That Time We Talked To A Painter

This is episode number 108 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're glad that you could be with us this time. We hope that you join us many other times.

All of the times.

All the times, yeah. Every time that Tuesday rolls around, you just need to be thinking about that little bitty house on the white logo.

Yeah, I mean, because think about it this way, y'all. I mean, we go into so much trouble to make these episodes. If no one listened to it, we would probably still do it.

We would.

And yet, we want you to listen to it, and you are listening to it.

But yeah, if you're hearing this, you are listening to it. So good for you. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Yeah, thanks for being you today.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

So how are you, Kev?

Man, I'm, I'm, I'm good. I'm actually really good. I, I kind of took the afternoon off today because I've had a lot of late nights. So I just was like, look, I'm going home. And I did. And I sat and I watched 2 episodes of Community and it was awesome.

Which episodes did you watch?

Um, one of them was—

Y'all, I, I have to ask this because I got him into this show. Now he's hooked.

Yeah. Um, One of them was the sexual tension one, and honestly, now I was so vegged out. I don't even remember what the second one was.

Have you started just saying cool cool cool to yourself all the time?

No, not yet. All right, you will.

But you will.

Yeah, I'm sure I will. I'm sure I will. It's it's a hilarious show. Yeah, absolutely hilarious. How you doing?

I'm doing all right. I am. I'm gonna I'm gonna put this out there into the. What did we decide that the the public domain of Podca— was it Podosphere?

Yes. It was better than Podnasty. That was our other option.

Yes.

I think Podosphere is probably better than Podnasty.

We're putting it out there on the internet that Craig is at his wit's end with his home warranty company.

Oh, you've come over to my side of life! I hate home warranties!

Yes!

I have been with HomeShield for a number of years. Let me tell you, I have now had 2 experiences, 3 experiences that have been extremely unsatisfying.

Well, and to be fair, when we were going through my whole ordeal with hating home warranties, like you were like, well, I'm actually, you kind of liked yours at the time.

I did.

They were doing well for you. And then you kind of hit a snag.

A big snag.

Yeah.

So, well, and I'll just speak of the 2 that really annoyed me. And, you know, shout out to Beth Elliott because there's obviously good companies out there doing good home warranties. Shout out to Fixit. Or Fixed, sorry. Fixed. That's right. But anyway, we had a dishwasher that was broken.

Oh, this dishwasher has been like the bane of your existence, hasn't it?

Well, it was the initial bane of my existence. It's not the current bane of my existence.

Okay, so to rehash though, So you had this dishwasher worked on like 12 times, right?

Yeah, and it took like 12 trips to basically rebuild the entire dishwasher, like piece by piece, with different service people. And let me tell you, it's a KitchenAid dishwasher. It's a good brand. I mean, it's one of the more expensive ones that you buy at the store. Hoping that if I spend a little bit more, it'll last a little bit longer, but this one just didn't. So anyway, After 11 or 12 trips, we had another brand-new dishwasher that still didn't work as well as the previous one. By trip 8, I was having phone conversations with the warranty company going, guys, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think you're going to fix it.

Right.

They're like, no, no, no, no, no. We need another service guy to come out there and see what the problem is. OK, it's your money, but it's not working. I'm not happy. Please get it fixed.

Right.

So it finally got fixed enough where it was, you know, usable again. So the more recent one was our washing machine. Now, please understand me, like, I'm not frustrated easily. However, my washing machine became broken in April.

Okay.

And I don't know if many of you recall, we had a rather large world cataclysmic event happen around April.

Hold up, hold up, what? So anyway, washing machine goes down, which during the pandemic, to not have a washing machine with your children—

Yes.

Has got to be like the worst thing in life, right? Mainly because if your children like to be outside a lot And you have a lot of property.

Yes.

And there's dirt and mud and—

And they like to roll in it like pigs.

Yeah.

So, no washing machine. So we called them. Let me— guys, it's still not fixed. April, May, June, July, August, September. We're fixing to hit October.

Oh my goodness.

I finally got so fed up. I just went and got another one.

Okay.

And like, and I called them the other day and I was like, hey, you didn't fix the washing machine.

Right.

We're so sorry. I'm canceling my service. No, no, no, please don't do that. We'll send you money for the washing machine. I'll call you tomorrow. Didn't call.

Of course not.

What the heck, HomeShield?

Like, you, you had one job.

One job.

Call me.

All you had to do was call.

Yeah.

Just call.

Right.

6 months. And I told the lady, I was like, I'm canceling my service and I want a refund for the last 6 months that I have faithfully made the payments for your useless service. Jeez.

Yeah, they— so just know, if you want a home warranty company, you're going to lose money. Unless you have something really big happen and you can just so perfectly show them why it's broken, and they are so perfectly able to just fix that one little part.

Yeah.

That changes everything. Like, for me, with— I, I finally got back at them with that whole disposal crap whenever my hot water heater on the last week that I owned this stupid warranty went kaput. And it was rusted out. It was a bad deal. And they paid. And it was awesome. But—

Well, I mean, it really seems like the strategy at this point for these companies is to like string you along with little tiny repairs that they're hoping will fix your issue.

Yes.

Instead of actually addressing the issue that like it's broken.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not the same.

Well, I, I often wonder if these companies thrive off of, off of homes being sold because you just kind of, oh, we'll churn them. Yeah, you just churn them like that. And they know that people aren't going to last with them for another year, but especially these people that, that pay up front for a year. It's like that they've— we've already got our money for the year, and because we've already got our money, we really don't want to fix whatever it is that you want You know? Yeah, I don't know. It's just a—

We need to get our people on this. And before that, we need to get people.

That if we could have people that knew other people.

Yes.

Who were fix-it type of people, then we could call them and say, our people are coming.

That's right.

And they would be scared.

So gird your loins.

All of them.

Yep.

Yep.

So on that note, we actually do have some people in the studio.

Yes.

They're not our people.

No, well, they're going to be our people.

So, but they are the people that you want to talk to about paint and painting the interior and painting cabinets and all things paint.

Yeah, I'm actually pretty excited about this episode because, um, we don't know anything about paint. Yeah, that's—

we—

well, right off the bat, that's right. We were talking about this, um, I don't know, a few weeks ago, and we were like, you know what, we've never had a painter. We've never had a painter on the show. Like, how have we never had a painter on the show?

Yeah.

And, um, Here we are. There we go. Today's the day.

That's right.

I wanna wait.

We got Aaron and Steph in the studio from Handmade Painting Services. How you guys doing?

Hey.

Hello.

Good.

Great. Thanks for having us.

Of course. Of course. So, I mean, just, just right off the bat, let us know kind of how you got started in this, in this business. What's, what's, what's the, what's the Peter Parker origin stories of Handmade Painting Services?

Well, well, initially, um, Well, before I started painting, I worked for BP. I worked up in Alaska. I would actually fly up there every 3 weeks and come back home. I worked on the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline doing inspections on the welds.

Oh, wow.

But it just took me away from home. I was always gone. I would be gone about 6 months out of the year and I was trying to find a transition, something to make me, you know, just home more often. I missed just being able to sleep in my own bed at night and so, whenever I was home, I would Had 3 weeks off, you know? So I was like, man, what do I do with myself? I have 3 weeks off. I'm so used to working because when I was up on the North Slope, I'll be working 82 hours a week. Gosh. So I was like, when I got home, it was kind of like a shell shock. I didn't know what to do with myself.

So I started like looking at different pieces around the house. My wife is a great interior designer. She has all these like images and pictures of things that she wants. And, and so I pretty much just tried—

So she's a typical wife is what you're saying?

Yes.

Okay. She knows exactly what she wants.

Yes, to a T. And so we had a couple old pieces of furniture laying around that a dog had chewed up, and we had an old dresser drawer that my— we needed a new dresser for my son's room. And so she was like, why don't we refinish this and do this and that? So I was like, sure, let's give it a try, you know.

Hmm.

I've never refinished anything a day in my life, but I'm pretty handy. So I'm like, well, I'll give it a try. And I was able to figure it out and it came out beautiful and it still looks just as good as the day I did it.

Wow.

Oh, you still have it?

Yeah, I still have it. Oh, I keep all my finished pieces.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, you know, the first kind of like my origin story, you know.

You want to keep those pieces.

Yeah, something to look back onto, you know, remember why I do what I do today.

You need something for the museum.

Of course.

When I become super famous. That's right.

Yeah.

That's when you really cash in those.

Mm-hmm. Right.

So, at some point then, you were like, look, I could, I could do this. I enjoy this. It's, it's fun. But also, I think I'm good at, good enough at it. I can make a living.

Yeah, exactly. Because like I said, whenever I came home for 3 weeks, I had 3 weeks off, so I had time to work on the business. So it was like my kind of like my side business, you know. And I, and it took time. It took me a couple years to be able to generate enough income and enough clients and, uh, just a good name for myself, you know, to actually do it full time. So luckily, I was able to quit my job and stay home and It's been— I haven't looked back ever since.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So I, I have some Alaska questions. Oh yeah. Yeah. Were you, were you up there like all 4 seasons?

Yes.

So, I mean, just unbearably cold?

Yes. I've, I've experienced -53-degree weather with like 60-mile-per-hour wind chill. How? Wet drop. Actually, before you go up to the Arctic Slope or, uh, the North Slope. Yeah. Um, it's called the Prudhoe Bay Oil Fields.

Okay.

And, uh, before you even go up there, you have to go through extensive training.

Okay.

And just to let you know what kind of wildlife you might experience and, uh, what kind of weather and how to drive up there and all kinds of stuff. And so once they get you trained up, then you actually get suited for Arctic gear because—

Oh, you have to have it.

Yeah, they custom— they customize your suit in Arctic gear. And, um, they pretty much load up your truck with all the gear and everything you need to do because sometimes you're in situations where a blizzard will roll in.

And so we have to caravan.

And I worked on the furthest oil pad, which was kind of a pain in the butt. And the maximum speed that you could drive up there was 30 miles per hour.

Oh man.

And so it took me about an hour and a half just to get to the furthest oil pad, which is Z-pad. And so one day we were all the way out on Z-pad and a storm blew in real quick, real fast. It only took like 30 minutes to be in like a blackout or blizzard conditions. And so we had to caravan all the way back to camp. And, uh, pretty much you have to follow your— they asked us to caravan because you can easily drive off the road, and they don't want you driving off into the tundra because that's what you're surrounded by. And if you drive onto this, into the tundra, you'll sink into the mud, and then you'll be stranded in blizzard conditions.

So you die.

Well, it's weird. It's weird right now. Like, I'm looking and your wrists aren't slit at all. No, it's weird. Like, I completely expected after this conversation to be able to see, like, cut marks. But they're not there, Craig.

No. I might have a few for waiting for him to come.

I bet. Pick me up from the airport.

Yeah.

After that comforting tundra talk.

Yeah. Oh, but it was fascinating. It was absolutely beautiful. I saw the aurora borealis. I've seen polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, uh, what else? Muskox. I saw the, the great caribou migration.

Wow.

Uh, I saw, yeah, I was, I think it was over like 14,000 caribou.

Yeah.

I saw just in the fields, all in the tundra, cuz I worked on the Z-pad. So I saw all the migratory patterns of animals and stuff like that. And so it was, it was a neat experience.

I've, I've actually been to, to Alaska. It was just a cruise, so just, you know, up the, up the coast basically.

But so you have stories of toughness just like this guy?

Yeah, it was, it was crazy. Like, I had to wear like 3 layers, you know, like a, uh, a jacket and like a little heavier jacket at one point. Um, but no, I, I just always have really wanted to— we didn't to while we were there, but I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights, you know, just kind of see some of those things that you're like, does that actually exist?

It does, and it's beautiful.

I'm sure it is.

It is. It was, it was a real pretty green haze just like snaking through the sky, man.

Now, have you seen the lights in Marfa?

Marfa?

Yeah.

No, you heard of that?

No.

So, so Texas has 2 places that has similar— I don't know if they call them like aurora borealis, but like in Marfa you can go see lights in the sky. And it's just like this little bitty, one of the other things it's famous for, I think it has, it's like out in the middle of the desert. It's a department store. It's like the world's smallest department store. It's like 10 feet by 10 feet. And it's just all by itself out in the middle of the desert. So my sister goes like every year. So she always sends me pictures, but they're like, people who are really like into aliens go to Marfa to see the lights in the sky.

Yeah, that's us.

Okay, there you go. Steph's going. And there's one other place in Texas. I can't think of the name, but I know Marfa's the big one.

like the phenomenon type of lights?

Yes.

Like the Anson lights?

Are you talking about— Is that what it is?

Yeah, in Anson, which is up near Abilene. Okay, that must be it. They've got a weird story, and I've actually gone and seen it where like there's this light that kind of floats across the road. It's bizarre.

Yeah.

It's absolutely bizarre.

So I don't know, but I don't know if Anson is similar to Marfa, but from what I understand, the lights at Marfa are in the sky.

Okay. I've seen some lights in the sky, but they were You have to be outside the city to see them. Some people call them stars.

Okay.

Anyway, that's about the closest I've been to the, you know, those lights.

We're gonna disregard your bad joke. That's what we're gonna do.

Move.

As we move on, it wasn't really—

there you go.

I like him. Yeah, it's fine, y'all. It's fine. Well, cool. So, um, kind of, kind of back to cabinets, um, and woodworking and painting and all that kind of stuff. Like, um, give us, give us a little bit of an idea of, you know, if I were to call you just out of the blue, hey, I want some work done, what would you hope that I would want you to do? Like, what's your favorite types of things to work on?

Cabinets, woodwork in general, refinishing furniture, tables, oh, you name it. Bar tops. Bar tops are always fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that, um, I, I, one of the things that I, I think a lot of people don't fully understand is it's pretty easy to go down to, you know, department, you know, the big box store or Sherwin-Williams, whatever, and buy some paint and throw it up on a wall. Like, that's, it's pretty easy to do. Although I— it's really interesting, when we bought our house, we sat across from the, from the sellers to, to do the final signing and everything, and And, uh, we were talking to him and his wife was like, yeah, he painted the whole house. He's such a good painter. He's so good. He loves, he loves to do it. And I will, I'll come in, you know, one day and he's painted a whole nother room a different

color. And he's like, he's just a great painter. And I was like, oh, okay, great. And I, you know, we'd been in the house obviously quite a bit, but I'd never really looked. And the more you look, you're like, he's actually a horrible painter. He's really, really bad. Like, maybe his first coat was great, but he just stopped. And didn't like put that second coat, or maybe the third. Sometimes you need a third, right?

Yeah.

Um, but I, I think that one of the things that a lot of people don't— maybe they just take for granted— is painting is strenuous work. Yeah, it's tough.

Backbreaking work.

And it's tough.

It really is. Yeah. Especially like whenever you first come into a home, just the first inspection of a good painter is look at their cut-in lines. Is it a straight line? You know, is there— is the wall blotchy? Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it faded? Is there flashing going on? Can you clearly tell that he didn't put the second coat on? It's just, there's little things that you can, you can tell between a professional and someone who's just working out of the back of his pickup truck.

Right. Yeah. And so I actually, um, I, I did, I did some, I, I just didn't really want to tape. And I think good painters really don't tape a whole lot, like on cut-in lines and stuff.

Well, that's, that's, well, on the ceiling, no, you can't really tape ceiling. But if you're dealing with maybe some, like a joint or some 90-degree angles with baseboards, tape can be your best Sure. You know, because sometimes painters just aren't— they might be good, but they're not fast enough. Because as a painter, you have to be very— your productive has to be quick. Your, you know, your production value has to be quick.

Yeah.

Because you can only charge so much per room, and on average it should only take maybe 3 to 4 hours to paint a room top to bottom max. That's with moving furniture and moving everything back and putting back on—

Wow.

Light switch plates and everything like that.

Yeah.

Because the amount, depending on what crew and what paint and materials and everything else that you're using, time is money. You know?

Yeah.

So you get— you gotta be quick. And so if you can cut in real quick by using tape, it helps.

Yeah.

That's what you gotta do.

Yeah. You know, so there's a, there's a guy, I think he's in Idaho. He's called like Idaho Painter.

Is that—

you've heard of him?

Yeah.

Big time.

This guy, this guy, it's, it's unbelievable. He uses social media really, really well. And he's got a huge following and I'm like, this guy tells you all of the tricks. Right. But he's so successful. Because people are like, I think, I think he's showing everybody how good he is and now they don't want to do it, so they hire him even though he's telling them exactly what to do. One of the things that I learned from him was like how to cut in. That is not something you can learn on YouTube. It is so difficult to cut in it. And it's— I mean, I literally have no idea what you're even talking about.

So the cutting line, when you first paint a room, say if you were going to paint one wall, you have to cut in all the edges and corners first.

Okay.

And then you go back and you roll from top to bottom to connect your cutting lines.

Okay.

So everything comes out smooth and even because sometimes if you roll first and then cut in afterwards, it'll flash. Yeah, it's called flashing.

Okay.

So you'll see a distinct like 3-inch line depending on how big your brush or whatever you're using. You'll see a very thick, dry, dark line that will dry before the rest of the paint will dry that's being, that's being rolled.

Okay.

And then it'll flash. So you always want to— in painting world, you always want to keep a wet edge. So I recommend always painting one wall at a time. Don't try and go into like a whole, a whole room and try to cut in everything at first, because if you're real slow, that cutting line is going to dry before you can go back and roll in the center.

I gotcha.

And then it'll flash, and then you'll see a distinct line, and it'll look very uneven and wavy and be a mess.

Well, I learned— what I learned from him was it's really easy if you're him, and otherwise You need to hire someone to do it.

That's what like 30 years of experience will give you right there. Yeah, he's been doing it a long time. He knows his stuff, that's for sure.

Yeah.

So, well, and that— I think that's one of the things that you, you pick up when you watch stuff online. If you watch enough stuff online, like, you'll, you'll recognize really quick that like you can't, you can't learn what that guy is showing you in a YouTube video. I mean, like, because like you said, he's been doing it for 30 years. He's— I mean, like, his job is to make it look easy.

Yep.

And, you know, so many people are like, get this weird twist in their brain that like, oh, that moron can do it, I can do it.

Right.

And it never comes out that way.

Yeah, because she'll show you what to do but like the technical side aspect of it, like what brushes is he using? What rollers is he using? What kind of paint is he using? You know, it kind of gives you a vague, you know, inkling of what he's doing but it really matters and you have to figure out what kind of brush works best for you and your style of painting. Are you a left-handed painter? Are you a right-handed painter?

Does the paint that you're using have a lot of much like high solids in the paint?

Is it very thick paint or is it very like thin paint? There's different brush for different application. So, it's very technical. I know he makes it look really, really easy but that's only because of all his years of knowledge and experience, you know. So, but once you really get down into it and you'll figure it out that like this last cabinet painting job I'm doing, the guy, he is a cabinet builder but he doesn't have any idea of how to paint them.

Okay.

So he just bought, you know, just a basic sprayer from Lowe's. It was real cheap and he used the wrong tip size and didn't have the right pressure. Cuz you have to have the right pressure and the right tip size and know what paint you're using because it just all boils down into how it's gonna look, you know, the finish.

Yeah.

It all boils down to the finish. And if you don't, if all those steps are wrong, your finish isn't, isn't gonna come out awful. So these are all things that you have to learn through experience, not just watching a video.

So one of the things you mentioned was the brush and the roller. So, I mean, what's crazy is there's a huge discrepancy between the price of some paintbrushes and like other paintbrushes. So is, is there some that you recommend more than others or that you only use a certain brand of something, or is it just kind of like once you get to a certain tier of paintbrush, they're all really good?

Well, I like Wooster.

Yeah.

Wooster Ultra Pro Firm brushes is what I like to use for my cut-ins because they stiffen up really well and they hold a lot of paint and they pretty much, when you dip it into your brush and scrape it off, it turns into a pencil. So, that's— you'll figure that out cuz sometimes I'll use some Purdy brushes and when you dip it into the paint, the paintbrush kinda rounds and so, it's harder to get a straighter cut-in line. So, it's like trying to draw with a massive crayon. instead of a pencil.

Okay.

And that— and there's the stuff that you'll figure out through experience, right? You know, and so it's just— so honestly, I like Wooster, but it's most— most people would use Purdy, I would say.

Okay.

But if you go to Lowe's, you'll see Purdy, but then also they have a cheaper like Wiz brand. It's called Wiz, Wiz Rollers. And Wiz Brush. Yeah, those are for like the weekend warriors, you know, trying to get it done as fast as possible without the wife complaining.

Time for the wins. Yeah, well, it's warriors. But I, I've— I think that— so there's a problem that I found, and that is that I, I've bought Wooster before. I've got a couple at my house right now, but I'm always like, I only want to use those on water-soluble paint because I do not want to try to clean out oil-based paint out of paintbrushes. I just throw them away. Because— and it's like, it could be like a $15 brush or maybe even more that I just like chunk it because— and that's another reason that I'm like, I gotta do all of this oil-based paint now because otherwise I'm gonna spend like $300 on paintbrushes because I'm just gonna keep throwing them away if I have to come back to it tomorrow.

It adds up.

It does. So, so how— I mean, they say, you know, use this or use that, but Is there a way to actually clean those things and use them again if you're using oil-based?

Paint thinner.

Yeah, I know, but it takes—

And a wire brush. And time. It'll take about 30 minutes.

Okay.

Yeah, on average, probably take about 30 minutes. She knows when I come home from work, I'm sitting there for at least 30, 45 minutes just cleaning out all my paintbrushes, rollers, buckets.

I see it all in my sink daily.

Yes.

Well, I guess that makes me feel better because, you know, there have been times when I'm out there like, You know, like 3 minutes later, and I'm like, this isn't done. 3, 3 minutes ought to be plenty, right? And it's not done, so I'm gonna chunk it. But 30 minutes, really? It takes a long time.

It does, it does. But what are you using oil on?

Oh, I, I've used oil on, on when— because I've, I've gone in and I've touched up like trim or doors. Yes, exactly. Touched up trim, touched up, um, my cabinets. Whenever we moved into our house, our cabinets had nicks in it and stuff, and so You know, I touched up that kind of stuff.

Yeah. 'Cause honestly, I try to stay away from all oil-based products, uh, with, uh, uh, the, it's called the water-based revolution because I started using a new, uh, product called Renner. It's, uh, industrial, uh, water-based wood coatings from Italy. And, um, uh, Sherwin-Williams has similar products, but it doesn't just stand up to the products that are from Italy right now because they're kind of leading the way. So that's why the water-based revolution, because they're kind of leading the way. And Sherwin-Williams is a great product. They got great products.

Right.

But when it comes to a refinishing standpoint with wood and cabinets and stuff like that, the products from Italy are just bar none the best.

Yeah, I've seen you guys post about that on your, on your social media. So, I mean, like, obviously there's lots of different paint suppliers. Where, how did you even find those and where are you getting them?

So this is kind of random. It's, it's really not accessible to just the normal person because I was in the Facebook groups and I met this guy. His name is Luis Hasso and he's kind of a well-known person in the refinishing world. Okay. And he has a direct distributor for Renner.

Okay.

And he lives 12 minutes from my house. I was like, what the heck?

Like the refinisher guy or the paint guy?

Both. He's both.

Oh, okay. He's a refinisher too. He's the same guy.

He's the distributor for all of Renner products.

Okay.

Yeah. And, but it just, I was just like, no way. Like, cause I was blown away.

Some things are meant to be.

I was like, what the heck? It's a small world. And he, and they happen to have a distribution a distribution center here in Houston.

Okay.

And so they ship all the products here because some are made here and then other products made in Italy depending on what products you want.

Okay.

But luckily I can get it firsthand. He actually can get it and drop it off to my job site. Like, if I'm working on some cabinets, he can drop off this product from Italy just right on the doorstep of the job I'm working at.

So, so you're telling me with this product you use it over oil-based?

I can use it. Well, Well, over oil-based I can, but I always prime. Always. You always have to prime when you're dealing with any kind of thing.

Yeah, because painting— I've always been kind of told that like you, you can't— you can use oil-based over water-based, but like if you're redoing something, but like you can't use water-based paint on top of oil-based because it just peels right off, right?

Peel off.

Yeah. Yeah. But there's, there's ways you can kind of get around that.

Oh, well, if you sand it If you do, if you, if you have to really scuff up the surface and then that latex paint will stick, but you won't have a long life on it.

Yeah.

It just won't last.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's why I always prime. You always have to prime, but not just on walls. You don't have to prime walls unless it's new construction or something like that. New drywall.

Right.

And you have to prime it obviously. And, uh, I guess the only other time I ever use oil is if I'm like painting over wallpaper. Sometimes clients don't want to pay for the wallpaper to be removed. You have to oil prime over wallpaper.

Okay. Yeah. Wow.

I'm just wondering why people have wallpaper at all.

Everyone in Kingwood has wallpaper.

Yes.

Well, talk to Mel because she wants to put it in everything.

She's trying to put it up. I'm gonna talk her out of it.

Well, you're not going to talk Mel out of something. Once she's got it in her mind, that's what she's gonna do, and she's fantastic at it. She is.

So, but the wallpaper they have that they're coming out with now is actually very nice looking. It's not your floral and your plaid and all of that. You know, you're— it's more—

Yeah, it's very high-end looking.

Not a garden scene.

Yes.

Yeah, that's pretty much every— it's like, it's like a trim at the top that's just nothing but like tomato plants or something.

Or birds.

Yeah.

No, it's typically roosters, right? Roosters, you know, like in a kitchen. Yeah.

Some kind of bird.

Yeah, I see that a lot.

Yeah.

My mom had roosters.

So many roosters.

She better not listen to this. She's gonna think I hated her roosters.

Well, don't talk about her chickens.

That's right.

You've—

Well, you've learned just not to mess with her in general.

That's true. She comes back at you with a vengeance.

Did y'all hear what my mom did to him?

No.

So I forget what, oh, he said something about on—

Oh, it was hilarious.

He said something funny.

Don't get me wrong, it was hilarious, but it was mean.

He did a little snide remark on something that she posted on Facebook.

One comment.

Small comment.

That's it.

So we did an episode where we, we dogged on fanny packs because those are making a comeback too, which that should never happen.

No, no.

Um, I'm gonna get you all one.

You can get us one, but I'll tell you like I tell everybody else, it's going right in the trash, so don't waste your money.

So my mom Photoshops a fanny pack onto a picture of Kevin, and the fanny pack is a pink unicorn fanny pack, and then she distributes them as photos around his office.

I mean, I'm not naive enough to think that— I mean, this happened like 2 and a half weeks ago. I'm pretty sure that I will find more. They're— I mean, the only kind of consolation that I got is I'm pretty sure she had to buy new print— you know, printer ink.

Yeah.

Because she used so many of them.

She did, and she didn't care.

Worth it.

Yeah. Yeah, because actually, my growing up as a kid, one of my good friends' dad, he always wore a fanny pack all the time. Everywhere he went, he wore a fanny pack. I was like, Kyle, why does your dad always wear a fanny pack? He's like, I really don't know. And so I went and asked him. I was like, hey, Kyle's dad, why do you always wear a fanny pack? And he opened up his fanny pack and he pulled out a gun.

Oh yeah. Hey, that's what I said.

This is why.

That's what I said.

I remember he said, I, you know, if I wore a fanny pack, that's where all the guns are going to be.

I promise you, all the guns keep in the case. Sure as heck, he pulled out a gun right then and there. I was like, all right, never make fun of him again.

That's exactly right. Kyle's dad's my new best friend.

His fanny pack is cool.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yep, exactly. Wow. Um, I totally had another question I was gonna ask.

Well, no, I'll circle back around to the paint. So is, is, is the stuff that you're— remind me of the brand that you're getting from Italy.

It's called Renner. Renner?

Okay. So is Renner just a refinishing product or is it actually like a, a whole paint platform?

Whole paint platform. It's a, it's an industrial wood coating. So you can, you can literally do it. I mean, put it on anything or even on metal. It doesn't, it doesn't matter what it is.

Oh wow.

Yeah. It's highly durable. Like I said, it has a very high solid content and it's extremely durable to make like, you know, like scratches and like pastas and soap and kids kicking on it or dogs chewing on it, you know? Cabinets go through everything.

Yeah.

You know, your whole life is your kitchen. It's in your kitchen. So imagine how strong of a product needs to be to hold up something like that.

So, so what— so you're saying it's like a, it's a water-based paint? How is that different from like chalk paint that I'm hearing so much about these days?

So chalk paint, it's, it, it is still a water-based paint, but it's just, like I said, it's all about the solids in the paint. It has a very low solid content.

The chalk paint does?

Yeah. Okay. And the sheen to it, chalk paint, It's normally chalky.

Yeah, it's kind of like a flat matte.

Yeah, matte. So normally the higher the shine, the higher the durability.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so that's why whenever people want to get their counters painted, they normally gear towards maybe a semi-gloss, even a gloss. So, 'cause just, 'cause it has a higher solid content and it has a stronger durability.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, so Since we're talking about paint, I think one of the things a lot of people would like to know is like, okay, I don't have a distributor a few blocks away from me for this high-end paint. I'm probably not going to use that anyway.

Yeah.

So if I'm just going— if I'm, if I'm just, you know, Joe homeowner, need to paint a room, um, maybe even multiple rooms, where and what what product would you recommend? Because there's a lot. I mean, there's a huge debate out there, especially between like Behr and Sherwin-Williams. But then there's also, you know, you got Valspar. You've also got a lot of people are, are big into the, um, what's the other— it's like a Sherwin-Williams type brand. I'm just blanking on it.

Benjamin Moore.

Benjamin Moore. That's the other one. A lot of people are big into Benjamin Moore. So I'm just curious, what are your What are your recommendations?

Well, we're talking about just wall paint or latex wall paint?

Yeah, just want to paint a room. I would say you're just— yeah, you're just, you're just wanting to go and, and paint a room and, you know, because, because your wife has an idea and she— or maybe she's the painter and you just want to go paint a room. What I want, good stuff. What am I going to go buy?

So what do you think about best quality, best price? What's your budget? I have like the Ferrari budget or have like the Toyota budget?

I think this is part of the problem with paint is there's way There's so many things.

You're talking like $90 a gallon, or you'd be talking maybe $25, $30 a gallon?

I, I think that if I, if I came home and told my wife that that wall that I was about to paint cost me $90, she might shoot me. So I'm thinking I need something—

That's pretty common.

I need something probably more like the $30 range.

Okay, so what's the paint that's just gonna get him punched?

It's gonna punch him.

We need, we need that threshold. I don't want him to get off scot-free.

So it's called Emerald Design Okay.

So, but most times Sherwin-Williams has like 30% off sales, so you can probably get it for maybe like $60 to $70 with tax.

Okay.

But it's still very high-end, but the paint is immaculate. It is beautiful. It's for designer homes.

Like— Well, that's weird because— that's weird because I've got a couple of cans of that at my house. Yeah, it's not a designer home, um, but it— there's like the the previous homeowner had some of it in there, he probably had a coupon. So, you know why there's some still left? Because he never finished that second or third coat that he should have used. For sure. So Emerald, that's— yeah, Emerald is a Sherwin-Williams paint.

Yes, yes. Okay, talking Sherwin-Williams, there's a bunch of different tiers that we can go into. But for a budget paint, I would recommend Super Paint. You're talking about $25 to $30 a gallon, and the coverage is incredible. Uh, most of the time you can get away with just using one coat on the wall, but as a professional, I don't recommend that. I always put 2 coats on the wall.

Yeah.

Because then you don't have to worry about flashing or any kind of patching, like any patchy or any holes left behind, stuff like that. So make sure you get that good coverage with the second coat.

So are you saying with like a higher quality paint, you can get, get by with a single coat?

No.

Okay. Just wanna make sure.

That's what they say on the can though.

Okay. That's, that's their claim.

Yes.

They're lying. That's the way they sell it.

The paint and primer and one coat coverage. Like you'll see that a lot in Behr, you know, their products. of that. Like the Behr Marquee, they guarantee it in one coat. But yeah, it really depends on what, uh, how heavily textured the wall is too. If you're on a very heavily textured wall, the roller doesn't have enough time to really go into each little divot. So that's what that second coat will do. We'll go back and fill in all those holes.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And, and I, I think that's just a marketing ploy, right? Like the whole able, you know, one coat coverage.

That's exactly what it is, because what they want you to do, they want you to buy the cheaper paint, but you don't realize they're going to have to use twice as much of that cheaper Mm-hmm. Which is end up equaling just as much as the— Money.

Yes. Yeah.

Then you were gonna spend before because the coverage isn't there with that cheap paint. Because with the cheaper quality of paint, lower the solids, lower the solids gets thinner.

Yeah.

And thin paint doesn't, it'll spread but it doesn't cover.

Mm-hmm.

It won't get that coverage and have that, won't, it won't lay out even, won't have that even lay. So you'll kind of look blotchy and wavy. You'll see some spots, spots are real dark and some spots real light. That's what I mean where it's not like evenly laying down.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think one of the other things to kind of remember when, I mean, think about whenever you're going to buy paint is if you go to Home Depot, for example, and you want to buy Behr because you've been told Behr is the absolute best paint ever, and you— first of all, the people that are working at that desk don't know much or anything about paint. No offense, but, but seriously, I mean, they, they're, you know, today your shift is at paint type of thing, you know. And so they— Short straw.

Right.

So they don't really know what they're talking about. And I mean, you could sometimes be waiting for an hour—

Forever.

To get paint because there's so many people in line in front of you. I think that a lot of people don't recognize that if you go like to Sherwin-Williams, first of all, they really know what they're doing. They've got people there that are painters or previously—

Yeah, they're coating specialists.

Right. They know what— they train them really well on top of that. And you're gonna spend a considerably less amount of time in that building than you would if you were going to Home Depot.

Oh yeah.

And gain more knowledge. Yeah.

But just the only thing about Sherwin-Williams, they always try to upsell you. They always start off with Emerald. They always start there until, until you realize you're like, holy crap, I don't need to spend all this money for— to get the look that I'm looking for, you know?

Yeah.

Because most people don't even realize like the different quality of paint on the wall. You walk into a room, you say, oh, looks good.

Yeah.

You know, you don't realize, oh man, look at the sheen. Look how, how, look how evenly lays out on the wall. Look Like, look how beautiful those cutting lines are. Like, you don't— you just don't do that as a homeowner, you know? You're just like, nice solid paint, good, looks even all the way across.

Don't see any sheetrock coming through.

It's not all over your ceilings or all over the floor and everything else, right? Like, all right, it's good enough.

I think—

I think most people walk into a room like, oh, so this is the living room. That's about it. Like, looking at the color of the paint on the wall is typically not what people do. I don't I don't think, you know.

No.

And if you are, then you're probably like you or Mel or someone that like their job is to do that. I just don't think that most people walk in like, like just inspect the room. Yeah, I don't— maybe I'm wrong and maybe I'm— this is my, my dudeness coming out. Like, I don't know, but, but I just don't think that that necessarily happens.

Ask a woman that. Definitely.

Yeah, but I think, I think those guys are out there. They're not coming over to my party.

the quality food that they want to eat at my house. That's what they're doing. They got, they got other things in their mind. Yeah.

So, well, and I actually have a question about when you're, when you're dealing with a homeowner and whoever ends up doing this, I don't know, but I would, I would imagine a lot of homeowners have you come into their home with an idea in their head that you end up having to take them a different direction, either on the finish or whatever it is, because I have no clue what the difference is between like a eggshell, and I don't even know all the different finishes on the paint. I know that there are differences. I don't know what they do. The one thing I learned from you so far, if it's shiny, it's a little bit harder

and more durable.

Yeah, the durability of it.

So I pay attention. But other than that, like, I would imagine sometimes people have an idea that like, I need this like flat matte or whatever. And you're like, well, maybe you should do this.

And that's actually, before you answer that question, this is an argument that my brother and I have. Because what he puts on his walls and what I think you should put on your walls are different as far as the sheen goes. And so I really am curious, genuinely curious about your answer about this. Like, if you're like, perfect home, you know, it's, it's an— just a regular home, nothing, you know, super fancy, also nothing super run down, just a normal home. What do you— what sheen do you put where? Is that a fair question?

Well, it's just all 4 walls. Do you have an accent wall going on?

Well, I'm, I'm thinking— well, okay, I'm thinking, I'm thinking the difference between, uh, let's just go basic here. Just all the same walls, a ceiling, and trim. Let's just start there.

Okay, so whenever I paint a room, I always start from top to bottom. So ceiling, always flat, dead flat, always dead flat. It looks weird if you put any kind of sheen to it. And then also ceilings, most of the time they don't do that good of a job with your ceiling. And so the flat hides all the imperfections in your ceiling. Like if there was wavy or they messed up with the, um, the, uh, texture, they mix the texture gun was off. Or sometimes, yeah, you'll see like traditionally they'll have like a knockdown texture, but sometimes they'll forget to knock the texture down or certain sections of it. And it looks like little mountains. You have like flat and then you have like mountains.

Yeah.

Okay. So whenever you paint it flat, it hides all those imperfections in the texture. And also if the drywaller did a bad job, you know, right. If you have any studs popping, nails popping or anything like that, that flat paint will help hide hide all those imperfections in the wall, in the ceiling. And then as I work my way down to the walls, you— well, it depends on— right now I'd say normally you use probably satin paint, which is just maybe a step above eggshell. If you go to Sherwin-Williams, they'll call it the same thing. You'll say satin or eggshell, they'll just be like, okay, it's the same thing to them.

Okay.

But if you go to Benjamin Moore, there'll be a slight difference.

Okay.

Yeah, they're, they're a little bit more technical with it, but Sherwin-Williams is just like, yeah, it's the same So, I would assume that eggshell is a step below satin. Yes.

In the sheen scale.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Just like literally like look at an egg.

Yeah.

Look at the sheen on an egg. That's what it is.

Yeah.

Yep.

And so, I'm guessing flat is below that then?

Yes. Flat is below that.

Okay.

But they have made advances in paint like crazy. So, if you wanted to paint your walls like a flat paint, which is very popular nowadays, they increase the solids in the paint that increase the durability. So it could have the same durability as a semi-gloss or even a satin paint.

Oh.

Yeah, but you're talking about higher-end paint though, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

So how many, how many degradations are we talking about in the finish here? I mean, like flat, eggshell, satin?

Well, the very, very bottom is flat. Okay, you go with eggshell, then you have the, uh, satin, and then semi-gloss, and you have gloss, then you have high gloss.

Okay.

And that's the whole tier.

Okay, so then you're, you're using on trim, then you're using semi-gloss to gloss. Okay. And then cabinets, same thing, same thing. Just kind of depends on what you want at that point.

Yeah, well, you can do, uh, satin. Satin looks really good. Satin has a more like, um, like a classic, like a farmhouse feel to it. It has a little bit of a shine to it, but it has— but then you can see the flatness underneath it. It's got— it's real unique for cabinets. It's been very popular Yeah.

No, so here's the argument that my brother and I have.

Yeah, we wanna know who won.

Well, he's an idiot. So that's all that really, that's all you really need to know.

Because— I really hope he listens.

Yeah, he doesn't, but I'm gonna tell him to go listen to this episode. 'Cause he really has no recourse. Right, right.

Well, there's the comment section.

There's the comment section, I guess. But like, he will always put semi-gloss on walls.

And I'm like, that's weird.

That's weird. Thank you. I'm like, no, don't put semi-gloss on a wall. It's way too shiny. He was like, no, I like it. And I'm like, well, you're weird and stupid. So obviously, Craig, the answer to this question is I win because Aaron agrees with me.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Because I was actually— I was painting a home for a client and he wanted to paint his daughter's room and he picked semi-gloss paint for his daughter's room. It was like a pink semi-gloss paint. I walked in and I was like—

It's like a candy wrapper.

Yeah, it's like walking to a candy store.

Like, what the heck?

I was like, why did you pick semi-gloss? He's like, I don't know. He already knew he messed up before I even stepped in the room. I was just like, so if you want me to fix it, let me know.

Yeah, exactly. That, that's actually a good lead-in right there. How many times are you coming in to fix what someone else has done rather than just start from scratch?

Well, when it comes to cabinets, probably half the time.

Half the time.

Yeah, at least 50%. And then with the wall painting, the cabinet will probably start— the client will probably start a wall and be like, this is way too much work. Yeah, like, this is beyond me. I don't have time for this. Because like I said, for a good painter, 3 to 4 hours, you need to complete the whole room.

Yeah.

So imagine a homeowner who doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, it could take you days.

Yeah.

And who has days to do things nowadays? You're always so busy with the kids, work, school, you name it. And so that's why it's so much easier just to get a professional in there and get it done in 3 or 4 hours.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like when you say 3 or 4 hours, I mean like moving the furniture back, it's dry, it's good to— I mean like you're good to go. Oh yeah.

2 coats, move furniture back, faceplates, everything's covered, floor's covered, everything.

How do you— I mean, are you— so are you using fans to help dry or does it just dry that? I mean, how do you put 2 coats on that quickly? I mean, are you just like doing one wall, going another wall, by the time you circle back around it's dry? Is that the way it works?

Yeah, with loops. You know, everything is always in a loop. You start— we start cutting line, paint the wall, and then while that wall is drying, you start the next wall and do the cutting line. And normally by the time you finish that second cutting line on that second wall, that first wall is already dry.

Oh.

So that's where you always want to do loops. That's why I recommend just doing all— just working on one wall at a time, because by the time you circle back through, that wall will probably be dry and ready, and you just keep moving.

Wow. Okay, so you said, uh, back at the very beginning of the show when we, you know, I was asking you that question about You know, what's your favorite thing to do? And you said that your favorite thing to do is, is really the finishing types of things.

Yeah, cabinetry finishing.

Yeah. So why, why is that your favorite thing to do? And what makes— like, because I would assume since it's your favorite thing to do, you're really good at it. I mean, I think a lot of people, they really, you know, the things that they enjoy doing most are the things that they look at and go, I'm really good at that. So what makes you really good at that?

Like, why do you really like Well, I guess slowly through experience because luckily, I was actually pretty good at it from the start because I just— I'm just very meticulous at what I do and I guess it's like borderline OCD, I guess you say. I have a very strong focus.

Yeah.

She could admit to that.

If you could only see her eyes right then. I'm sorry I did not like—

Just do a quick camera cut right over there.

I wish I did. It was this, are you kidding me? That is— she's like, I'm over here.

Yeah, a piece of furniture.

So you're very meticulous?

Yes, yes, I'm very meticulous. And it's just, as a cabinet refinisher, you just need to take your time. Because honestly, because the reason why I like it so much is because you're bringing— you're like bringing that piece of furniture back to life. Like I'm bringing it back to its natural state, or whatever state you want. Like whatever your image is in your head, I can make it happen. I think that's just like so fascinating to me that I can—

I'm able Yeah, that's fantastic. So one more question that I've got and then I'm probably out of questions is why would you use an oil-based paint over or instead of, that's the right word, instead of a water-based paint? In what applications do you use oil? Because oil-based paint is just messy.

And it's awful.

It's— yeah, it's awful. So what, what applications would you do that for?

So I kind of run into this application right now. My client that I'm working with right now, he used lacquers. Lacquers are paints that dry incredibly fast and have— and they're very, very stinky. They're harmful to the environment. They destroy your machines. You're like, you have to— there's specific ways you're supposed to dispose of the paint and everything like that, and it's just like awful to use. But it's very, very cheap. You're looking at like $25 a gallon for this lacquer paint, when traditionally the paint that I'm using, the water-based finishes, can run up to $65 a gallon. So I could see why he tried to go towards that avenue, 'cause it's cheap and lacquer has been proven for years to work.

Yeah.

'Cause the whole water-based revolution's new. So like, what did they use before? And it was lacquers. So lacquers, I understand why he went towards that. that avenue, but using lacquer paint is notoriously difficult and hard to dispose of materials and it destroys your machines and like your paintbrushes. You never get it out. Stuff like that. You have to throw away your paintbrushes, stuff like that.

I'm already there.

Yeah. Yeah. But in this instance, going back to what you're saying with oil, for me to use my proper topcoat, I can't use a water-based paint on top of lacquer. And he had already lacquered his cabinets before I got into it. So in this instance, I have to use oil over lacquer.

Okay.

So that's the only way to have the proper adhesion to it unless I sanded it all down and then reprimed it with my water-based primer, then used the water-based top coat, which was just not time accessible, you know?

Yeah.

Everything's— every time is money, like I said before. So you have to figure out what's the fastest way to do things. And so in this instance, I have to use oil on top of it. And that's one of the few times I ever use oil.

Okay.

Because it's just so, so hard. It's harder to work with. It destroys— because I use a paint sprayer, I spray all my materials, so it comes out like glass.

Right.

And so whenever I'm running through, when I'm running through lacquers and oils through my paint machine, my paint sprayer, it slowly breaks the paint sprayer down.

Okay.

And destroys the tips and the guns and the filters and everything like that. That's what I mean when it breaks my gun down.

Okay.

And so that's why I like to lean towards water-based paints because it's, the cleanup is easy. You know, I could clean out my machine and then just dump the water back in my backyard, you know, cuz it's all water-based, it's all environmentally clean. It's not gonna destroy my backyard or leak into the, the sewer system or anything like that. You know, it all just Hmm. Wow. Yeah, that's awesome. But that is the only time I ever use oil, is over lacquer.

Okay.

That's, that's about the only time.

Okay, so like lacquer on like cabinets and—

Yeah, on cabinets and furniture and stuff like that.

I gotcha. Okay.

Yeah, because even when you're brushing oil, it's very difficult to get a good clean stroke when you're brushing oil. Like you're brushing trim or door or something like that.

It's streaky.

Streaky.

Yeah.

And then you're supposed to use an oxhair brush.

Oh, those are readily available.

Exactly.

Off my ox.

Right, yeah.

I'm just gonna cut it off the ox in my backyard and make a brush real quick. But yeah, these are the technical things that you don't know, you know, until you start getting knee-deep into it.

Wow.

So do you, do you use a sprayer for all applications or just like when you're doing like furniture refinishing?

Well, uh, always on furniture refinishing because like I said, the finish will come out like glass because 'Cause the sprayer that I use, it has the tips that I use, it's called a fine finish tip.

Mm-hmm.

And it's designed for furniture and cabinets and stuff like that. And like I said, the tip is designed for perfect spherical atomization. It's called atomization. When the paint atomizes and comes through the very tip of that spray gun, it creates a perfect sphere and lays out evenly on the piece that you're painting or furniture or whatever you're doing. And it has that perfect leveling attributes to it.

Yeah.

So it has no other finishes better than an airless sprayer or air-assisted airless. If a painter, if a painter was listening to me right now, he'd be like, HVLP is better, but whatever.

Whatever, dude. You probably also wear a fanny pack. Exactly.

Wait, 'cause before the show you were telling us like, you know, it's really important to be using the right equipment.

Mm-hmm.

Because not all paint sprayers are made equally.

No.

Right?

Yeah.

What was, what was the deal with this guy? He like, he, he was—

Yeah. He, he, he was using, uh, like a box sprayer from Lowe's. It was like real cheap. I, on average, a paint, a good paint sprayer will cost you about $1,000.

Yeah.

Even like on average, that's just for like your base model. But if you wanna go with like the DIY models, you can go to Lowe's and get like a $200 sprayer and which will work, you know, it'll work if you like wanna paint the side of your house. But when you're trying to get to like fine finish Mm-hmm. You have to start using the right tip. You have to be working with the right pressures because each paint has to be sprayed at a specific pressure. If your pressure is too high, you have too much paint going on the, on the object that you're painting. So, it'll start to run. You'll get drips and runs everywhere and then you have to go back and sand it all out and restart over.

Yeah.

And it'll just keep happening.

Yeah. And it'll just keep happening over and over again and then you have to make sure your fan, your— the spread is maybe 2 or 3 to 6-inch spread, you know, and, uh, it just, it just really matters because so it, it pretty much just works out evenly, you know.

Yeah, you, you mentioned, um, exterior just now. Do you do exterior paint jobs?

I can do exterior paint jobs, but I live in Houston, so—

So there's, there's other—

desperate—

yeah, yeah, there's dumber people out there is what you're saying.

I have to take one for the team and go do it. But honestly, I like to stick— I'm, I'm local. Thank God I'm busy enough working indoors.

Yeah.

But yes, I can.

Okay, cool.

Yeah. Trying to think of the—

well, yeah.

So you were talking about like the, the expensive sprayers cost like $1,000. Like what about these ones that I see that like you just attach to like your, um, uh, what do you call 'em?

Compressor.

Air compressor. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Um, like there's like a little paint reservoir and it's got little, you know, fancy looking gun.

Yeah. Those are called HVLP sprayers. Okay. High volume, low pressure. So pretty much what you have to have a very nice compressor to set it up to.

Okay.

So that compressor alone could be $350 just for the compressor.

Right.

But then you end up buying a cheaper, uh, HVLP gun from maybe like Harbor Freight or something like that. It's very popular, but you can buy one of those for $60, but you're already into it, what, $450?

Right.

You know, so then people are like, and then you have this huge compressor, right? Maybe like 20, you need like a 25-gallon compressor.

And they're loud.

They're loud and noisy and yeah. And then with, uh, high volume, low pressure, there's a lot of air you have to have whenever you start using HVLP. Um, if you're in your home and your shop isn't clean, all the dust particles and everything like that gets blown up into what you're painting.

Ah.

Because it uses air.

Okay.

To push.

So you get all that lovely dust attached to your paint.

Yes. So if nothing— so if your shop is dirty or any kind of— if you're working in your garage, there's notoriously spider webs, bugs, you name it. You name it. Once you start using that HVLP, it's gonna pick up everything that's in your garage and it's gonna dump it on the material that you're working on.

Hmm.

So then you're like, what the heck? Where are these bugs? Where are this dust?

Where are this dirt?

Yeah. All that will fall into the object that you're painting because it's using air to push it through. I like to use airless. Mm-hmm. So there's a pump that's in my machine that pumps it straight into the gun and doesn't come— no air comes out.

Right.

It's a straight pump. It just, It builds pressure and that pressure comes out and shoots right material right onto, into the piece that you're working on.

Hmm.

So you don't have to worry about particles and stuff like that falling into your—

Are they, are they loud too, or is it much quieter?

They're, they're, they're, they're only time you hear it is when it's building up pressure. You hear it going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then it'll stop.

Okay.

And then you could spray whatever piece you're doing and then it'll, you might hear it again.

No, no, no.

Just with the pressure buildup.

Okay.

Interesting.

Yeah. But it's relatively quiet to, uh, an air compressor.

So, Do you— so you talked about woodworking, um, specifically with spraying. Can you, can you spray like polyurethane, that kind of stuff, or do you— is that something you just brush on typically?

Well, what's—

well, then we got kind of get a little bit technical into it. It depends on what the recommendations are in the back of the can, because a lot of times you can get away with just painting on the polyurethane on furniture and stuff like that, and it'll come out very, very nice.

Yeah.

But if you just want maybe a little bit higher end of finish that most people might not notice, then I would I would recommend using an HVLP or something like that.

Yeah. And I also know, I mean, I, I do woodworking myself, and so I also know that a lot of that, when it comes to that kind of stuff, you're sanding in between coats and that kind of knocks some of that excess off. And then you, you know, and you're talking like really, really fine grit sandpaper, you know, like 320 grit. Yeah. Well, even, I mean, some of them like 600, 800, 900.

Oh, you're talking about the stuff they use on cars.

Yeah, exactly. But some people, but some people are using that on, you know, on poly sometime just to, to get that ultra, you know, smooth glass-like—

Make it look like a mirror.

Yeah, absolutely.

So yeah, you can definitely do that. Like, more power to you if you want to do that. You can.

It's a lot of work.

Yes. In the end, I would, I would say it's not necessary. I normally, I normally don't go above 320. Yeah, because with my sanding process, whenever I work going through a client's home and refinish their cabinets, I'm refinishing all the way down to the bare wood. Like, whenever I go in, when I say refinish your cabinets, I'm making them brand new. Yeah, they're brand— they will be brand new by the time I get done with them.

Wow.

Because it's not accessible for clients to come in and wreck their whole cabinets out of their house and, yeah, spend $20 grand to get new custom cabinets installed in their home.

Doesn't make sense when I can do that for a fraction of the cost.

Yeah, you know, it just doesn't seem reasonable to me. Right, right.

Well, and especially like in, in my home, they're solid wood cabinets. I mean, they're, they're not stuff that you bought at Lowe's off the shelf. I mean, these were, these were at some point custom-made cabinets that are in my home. So ripping those out and putting new cabinets in, that would be a tragedy. It doesn't— yeah, it doesn't make sense.

You say that, but I have custom-made cabinets I hate them.

Yeah, but your custom-made cabinets are just shelves. You literally took the cabinet out and just put shelves.

I made those.

I love those. Yeah.

Oh, okay.

It's the cabinets underneath.

Yeah.

Well, and but that being said, like some custom-made cabinets are not made out of the right material. Is that what you have? And so, you know, it's like you might as well actually the stuff off the cabinet shelf at Lowe's might've been better.

Y'all, if you're new to the show, my house is weird.

Yeah.

It's just weird.

It's okay.

Yeah.

It's unique.

No, it's weird.

It's weird.

I like it.

Oh, I didn't say I didn't like it. You know, wait here.

So I, uh, selfish question. So we, we just gutted the whole house.

Yeah.

And we redid— and because what made me think of this, you were talking about ceilings, and I always do flat on the ceiling. So we, we have vaulted ceilings upstairs. But we went back through with tongue and groove. Everyone's like, well, you got to seal that, you got to put something on it. I'm like, I don't want to put anything on it. I like the way that this wood looks, but I know I don't want it to rot. I don't want it to be like— so what would I, what would I put on it to kind of keep it looking?

Oh, just a clear finish, a clear polyurethane.

Yeah, it wouldn't make it like shiny, or—

You can buy— you can get a flat polyurethane.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, you can make a completely clear flat polyurethane. You can get it from Lowe's and brush it on. So how would I even know that I did So you'll be able to tell a little bit, but honestly, if the look you're going for will be achieved, you know, it's kind of flat. It's not gonna be super noticeable. Yeah, but it increases durability of your ceiling.

Okay, give it 8 or 10 years, you'll know.

Yeah, because the tongue and groove, they'll warp. It'll warp over time because the constant pressure changes in your home with the condensation of the AC, See, that's why they want you to use polyurethane because it'll slowly warp over time.

It won't slowly warp over time.

No, it will. If you don't cover it with a layer of wood.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cause I'm not sure. It might be pressure-treated wood you got too.

Maybe.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe it is.

Maybe it fit together real nice.

Some of it was tongues. Some of it was groove. And that's what we know.

But yeah, but I'll definitely recommend you doing that because it will warp and bend over time. It'll be— it's a lot cheaper to buy like, what, $30 gallon of poly? Yeah, put it on there and then having to replace all that.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, but then that means that you've got to get on a ladder.

We both know I'm not gonna do it.

Oh, exactly. Yeah, yeah, that's insane. You don't have time to do it.

I'm not gonna know.

No. No. Yeah. Anyway, I don't like high.

No, that's not gonna happen.

Too high.

Yeah. It's too high.

Yeah.

It is. Yeah.

It's high.

I watched the guys put it in. I'm not getting on those ladders.

Yeah.

Dude, these guys had to like, they had like one of those like mechanical locking ladders that like, and they had to like bend it like 3 different ways just to get it up there.

And I was wondering if they used A-frames for scaffolding.

Nope.

They used one of them little giants. Them little giants, they just kind of connect to each other, and when you put one on top of the other, they're stable. I mean, I would do just about anything with those.

I would imagine if they could— if they had scaffolding, they would have used it, but they didn't. And they—

it was—

I don't know, I don't know what— I don't know what kind of ladder that is, but it's like you can turn it at like 90 degrees to make like a scaffolding. Yeah, it's a little giant. Yeah, I've seen the Little Giants. Those are a little— those are different because this had like 4 joints, you know what I mean?

So they do.

So you could make it an A-frame.

Maybe it's a Big Giant. Maybe. I don't know.

It did not look sturdy. That's all I know. It's like, I'm not climbing that thing.

Like, why did you go up there?

Take it down when you're done too, because my kids are gonna climb this.

Yeah, they are, especially the little one. Yeah, yeah. She'll climb anything.

Yeah, and fall out of anything.

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Well, uh, listen, I think— I mean, personally, I think a lot of information has been disseminated just now. Like, I think, I think I might have to go back and listen to this episode again just to kind of figure out everything because it's a, it's a lot. Really good, really good information.

Thanks. Yeah, it gets, it gets pretty technical when you really get into it, you know, because a lot of people think like if you can piss, you can paint.

Yeah. Well, that's not true.

No, it's not.

That's very gender neutral of you though.

Okay. So, um, no, I— but I just— I think this is— it's crazy that we've got over 100 episodes and not once talked to a painter. So, this is really good stuff. So, yeah, it's good but, you know, there's no way that we would, you know, our, our audience would go nuts, I think, if we let you out of the studio without going through the Final Four.

Final Four.

Yeah, so this is, uh, the Final Four questions that we ask all of our guests. And so—

I think— wait, should we make Steph go first since she hasn't talked at all, pretty much?

Yeah, I think that's great.

OK.

I think that's great. So these are These are just 4 questions that are, I mean, they're really difficult, but most people do fine. So don't worry about it too much.

They haven't heard them. This is like one of the first unscripted Final 4. Usually we give people a little bit of a heads up.

Yeah, that's true. So we'll start with you. Oh, thank you. And then we'll ask Erin the same question. So here are the questions. Number 1, what is the must-have tool you won't leave your house without? So if, if Craig were to call you and say, hey, I, I, I got something I need you to help me with, run over to my house, you're— before you leave your house, you're going to pick up what?

Is it paint related?

No, no, but don't bring that funky ladder.

Well, she's a hairdresser. She's a hairdresser.

Okay. Okay.

So what would you bring?

Probably my phone so I can have directions to his house because I wouldn't get there otherwise.

Well, ding, ding, ding. You've hit the number one answer that we get on this question. Absolutely. It is the number one question. Yeah. The number one answer to that question.

Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

All right, Arin, what about you?

For me, probably my 5-in-1. It's a painter's tool.

Okay.

You can't open up a can of paint without it.

So what does this look like?

A 5-in-1, it's pretty much just like a, like a chisel.

Okay.

And you just use it to help scrape walls and maybe put on a little putty on the walls and swipe it smooth.

Okay.

And helps you open paint cans, clean your brushes and rollers and stuff like that. It has multiple purposes.

Huh. I need to look into this. 5-in-1.

I may have one and not even know what it's called.

Yeah, you call it a scraper.

A scraper, okay.

Yeah.

That's one of the purposes.

Okay.

Yeah. It's probably the primary purpose that most people use it for. 'Cause I've seen those things, I'm like, what is that little curvy thing for?

Yep.

That's to clean your teeth with. All right, cool. All right, second question. You ready for this?

Ready.

All right, here we go. What is a job you've walked away from So when we were putting this question together, the, the thought behind the question was if you had a project going on at your house, you got into it all, you know, like I, I was painting my cabinets and realized I was horrible at it, turned out really, really poorly. So I walked away from that job, I called Aaron, and, and he took care of it. That's kind of what we thought of whenever we were designing this question. But But instead of asking what project did you walk away from, we asked what job you walked away from. So you're welcome to come up with some sort of a job that you didn't do at your house, or maybe it's a career. It's fine with that.

If you had a job that you literally changed. So here's the question again. I know it's a lot of lead-in. What's a job you walked away from?

Dog grooming.

Oh.

You read my mind. What's awesome is that we got a fist pump from Aaron out of that. She was like, yes, you did.

I knew it. I freaking knew it.

That was a very difficult job that I walked away from.

Yeah, she hated it.

It was very difficult and just gross. I'm sorry for all the dog groomers out there, but I respect what y'all do, but it's very difficult.

Never again.

Never again.