That time we talked about the studio

This is episode number 40 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 ecstatic that you could be with us today. To join us, And we're happy. Yep. All the— what are the synonyms?

Emotions. Yeah, there are emotions.

We have happy synonyms.

Oh, synonym emotions.

That's right. Many kinds of happiness happening in the studio right now.

You got that. You are here. Yes.

So that's right. How's it going, Kev?

Man, I'm doing pretty good. Yeah, nothing, uh, nobody's told me different today, so So far so good.

Well, let me be the first.

Okay, here we go. I'm doing pretty good. Nothing, uh, nothing too super crazy to tell about. How are you doing?

Yeah, dude, I had, I had a crazy thing happen the other day.

Okay.

Um, I had a, uh, a customer call.

Yeah.

And tell me that they, uh, they had bees in their, in their front yard.

Okay.

And this is, this is actually like a pretty normal call for us.

Sure.

Um, you know, You know, it's like bees in the yard, there's a swarm there. Um, and so, like, our typical response is like, look, if they're there, they're probably just resting. Um, so they'll probably be gone in a couple hours or a day or two, you know, just leave them alone, don't mess with them. They're looking for a happy place.

Okay.

You know, just like the Homeowners Show studios.

Yes, the happy place.

The happy place. Um, but she was, she was really concerned because they were laying in the grass, and apparently the lawn crew had been there that day, and like, you know, Worried that they might get run over or destroyed.

Sure.

And I was like, you know what, I'll come over and take a peek. And so I got all my bee gear together just in case and ran over. And sure enough, there's like this— I want to say it was like a 4-foot in diameter circle just in the middle of the lawn of bees just laying in the grass, which is very unusual. And they don't usually like just land in the grass like that. It's a very odd thing. for them to be like that. They're usually like, you know, you'll see pictures on the internet all the time of them like in a ball, like on the back bumper of a car or on like on a tree trunk or somebody's door handle or,

you know, just someplace obnoxious and annoying. Um, so anyway, so like they're laying in the grass and usually, I mean, like if you don't know, usually what that means is the queen is confused, injured, or dead.

Um, all bad things.

It's a bad thing. It's not like into the world kind of a thing.

Okay.

Um, but it usually indicates some sort of anxiety or stress in that colony. And yeah, um, so anyway, I had seen, uh, this particular thing done on a couple different occasions that was rather interesting. So I had an old bee box, okay, what they call a nuc. It's a small box for bees. It's, you know, you know, for when, like, if you split a hive, it's just a smaller box, allows them to grow without being, you know, assaulted by, like, hive beetles or moths. And, you know, it's a smaller area for them to protect. And this had been a nuc box that I'd used in the past to transport hives and, and rear larger hives. Um, and so it— anyway, it smelled like bees.

And so I just opened the entrance and I just took the box over there and I set it down right in front of the, uh, the swarm.

Yeah.

And within about 5 seconds, they like single-file marched into the box.

Man, that sounds crazy.

It was the craziest thing. I put the video up and it ended up getting shared a bunch of times by people that are like, I've never seen anything like this. And it was, it was incredible to just sit there and watch. I think I sat there for like half an hour.

Really?

And, and just watched them pile up on that entrance. And it was, I mean, you could see them and they're doing like what they call like a little waggle dance as they're telling each other like, hey, there's a cool place to go. And let's all, and like, they just, they broke the circle and just piled on top of one another marching into this box. And, uh, Just yesterday, I was— or actually just this morning, I was able to go pick them up. It was raining, and when it rains, they'll all duck inside because the temperature drops and they don't like getting wet. And so I went over there and I put them in a trash sack in the back of my truck, and I transported them to the apiary, and I fed them this afternoon. And there I was out there

watching them this afternoon, and they were gathering pollen and stuff and building comb. It was so cool.

Huh, so they were happy.

Yeah.

Well, let's hope they stay. Yeah, cool. It will stay. Well, that's, that's, uh, that's unusual.

Yeah, it was really unusual. It was really cool to capture it on video though.

Yeah.

So I'll, uh, when this, when this episode drops, I'll link up the video. Okay. I'll post it up on YouTube so people can, can take a peek at it. It's, it's a really cool, uh, thing to watch.

Cool.

So you don't get to observe that all that often.

Yeah, no, no joke.

So But yeah, if you, uh, if you haven't yet, go ahead and hit the subscribe button there in the iTunes box. Uh, leave a review. We love hearing the reviews. We love giving shoutouts for reviews.

Yeah.

Um, and you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all the places.

That's right.

Any place you can find a podcast, you can find The Homeowner Show.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Anything new in your world, man?

No, uh, just gearing up for, for summer. My summer is always super, super busy.

So yeah, lots of stuff coming up and, um, You know, just, just ready to get it going. Yeah. Well, if you guys remember from last episode, uh, talking about RV life, we had a special super duper co-host guest that we decided to bring back in as an actual guest.

Yeah, he was very active on that, uh, podcast.

He endeared himself to Andrew with a question.

A question. He said like 15 words. Yeah. But we're glad you're back.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

It didn't chase you off. We got, we got Jared Williams in the studio today, y'all. How you doing, Jared?

I'm doing wonderful. How are you guys?

Dude, we're doing good.

Yeah, glad you're here.

So we, we wanted to bring Jared in because one, we've, we've, we've talked about him quite a bit on the show from time to time.

We have.

Because he, he played an integral role in actually helping put together the Homeowner Show Studios, which is still Uncompleted, but that's not Jared's fault.

Uncompleted?

Is that a word?

It hasn't ever been until now. Right. Cool.

In—

incompleted.

Incompleted?

Incomplete.

Haha. Okay. Well, moving on.

You're becoming more and more like me every day.

That's scary. So scary. But yeah, I mean, this, this, uh, this studio I remember you talking about whenever you were getting into this space, you needed some help. Jared said, hey, I'd love to come over and help. And y'all ran into some problems.

Oh, yeah. We wanted to bring him in and have a post— because we're much further down the road than when we started.

Oh, very much so. It's in much better condition now than it was when we started.

And it's air-conditioned.

And it's air-conditioned, yeah.

And it has a floor!

It has a floor that you're not going to fall through.

That you're not going to fall through.

Brief history on the Homeowner Show Studios. It actually used to be a chicken coop. Oh yeah, so real live chickens. Well, when I bought it, there weren't any live chickens.

There were no chickens here when I showed up.

It was that bad. Chickens couldn't even live here.

They're like, I'm out, that's bad.

Yeah, so I was, uh, I was explaining to someone the other day, like, you know, there's, there's the traditional A-framed house And then this room had the complete opposite of that.

Hmm.

A sort of—

So the V-frame house?

The V-frame roof.

Oh.

Yeah. Which is a terrible design.

I was gonna say, that's, that sounds like an awful option.

Yeah. So like all the, what happened is, is basically where the studio ends now, the, the roof took about a 90-degree turn up.

What?

Making a V in the roof.

What was the purpose of that?

I really don't know other than to create an inside waterfall, which is what it— which is what it did.

Those could be fun.

Yeah.

If that's what you're going for. No, actually prepare for that to happen.

You know, if you want the additional side effects of like wood rot and moisture.

I haven't wanted that yet.

Yeah, so I don't recommend it.

Okay.

But that was pretty much what we inherited, uh, and, uh, by the time Jared came along to the project, we'd already chopped that off and, and close that wall off with new siding. Um, had we put the windows in at that point?

I know it was still, uh, still open there.

It was still open there. Okay. So, so what I want, you know, give people a little bit of background on you because you have a lot of experience in, in, in doing projects like this.

Yeah. So, uh, I bought my first house. Uh, it was a foreclosure house. And I found that if you don't have money to pay your mortgage, you usually don't have money to fix your house when there are problems.

Maintain it.

So when we bought the house, it had been empty for almost a year.

And where was this?

This was in New York.

New York. OK.

New York. So very different than down here in Texas. Everything down here is, at least in Conroe where I live, is basically brand new. There's not a lot of old houses. But in New York, there's lots of old houses. So when we were buying our first house—

Now I want to, I want to ask you about that real quick because I think for a lot of people around here, they would— like, an old house might be something that was, um, built in the '50s, right? And so like, old house in New York, what would that be like?

Well, my house was built— the one we bought in New York was built in, uh, '63, I think.

1963.

1963. And but I don't think anyone had done anything much to it since then.

But would it be weird to find a house built in the 1900s?

My parents' house, which is an old farmhouse, was built in the late 1800s.

So there you go.

Okay.

So no, it's not odd to find houses from the 1800s.

Yeah, and they're very differently built as well.

Very much so, yeah.

We have a lot more farm-style homes, which are You know, more sprawling, I would say. And a lot up there, you're— they're built up more, aren't they? And basements.

And yeah, so that was one of the odd things when I moved here. We're looking at houses, like, nothing here has a basement. Yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to find a house in New York that doesn't have a basement.

Those are called swimming pools here.

Um, although you probably missed the episode where I had to actually go into a basement in downtown Houston and get a carcass out.

Yeah, yeah, I listened to that episode. That was a fun story.

It was disgusting to listen to. I'm sure it was disgusting to actually participate in.

But, uh, so I bought this house. It needed, um, a new roof. It already had 2 roofs on it. You know, someone had already layered a second set of shingles over the first set of shingles.

Um, is that wrong?

It's— you can do 2 layers. You don't want to do a third. The shingles get too heavy and you'll collapse your roof.

Oh, okay.

Especially with snow.

With snow, especially with— especially in New York, very heavy snow loads.

Yeah.

Um, so it needed that. Um, the windows, uh, were single-pane glass, and if you pushed on the glass, you would pop panes of glass out of the windows because they were in the— it was a stiff breeze. You could feel the breeze coming through the windows. Um, all the bedrooms were— needed to be renovated.

It—

the people that lived in the house before us were heavy smokers, and we thought it was, uh, wallpaper glue at first, but it was, it was nicotine. They had Oh God. And it was like literally dripping down the walls.

Yeah. Um, but how did you talk your wife into buying this house?

Because it's all we could afford.

Okay.

It's very expensive in New York. So that house, um, was about 1,400-square-foot raised ranch, um, on about a half-acre land. Most of that land was wood swamp, so it wasn't very usable. Um, When we moved to Texas, my mortgage didn't change, and now I have a brand new 2,600-square-foot house on an acre and a half. And yeah, that's the price difference between New York and Texas.

Take that, New York.

Moral of the story, move to Texas.

That's what I did. So anyway, so we buy this house and it needs all this work, and I spent all my money buying the house, and so I had no choice but to fix all the problems myself.

Um, and growing up, my dad was always always kind of a handy guy.

He put this big addition on our house growing up because, you know, my parents had the same problem we had. It's expensive to live in New York, and if you want to improve your, your house, it's—

it's—

you can get a lot more done if you do it yourself. So I helped him growing up, learned a lot. My dad flipped a house at one point with one of his friends, and that was kind of my summer job in my teen years.

Nice.

And so I learned a lot from him, and so I just kept on it. And I spent about 9 years renovating that house before we Sold it, moved down here.

What was the toughest spot about that, the one that you rehabbed?

Well, if you ask my wife, it'll be when I ripped the roof off a week before my son was born.

Now, that was wrong. Yeah.

So, that story goes, the roof, when we bought the house, they said, just so you know, the roof's probably going to last a year, maybe 2, before it starts leaking. So we knew it had to be done. My wife got pregnant. My son was born in May.

All on her own.

Yeah. True Mary story.

So we'd been in the house a year already, and it was getting to that time of year where it was going to be too hot to be on the roof. It was that May timeframe when my son was born.

It does get hot in New York.

Even in New York, it can be over 100, and it's never fun on a roof when it's over 100.

No.

It doesn't happen as often as it happens down here in Texas, but it does happen.

Yeah.

So I made the decision that I was going to reroof this house.

Yeah.

So I call some friends, because I'm not paying anyone to do it, because I don't have the money to pay someone to do it. And I get a dumpster, and I back it up to the house, and I get up on the roof, and I tear half the roof off, all the shingles. Turns out the underlayment is no good either. So I had to lay all new plywood down and basically rebuild my whole roof. And I re-shingle that side and my wife goes into labor.

Oh no.

So half the roof's done, half the roof's not. So we go to the hospital, my son is born, bring him home. And I'm like, honey, I got to finish the roof.

Oh no. Good luck.

So I get up on the roof and I start tearing the other half of the roof off. And, uh, I had to— it was funny because I had to, I had to time it. I could only use the nail gun when my son was not sleeping. So it was like he'd go, he'd wake up for a feeding or whatnot, and I'd run up and I'd get as much as I could get done in the, you know, half hour, 45 minutes he was awake. Uh, so I spent the first couple weeks of his life on my roof, uh, re-roofing my house. Wow.

How long did that actually end up taking you?

Um, with, with help, uh, I got a majority of it done in about 2 to 3 weeks. Uh, there was some finish work that took, you know, a couple weeks after that, but, you know, the, the top ridge line and some of the trim and stuff like that, but the majority of it was done. I got some beer and some pizza and some friends come over and help.

There you go.

And, uh, got as much done as we could as quickly as we can.

Yeah. So I mean, how big of a job is a roof? Because I mean, I, I look at these, these roof jobs and I'm going, man, I, I don't think I could ever do that. And, and then you, you look at these roof jobs and you go, they did that whole roof in one day. Of course they had You know, 8 people working on it, right? Um, but it seems like just such a big daunting job, and maybe it's just because it's a roof and you're on— you're high up and there's the potential of, you know, falling and injuring yourself and those sorts of things that just kind of deter me from it. But seems like a really tough

job.

It's honestly not that difficult. Um, I mean, you lay the shit— you, you, you put down the underlayment, the tar paper. In New York, you would put Snow Guard up. the first about 6, 7 feet because you'll get in your gutters, you'll get ice, and that ice buildup will actually work its way under the shingles and, and it'll leak through your roof. So you put— it's, it's like, uh, almost like a tape, but it's like 4 feet wide, and you lay that, uh, almost like you would tar paper.

Okay.

And it sticks to the roof and it prevents that damage. Um, but I mean, after you do that, it's lay a shingle, nail it down, lay a shingle, nail it down. It takes a little bit of time. It's a little tedious, but it's not particularly difficult. The more difficult job was when I resided the house. And replaced all the windows.

Oh, man. So, I know here, we have tile roofs, we have metal roofs, we have several different kinds. Are those other types of roofs common there too?

No, not really. I mean, really, in the snow area, they really only use asphalt shingles. You really don't ever see another kind of roof up there.

I would think metal would work well up there. I mean, just— but it maybe would just slide straight off, and that would be a bigger problem than, uh, than not. I don't know.

I would imagine it has like some of the issues with cold absorption and different things like that that might crack the metal, or I don't know.

Yeah, I'm not sure why it's not. I mean, I don't see anything.

Let us tell you how stupid we are and how little we know about roofs.

I know, I know a lot about asphalt roofing, but I've, I've never had to do a metal roof.

We need to get our roofer back over here.

Yeah, why can't we do metal roofs in New York?

I don't know, fair claims, we need you.

Yeah, we need this question answered.

He probably doesn't know he lives in Texas.

Never done a job, I don't care.

That's right. So siding, so you literally, like the entire exterior of this home was redone?

Absolutely, literally the entire exterior. So I also replaced all the windows. And I used new construction windows because I reframed all the windows to change their size.

Wow!

Because I didn't like the size and shape of the windows on the house. They were the old '60s-style windows that are wider than they are tall. I just didn't like the way they looked. So we went and bought— actually, it was an amazing deal. It was at the time right after— we bought the house in 2008, right after the market crash. was when we were— so we got an amazing deal. We got that big government check, $8,000 check, uh, on our tax returns for new home buyers. Uh, so that actually kind of helped with our down payment on the house. Um, but we bought these windows and they were doing the big tax rebate. So I got them through Lowe's. They were Pella windows and, uh, got their best top-of-the-line windows. And then the government paid

me 35% of it back. Wow. Which helped out a lot too.

Nice.

Um, so when you're buying things, uh, check your tax rebates because there's an opt— there's a lot of times, especially with Energy Star appliances and stuff, you can get a lot of tax rebates back. You can write those things off on your taxes and help the government help you pay for it.

Yeah, I was talking to a guy the other day. I mean, like, a lot of times now, I've like, um, one of the things that we put in a lot of like mosquito misting systems, and like even now, like if you put like solar power on a mosquito misting system, you get 35% of that back as a tax rebate. Or it's a tax credit, actually, which is better than a rebate.

There's a lot of tax options out there when you're doing home improvements. Yeah.

I mean, it's crucial anytime you're doing major improvements to your house. Make sure you're not missing an advantage.

So we replaced the windows. Then after I put all the windows in, the house had old aluminum siding, which I tore off and took to a recycle center. I think I made about $800 after selling them my siding because it was aluminum. In New York, almost everything's vinyl siding.

Really?

You'll sometimes see a brick exterior or something like that. But for the vast majority, it was aluminum siding back in the '60s. So a lot of the older houses will have aluminum, but anything pretty much new will have vinyl siding. So then I put all the new vinyl siding up on the house.

Wow!

And that's a pretty straightforward That is still a pretty straightforward job. I would actually say it'd be slightly more complicated than the roofing.

Okay.

Um, not so much for the big wide areas, but you gotta do all the cutouts around the windows. You gotta do— figure out all the angles for the roofs and putting up your J-channel and your C-channel and getting it all laid out. It's actually probably a little more difficult than the roof.

Okay.

It took me quite a bit. It took me a couple of months. You know, I'd come home from work every day and go out and spend an hour out there till it got dark and put up as much siding as I can.

And then— And you, going back to what you mentioned earlier, so, so you learned how to do a bunch of different things. of this stuff because your dad taught you how to do these things, or are you on YouTube?

Uh, well, some of it I learned growing up.

Okay.

Um, but I've always been kind of like a mechanically inclined person.

Sure.

Um, so a lot of this stuff I just— I went on YouTube and—

Okay.

I need to re-roof my house. And my dad was like, you've never done this before. And I said, yeah, well, half the roof's already off, so I got to figure it out now.

I got to figure it out.

So yeah, a lot of these projects that I did, I basically rewired my whole house. I gutted most of my bedrooms down to studs and completely renovated them. Replaced the boiler in my house because that's a whole other story about how my boiler got cracked. My house had no heat when I bought it in February.

Geez.

Oh my!

Warning on foreclosures.

Yeah, no joke.

But a lot of that stuff, it was just You know, between the experience I already had and the loads of information that are available on YouTube and other websites on the internet, I mean, there's so much information out there for someone who's willing to do the research and, uh, you know, just not afraid to try it.

Yeah, you know, I've actually noticed— I was, I was, um, painting one day and I thought, you know, there are some people that know how to cut in paint really, really well. I wonder if they've put any information on, on you on YouTube. So I go out and I look, and there's this guy who is a professional painter, um, and, and he's got, you know, tens of thousands— I think he's got hundreds of thousands of views on many of his videos that are out there. And he's teaching people all of his trips, uh, tricks and techniques of how to paint and how to, you know, not just cutting in, but, but all of his tricks about how he does things. Um, and I

thought originally, I was thinking, man, why would he be telling everybody all this stuff? Because it's hurting his business. But, uh, what I've found is that these guys are doing that because they're actually getting more exposure.

Yep.

To what they're doing. And so there literally are professionals out there telling you exactly how they do their job And if you're willing to get your hands dirty a little bit, you can do it exactly like the professional is doing it.

Yeah.

So just interesting stuff. YouTube is a valuable thing. Now, there's plenty of junk out there too. I mean, you kind of gotta—

Yeah, you do watch more than one video.

Yeah, because you run the risk of, of, you know, listening to an idiot.

Because they just let anyone put something on the internet.

Yeah. Yes, they do.

Yes. We do, just like this show.

That's right, exactly. So, so all of that, I mean, kind of gave you some background, and all of a sudden Craig needs some help. You come over here and y'all start working and you find some stuff.

Yeah, so, you know, when I was in New York, I had a lot of work to do on my house, and I enjoyed doing that work. It's kind of how I I put my headphones on and I just blow off steam that way. I've always enjoyed doing that. So I move here to Texas and I buy this brand-new house and now all of a sudden, I don't have anything to do.

Because it's new!

My method of blowing off steam has evaporated because my house is brand-new. And if I have a problem, I call the warranty people and they just come fix it for me.

So you built a fence.

So I built a fence at my house. I did do that. But then my friend Craig here has a problem. And I was like, you know what I've got in my garage? I got a ton of tools that aren't getting any use.

There you go.

So I offered to come over and walk into the room and I'm looking around and it doesn't look too bad. We got to do a few repairs, maybe put up some sheetrock. So I think the first project was the floor, right?

Yeah.

That's where we started.

We found a bouncy spot. Yeah.

We found a little spot. You stepped on it and it gave a little bit. And we're like, oh, let's just lift this up and maybe we got to put down a new piece of plywood.

Yeah.

Do a little repair work. And, you know, we tear up that section of floor and the joists underneath are looking a little, a little sad.

Yeah.

So we poke them with a screwdriver and the screwdriver goes right through the joist.

It's not supposed to do that.

It's not.

No, it's, it's not supposed to do that. And so we—

Unless they're made of pudding, which, which the worst material to make joist out of is pudding.

So, so we just So we start kind of exploring and you grab this 2x10, 2x8 with your hand and it just crumbles in your hand. So we start tearing up more floor and finding more dry rot and tearing up more floor and finding more dry rot. It gets to the point where there's no more floor. It's just dirt.

Which was not the project that we were prepared to do that day.

It was not. But that happens when most home improvement projects I have found do not always end up where you start.

Right.

Um, it's one of the things with, uh, home improvement is you need to kind of be prepared for the unexpected because you never know when you tear up a floor or pull down a wall or open up an electrical outlet, you know, what you're gonna find. Um, so we spent the rest of that day gutting the rest of the floor, I think.

And we just did demo work basically.

Yeah. And then we got some, uh, we had to put in new joists, lay a whole new floor, which I think was the next day.

Yeah.

Um, and it took the— I think that first weekend was just, uh, nothing but floor back.

Yeah.

Which was—

we were— I think we were planning on, uh, putting up walls and planning on being in a completely different place than where we were at.

Well, and I think that's one of the things that, that's real important though. I don't want to overlook here for a minute is that, you know, you can choose to do this yourself or you can choose to hire it out. Let's say you choose to hire it out, you know, a good contractor is going to find this anyway and it's still got to get fixed and you're still going to be paying for it. So I, I guess the thing that I, that I want to say is don't, don't be afraid to, to get into something and figure out what it is because If you find it, your contractor is probably going to find it also. So, you know, if your budget is whatever it

is and you're, you're, you know, estimating 20% more like they say that you should, um, you kind of got to do that whether you're using a contractor or not. Because at the end of the day, they're going to have to go, listen, you know, I bid it for this much, but I didn't know this was here. I've— you're going to have to pony up a little bit more money so that that can get fixed.

Yeah, I was gonna say, we, we actually did have a couple different contractors come out and take a peek at it and give us some bids to, to do the stuff that I wanted to do. Um, and yeah, it would have been done by now, but like none of them caught that.

Yeah.

Um, and, and it's not to say that they're bad contractors. I mean, it was—

Sure.

It was actually— I mean, like, it was, it was kind of like a minor thing at the— if I remember right. And we were just kind of like, should we pull this up?

Yeah, well, yeah, we almost didn't.

Yeah, we almost didn't. I mean, just because it was like, well, we have this plan to do all this and this is what we're prepared to do. And so you kind of kind of get in that mindset of like, well, let's just go on down the road with the plan instead of— but like, you know, thankfully we, we ended up popping it up. I say thankfully, you know, it was like a hellish nightmare.

Yeah, but it would have been worse if you hadn't caught it, right?

Yeah.

I mean, and the floor had collapsed while we're in here recording.

Yeah. If you watch any of these, uh, DIY network shows, um, you know, whether it's, you know, Property Brothers or whoever it is, they get into stuff and they, they don't know what they're getting into until they— you, you open up a wall And you find a pipe that you had no idea was there. Now you've got to reroute the pipe. There's always going to be something.

I'll say this, this room was actually part of the inspiration for that whole DIY calculator that we have up on the website now. Calculating the amount of time and just putting all those factors on the table and going, what's actually going to be the best use of my money? for this project? Is it me or is it somebody else?

Sure.

Um, because, you know, even though I at the time I felt like some of the bids for this room were kind of high, looking back at it now, it's like that actually seems pretty reasonable.

Yeah.

For the amount of time that I've now spent on it.

Yeah. Yeah. And you really have to factor that in. You're— I mean, Jared, you mentioned it. I mean, you're doing these projects while raising a family. Literally while a baby is being born. And somewhere down the line, you have to gauge, is it worth all the time that I'm putting in whenever I'm not putting time into something else?

Well, I'll tell you, my wife has appreciated the fact that now that I don't constantly have 1,000 projects that need to get done or my house is going to fall apart, I do have a lot more time now. To spend with my kids, do things with the family and stuff like that.

And those are really important.

It is definitely— I mean, at the time when we were buying that house, that was really our only option. I mean, anything more expensive, we just simply couldn't afford. So we did what we could with what we had. I would've loved to have hired some contractors, but I had more time than I had money. And sometimes that's the calculation. Yeah, it'd be way easier to hire someone to come in and fix all these problems in a week instead of taking me 2 months, but it's a lot cheaper for me to take 2 months to do it.

Yeah, there's some pride there too of what you were able to do, I would assume.

Yeah, I mean, it is that, and I enjoyed doing the work. Yeah, I mean, it's like I said, it's— it was one of my stress relievers. I had come home from it, you know, a day at work, and I'd go put my headphones on and, you know, go put up some siding or go work on the roof or go sheetrock or tape or plumbing or electrical, whatever it was that day. Uh, and it kind of helped me unwind a little bit at the end of the day.

Yeah.

But, uh, but it's, you know, sweat equity. There's something to say about the sweat equity. You know, we went to go sell that house, um, we did pretty well because I didn't spend too much doing the work. So when we sold We made a nice little profit on it.

Yeah, more than you would have made if you would have paid a contractor.

Absolutely, because we would have had to put a lot more into that money into the house to get it to where it was.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Well, so after, after the floor, what was next? Do you remember?

I think we were trying to do the electrical work, right?

Yeah.

So I think that was running all the cabling. Oh no, no, no, it was, it was this, uh, this back wall.

This wall, that's right.

That's that back wall. Because that was the one behind me, the one we thought we were gonna tear off, and then we started tearing it off and we're like, never mind, let's leave it there.

Well, we left it— we kind of— we— I think we modified it because like we didn't— we left it there, but then we also like we built another one.

Yeah, yeah. And so we— I think the plan was originally, right, we're gonna tear that wall out and put up a brand new wall, right? And then when we started I don't remember what was happening. We started tearing it out and there was like a structural reason that we needed to leave it.

Yeah, there was like a weird game of Jenga that we were playing with that wall. And so it was like, this is just not worth it. Let's lose, I think, you know, like let's lose the 2.5 inches.

And then we just reframed a new wall on top.

Yeah, because the, the other wall is not even framed normally.

No, it wasn't.

Yeah, so it was—

Nothing in this room is framed.

I don't think anything—

Which causes problems when you're sheetrocking.

Yes, yes.

Well, you just have to, you have to know where those studs are. I mean, most studs are 16 inches on center, and a lot of buildings, you know, especially whenever they're not, you know, this is a barn, right? Right. Um, a lot of them are built on 24 or, or weird, you know, 27, weird numbers.

And I can, I can speak from experience on this one because like this, this barn actually had the, uh, the thoughtfulness to at least put the studs going up and down.

Ah, as opposed to your house?

My house, which was also a barn at one time, it was, it was framed, it was barn framed, which runs the studs side to side.

Okay, that, that's for firebreak purposes?

I don't know why it does it that— I mean, like, this, that's just the way they do it. They— that's just the way some people do it. Um, and then, but they're not, they're not like 16 on center or anything like that. They're just— and then so like, I actually had a sheetrock guy come in and like Like they were, they were tearing out walls and replacing them. And as he tore them out, he was like, I don't know how to do this.

When you stump the sheetrock guy, now you know something's up.

Yeah. So yeah, so it was at least this one, it was up and down. They're just not spaced normally like, like they are. And there's like weird beams.

They weren't level either. Like they weren't in line with each other. So you'd have some of the studs were proud of the other ones and so you couldn't easily lay a piece of sheetrock. Remember, we had to shim some of the, the studs so that they would all lay flush so you could actually put a piece of sheetrock up over them. Wow.

Yeah, that's unusual.

So we spent quite a bit of time just kind of prepping the room for sheetrock.

Yeah, we did. We spent quite a bit. And then like, well, the, the only good thing about the wall being the way that it was, if I remember right, is that it actually gave us a little bit more room to run electrical.

It did.

So we had a little bit more space to work with in that regard. Um, but yeah, and then, then this— the, the tallest wall was built weird. It was built differently than all the other walls because it was like in weird—

like, yeah, the— I think the bottom half was framed normally and then the top half was framed in like these weird sections of like cubes. Yeah, it wasn't— it wasn't like the studs didn't go all the way to this— to the ceiling. Like, it was a normal 8-foot wall framed fairly normally, right? And then on top of that, the studs would go up 3 feet, and then there'd be like a horizontal beam, and then it would come up— the stud would come— another one would come up 2 feet over from the other one up to the actual roof. Like it was built piecemeal.

Yeah, they got bored.

Yeah, let's do this, it'll be fun, change it up.

Yeah. And then the, the other— this, this wall was kind of similar in that it kind of came up at about 3 or 4 feet framed normally, and then it was different above that.

Yeah, and had like 4-foot nails that were like a quarter inch, half an inch thick, like embedded, embedded like 6 inches into the beams that we had to try to get out. I think we ended up cutting a couple of them off because we couldn't get them out.

It was like, no, we fought the last one, we're done.

Well, I will say though, you know, this space has been, has been really good. And it's already gotten a lot of use. And it's not done. I mean, that's the other thing. So, what's really left at this point?

Well, I mean, a lot of it's finishing. So, there's a door that has to go into the exterior. The ceiling has to be finished, and the floor has to go in. Other than that, it's really cosmetic.

Okay. Painting, trimming.

Painting, yeah.

Those sorts of things.

So, and like all the materials and stuff are basically here. They just, you know, we just need time to put them in.

Yeah. So if anybody has some time and they want to put stuff in, let us know, info@homeownersshow.com.

Free experience.

That's right. Free experience. We will let you, um, work on the studio. We'll even give you a shout out on the podcast. We'll have you on the podcast, as Jared is proof. We will have you on the podcast if you're aspirational. towards that.

So, so, so like, of the things that are left, man, what are— what do you— what do you think is gonna be like kind of like the, the coup de grâce piece of this, of this room that once it's done?

Uh, this, this— I like the, the ceiling.

The ceiling that's going in.

I think that's gonna really tie the room together.

Yeah, I like that. I, I actually did— the reason we're doing it like this, because that's the way I did it in my kitchen. And I really like the way it turned out, even though it's like, it's a cheaper material. Um, it's just, it's easy to put up, it looks nice when it's done, it kind of has like a country vibe.

So it's corrugated metal?

Yeah, it's corrugated metal. It's, you know, it lasts a long time.

Yeah, and you know, it'll give good acoustics for where we're singing.

Yeah, give that good metallic sound.

Yeah, so, so between the hardwood The shiplap wall, the metal roof. This will be the place for us to sing our cares away.

Yes. Yeah, so I mean, it should have— I mean, by the time it's done, it'll have a shiplap wall, it'll have hardwood floors, it'll have 3, uh, uh, sheetrock walls, and then the metal ceiling.

And I'm liking this texture that you did.

Well, thank you.

On the walls. I think that'll look real nice with a paint job on it.

Yeah, I haven't decided, you know, we haven't Like, really given any thought to any colors because it's still all about just finishing the project. The other thing that we've, that we've toyed around with doing is because this, this door over here to, to Kevin's right, uh, goes—

The door that leads directly into a wall.

Into a wall, yeah, the old cruddy wall, uh, that we never— that we decided was too dangerous to remove.

Um, it's gonna be a doorway to nothing.

Yes. What we've talked about doing is putting putting another porch on the outside of the studio just to kind of give like a place to hang out maybe after doing like a show. Or, you know, it's— it also— there's a, uh, uh, 3-tiered treehouse just outside of here that the kids like to play on, so it'd be a good place to sit and watch the kids play and, yeah, hang out there.

Um, yeah, well, I, I want to say, you know, I, I haven't done any work So first of all, now everyone knows I've done no work on this room.

Kevin conveniently broke his leg right as we got started on this thing. So—

Yeah, that was not at all intentional. Um, I would have much rather been working on this room.

But you learned a valuable life lesson on moving grills.

Yes, I did. Don't, don't jump out of the back of trucks holding grills. That's lesson number one.

Message we all should hear.

Yes, I can tell you, you will not like the outcome. Uh, but I will say, uh, you know, thank you guys for the work that you have put in because, um, really it, it's already been a blessing to have, to have this space. And once it's done, I mean, it's just going to be a really nice place for us to have guests and, and for this podcast to grow and see what's going to happen with it.

Well, even unfinished, no one's been embarrassed to come in here yet, so. Yeah, no, not that they've told us to our faces.

Right. I mean, they probably went home and were like—

We have a support group.

There's a Facebook page. He said we have a support group.

Wow. Okay. Well, it's a closed group.

Apparently we're not invited.

No, we're not invited. We're the cause. We are the cause. Uh, yeah. Well, what else do you have? Do you have any other things that, you know, any stories that, that you want to tell about Projects you've done?

Oh man, I've got— after 9 years of renovating a house, you can't help but have an endless list of stories.

Yeah, give us maybe your best.

This is probably another one my wife probably wasn't too thrilled about, but when I was in New York, I worked at a nuclear power plant.

Okay.

And so every spring we did a refueling outage, and it was about 6 to 8 weeks long usually. And we would work 6 12-hour shifts a week. And sometimes, every other year, I'd work night shift. Well, I had very small children in the house. And when I'm working all night and I come home and I'm trying to sleep during the day, and we homeschool and the kids are in the house all day, it's very difficult to sleep. So what my wife would do is when I work night shift, for most of the outage, she'd take the kids to her parents' house in Virginia so that I can sleep in the house during the day. She never got to

see me anyway. It was a good opportunity for kids to spend some time with their grandparents and for her to see her parents and stuff like that. So it worked out pretty well. We'd been in the house for maybe 8 years, and we had been, um, dealing with this bathtub that when we moved into the house, uh, the surround had black mold in it. And I, because we had no money, uh, and we wanted a working bathroom in the house, I went to Lowe's and bought the $30 vinyl tub surround and glued it up to the wall, uh, so there was no more black mold after I gutted and bleach sprayed everything.

Sure.

Um, so we'd been dealing with that, you know, kind of cheap, uh, surround, uh, for the last 8 years. And this, like, kind of mustard yellow, uh, cast iron tub, um, I hadn't gotten around to renovating the bathroom. So we had been talking for a while that maybe it was getting to be about that time that we should renovate the bathroom. But, you know, it's the only shower in the house. You know, it was a single bathroom in the house. So we're trying to figure out when we're going to go ahead and do this. We had kind of looked at tubs and surrounds and kind of picked out what we wanted. Um, so my wife's gone for a few weeks and I'm One

night a week, I'm up all night from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM in my house all by myself. And I thought, well, now's a good time to do the tub.

Why not?

So I went and got a sledgehammer and I took a sledgehammer to my cast iron tub, broke it into some large pieces and carried it outside the house and went to Lowe's and bought the surround and the tub. And I had measured everything and it should have just slid right in.

And I got new fixtures.

And thought she'll come home from her parents and this bathroom will be all nice and pretty and have a brand new tub and a brand new surround and she'll be all happy. So I go, uh, break the tub out and find that the floor underneath it is rotted out.

So you have experience with the rotted floors.

Oh yes. So, so it wasn't the joists, luckily, just the sheetrock. I mean, just the the underlayment. Okay, the subfloor. So at this point, I've gotten to this point, it's about midnight, which means Lowe's is not open.

Yeah.

So Lowe's opens at 6:00 a.m. So at 6:00 a.m., I was at Lowe's buying some, you know, subfloor, went home, laid the subfloor, did a little more work, went to bed, got up, you know, went to work the whole week. week, showered at work because it's an industrial plant and they had showers and I didn't at the moment in my house. So I'm showering at work. Come home the next weekend, I had gone and bought the supplies I was pretty sure I needed. And I go to put the tub— floor's there. I go to put the tub in and find that it's half an inch too wide.

Oh.

And not to fit in the long ways, it was, you know, the wide direction because, uh, in New York almost all of our houses, they're heated with radiant heat, right? Baseboards all, you know, along the walls. Well, the baseboard had gone right up to the old tub, and when I measured it, apparently my measurement was off by about half an inch. I want to go put the tub in and it's hitting the radiator.

Hmm.

So I had to cut the radiator, which means now there's There's no heat in the house. Drill a new hole in the floor into the basement and reconnect all those pipes, which of course is a bunch of soldering and reconnecting the pipes, and then reinitializing my heating system in March in New York. Because at this point, I can't not put the tub in.

Right.

The old tub is in pieces in my garage waiting to be taken to the scrapyard for $40. Yeah, if you ever have lots of metal, bring it to a scrapyard, they'll buy it.

Yeah, there you go.

So I'm, you know, it seems like every time I work on this project, you know, something else comes up.

Yeah.

So I finally get the tub in and get the plumbing, the rough plumbing fixed, go to put the surround up only to find that my walls are not square. And so I'm I got 2x4s because when you're a home renovator, there's always 2x4s laying around somewhere.

Sure.

And, I'm basically trying to shim and reframe the walls because the tub was in this little nook. So, I'm trying to frame everything so that I can get this surround up. So, I'm doing this whole project. I didn't get nearly as far along as I wanted to. My wife comes home, Uh, when she got home, there was a functional shower. Uh, but it took me, you know, I was expecting, you know, maybe 2 of the weekends. It took me, I think, closer to 5 of them. Um, and it, again, you know, when you're doing these type of projects, everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much than you expect.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, that one was one of my, uh, Less glamorous projects. On the plus side, some of the projects that went well, I built an 800-square-foot cedar deck off the back of my house.

Nice.

That was a fun project. It took me about 3 months building it by myself. But in New York, you gotta dig posts, uh, 42 inches deep, which is a pretty deep hole.

Yeah.

Um, and in New York, the other problem is there's lots of granite. So of the 10 posts I had to dig, uh, because the back of the house was louvered, which means it overhangs the foundation. And in New York, I don't know what the rules are here, but I'm assuming they're similar. You're not allowed to attach a deck to a louvered house. So I actually had to do a freestanding deck. So I had to dig, put tent posts in, um, and 6 of them hit granite before I got to 42 inches. And the reason you have to go to 42 inches is because the ground will sometimes freeze that deep.

It's below the frost line.

You got to get below the frost line or else you'll get heaving and it'll ruin whatever structure you're building. Um, so then what you have to do is you have to go headfirst into a hole with a rock hammer drill and drill 8 inches into the granite and set a piece of rebar in the granite. So when you pour the concrete, you basically pin it to the, to the granite, which is not fun. Takes about 45 minutes a hole because granite is very tough rock.

Yeah.

So I spent a whole afternoon with my head, face, you know, head, shoulders, and half my body down in a hole drilling into rock.

Not fun.

But that project, at the end of the day, It actually turned out really well. It was a really nice deck. Really enjoyed it. So, you know, sometimes projects go that way where it just— things work out and it comes out as a nice project at the end of the day.

Yeah.

I know here that you can attach a deck to the house like that. It's just not smiled upon. There's, you know, WDI reports and things like that that you will not pass, but like, honestly, no one passes those anyway.

Well, one thing that surprised me is, you know, I'm not sure here, but where I live, it's technically unincorporated Montgomery County.

Right. Right.

I don't live inside a city limit or a town limit or anything like that. And so when I was, you know, we were putting a pool in at the house we live in now, you know, I was expecting inspections and permits and—

Right.

And there's like not a lot of that here, which was very different because in New York it's very heavily regulated. You know, when I built my dad's deck, I had to dig the holes and then the inspector had to come out and look at the holes and make sure I dug the holes right before I poured concrete. And then he had to come out and look at my framing before I put all the decking down. And then they had to come do a final inspection and I had to pay for every one of those inspections. Oh my gosh. And yeah, so there's a lot of, at least in that part of New York, Hudson Valley area, a couple hours north of New York City, there's

a lot of regulation based around your home.

Yeah.

And, um, there's just not as much of that down here in Texas.

Yeah.

It's—

it gives you a little more freedom, uh, to do what you want to do, which is nice.

Yeah. I mean, you'll probably see some of that once you get in like city proper, but I'm sure in like—

yeah, in like city of Conroe or in The Woodlands, you know, I'm sure there's a lot more of that type of regulation.

The Woodlands is weird. So like, not to get like all down the rabbit hole in Texas, but like The Woodlands is not even like a city. It's— what is it?

Township.

It's a township. Yeah, it's a weird thing that like—

Well, there's— it's weird here in Texas. It's, it's not so weird up in like New Jersey. Everything up there is a township. It's just, it's a different, it's a different form of city government.

There's no mayor. Yeah, I mean, it's like there's no city council.

Yeah.

And yeah, let's just live there.

Yeah, yeah, it's just a different, different setup.

Yeah.

Well, uh, man, there's a, there's a lot of stuff that I know we could, uh, continue to, to talk about. Um, sounds like you've got a lot of, uh, a lot of experience doing some home renovation and, and honestly, um, some, some good advice just saying, hey, listen, get in there, do it. You know, when you run into a problem, figure it out. I mean, but what, what I didn't hear you say a lot of was you know, we just— I just gave up and called someone, said I can't, I can't do this anymore. Uh, not saying that you've never done that, but, um, you know, sometimes you just got to get in there and get your hands dirty and recognize, you know what, at the end of the day, it's got to get done. I'm either going to do it or somebody else is going to do

it, and it's going to get done one way or the other.

Yeah.

So it's good stuff. Uh, but yeah, we, uh, we're running up on time here, so, uh, we want to make sure we get to the the final portion of our show, which we do with all of our guests, and that's called the Final Four.

The Final Four.

Just, uh, oh, you good? Nope, nope. Oh, okay. All right, I think he's finally done. Uh, yeah, so, uh, the Final Four questions, uh, we ask all of our guests. Um, so, uh, we'll just get into it. What's, uh, the must-have tool you won't leave the house without?

I have to say my phone. I'm the type of guy that I like knowledge. If someone asks me a question, I immediately pull my phone out and Google it if I don't already know the answer. I don't even use my computer that much anymore. I almost always look stuff up on my phone now, whether it's directions to get somewhere or how to re-roof a house.

Yeah.

That phone is such a valuable tool now because it gives you access to all the human knowledge at the moment.

Got the YouTube app on there.

I do. I do have the YouTube app. So I would say my phone probably. I mean, I use that probably more than just about any other tool in my arsenal.

Yeah. I think we all do. I think it's kind of a natural extension.

I don't remember how I used to survive when I was a kid and didn't have it.

Didn't have a phone.

Yeah. It's very different. I remember I've got some stories of times whenever You know, the, the internet was just kind of beginning to be available on phones and just some crazy stuff.

So either one of you guys ever have a beeper?

No, I never had a beeper. I always wanted one. I don't know why.

Looking back at it now, it's like, why would I want that stupid thing?

Yeah, like, why would I want people to, to beep me?

But that was like, that was a huge thing.

It was, it was like, it's a huge status symbol too, especially when you could like start texting to beepers. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was a big deal.

Yeah.

Not that I'm that old.

No, of course not.

No. Yeah, you, you've read history books, obviously. Yeah. All right, second question: what's a job you've walked away from? So I kind of alluded to this a minute ago, like you're kind of a guy that sticks it out and does some things, but has there, has there been something that you've run into that you said, I'm just not gonna do this?

There actually is, and it's very closely tied to one of the stories I've already told.

Okay.

So that bathroom renovation.

Yeah.

I got the tub put in. I got the shower working again. I got that re-sheet rocked. And as I said, that was kind of year 8. And in year 9, they announced they were shutting down the plant I was working at. And I started looking for other jobs, and we found kind of a place down here in Texas that was going to work for us. So we started getting ready to look at selling the house, and that bathroom just wasn't done.

Got it.

done. And I didn't want to list the house, uh, with an unfinished bathroom.

Sure.

It was just, you know, wood flooring, uh, there was no trim, you know, there's still a lot of work that needed to be done. And, you know, my wife and I were talking, just, I could do it, but I just didn't have the time, you know, with all the other stuff going on. Um, and so we ended up hiring that to finish that bathroom out. You know, it was, it was a job I could have done, But just in the circumstances, sometimes the circumstances don't point towards doing it yourself. Sometimes it says the best option is to hire someone to come do it. I hired a friend of mine to come in and he finished it up pretty quickly and we were able to

get the house on the market.

Cool!

Nice!

Awesome! Sometimes timeliness is really of the essence, for sure. All right, 3rd question. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

At the end of a long day, I like to come home and cook.

OK. What do you like to cook?

Just about anything. My wife and I kind of have a deal that she doesn't have to cook dinner as long as she has something ready for me to cook when I get home.

OK.

So we usually, beginning of the week, we make a menu and she goes and does the grocery shopping so we know kind of what we're eating each day. And then pretty often I come home and I'll put on my headphones and just cook dinner. That's usually kind of a wind-down for me. At the end of a long week, I like to go into the garage and build furniture. Right now, that's kind of the thing I'm doing at the moment. And then I have a pool in my backyard, so going and relaxing in the pool is always a good—

Yeah. Yeah. Gotta love that. Cool. All right. Last question. What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

Always budget.

Okay.

My mother's an accountant. So growing up, she was very focused on personal finances and how to build budgets and stuff like that. And it served me very well in life. My wife luckily came from another family that was very money savvy. And so when we got married, it really wasn't a question. And we've had a budget since day one of our marriage. And we've done our best to stick to it. And it's done very well for us. Most of the people I I've talked to that say they don't have money to do this, that, or the other thing, you start asking them some questions and they almost never have budgets.

Yeah.

And you ask them, well, where's your money going? And they just don't know. So I think it's really important to track your finances. And when you track them, sometimes you realize, ooh, I didn't realize I was spending that much money doing that XYZ thing, be it Starbucks or eating out or buying books or whatever it is that your thing is. And sometimes you realize, well, maybe I need to cut back on that a little bit.

Yeah.

And then you have that money free to do other things that you want to do.

Sure. Excellent advice. Good stuff. Well, listen, thanks for, thanks for coming on the show and talking to us about this, this room that we're in and some of the things you've gone through. It's good stuff. And so yeah, if you have any other questions for Jared, you can email us at info@homewondershow.com. We'll get those to him and Because I have no social media presence. No social media presence. He doesn't exist, y'all. He is not real. Uh, uh, but yeah, get us a question and, uh, we'll make sure he gets that. Uh, Craig, you got anything else?

No, man, this is a good show. Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot.

Yep, fun stuff. Uh, thanks for downloading this episode. Um, you can always find us at homeownershow.com, and, uh, we're here every Tuesday, so, uh, keep, keep coming We're thankful for the downloads, and, you know, leave us a review rating on iTunes, all that kind of stuff. And until next time, we'll see you later. See ya.