feed us is a whole lot of bull about 90% of the time. So yeah, well, the— and the other— I mean, like, I don't know if you— I mean, like, whether or not you trust Dan Crenshaw or not. I mean, like, I think he seems to be a pretty upstanding congressman, and he's a former SEAL. Yeah. But he was saying the deal with the balloon was one of the reasons they didn't shoot it down was because they knew what it was and they'd already shut down the data stream. So they basically had hacked it
because apparently China had tried this before. And they talked about that, like they'd had other balloons come in under the Trump administration and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, but President Trump said that never happened. Yeah. So like, that's kind of weird. Yeah, I know it is because they're making up excuses why— when I even heard like— office is a little bit inept, but I think it was— was it Mattis who was in charge of the Department of Defense at that time? Anyway, I think it was— I think it was an interview with Mattis where he was saying, yeah, we didn't tell Trump about it because he didn't need to know. Oh, okay. I didn't hear that part. I'd heard that and I was like, well, that seems
kind of weird. Like, why wouldn't you tell the president? Like, if anybody that needs to know what's going on. Yeah, you would think. But I also imagine there's plausible deniability, right? Sure. Yeah. Like, I also imagine there's quite a bit of stuff that doesn't come across his desk and like, it's like, well, that's not, that's not important. He doesn't need to know that. Yeah. But I would imagine like a Chinese balloon trying to, you know, get data from the US government, that would probably reach the top of the list. I would imagine. But what's puzzling is why they would let it fly all the way across the United States and get out over the water before they shot it down. Now, their excuse was, well, we didn't want falling debris or something. There's
not that much debris involved there. In a balloon. But a balloon that's there for reconnaissance, for gathering data about our missile sites and things like that. No, we don't let that fly over the United States. I know that myself. I mean, I've seen when I was in the military, and what's funny is I know this story never got back to the United States, but I've seen planes that were foreign try to fly over a United States aircraft carrier and we shot it down before it got there. We warned them, but then we shot them down. Yeah, because you don't fly over a US warship. No, don't do it. So that's, that's, it's a, it's a sign of aggression. Yeah, I
mean, for sure. That's crazy, man. Yeah, that whole thing with the balloons and stuff was pretty crazy, but I think it was a distraction. Oh, probably. I tend to think most things are. Look at the other things that happened in this same time period, like Hunter Biden that finally admitted that laptop was his. And there's a few other stories that came out, and I think they didn't want us paying too much attention to it, so they had to have a sensationalized story. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a story of convenience, probably, then. Yeah, absolutely, man. And what's— there's a term for that, right? I mean, what do they call it where you're trying to distract somebody so they're not paying
attention to what's going on over here? I mean, I can't think of the term. I can't think of it off the top of my head. But there's like a military or like an espionage term. It's not subterfuge, man. I can't think of it. No, it's probably because I haven't had dinner yet. Yeah, that's it. I'm low on calories right now. I had dinner and a good workout today, so my brain, my brain's already on, on just, you know, yeah, idle. Yeah, well, I mean, definitely check that out and let me know what you think, because the whole— like, when I, when I heard that they shut down airspace, I was like, whoa. Yeah, that's, that's That's a little out there. We don't just shut down airspace because there was an unidentified
flying object, you know? Yeah. Well, I do, I do know that they engaged fighter jets in the, in the area. So that, I mean, that could be, I mean, it's just safer, like, when you, like, like, clear the area, right? So fighter jets aren't shooting down Americans in Cessnas. Um, but, you know, that still, it's like, it's a very aggressive move to, like, just like, hey, nope, nope, we're done, we're done, nobody's flying. Except for the geese. Wow. But I'm convinced that most of those stories are, are a distraction. Um, that train incident's very unfortunate because there was a lot of very deadly chemicals on that. Oh, you're talking about the spill? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard about that. And the spill, and there were people in the railroad that knew the system wasn't working
well and was warning, um, the organization that, hey, there's going to be a derailment, a bad one, if we don't change this, this, and this. Yeah. They didn't, and there was, you know, and they've had to evacuate large areas because the chemicals that spilled are very deadly. For sure, yeah. Well, man, is there anything interesting happening like incentive-wise with solar panels and any— I know that like, I know that there's incentives for the solar panels. Are they also offering those for like home batteries and generators as well, or is it just the panels that they're offering? offering these programs for? We give incentives on the whole deal. Okay, the whole shooting match. And I think you and I talked earlier about a nice little incentive that you wanted to share.
Yeah, if you want to, if you want to plug that one, man, well, you can plug it and then we'll keep plugging it. I mean, if you're ready to pull the trigger on it. Sure, go ahead. So anyone that calls us and gets us to install a solar system, we'll give you an extra $500 cash rebate. Okay. And, uh, and then we'll do the same for your show. Yeah, so like, basically they need to reach out to you, mention the Homeowner Show. That's it. And they'll get $500 knocked off the system. Yep. That's a fantastic deal. And they can either get it knocked off the system or we'll pay them cash $500. There you go. Hey, either one's
good. That's right, either way you look at it, it's money. Will you do it in silver bars? I own quite a bit of those, but I'm not giving them up, you know. Absolutely not. You and me both, man. I don't want to give mine up either. So there's been some interesting things going on. I don't know if you watch the US Debt Clock, but if you go to that page of usdebtclock.org, you know, it shows all the numbers going crazy on the debt and all this and all the factors that are involved in it. Yeah, but if you go down to the right lower corner and you'll see a button that says precious metals and you click on it, It goes to a page that tells you the value of gold and silver and— Oh, the real-time value. Yeah, and
platinum and all that. The strange thing is, for the last several years, it's always been a very trumped-up value. The silver was always around $6,000 or $7,000. I mean, I'm sorry, $1,600, $1,700 per ounce. And I thought— That's gold. No, that's silver. Silver. Yeah, but we're able to go down and for $24 an ounce buy the silver. So— Okay, I see what you're saying. So why were they making the value that high on the US debt clock? Well, because it supported what they were telling us that our money was worth. Oh. Yeah. And with gold, they literally had it at one point set at like $34,000 an ounce. Oh my gosh. When we know for $1,700, $1,800 an ounce we could
buy gold. Yeah. Um, I've heard a lot of speculation about what that's— what that all is about, but from what I understand, it was mainly for them to be able to prop up the numbers to look good for the US dollar. But here's what's real interesting. Recently I went on there and saw where those numbers had dropped significantly, and now they're at zero. What's at zero? Silver and gold. The value of silver and gold per dollar. Is zero. It says zero. That's crazy. It is crazy. But you know what? It's a good thing because that means they're working on a new money system. They're working on reevaluating the system, which we've been hearing in different capacities and different theories about this for
years, right? Because the US dollar is— it's pretty much worthless, you know, as far as what, you know, what its value is. I was gonna say, if anybody wants to sell me their silver and gold, I'll buy it. I'll give you all my cash right now. Yeah, hand it over. Well, I keep all my extra money in silver silver and gold. Yeah. I even— in the— as far as the banks are concerned, I keep my bank account balances lower than my credit card balances until I'm ready to pay off the credit cards. And I, I do that because when you go in, sign up for a bank account, if you read that paperwork carefully, somewhere in
there it says that money no longer belongs to you when you deposit it in the bank, but they'll allow you to use it as long as they're solvent. Yeah. And you saw what happened in Canada. They exercised their right to confiscate bank accounts because of the trucker protest. Oh yeah, that's right. A lot of money from a lot of people. And recently in the news, not in the mainstream, I'm pretty sure Bank of America was confiscating deposits. There were people depositing money in the Bank of America and it would— these deposits were not showing up. And there's a lot of people, financial advisors and things that I listen to, and and watch online, and they said
they're beginning that confiscation. Because if you do a little bit of homework, you'll find out all the major banks have filed bankruptcy. So they're literally insolvent right now. And if your money's in there, it's at risk. Yeah. And I certainly don't want to give financial advice, but I know that I don't have my money in any more of the large banks anymore. No, I keep as much out of it as I can, for sure. Yeah. And it's, it's It's kind of frightening. The good thing about the— what we saw in the US Debt Clock is that the new monies will be valued in silver and gold. And that means that the silver and gold prices are going to go through the roof before long. And all that that we're sitting on is going to be very valuable.
Yeah, I mean, I've heard— I've heard a lot of people speculate that gold's going to go to $10,000 an ounce, which I don't think is unreasonable. I don't either. I mean, So we we know that it's coming, but we just don't know when that is. Right. You know, and you've heard of BRICS. BRICS is. I don't think I have, but I know what BRICS are. Yeah. No, BRICS is Brazil. Oh gosh! Brazil, Russia, India, China, and anyway, but it's it's that BRICS is is a. acronym for 5 different countries, but now there's, there's probably 50 countries that have gotten on board with that. And what BRICS is, it's, it's an organization that is moving away from the US. They're— all these countries are moving away from the US
dollar and they're going to gold-backed currencies to buy and trade their oil and their resources, something that we've never seen. Yeah. Because the US dollar has been the reserve currency, but these countries now are no longer afraid to do that. Right. So, and a lot of people are scared because of that, that the US dollar is going to become, you know, completely useless and they're going to lose all their money. That isn't going to happen. Right. There are things going on behind the scenes and they're going to be prepared to exchange money out, a percentage of it, which I couldn't begin to tell you what that's going to be, but a percentage of your money will be given back in what the new currency is. When that's announced, but we know we're getting very close. These indicators with the
U.S. debt clock and BRICS and a whole lot of the stuff. There's a site out there called gesara.news, G-E-S-A-R-A dot news, right? And it's all articles on gold and silver and money things going on around the world. Very informative. I watch it carefully. Yeah. What's interesting to me about that? I mean, like you think about a country like Brazil and Russia. I mean, because America's currency is evaluated basically off of petro. Yeah. You know, but like Russia, they have a petro valuation as well. I mean, like, that's, that's what a lot of their economy is based off of. Yeah. So like, what's interesting is like, they're, they're— what you're saying is they're going back to the gold and silver, the gold and silver standard.
Yes. Even though like they, they own like a lot of the distribution of petroleum in Europe. So, and I own— I think, I think Brazil is actually a petro country as well. I know Venezuela is. And eventually the value of every country is going to be determined by their resources, which is how it should be. Sure. Oil, diamond mines, gold, silver mines, whatever. They're going to value a country based on, on those factors. And if you think about that, what, what country do you think would be the wealthiest country on the planet? China has a lot of them, has a lot of mines. Africa. Oh, that's right. Yeah, Africa. But Africa is the most suppressed country in the
world because the powers that be have gone over there and they own the gold mines and the silver mines and the diamond mines and the resources, and they basically push the people down into labor jobs that don't take care of them and all that. So they know that that's what— it's kind of like what somebody we know is doing with Ukraine. Yeah. And did with Afghanistan and all the opium and stuff. So all of these stories are going to come out and the whole world's going to get a little wake-up call to how and why all this worked out the way that it did. But the good news is, is it's— things are going to get better and things are going to get true. Yeah. in
how countries are evaluated and how their money is and things like that. And these countries deserve that stuff. For sure. Would you be concerned? I mean, because of the way that you just described Africa, and this is not a political show, but here we go. I would be concerned that if we did that, if we started valuating countries' currencies based off of their resources, that it would open up the conversation for colonization in some of these countries that couldn't fight off bigger countries, like Africa. Like, you start looking at like Nigeria and different places, you know, throughout there that like, okay, like, okay, if our currency is based off valuation, where we see the most potential is in this country, and they don't have a military that can withstand us, so we're just gonna go take it. And it's, it's not so much the currency
itself as it is the overall value of the country, meaning this country's worth $200 trillion. Okay? Right. And so they can— they're allowed to print enough money to back that, that kind of thing. So yeah, it's gonna get very interesting. And what I've done, and having been where I've been in the military, I've stayed in touch with a lot of pretty influential people in military circles. My bosses used to be generals and admirals. Right. When I worked for the state of Texas, and I get a lot of inside scoop on what's going on in the world. And it's— fortunately, it's, it's not as bad as it looks. It's not nearly as bad as it looks. There's things going on
behind the scenes that are going to make— hold accountable a lot of people and a lot of organizations that have done wrong in this world and done wrong to other people. And, you know, so it's, it's kind of exciting. It's, you know, you look around you and if you look at too much of it, it can be disheartening because what you see looks pretty bad. But I know that we are seeing what's been foretold over the years and we're going to see the defeat of evil, literally. That would be amazing. Exciting. Heck yeah, man. Yeah. Well, let me, let me see if I can get somebody else up here, but it's always good to check in with you, bud. Yes. And, and I want to let, uh, if, if people want to take advantage of that offer that you mentioned earlier, the
$500 off the solar system, how do they get a hold of you? Well, there's a few different ways. You can go to my website at txenergysaver.com, or you can email me at alan@txenergysaver.com, or you can call us at 682-243-0631. And, uh, we'll take care of your solar needs. Fantastic, man. I always appreciate and love getting to talk to you, man. Thanks. Me too, man. You're an interesting dude. You do a great podcast. I told you that a long time ago. You somehow know how to ask the right questions and we have great conversations. It's, it's meant to be. Oh, for sure. For sure. So good to see you, bud. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Christy, do you want to jump up here? Come on, girl. You're gonna make me chase you down.
I'm not running after you, so if you don't pay it, then that's enough on them. I let him get off just in time to pay his bill. I know, right? I'm like, I don't know him. It's not even my drink. I don't care if he pays or not. All right, you're gonna— you're probably gonna want to scoot over a little bit so I can get you in the shot. That is perfect. How you been, my friend? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Yeah. Am I close enough to the— Can you hear yourself? Yeah. That's all that matters. Oh, okay. Well, and I have to hear you too. Well, yeah, you can hear me. Doesn't help if I can only hear myself. You can just make up the answers to the questions I'm not asking. Oh man, what's been going on?
Working. Yeah. Yeah. We can— I mean, we, we can talk about all kinds of stuff because I know we've got— we've got— we're supposed to do like a long podcast in the studio to talk about everything going on in the business. We can— but we can talk about all that stuff too. We've tried twice now. You got flooded in. I got flooded in. I can't— I couldn't leave my driveway. I, I— so you, you told— I didn't know that you'd moved out to a big piece of property. Yeah. So one, are there any wild animals out there? Yeah. I mean, We have a roadrunner. Oh, really? Yeah, and I thought that was really cool because, I mean, you just don't see that. But no coyotes? I don't know. We saw some paw prints the other day when I was walking
around. I was like, is that a dog? Because we do have neighbor— I mean, we have neighbors. It's country, you know, so dogs just run free. Um, and we have like a ton of birds. We don't have a lot of squirrels. It's really weird. Do you not have a lot of trees? We have tons. The whole thing is trees. Okay, what kind of trees? By the pine? We have pine trees, but we have, we have oak trees too. Okay. Yeah, I mean, if I'm a squirrel, I don't want to be in a pine tree. Well, no, I mean, yeah, I don't even like pine trees. Me either. I hate the pine trees. I mean, like, don't get me wrong, they're great for like lumber. Yeah, like, but that's about it. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean, the pine needles are not bad like
in like the wooded part because it's— if they just fall on the ground, it's kind of like mulch. Yeah, so Doesn't bother me much. But the other part about that that intrigued me is you said that you have a tiny home now. 570 square feet. How's that? It's good. I mean, it's just me and Daniel. You're still married, so that's okay. Yeah, we're still married. We've been there a year. We're still married. Um, and but I mean, we're a weird kind of couple anyways. We like to do everything together, you know. If I say— I mean, just we go to the grocery store together. We— anytime anybody leaves the house, we're together. So For perspective, how big was the house that you moved out of? 3,500 square feet. So you went down to like just, just under 600?
Yeah. Yeah, and so how much, how much stuff did you have to get rid of? We have 3 storage units right now. Oh, you didn't get rid of anything. We have 3 storage units and I used 2 offices at, at the office suites. Oh my gosh. For storage, yeah. Yeah, we, and I told Daniel the other day, I was like, we've got to go through these storage units. Our whole goal was to only have one. We have a big 10 by 20. Okay. Um, and then is this one on the property or are you actually paying for storage? No, we're actually paying for storage. Why didn't you just buy like a couple of like— Because it has to be air-conditioned. I mean, if you don't have climate control, which
our storage units actually got broken into, 2 of them did. What? Yeah. Did they take anything? Yeah. What'd they take? We have no idea. Oh, you don't know what they took? Because I would have to unbox everything to know what was gone. But I mean, like, they caught the people that did it. They did it to like 4 different units. But they didn't find your stuff? They found some stuff, but they're— because I don't know what it is, like, we just don't know what it is. So, geez. And there's like paper and wrapping and stuff on the ground. What does the storage facility do to reconcile that? Nothing. Now honestly, the thing is, is because I'm sure we signed something. I mean, you sign like 7,000 pages. Sure. One of those things. I'm sure if
we had Like when we used to have our homeowner's insurance, it probably would have covered that. Okay. But now that we're on the property, my parents carry the coverage. It's actually my parents' property. Okay. So, um, but we're the only ones that live out there. So they have a house? It's supposed to be inheritance for us. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So right now it just makes more sense for them to keep it until, yeah, something happens to them. Huh. So yeah. So what, what has been— because I know, I know the tiny house thing is still a big trend. Yeah, and ours isn't the traditional tiny house. It's not like the ones where you like put it on— it's not on a trailer, it's on a slab. It actually was a metal building that when Daniel worked for Mueller,
they used to put a building up inside the NRG, like— Oh, like a display? Yeah, at the livestock show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they would put a building up so you could see all the components of the building, how it worked and everything, and my mom bought it because they don't want to take it home. But yeah, you know what I mean? Like, they're like, Mueller's like done with it. They don't, they don't really want to take it back down and all that stuff. So she got a pretty good deal? Yeah, she got a really good deal on it. My dad had his workshop. Okay, and you guys converted it? Yeah, because I mean, we were just thinking about it. We're like, okay, Kaylee— Kaylee's in her second year at Texas State now, so you know,
Kaylee's off to college, so yeah, we don't need 3,500 square feet. Sure. I— well The house I'm designing is like 7,000 square feet. I'm pretty sure Daniel's gonna use this against me now because every time I'm like, wait, what if we add this? And he's like, Christy, we don't need that much house. We don't need that much house. And I'm like, but I, I want it. I want the property to be a place where people can come and stay a weekend. They don't— I mean, I just want it to be a cool place. So how much did it cost for you guys to convert that workshop? Well, we're still doing it. Okay, so it's still in progress. Yeah, like I don't have
backsplash Because I can't— It's livable, it's just not finished. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have bathroom and all that. I mean, okay, it had a full bathroom already. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it wasn't— we had to put flooring in it and we had to do like sheetrock walls. Okay, and if you don't want to tell me numbers, that's fine, but I was just curious, like, thus far, like, what you've— I don't know, we've probably spent $5,000. That's not bad at all. Yeah, I mean, we had to reframe the whole inside because it's a metal building, so So you have to have something to attach. And put wood in there. Yeah. And that was during when like,
you know, wood prices were really crazy. Yeah. And then we had to sheetrock everything. We've got trim, base cabinets. I have countertops. I mean, some of it is like, like one of the construction projects I did, I made a mistake on the countertops on this big island. And so I had to buy them. Oh, what is this thing? Hi. Giant semi-truck just rolling down right through it. But I had to buy new countertops for that client, and so I just used those countertops. Okay, so I mean, that's, you know. So what do you have left to do on it? Backsplash. Okay. And upper cabinets. Okay, I imagine you can handle the backsplash. That's the problem. I can't pick something out. Are you too picky? Is that the— I can't pick it. Everything in the showroom is,
is so beautiful to me. I mean, obviously I wouldn't put all of it in my house, but everything is so beautiful to me. And then it's like I found the perfect backsplash. I'm like, I found it, I found the perfect backsplash. And I contacted my vendor and she's like, Christy, it's really, really expensive. And I was like, I'm sure it is, it's so small. I mean, it's like 18 feet long, you know, and just this one wall. I'm like, it's fine. My cost was $15,000. Oh my gosh. And I was like, okay, never mind. But why? Why is it— So it was natural stone, and it was a water jet mosaic. So they actually like use a water jet to cut the stone
and put this like pattern into it. Okay, so that's crazy. And then I was like, okay, that's a crazy amount of money for— And that was my cost. Yeah, that was— yeah, it was very expensive. There's no mistakes on this backsplash, all right? Like, okay, maybe I don't think Daniel's gonna let me spend $5,000 on that. We're not, we're not living here that long. You're not spending that. Have you done— and I've seen this in some nicer homes that I've been in, and I don't know if this is something you can do on backsplash, but I've seen on countertops where you can like under-light. Oh yeah. Like where like it's sort of like an ambient light coming from underneath the countertop. Yeah, it's called backlit. Backlit? Yeah. Can you do that on backsplash? You can actually. If you
look on my Facebook page, I have I went to one of our granite suppliers in Austin and their little kitchenette, they have it backlit and they actually did— I mean, you'd have to pre-plan it because you have to have a space behind it so that you can actually put lighting there. Right. But they actually did the upper cabinets in all glass, so it's all glass fronts and then you can see the back. It's a honey onyx, is what it is. And so you can see through the glass on the face of the cabinets. You can see it. It's absolutely gorgeous. When I've seen it, it's gorgeous. But like my— so like I look at it, there's the yin and
yang of me. Like there's the pessimist and the optimist, right? The optimist is like, that's so pretty. The pessimist in me is like, what happens when the light goes out? Yeah, so I mean, if you build it smartly, you could build it so that there's some sort of an access panel, right? You know what I mean? Like I mean, I assume they're like LED strips or— Yeah, okay. I mean, they're probably gonna last 10 years, but yeah, it could happen. A lot of people do it on the island because it's easy to have access panels on the island. Oh, that's smart, yeah. And so if you do it, if you do it in your kitchen like as a backsplash, you need to make sure you can at least access it from like maybe
there's a dining room on the back side of that or something. Yeah, the one, the one that I saw that was really impressive, it was an under-counter light, but when you— it was a master bath. Yeah. And when you walked in, you— it was like a button that you hit on the wall, and they were on dimmer packs, and so that would just slowly raise the light under the counter and then on top, and it was like just like this honey glow that just filled the room, and I was like, where am I? I need this in my house right now. I think I literally followed the rabbit down the hole. Like, this is not normal. And onyx is not cheap either. Yeah?
It's not cheap. I mean, it's a natural stone too, so. Okay. But it's, it's more of like a semi-precious stone. Are they, are they, is anybody doing that where it's the, um, what's the stuff that you always see people pouring liquid for the tables? Oh, like the resin? Resin. Yeah. Aren't they doing like resins that look like granite that you can do that with? Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure, I mean, I don't, I mean, I guess you could do that with the, like, make it more like an onyx, like a more clear I don't— I mean, I don't know resin prices. I don't either. I mean, like, I know those, those tables aren't cheap, but they're not— But a lot of times they're using like a live-edge
piece of wood, which is not cheap to get. Yeah, you know what I mean? That kind of stuff is really expensive. And the resin itself is not necessarily high price. I mean, it's— I mean, it's not cheap, but it's not something that would like, you know, be totally crazy expensive. But yeah, you're paying for somebody to do something that you most of us have no idea how to do. Right. It's not like a DIY. I mean, I have seen videos where they're like, DIY, you're gonna like pour your countertops, and I'm like, hmm, that's probably not as easy as they make it seem. The DIY I've seen here recently is concrete countertops. Yeah. Have you seen that? Yeah. Like, I don't understand what's the appeal there. I mean, I know they're durable. Durable. It's something you can
do on your own. It really is. I mean, that's why I've seen it, is because it shows up a lot in the DIY stuff. The only problem with it is like you really have to know like the Finishing techniques so that you get a smooth finish, because you don't want like a sidewalk finish, right? I mean, they kind of brush a sidewalk so that it has like a rougher finish. So I have to imagine it's like 2 times, if not more, heavier than like a regular countertop though. That is something. Well, you could do like a lightweight concrete. I don't know what the difference is. They— so with a lightweight concrete, they mix more water into it, and so when the water evaporates It's, it's a lighter, lighter
concrete. Even then, I would imagine it's heavier than most countertops. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, like, so you're like, your cabinets better be sturdy. Yeah, yeah, don't, don't use like a ready-made cabinet or something. Like, it needs to be solid wood, please. Yeah, that particle board would just like buckle. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah, I mean, and you know, granite, and I mean, especially now, light, but yeah, I mean, a lot of the granites now we're getting into 3 3cm, which is a lot thicker. What is that? 3cm? What is that? So that's how thick it is. So most countertops are 2cm, and it is— That's not like centimeters? Centimeters. Is that what it is? Okay. So, um, but when they do the edge on the front, they make it look like it's thicker.
Oh, okay. So the way you can tell is when you look around the cutout for your sink, it'll usually be really thin. That's a 2cm. But a lot of, a lot of people want that thickness, and so they're providing that more. So that, I mean, that makes it more heavier. Yeah, I can tell you why you don't want that. Is that a— is that a— It can be, yeah, we'll allow it. It's the most heaviest. Kevin's not here to make you sound smarter. Like, who knows? No, but like the— so that, that trim piece on the front of countertops when they make it look thicker, I know exactly what you're talking about. Because if you're gonna have a roach infestation in your kitchen, that's where it's gonna be
almost every time. It's— and I actually— we put up a video. There was the way— I'll never watch that video. Well, I'm sorry. It was this kitchen we were treating, and they had done the trim piece like almost up against the edge of the cabinet, but there was still like a little seam, and we shot some stuff up in there, and the roach couldn't get out. And so he was like sticking his legs out trying to get out from the Oh my God. And so it's like, it's— but like, that's the first place we look every time because no one cleans there. Yeah. No one looks there. Yeah. Like, that's where they're gonna be. Yeah. Cracks and crevices anywhere. So it's like, if I'm, if I'm gonna get it done now,
it's like, man, I just, just put— make it that thick all the way around. And that's what— yeah, that's what you can do. Yeah. Then you don't have that little lip. Yeah. That beveled edge or whatever that is. Yeah. It's— I mean, it's just a hidey-hole for bugs. That's all it is. Okay, note to everyone listening, bugs and goo. Now everyone's gonna go start checking around there. I wouldn't recommend it. No, no, no, no, I will not. Yeah, send Daniel. Yeah, got a little job for you. He's gonna be like, what? Thankfully he's only got 500 square feet to check. No, that's true. Yeah, yeah, it's just one run. So is, is there, is there anything that you've found really challenging about moving down to that, that small of a space? Really just
trying to figure out what is essential. Yeah, yeah, because when we— so when we moved last year, it was right before we were leaving. Like, we moved in January 31st, February 1st we were boarding a plane to go to Las Vegas for a tile convention. Oh wow. So we literally like I mean, I think we were up till like 2 o'clock in the morning and then we had to leave at like 5 to get on the plane. And so when we got back, we didn't even have our bed set up and we got back really late. So we ended up staying in a hotel when we got back because I was like, I'm too tired to go home and put our bed together. Yeah. Like, it was just all in there.
So yeah, it is really just being storage, just trying to be, you know, Yeah. Like, just trying to figure out good storage ideas. And then also, like, do we really need, you know, 25 towels between the two of us? No, we don't. So, you know, you just pick your favorite towels and, and leave the other ones in storage. Did you guys get completely different appliances to fit in that space? Yeah, we bought a refrigerator, although the refrigerator we have is a— it's a full-size refrigerator. And then The stove that we have, it's, I mean, it's a nice-sized stove. It's a regular-sized stove. I mean, our kitchen, the building's 18 feet wide, and so our kitchen goes from one end. It kind of does like a
little kickback, and so it goes from one end all the way to the other. So we've got a ton of countertop space. We got some really nice cabinets. And I mean, there's just things that you just don't think about. Like, you know, I used to buy paper towels in like a 25-pack, and now I buy it in a 4-pack. 4-pack instead because I just don't have anywhere to put them. Yeah. So I've often thought about when it's just me and my wife eventually, like downsizing to a smaller refrigerator because it's such a huge footprint in the kitchen. I can get so much more space and I don't need that much food. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we used to have a full
walk-in pantry and now we just have a 24-inch wide cabinet. It's 20, you know. You've been to my house. Yeah. We haven't had a pantry in seven years. Yeah, I mean, like you don't need one. No, and I mean ours is it's full. It's ninety six. There's my wife, right? We don't need a pantry. We don't need a pantry. Right? Yeah, yeah. Well, and you tend to not like keep all this stupid stuff. Like I mean, I can't tell you how many times we've moved, and then I'm going to clean out the pantry, and I'm like this expired before we even moved here. Like why did we put that in a box and? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna have to wrap things up because it's raining. Tell everybody how they can find you if they need you. Um, expressivetylenstone.com, and I'm on Facebook at Expressive Tile and Stone, Instagram at Expressive Tile and Stone. Okay, TikTok at Expressive Tile and Stone. We'll still do the easy— we'll do the, we'll do the— yeah, we'll do the full one. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you guys, everybody, for joining in. We appreciate you joining, uh, out everybody that we had on the show tonight. Uh, definitely check on that, that big offer from Alan. Uh, until next time, we'll see ya.
