That Time We Talked About Kevin’s Top 10 Must Have’s

This is episode number 57 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are glad that you could be with us today. What episode is this, Kev?

57.

57.

Yeah.

It's like my favorite Chevy.

Well, a lot of people will debate you on the '56, '57.

Bring it.

Even the '58.

You're all wrong.

Okay. The '57's pretty slick.

Yeah.

They're all pretty slick.

Like any of us would turn one down in that condition.

I would not.

Or maybe even like with a little bit of rust, I'd still take it.

Yeah, absolutely. So everybody turns their heads whenever you see one. For sure.

Could have it in my garage.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We might talk about garages here in a minute.

We might.

Yeah.

So what's been going on, man?

Dude, uh, nothing, nothing out of the ordinary.

Yeah.

Just, uh, continuing to, to work football. And it seems like the, the thing that I— it's like the everything right now. Uh, lots, lots of stuff going on with that, but it's all good. Um, you know, some of you may, may remember that when we started this podcast, I was, I was having a— You were hobbled. I was having a knee issue. Yeah, had torn my ACL. So being able to run around, dude, that, that's a big deal for me.

Heck yeah.

So I'm pretty pumped about that. And like every week it's, it's, it's feeling better and it's getting better as far as that goes. So, um, so yeah, that's exciting. Um, you know, it's, it's interesting, we're getting into the fall season and so, um, you know, Thanksgiving is around the corner. Yeah. And obviously Halloween too, but like Thanksgiving's a big deal for our family and so Getting some things already prepared in my mind about like stuff I'm gonna do over the Thanksgiving week. Mm-hmm. I just, man, I love this time of year, dude.

I, the fall is probably my favorite season.

Yeah.

By far.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's fun that, that the problem is that, that here in Houston it's still in the mid-90s and it's, it's the beginning of October.

But no, I mean like, well, to give everybody like a, a clue, I mean like, this is, we're, we're gonna be in, into October by the time this, this episode airs. And I, I was looking over the weekly forecast and I I was like really excited because the high throughout the week was 92.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I was like, oh, it's gonna be so cool.

It gets down into the mid-70s at night. Yes. Yes. It's like, okay. In fact, I saw one weird random day that the high was gonna be 79.

Mm-hmm.

It was one day and I'm like, it'll be glorious. First of all. Yeah. First of all, I'll believe it when I see it. Yeah. And say like, maybe it was a misprint. Maybe it's supposed to be 97 instead of 79.

Some goober at the Weather Channel's just messing with us.

Weather.com is Just, you know, playing games.

Oh man.

But yeah, how are you doing, man?

I'm doing pretty good. Like, you know, we're, we're still— we're almost done with the house.

Yeah, it's looking good.

We can see the end in sight.

Yes.

So we, we had a, we had a big mishap the other night.

Really?

Oh, it was so bad. Yeah, so, so I, I'd left and, uh, we'd had a really busy weekend, and so I went to my high school reunion by myself. Yeah, uh, left, uh, left Brandy and the kids here at home. We had to like— the, the The next day— so this was a Friday night, and the next day we had to be at a fun run. It was a fundraiser.

Yeah.

And we had to be there at like 5 in the morning.

Oh goodness.

Because we were bringing a lot of this stuff for it. And so I was like, look, you stay at home, get some sleep. I'll go to this reunion, visit with my friends. I'll come back and we'll get up and go to the race in the morning. So I was, I was going between 2 events at the reunion. I called to check in. And my wife told me that, hey, a pipe burst while you were gone.

Oh no.

And I was like, what the heck?

Yeah.

And she goes, don't worry about it. You know, the crew was here, they fixed it. They said we can't turn the water on for like 2 hours, but it'll be fine. You know, we'll turn the water back on and you stay at your thing. No big deal. I said, okay.

Yeah.

So, you know, stayed out and visited with friends, had a good time catching up. And I ended up getting home about midnight.

Wow.

Which, you know, having to be somewhere at 5 the next morning.

Not your best choice.

my best choice, but it was a choice and I made it.

Um, you owned it.

Yeah. So I get home and I'm like, all right, I probably better go look at this thing, see what's going on. Well, I walk and it was in the bathroom. Yeah. And in our new shower. And I walk in and water is just going everywhere.

Oh no.

And the pipe had come out of a fitting and was just gushing water all over the floor.

What are the chances?

And I was like, I don't know how long this has been going on because, you know, everybody had probably been asleep since like 9 o'clock.

Yeah.

So I mean, the water could have been running in that room for like 3 hours.

Oh my goodness.

So anyway, so I walked like from my house down to the street where the, the water main is to turn the water off from the house. It's like 100 yards.

Yeah.

So I had to walk down there in the dark, find the water main, turn it off, go back up, try and figure out what's going on, refit the pipe, reglue it. And once I got it stuck up in there again, I was like, well, I'm just gonna leave the water off all night.

Yeah.

'Cause I don't wanna have to wake up to this again.

Nope.

So I left the water off all night, got up the next morning, went down the driveway again, turned the water, and this was like at 4 in the morning, and I didn't finish fixing everything till like 2 in the morning. So it was, it was just one of those, like, it was one of those, it was one of those moments as a homeowner where like you start to, you start to ask yourself like, why?

Why?

Why did I do this?

Yeah.

Why am I owning this house.

Yeah.

So, but it's fixed now.

Yeah.

We actually had a plumber come out and our contractors took care of that for us. They, they really, they really did a good job, you know, standing, standing by that.

Well, again, get a good contractor.

Yep.

They'll take care of you.

And they did. They took really good care of us.

Good.

Um, so it's all fixed up now.

Good.

They're gonna come back and patch all that up.

Yeah.

And this week sometime, so we should be back in business. But I did get to try out the shower. It is fabulous.

Yeah, dude, that thing is— it's, it's slick. For, for those of you who— I mean, Eventually there will be some pictures up, I know.

Yeah. But, um, we'll do, we'll do a photo shoot.

You've got like a, like a 1-foot-square rainfall shower head.

Yeah.

Is it 1 foot?

Oh, it's, it's actually a little bigger.

What?

Yeah.

It's, it's massive.

It's 18 inches by 18 inches.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. It's, it's huge and I love it.

Yeah. It's, it's huge. So it's, it comes right outta the ceiling and it's, man, it's like you're being rained on. It's like a waterfall.

It is. I, I, and like part, so one of the things that we did that was a little bit different is it's a, it's an open shower. Yeah. So there's no doors and no glass.

Right.

Which, that's exactly what I hate— cleaning glass on showers. It's the worst.

And it gets all—

what's the stuff that gets on the—

It's a film of some sort.

Yeah, it's like a white—

yeah.

And it's the— you can't get it off.

No.

And no, no one wants to clean that.

Squeegees don't work.

Yeah. So we just— we made the shower big enough where we didn't need glass. But then one of the things you have to watch out for when you're doing that is you have heat loss.

Yes.

That's part of the reason you do glass and you do curtains, not just to keep the water in there, but to keep the heat.

Well, and also the cold air from hitting your body whenever you're, you know, taking a shower.

So, uh, that was part of the reason that I wanted to get this massive rain head because like you can get up underneath it and nothing will hit you cuz that water surrounds you.

It's like you're inside it. It's pretty awesome.

So yeah, it's, it stayed warm. It's, yeah.

I might come over and shower in it. Well, all right. You, you're not welcome.

We're, we'll be in Florida next week. I guess that'd be okay. Perfect timing.

I will need a shower next week. Yeah, whether I think I do or not.

So anyway, we have this— we have a pretty cool episode tonight. I'm pretty excited about it.

Yeah, so, you know, Craig and I, the way we come up with episodes is, is probably not exactly how you think.

It's very scientific.

Yeah, that's way more scientific than you think. But so for this episode, I was just kind of thinking, what would be something fun that we could do that's different, it's out of the ordinary, but, but it's something that I think that we all kind of go through whenever we're looking at buying a house. And the one thing that the realtor is going to ask you really quickly out of the gate is, what are your must-haves? Right. And what are those things? If they're a good realtor, if they are, hopefully. Like, I guarantee you, Brandy— Brandy's going to ask you that question.

Yeah. Our realtor, she did ask you that question.

She did. Brandy Banks. She's awesome. Um, she asked, you know, what are your must-haves? Because, I mean, let's face it, If you don't know what your must-haves are, then you're never gonna find a house that fits you.

Right.

There's no way you can just spitball, like, let's go look at all these houses. Like, you have to have some criteria. And, you know, if you go on these search engines, like around here it's har.com, uh, but, you know, even if you're looking on Zillow or wherever you're looking, you know, Trulia, yeah, you're, you're wherever you're looking, they're gonna have a few parameters that you can put in, you know, like how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, Those sorts of things, right? Square footage, those types of things. So anyway, uh, so what we're gonna do is I'm gonna go first and we're gonna do this episode, uh, that is the, my must-haves.

Right.

And, and Kevin's top 10. That, um, our top, my top 10. And then we will at some point do a, do an episode with Craig's top 10 as well. So, uh, so we're just gonna go in and these are in no particular order because they're all must-haves, right?

Yeah.

Like there's not like one that's really more important than the other.

Um, however, do you, do you even need me to do the show today?

Yes. Okay, because I want you to tell me how dumb I am.

Done. Um, do you want me to start it off at the beginning?

No, I gotta, I gotta mention something first. Okay, listen, I have some prepared remarks. Yeah, I figured you did. Um, now, now I will tell you that, that there are definitely things that at the end of the day you're going to compromise on something, because even if you have a list of 5 things, there's gonna be a house that's got 4 of them and it doesn't have that one, right?

Right.

So I'm going to go down my list and then we'll talk about it.

Are they in order or are they just— are they just the list?

I feel like there are some things that are, that are a little bit at the top, kind of the things you have to know. And so we're going to start with those. Like, for me, 4 bedrooms is a must.

Okay. So is that— so you're saying like, that's your number one?

That's number one.

Okay.

4 bedrooms is a must. Like, Like, we— when we were looking for a house—

Is that because your wife wants you to have your own room?

Well, primarily, yes.

Okay.

No, when we were looking for a house, um, we, we specifically said we do not want to look at a house that has less than 4 bedrooms, right? We were willing to compromise if a certain option was available, and that option was like a super perfect spare bedroom or a spare room that was like dual purpose that we could put a Murphy bed in or something like that.

Okay.

Um, we were interested in like a Murphy bed idea. Um, if you don't know what a Murphy bed is, um, a Murphy bed is basically a fold-up bed that folds up into the wall. Yeah. And then you fold it down and when you need it. Yeah, it's a space saver, really.

Um, have you seen the new ones?

Dude, they have all kinds of new ones.

Like they fold up into like a box.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Yeah, they have— dude, you— they have them that, that are Murphy bunk beds. And like all, dude, all kinds of things, things that like fold up into a sofa.

Mm-hmm.

And you would think, oh, that's just a sofa bed. No. And I'm, I'm not talking about just a sofa bed, like with the horrible, you know, 2-inch mattress that has a bar through your back, like a true Murphy bed. Um, anyway, some really cool options out there. Uh, but anyway, 4 bedrooms is really important. So a bedroom for my wife and I, A bedroom for my 2 kids each, and then a spare bedroom.

Gotcha.

The reason we needed a spare bedroom was, at the time— so my mother-in-law comes down regularly and will spend the weekend with us. I mean, that happens at least once a month.

And you want to continue to encourage that?

I do.

OK.

I actually do really like my mother-in-law.

You're not just saying that because she listens to the show?

No, she probably doesn't listen. Let's be honest. But I, you know, we, we like being a space that if we have friends in or family, that we don't just have to completely upset our rhythm of life in order to give a family or, or a person their own space. So we wanted to have a guest room. Um, now since then it's worked out really well because my wife also works from home. And so that— we don't have an office, so to speak, right? But now that has— we've, we've done some, some things to that room to where it's dual purpose. So now her, her office is inside our spare bedroom, but it's also got a queen-size bed in it. So, you know, if anyone's coming over, we have a space for them.

Yeah.

So it was big for us.

Sure.

Um, so 4 bedrooms, big deal. The second thing that was a big deal to us was 2 living areas. Okay, so I, I know that's, that's not on a lot of people's list, but we, we had— we— first of all, you, once you have something that works, you want it again, right? So we were a little bit spoiled because the very first house that we owned was 4 bedrooms and 2 living areas. Now, it was still only a little bit more than 1,900 square feet. It was laid out really, really well to have have that much space in it. But, um, we wanted 2 living areas because we wanted a living area for our family. In fact, we— in our previous house, we

just called that our family room, and we had a separate living area, living room, but that wound up becoming a playroom.

Okay.

So young kids, we wanted them to have a space that was their own, to have a playroom. And, you know, everybody has their own idea how they're gonna, how they're gonna do their family stuff.

Sure.

But we really wanted our kid to encourage our kids playing together and for their bedroom to be a space that they slept in.

Yeah.

And did homework in, which they're not quite there yet. My daughter's starting to have some homework, but not really homework.

Yeah.

But we wanted that to kind of be their, their hideaway space, not their play space.

Gotcha.

And so we wanted to have a playroom for them dedicated for that to encourage them to play together. Uh, in fact, it worked out really, really well like last night because, um, your wife called us in the afternoon and was like, hey, you know, can our kids come over? Craig and I have some plans tonight. And so we were like, sure. So your 3 kids came over and hung out. And I think— I mean, I went into the playroom this morning, it was absolutely destroyed. And it was awesome because that's what we have that space for.

Yeah.

Like, we We don't care if that space gets destroyed. It's pretty easy to clean up and it's a big enough space that 5 kids can be back there playing and hanging out.

Yeah, that was probably only done by like one of my kids.

Mine was also involved.

I'm not saying that yours weren't. I'm just saying if it was a big mess, it could have been done by just one of mine.

Yeah, well. She's a bowling ball. I have a bowling ball too. They were probably doing it together.

Yeah, it's team bowling.

So 2 living areas, really important to us. Um, the other thing that, that we really like about having 2 living areas is, again, we like having people over. We like hosting other families to come over and, and just have dinner, that kind of, that sort of thing. So it allows us to have kind of an adult space and a kid space.

Yeah.

Most— not— I mean, this isn't exclusive, but, but most of the people that, that we like having over are people that are our age.

That have kids.

They have kids. And so they go back to the back of the house where the, where the playroom is. They get their own space. We get to hang out in the living area and—

Actually have a conversation.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And, and in my house, which Craig talks about how weird his house is, my house is, is interesting in and of itself, um, but that room is literally on the other side of the house.

Yeah, it is. It's kind of cool.

It's a long way away. We've got the longest hallway in the history of hallways. I think it's very, very long.

You guys could like recreate that scene from The Shining, the little kid on the tricycle.

Could.

Maybe we have.

Maybe that was filmed at our house.

Maybe.

I'm not gonna sleep tonight.

I'm gonna wait till like 2 AM and just send you Red Rum.

Oh gosh, please don't do that. Um, I, I actually, I'll probably be asleep and Yeah, do not disturb.

You won't be fixing any bursted pipes or anything.

I hope not. I mean, I will if I have to, but I sure hope not. Um, so yeah, 2 living areas, important.

Nice.

So, uh, the next thing on my list, and, and this is kind of funny, the next thing on my list is one story. I did not want stairs. Um, so previous house, no stairs. It was pier and beam, so there actually were couple of steps in order to get up into the house. Yeah, but, you know, all one story. Um, and I wanted a one-story house, which was going to be a very difficult thing to do here in Houston, to find a 4-bedroom house with 2 living areas in one story.

Yeah.

Because they hardly exist. Um, most of the houses around here are 2 stories. They just, they just are.

Yeah.

I mean, when you've got as many people living in the area that we have Now Houston's got a massive footprint, right? But there's a ton of people and they build houses on top of each other. And so, um, you know, the way you get more space is to build up.

Yeah.

And so I, I was willing to compromise on this one. I really did not want to. What's really funny is my daughter had 2 criteria. So she was 4, right, when we moved She had 2 criteria. She said she wanted stairs and a reading nook.

That's why she likes coming to my house.

Yeah, dude, she loves— to this day she was like, I really like our house, I just wish it had stairs. She just wanted stairs and then a reading nook, which she wanted a space to be able— she's very much like my wife. She's introverted. she likes to be by herself and she wanted a space to go where nobody else could bother her. And so those were her 2 criteria.

You didn't give her either one.

I— well, we did give her one. We did give her a reading nook. Her bedroom happens to have 2 closets in it.

Oh, okay.

And they're both decent size. And so we just created one to be— we took the door off of it, put a curtain up.

Yeah.

Instead of an actual door. And it had some shelving in it. So we put books in there. And so we kind of made it her own little little space. All right, so, but I, I, I get the appeal of the one story. Yeah, I do.

I mean, like, yeah, mostly because my house is nothing but stairs.

Um, well, even to go to your kitchen, you have to go upstairs 2 flights. 2 flights of stairs, or one and a half. Yeah, I don't know how that works. Either way, there are steps involved.

There are steps involved. Yeah, yeah, to get the groceries up there, all that kind of stuff. I, I, I get it.

You wanna drink a water? Go up some steps.

Yeah. Yeah. So I get the— and I grew up in a one-story house and they're nice. But to me, there is something about having that separation rather than having a long hallway. You just have some stairs.

Yeah. And so one of the things that I will say is, and this is another one of our must-haves, is not open concept.

Oh, really?

Yes. So it's interesting because when we told our realtor this, uh, we told Brandy, we were like, we, we don't want open concept, and we know we're weird about that. And her response was really interesting. She said, it's not nearly as weird as you think it is. But really, like, because if you go watch HGTV, for example, um, most people are looking for a big open concept. Yeah, right. Like, um, they want that, that space to not be closed in. They don't want to be confined.

Yeah.

Um, we like the separation. We like to have areas that you can go into and kind of be separated from other areas. Um, it's just a personal preference of ours. We, we— I mean, and part of it is even like we don't want to stare at our kitchen if it needs cleaned, you know? Like, if, if we want to watch a movie and we still got dishes in the dish— in the sink, and we haven't cleaned out the dishwasher yet, and so there's a process there, uh, we wanna, we wanna not be looking at that whenever we're sitting down, you know?

Yeah.

We kind of want it out of sight, out of mind. Um, and so when it comes to one-stories, the ones that we like the most have separation. Um, the, the house that we had previously was separated. This house, you know, the, the bedrooms are in a completely different part of the house. Um, so much so that they've got their own thermostat. I mean, they're, they're really—

Yeah.

In a hallway all by themselves. So, you know, I, I understand what you're saying. The separation is really nice. We like the separation too.

Yeah.

So much so that we don't like open concept.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

Again, I think, I think probably the appeal of open concept to people is it makes you feel like you're getting more house on a smaller footprint.

It feels big. Yeah, like you can get an 1,800 square foot house, it feels really big.

Yeah, because you put a big tall ceiling in it and you connect the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. And you know, yeah, that, that's what we had in our last house. And it was what I tell you, what it's really good for is it's good for for hosting people.

Absolutely great for hosting people.

Yeah, I mean, and so like, if that's your thing, then open concept is probably more your bag. But like, if you're more into like intimate gatherings, you know, probably closed off is gonna work a little bit better. I actually like both. I mean, I don't know that I would have a preference. It would just depend on whether or not I like the rest of the house.

Yeah, yeah. And I also think how those How those spaces flow into each other really matter.

Sure.

Um, so in our house, like I said, we've got a clear separation between the front of the house and the back of the house. We've also got the, the, uh, the courtyard outside.

Yeah.

So like whenever it comes to having people over, we kind of keep everybody in the front of the house. Um, and, and it works out.

Yeah, it works out well. I was, I was sitting here thinking as you're describing why you like closed-off houses, I'm like, yeah, he's even got like doors going into his living room that closes it off from the rest of them.

We do, we do.

Yeah.

And now that was, that was there before we, we got there. Sure.

But I can imagine you seeing that and going, oh, I like that.

Yeah, we did. Yeah, yeah, we did. In fact, we had them closed today. We were in there and, um, you know, we, we just got our dog spayed. And so, um, it was about a week ago and she just came out of the cone of shame today.

Oh.

And so we kind of wanted to keep our eye on her, you know, so we closed those doors so she couldn't go somewhere else in the, in the house.

Yeah.

You know, bother herself. So, so yeah, we just kind of like that, that separation.

Yeah, there's no closing off once you open it wide up.

No.

So no, no luck.

It's— yeah, it's really, really difficult because you lose something. You lose vaulted ceilings, you lose— there's different things that you wind up losing.

Which I will say, I mean, if you like tall ceilings, it's difficult to achieve that In a closed-off house.

It is.

So, and I, I do like tall ceilings.

I do too. Um, it's interesting though because our house has both.

It does, yeah.

Uh, our living area— both of our living areas have vaulted ceilings, but the rest of the house does not.

Yeah.

So, uh, basically we have attic space in the non-living areas of our space— of our house, and we just have no attic space in our, in our 2 living areas.

Which is cool because they're on exterior parts of the house anyway.

Yeah, it makes it, it makes it doable, you know. So it was, it was a well-designed house in my opinion to achieve what we have. It was designed well. Now the other thing that is a must-have for us though is windows. Since we like the closed-off, like not open concept, we like big windows.

Mm-hmm.

And so we wanted plenty of window space. We definitely have that, like so much so that we had to put solar screens on our house to just keep the temperature down because there's so many windows that the heat was just unbearable.

Oh, they didn't have those on before?

Nope.

Really?

Nope.

Dude, they must have been paying a fortune.

They had to have. In fact, when we, when we went in to do our inspection for that house, um, like, if you don't know this, you can show up to your inspection.

Sure.

For your house. And I encourage you—

You should.

You should. But for some reason, some people think that they're not allowed or something. No, there's so many reasons to show up for your own inspection before you buy a house. I mean, I was in that house for over 2 hours inspecting it myself.

Yeah.

Not to mention the fact I got to listen to what the inspector was saying.

Yes.

As he was doing his work.

So you can also go, did you look at this?

Yep, exactly. So while we were there, walked in and that, that very front living room, they had the fan going full blast. Yeah. Which was like a trigger to me. I was like, why? Why do you have that going full blast? I walked in there and I went, that's why. It's hot in this room. It was the morning. It was like 10 o'clock in the morning. It was super hot in there. Well, that— those huge windows in that room, uh, like full wall full of windows.

Yeah.

And it's a vaulted ceiling, so even the vaulted areas have, have windows. And that room faces east. And so that sun was just beating down on those windows. It was super hot in there. Um, so it was something that honestly was kind of concerning to me. I was going, oh, this is no good.

Yeah.

Um, but we put on solar screens and that changed everything. I mean, dude, solar screens are amazing. They're really, really— and it changed the look of the outside of our house too, which was, which was a positive.

Did they put those on the outside or the inside?

They're on the outside.

Okay.

Yeah, they're on the outside. And, and you can, you can get different um, percentage of block, like sunblock, right? Um, but you can still see out pretty well from the inside. It's just from the outside you can't see in. No, not really. It's kind of some privacy, which is nice. But big windows were a big deal to us as well. So our house has a ton of windows. Um, so that's, that's a, that's a must-have for us as well.

Keeping Windex in business.

Yeah, yeah, we actually— I told my wife the other day, I Uh, don't open the window. There's a lot of work to be done. We definitely need to spend some time working on our windows because there's a lot of them and they need cleaning. So, so yeah, windows. The next thing was a 2-car garage.

Okay.

Now, um, interestingly enough, we've never had a garage before. I've had one growing up. We had a garage.

Um, you didn't have one at your last house?

We did not have one at our last house. In fact, this was— Carport or something? Yeah. Okay. This was, this was on our, our list of must-haves in our last house, and I compromised. Not only did we not have a 2-car garage, we had a 1-car carport. Ah, so we didn't even have anything.

Whoever gets home first.

Well, what it meant is my wife got the carport. That's what that meant. Um, and you know, a lot of people use their garages for storage.

Yep.

And And we just don't want to do that. However, that being said, just because of the space that we have, half of our garage is used for storage.

Yeah.

Kind of. So my wife's car parks in the garage, which, you know, it's amazing the difference in temperature of your car, getting in and out of your car, especially living in the area we do, just, you know, so hot, um, or cold. You know, if you live in a cold place, having a garage, dude, changes everything. Um, but my, my truck gets, gets parked outside, but we also have a golf cart, so that needs a place indoors. Yeah. And so we've got that inside.

Um, I would, I would actually think that— well, I, I would think this is true— is that most people that live up north in colder areas utilize their garages a lot more as garages for cars than people in the I would agree with that. So most people I know— I mean, and I'm in and out of a lot of people's houses, and so from my experience, most people use their garages for storage.

Yeah, and, and that actually is another one of my must-haves, which is storage. Plenty of storage. Um, because I don't really want to use my garage as storage. The previous house that we had, dude, we had like a 400-square-foot shed in the back that was heated and cooled, and so that was our storage. I didn't care what I put. I had my baseball cards back there. That's how, that's how nice that area was. I would never put that in a non-climate-controlled space. Um, but having, having a, a good storage area was important to us. Thankfully, our, our attic space above our garage was floored.

Oh, cool.

And had light up there, so you just pull the chain And we've got plenty of space up there.

Are you talking about the one you're in now?

Yes.

Okay.

Now it gets super hot up there, right?

Yeah.

So the way we accomplished that, a fix, was to put an attic fan in.

Right.

And if you've never looked into an attic fan, I would highly encourage looking into an attic fan for multiple reasons. Even if you don't use your attic for storage, it will significantly change your heating and cooling bill because you get, you you exit the heat from your attic and you're going to have a cooler house.

Yeah.

That's just the way that works. And they, they're, they're not that expensive. I think it was like $1,000. Um, but it's on a solar panel, so it uses no electricity, uh, from your, from your system, from your grid. And it's on a thermostat, so when it gets to a certain degree, it kicks on, it pulls the, the heat and turns off whenever it hits the, the temperature. So basically our attic is the same temperature as our garage.

Okay.

Which is not bad, right? Not bad. So, um, so yeah, store it— closet storage, you know, um, pretty important for most people. Um, we got some pretty good storage in the one we have currently. The one we, the one we moved out of We did not have enough storage inside, but we had that shed out back. Yeah. Which made a huge difference.

Yeah. For us. So, you know, I, I, I go back and forth on that, uh, because I think, I think a lot of people when they have space, they use it. They, they use it.

They fill it up. Yeah.

They just fill it up with junk.

You're right. And I'm not saying we don't have junk.

Well, I, you know, I don't know what your stuff is, but like, I just know how I am and if I have space, I mean, like, nature abhors a vacuum. I mean, yeah, you know, and like, we just— we as people just, we like to accumulate stuff and it's difficult to get rid of that. So it's like that home organization episode that we did.

Yep.

You know, I mean, like, that's what those people come in and try and cure. It's like, just get rid of the stuff you don't need.

That's right.

Which is most of your stuff.

It is. But, but I'll tell you, a lot of the stuff that we wind up storing are seasonal.

Yeah.

So like, my wife's big into decorating for the seasons.

Yeah.

Those sorts of things. So we've got tubs of decorations that— could we do without? Absolutely.

Yeah.

Uh, but it, it's nice. I mean, if you're the type of person that likes to host and have people over and have a house that is seasonally, um, you know, decorated, then you got to have a place to put that stuff.

Yeah.

And, and some people, the way they get around that is to rent a storage Yeah, like somewhere. But to be honest, I don't want to drive to a storage shed just to pick all my stuff up, you know? And that's off-site. And I had a storage shed one time, a unit that was vandalized, and I'm a little bit gun-shy with those types of things.

Well, not only that, I mean, like those things— I mean, like, you know, not to dig on any people that own storage facilities, but like, you know, tend to be like rodents and bugs and stuff that get in your stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, you know, it's, it's an option. If you have storage at your house, that's a better option.

Yeah.

So, um, so yeah, garages and, and, um, storage spaces are definitely important. So, uh, the next thing that is important to me—

What number are we on now?

I don't know, 7 maybe. Someone's supposed to be counting.

Top 10.

Top 10. Or Top 10-ish. We'll go with that. Top 10-ish. Um, so the, the next one for me is a smart home.

Okay.

I, I, I— first of all, I'm just a, I'm just a technology geek.

Yeah.

And junkie as well. And so like, for me, I really like having my smart devices. Uh, I'm not even overboard in some areas. Like, we don't have any smart plugs that will turn on lamps or plug in certain things. We don't have any of those. But we have 3 things that have been really important to me. One of them is our thermostats. If you're interested in smart thermostats, you need to go listen to our episode on the Ecobee. But there's others out there that are good. Craig and I just chose the Ecobee, and we are happy with it.

That may seem like conspiratorial, like we're making something off it. Like, we're not. We just, we just really liked it.

I kind of wish we were, but we're not. The Ecobee is a great device. One of the things I love about it is I told you that one room was, was hotter than the others. Yeah, it, it still has the tendency to be a different temperature even though we've got the solar screens. It's just on the far end of the house from where the thermostat is.

is.

So I've got a room sensor in there, and so because of the room sensor, I'm able to push air where it needs to go, and it cools down my house as it needs to.

Yeah.

Um, so that— I'll tell you now, we have seen significant savings in our, in our heating and air conditioning bill because of having a smart thermostat. It keeps us on track. Um, the other thing it does is like Even with a 7-day programmable, it doesn't account for if no one's in the house.

Right.

Right now, if no one's in the house, my thermostat changes.

Right.

Things like that, that are just usage things that you can't do even with just a regular programmable thermostat, it's an important thing for us. The other thing is smart locks. I love my smart locks so much! inevitably, I've got like 49 things to get out of my car because my kids have left this, that, or the other. I've got my own stuff I got to carry in, and my kids make it to the door before I do. And I can, like, whenever I show up on my doorstep, uh, pull into the, you know, the garage or, you know, the driveway, and my front door unlocks.

Yeah.

So they can go right in. They don't have to worry about it. I've had multiple instances where, you know, someone needs to get into my house. I can open it from anywhere. Um, the other I'll tell you one of the things that's really, really cool, and this happened to me just the other night. Kind of scared me, actually. You know, they're— when they, when they lock or unlock, they make noise.

Yeah.

I mean, they're, they're electronic, and so they've got kind of a sound that they make. And I was sitting in the living room next to our front door, and all of a sudden it locked.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I wasn't expecting it to, and it was late. It was 11 o'clock at night. Well, I have it set to where if it's unlocked at 11 o'clock, it locks itself.

Oh, okay.

And, and I've got my other— I've got 2 others that are on a timer as well, so that if they, if they're unlocked at a certain time of night, they lock themselves. So I will tell you that there have been instances where my wife has woken me up at 2 o'clock in the morning, goes, did we lock the front door? I'm like, I don't know, but I guess I'll go check, you know. And now I can definitively say that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about our door being unlocked because it locks itself at a certain time of night. So that's a, you know, there's some things about it that have been thoroughly enjoyable and have really changed our

likability of getting— I don't have to carry a key.

Yeah.

Like, it's awesome. And then the last one, and I will tell you, man, I have saved so much money with this device, and that's our sprinkler controller, our Rachio sprinkler controller, has been amazing. So in August, when we were kind of going through a little mini drought here in Houston, yeah, my bill was $69. Yeah, for water. That's— and I watered a lot, and it wasn't me watering it, it was my, my system telling it when it needed to water and when it didn't.

Right.

And, you know, regularly I walk my dog in the morning and I'll see people's everyday their, their sprinklers going, and mine goes every once in a while. And so just, it saves me a lot of money, and I don't have to think about it. Like, it waters when it needs to, it doesn't when it doesn't need to, and I save money. And it's so things like that that for me take the, the, um, the thinking out of it. Yeah, man, I love that. So smart stuff.

Yep. I'll tell you another smart thing, giving DroneQuote a call.

Man, if you need solar or you need a roof, there's nobody else I would call.

Yeah.

I mean, if, if you haven't listened to our last episode, you need to go listen to it and find out more about DroneQuote because we had the opportunity, uh, to have the owner of DroneQuote on our podcast and talk about, uh, what they do, how they're different, and man, it was fun. It's a good episode.

One of the things that we ended up having a conversation with him after the show, one of the things that he mentioned to us is, a big reason that they're competitive in the market in bringing you better prices on solar and roofing is that they actually take a reduced rate. Yeah.

I don't know anybody who's out there doing that, who's not hitting the market on what their commissions are.

Yeah.

And I mean, everybody's at least hitting market, uh, but most people are, are gouging you with those things. But, but he was telling us after the episode that they take below market.

Yeah.

And they, they're able to because they, they know that they're offering a product and it doesn't involve them sending an employee out to your house.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, they're, they're not having to, to spend more money on employees just to make a sales pitch for 2 or 3 hours in your home. They don't have to do that. Yeah.

And, and like, one of the things I thought was really cool is they, they want you to take a picture of like your electrical panel. They want you to send a picture of like your, your electrical bill.

Yeah.

And you just upload those things through their portal.

Right. It's easy.

And they evaluate, they evaluate it for you.

Yeah. It's simple. You don't have to really know anything. No. And, and on top of that, another reason they're able to keep their price low is because they don't work for a specific company, right? They have a better than average chance of winning your business because they're giving you 3 quotes. Yeah, it's, it's really, really slick, man.

Yeah. So if you haven't yet, go listen to the last episode and listen to what Sinyue has to say about DroneQuote. He's, he's got a real good heart and he's trying to provide a great service to everyone out there who needs solar or a new roof.

Yep. dronequote.com. And go like their Facebook page, Instagram, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, give them a like. And if you want to find them, go find our link in the show notes.

Yep.

All right, Kev, what's up next on your list?

So the next thing on my list, um, is a good kitchen.

Okay.

So I, I love to cook, and, uh, I know that Craig loves to cook.

I do love to cook.

This might be on his list. I don't know, I've not seen it.

I'm very particular about my kitchens.

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about it. Don't— so Don't steal my thunder here.

No, I'm, I'm waiting to pounce. I'm ready.

Yeah, so, you know, we— one of the things that we didn't have in our last house that we just are really thankful for is we've got a double oven. So, I mean, the, the availability of oven space is really, really nice. Uh, the one thing that I'm, I'm— we're wanting to do differently than what we currently have, um, is we want a gas a gas stove. Yes. And ours currently is not, it is electric. I do not like that. I would much rather have a gas stove, but we have what we have.

Um, there are pluses and minuses.

There absolutely are. And I'll tell you, we have one of those kind of the, the glass top.

Yeah, those are the nicer ones for the electric for sure.

Yeah, I mean, you don't talk about ease of cleaning. Yes, it's not even—

That's the biggest thing.

It is so nice when it comes to cleaning. But cooking, it's just not the same experience as, as doing gas.

No.

Um, but you know, having plenty of storage for your, your dishes and things like that is important. Um, a good dishwasher.

Yeah.

I mean, man, there's nothing worse than a bad dishwasher. I want a good dishwasher. Um, and, and honestly, the, the kitchen in the house that we currently have is not my absolute favorite. Uh, the one we had in our previous house was a lot bigger, had a center island that was really, really nice. Um, but I need a space where I can go in and prepare food and enjoy being— because you're gonna— the typical person is gonna spend a lot of time in the kitchen. They just are.

Sure.

So having an adequate space for all of that, really, really important. Yeah.

So I actually like— I mean, like, I like keeping my kitchen pretty simple.

Okay.

So I mean, like, I need a heat source.

Yep.

I need a place to clean things. Other than that, I'm pretty good to go.

Okay.

But I like to— because I'm pretty simple, I like to actually have those things be really nice things.

Yeah.

Um, and so I— that's where I, you know, put most of my money is into like stove, oven, sink, Fridge.

Yep, I'm done. Yep.

I mean, we have a— we have a nice dishwasher as well, um, but like, I think one of the things not a lot of people notice this when they come to my home, I am anti-microwave.

I noticed.

So yeah.

Yep, no microwave in Craig's house.

I'm not a fan. Yeah, I don't believe in them.

That's okay. So I mean, they have their purpose.

No, I mean, other than like potentially killing you, sure.

Yeah, they have a purpose. Okay, a lot of dead people out there. Uh, but yeah, good kitchen. I, I, that's important.

Well, and like my, so like, I know, let me just, one of the reasons I don't like microwaves is because nowadays one of the ways people tend to install them in order to save space is to put them over the stove and use them as a vent.

Yeah. I don't like that.

Um, to me, you're just asking for trouble. Yeah. I mean, it's like, here, ants.

Yeah.

This is the place I want you to gather.

Right. Right.

And annoy the bejesus out of me in my kitchen.

Yep.

So here's a nice cozy place to live that I'm gonna suck up all the grease from my stove and all the nice warm air. And here, hide here.

Yep.

I hate 'em. They're the worst.

Yeah. So our— we don't have one of those. Yeah.

You got a countertop model?

We do.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you one of the really interesting options for that that we considered is a lot of people are, instead of having a double oven, they've got an oven-microwave combo.

Right.

So those are becoming a little bit more popular. But, um, you know, the other thing is a lot of microwaves are also— some of the technology has really changed and they're making them more of an oven style, uh, where you can do some different things in it.

But I can get behind a toaster oven.

Okay.

I can get behind that.

Yeah, I'm particular about my toaster ovens. You wanna know why?

Sure.

So when I, when I grew up, my mom had an old toaster. Like, it was the kind that she, she got as a, as a high school graduation gift.

Oh, wow.

So, um, some of you that, that are a little bit older might remember something like this. It had a tray that you like pull in and pull out. Yeah. So you pull in, it had these heating coils on top, and it just toasted the top of your bread. Oh. And so you pull it out.

So the bottom was still soft.

This bottom was still soft. That's good for like cinnamon Oh man, I love bread that is only toasted on one side. So, but that being said, you— there's only, there's only a few ways to do that. One of the ways you can do it is if you do it in the oven, right? You can do that with a broiler, right?

Yeah.

Um, but if you don't want to turn your broiler on, which takes a lot of energy and a lot of heat and just may not be something you want to do, finding— like, my mom's toaster finally broke They tried to get it fixed. They looked all over the place, could not find a place that would be able to repair it because the parts aren't even available, right? So, um, there's— you have to be real specific about your toasters, your pop-up toasters, and you have to have a bagel function.

Yeah, I was gonna say, they— yeah, they got the bagel function.

If you— but a lot of them don't have it. Yeah, if you have the bagel function, then you can toast only one side of your bread. So there you go, now you know. But, uh, yeah, I was pretty particular. My wife was like, hey, let's buy this toaster, and I was like, nope, no bagel function. Now the one we found was super inexpensive. I mean, it doesn't have to be expensive, but it has— sure, has to have that bagel function.

Yeah, most of them do now.

More— they are becoming more common, but a lot of them just don't. And, you know, people still put their bagels in there and toast both sides of their bagels, but whatever. Sure, to each his own.

They probably have microwaves too. They probably do.

Um, so the, the next thing that was important to us is, uh, the size of the yard. Uh, we've got kids, we want them to have a space to run and play and be outside. Um, one of the things that we definitely compromised on this house was we have no defined backyard.

Okay.

We have no fence. Um, and, and honestly, that's been a little bit frustrating because But they can't play on the golf course? They can. Probably not advisable. But that's, that's the problem though. There are golf balls flying around my backyard and, um, they're, they're not super frequent. We, we live on the, the executive course, which just means you have to be a member in order to play on it. You can't just come and play. So it doesn't get as much traffic as some of the other golf course areas in, in the neighborhood. But, um, Um, we're not quite at the point where we're ready to just let our kids go in the backyard and play.

Yeah.

Because of the spatial awareness. There is a golf cart— a golf course back there, but even more kind of scary than that is just, uh, so directly at our backyard is a green, right? One of the greens. And on the other side of that green is a large pond. And so that's something that we're just nope, not letting my kids out there by themselves. Not right now. Ponds are, ponds are scary. You know, even if you know how to swim, they can, they can be dangerous. So yeah, so we're just not quite there yet. We will be. My kids are starting to get old enough where they can do that. But, but still, we wanted a large enough yard where they could be outside

and, and those sorts of things. And so, you know, a lot of these houses, man, I mean, the one of the ways they, they they wind up lowering the price is they put them on super small lots.

Oh yeah.

You know, 2-story house on a small lot, man, that's, that's something that we weren't interested in. In fact, we found a house that we really liked that was kind of a 1.5-story. The, the second story was only on part of the house, but the yard was so small, man. It was like the size of this studio. And And we had a dog at the time. We were like, man, we can't— it was an outdoor dog. He lived at your house for a while. We were like, man, we can't put an Australian Shepherd in this yard. That would be torture for everybody. So yard size was important to us. Y'all don't have that issue here. Nah. We've got a few acres.

We just kick the kids outside and hopefully they find their way back.

Eventually they will.

Yeah.

But y'all have some fencing, so that helps.

Well, we haven't come up with collars for the kids yet, though.

They do, they do have— you do have the shock fence.

Yeah, I mean, I borrow that from the dog one day and test it out on the kid.

Yeah, good luck. Don't let anybody else see you do that.

Well, I think the kid would beat it.

One of them would. She's smart. She may be a bowling ball, but she's smart.

She's smart. She knows exactly which buttons to press.

That's right. All right, I got one more.

Just one?

Just one more. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, there are probably some honorable mentions going around, but like, you know, there are lots of different things that people could say. Like, I want ceiling fans, I want certain types of flooring, you know. I want— you know, personally, I'm kind of like, I want carpeting in my bedrooms. Yeah, I want hardwood floors and other— or tile in other, you know, living— more living areas.

Um, well, real quick, I was going to say, on the— when you were talking about the, the smaller yard, one of the reasons I, I know that 2-story homes have become more popular is because you can take what was a smaller yard and make a bigger yard because you're building up. And so you, you can take that, that footprint of that house, make it smaller, and just go up. So you get more yard that way.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think that's where a lot of people end up compromising on the one-story issue.

Yep. And we, we, you know, we're kind of an anomaly where we, we found a really cool house because it's, um, it's 2,400 square foot, and which is a big footprint for a, for a one-story house, but it's on a 12,000 square Right. So it's like a quarter of an acre.

Yeah.

That it's on. So, I mean, which is weird, 'cause like whenever you, I mean, you've been over to my house a lot and so you, you, it doesn't really feel like a quarter of an acre.

Right.

Um, but it is, it's 12,000 square foot. We just have a lot of, we have a lot of flower beds.

Do you let 'em play in the front yard? Is that what you guys do?

Yeah, we play in the front yard a lot.

Okay.

Yeah, we do. Um, so.

'Cause you can kind of come and go outta that courtyard and.

Yeah. And we've also got, that, um, the mud kitchen and the sandbox on the side of the house now. So we, we spend a lot of time over there as well. So definitely do that. But, you know, flooring matters, ceiling fans matter, paint color matters to some people. Like, there's a lot of these things, but to me those are temporary and those are easy fixes. Like, if I want to put a ceiling fan in, that's quick. Yeah. And they're so inexpensive now. Like, you can get really, really nice ones for like $150.

Yeah.

Um, that are super nice.

Um, but like some of the ones that I've are really cool, man, are just ridiculously expensive.

They can be, man. We, we got really lucky. We bought one of those 8-blade fans and put it out in our courtyard.

Yeah.

And it's got a 6-foot span on it, so it's really, really big. But man, some of those can be so expensive. But even just some of those architectural ones, yeah, you can easily spend $500, $600, $800, $1,000, $1,500 on fans.

Like, my wife has been eyeballing this windmill fan.

Oh.

Have you seen those?

Uh-huh.

So cool.

Did it— is it kind of— it had 2 on it?

No, no, no. It's like— it looks like a giant windmill just turned to face down.

Oh, I've not seen one of those.

And it's like a— I want to say it's like a 6 or an 8-foot fan.

Oh, man.

It's massive.

Yeah.

Right? And it's built for a room like what we have upstairs. And—

But it's like— it probably put out a lot of air.

Yeah, and it does. I mean, like, it's, you know, anyway, but it's like $1,200.

So, so you don't have it?

No.

No, you don't have it. All right, but—

It didn't make the list this go-round. So the one that's there is working just fine.

That's the problem. It works just fine.

And when it breaks, we'll talk about it.

Yeah, maybe. Um, so I just have one more that really, really was a big deal to us, and that's school district So if you have kids, I highly recommend you think about what school district you're, you're buying into. Yeah, um, it, you know, they're not all created equal.

And no, and it is especially not in Texas.

No, and you know, Texas is big, we got a lot of different options, um, but even in the Houston area, I mean, some are just a lot better than others. And, um, you know, That information is out there. It's available online. Your realtor probably isn't going to have that information, right? Like, even good realtors— oh, in fact, let me put it this way: a good realtor won't give you advice on school district. And the reason is, is because that's a very personal thing.

Yeah, it's subjective.

I mean, like, so there's— it's so subjective. Like, what you think is really important for a school may be completely different than what I find important in a school. And, and And that's what my realtor said. She said, listen, the information's available. There are websites out there. I'm not even going to tell you what they are because they're so easy to find. Um, but what you find important in a school may be different than what I do. And so, you know, I don't even want to get into that conversation with you. Do your research. Yeah, it's available.

Well, and like, for, for us here, I mean, I don't know how it is in other states, and you can probably speak to this a little bit from, from Arkansas.

Yeah.

But like here in Texas, what you'll notice is like most of the school districts are like, for instance, I mean, here it's the Conroe Independent School District.

Yeah.

And then the Klein Independent School District and the Spring Independent School District.

Right.

And so like these school districts are not like cooperating necessarily on like their curriculum and different things like that. They all get to make their own decisions.

Yes, they do.

I mean, like there's certain things There are certain things that come up based on funding and so there's tests and all that kind of stuff. So, there are certain things that the state will bring down on them, but for the most part, these school districts get to make their own decisions as to how things are going to go.

That's right.

And you really need to pay attention as to what that particular school district is— how they're going to operate. That may be completely different in some other states. I don't know how Arkansas is. I know a little bit how Florida is. And so, every state is even different how their school systems operate.

You're exactly right. And some schools are gonna be highly focused on math and science.

Right.

And some are gonna be highly focused on the arts. Um, you know, some school districts in, in, you know, when I was growing up, we had shop class and woodworking class and some others like, like cosmetology and things like that.

And some— Did you take some cosmetology?

Uh, we're not gonna talk about that.

All right.

Uh, but, um, so—

You got a fine buff on the top of your head there.

Yes. But actually, it's interesting because some of those things are starting to come back into some school districts.

That's cool.

They went away for a long time and they're starting to come back. And that may be something that you want your kid to have an option for.

I've even seen some school districts offering technical schools.

Yes.

Rather than traditional education, offering some trade and skills.

Yeah.

Which I think is great.

Yeah, absolutely. you know, there, there's just so many variables down to, um, you know, testing scores to, you know, different, different ethnicities that are part of your school. Um, even location, like how far is it from your house? From your house?

Yeah.

Like if, if something happened and you needed to get to the school, how long is it going to take? What kind of commute are you going to have?

Yeah.

I mean, because maybe it takes 10 minutes to get to your school in the morning, and maybe in the afternoon it's 35.

Yeah.

So, you know, depending on what your commute is. So, you know, knowing that is really, really important. And especially if you're coming from a small town that only has one school district, pay attention. Pay big, big attention.

Yeah.

Uh, now again, you may not have a choice. There may be, there may be times when you don't have a choice, but for us, we had a choice. And so school district was, was really, really important to us when we moved. So that's my list. It was all right. Okay. I— and, and that's the thing, like, going back to being personal, like, this is my list. And yeah, and I'm fine if people, you know, absolutely disagree with all of them. That's fine. The, the important thing is that you have Yeah. And that you have a reason for all of those things. I'm a very—

Unless you just enjoy being random.

Well, the problem is, if you wind up being random, you're gonna be so random that you're gonna lose a lot of money. You're gonna buy a house randomly, randomly, and you're gonna hate it, and you're gonna want to buy another house. And then you're not gonna like that one, you want to buy another one, and eventually you've lost all your money.

And unless you randomly find a lot of it, you're on this random thing.

I will tell I'll tell you this, like, you, you also need to recognize that having a house is not an asset, right? It's a liability.

Yeah.

And, and so unless you find a way to generate income from your house—

Yeah, which you can do.

You can do.

Yeah.

And so you just have to recognize that, that, you know, a lot of people will bill buying a house as an asset, and, and it's really not.

No.

Being specific about what you have in your house and why you have your house, and if you do want to run a business out of your house, just make sure that you're set up well to do that. That's our episode.

It's good stuff, man. I think for people who maybe haven't started that home shopping process, here's some ideas to consider when you're Putting your list together.

Yeah, I'm interested to hear what yours is because I'm sure it's going to be vastly different from mine. We may have some similar things, but I know just based on our 2 houses, yeah, that what we are looking for is different.

Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, my, my list will probably be different. I mean, just in like what, what it's emphasized, just because, uh, honestly, there's a lot of stuff I just don't care about.

Sure.

Um, now the things I do care about, I'm pretty particular about, right?

So, and, and the other thing that I would, I would want to tell people is like, I have no— I, the thing that I'm, that I'm really actually very adamant about is that someday these things that I want are actually going to be transformed into a space that's very different. Like, I, I really want I want a house with a minimum of 5 acres, right? And I want it to be far enough out that I don't have people on top of me. Yeah, you know, so I— that's something that I really, really want. In fact, my ideal house is probably a metal, metal building, like a Mueller house.

Yeah, you've been talking about that a while now. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, for me, that's—

After that interview, you've just been like, I really want that Mueller.

I do, I do. I just really like the idea of, of that type of thing. Now, I think it will incorporate a lot of the things that are in this list.

Yeah.

Um, but, you know, I guess that's the thing is like knowing what your list is will help you determine what you're going to buy.

Yeah.

And if you don't have a good list, you're going to be disappointed.

You need a filter.

You do.

Yeah.

And, and a good realtor will help you with that.

Sure.

But that realtor also can't make decisions for you.

No.

And they're, and they're not going to.

And honestly, if you don't, if you don't communicate those things when you're working with a realtor, it's just gonna frustrate them.

Yes. Absolutely.

Because they're, they're, they're guessing.

They're just guessing. And, and when you wind up guessing long enough, you're gonna be like, I'm done.

Yeah.

I, I can't help you. I don't know how.

Right.

I would really like to help you, but I don't know how.

Yeah. So, all right, man, this has been good stuff. All right, guys, if you have not yet, go ahead and hit the like button on Facebook, the whatever it is on Instagram, the thing that follows people on Twitter. Subscribe to the episode.

Excellent job, Craig.

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