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Ready to turn your house into the home you've always dreamed of without the headaches or huge bills.

You're tuned to around the House, the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with expert advice that's helped millions tackle everything from remodels to repairs.

Hosts Eric G. And John Dudley have got you covered with the best advice and information about your home.

Now let's get this hour started.

This hour is brought to you from design and construction week by Dal Tile.

Welcome to the round the house show, the next generation of home improvements.

This is where we help you with your home.

Thanks for joining us today.

We are in the middle of design and construction week, the last day today.

And I tell you what, this is one of my favorite times here because we get to go look at pretty stuff.

Speaking of pretty stuff, we've got both of you here in the booth with Dal Tyle.

Chip's a pretty guy.

Yeah, he is.

I truthfully thought I was about to get the brunt.

End of setup was all there.

It was coming.

He couldn't wait to do that.

Exactly.

This morning.

Waiting all year for this.

Guys.

Let's do some introductions.

Chip, Wade, go ahead, brother.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, it's always great to be here with you, Eric, and with Patrick.

I'm a longtime.

Just a home improvement fanatic.

I love making content and helping homeowners make educated home purchasing decisions.

Had the opportunity to do a number of different home improvement shows over the years, and I just love to tell brand stories and help educate people on what's out there.

Absolutely.

And, man, you've been doing it a while like the rest of us.

Patrick, let's.

Let's hear your story.

Well, I'm a longtime Dell Tile fanatic, which is good right in the brand.

So I lead our residential sales business for our dealer and showroom business for Daltile.

And a little bit about Dal Tile.

You know, we're the largest tile entity in the world, and it all comes down to what that consumer shops for.

And that's what we love to talk about.

We love to give them solutions.

We love to make sure that we're bringing things to them.

And that's what we like to talk about on the show.

This is.

Which is fantastic.

And by the way, Chip does a great job for all of our customers.

All of our fans love him, and it makes them actually more confident about our products going forward.

So big plug for Chip.

Thanks, bro.

I feel the love in the room.

I feel the love in the room.

This is awesome.

Speaking of the room.

We don't have to store it in the cloud because it's right over our head.

That's right.

Oh, I thought these were wind chimes.

That is.

You pull it, you get cotton candy.

That's right.

We need a bigger cloud.

We do.

But that is gorgeous.

Isn't that amazing?

You did such.

Your team, I want to give the team credit here, did such a great job in this booth showing all these different scenarios.

Amazing.

Our marketing team does a great job.

The theme is kind of a Day in Paris.

You know, we have this hot air balloon in the front, which is a ceramic tile mosaic.

Hot air balloon.

Let me just pause because everybody's like, how does that work?

Right?

Yeah.

Beautiful selfie station.

You come over here, you have cotton candy.

Ooh la la.

We have a Ferris wheel.

We made a Ferris wheel up front.

It's amazing.

Like, just the idea of bringing the personalization to what they're going to design in their home, you know?

Right.

That's the thing, is that personalization, because everybody wants their own thing.

The last thing they want to.

It's like women in clothing, for instance, not so much with guys.

If we're wearing the same shirt, we give a high five and say, hey, we picked the right thing today.

But nobody likes.

Women do not like to have the same dress.

No.

And so that's that personalization that you see.

And, you know, it's.

You can do what you want with this stuff, and it's going to be beautiful.

And the design world is your oyster in this.

That's right.

Now, when you walk around a booth like this, I got the chance to the last couple of days to walk around the entire show.

Yeah, I saw almost everything.

One thing that you'll notice is, like, the way the current consumer designs, we're all constantly looking at imagery, you know, on our mobile devices or on our computer.

What works in this booth so well, and they always do a great job with this, is the way that they vignette establishes a whole idea and a concept in a digestible format, which is a really great thing.

I mean, I love the fact that there's theme all the way through, but each one of these carries its own concept and design.

So, I mean, obviously, just the way, you know, seeing a small 12 by 12 of this mosaic tile right here is beautiful, but seeing it in element, that's in scale, but not too overwhelming.

Like, this is an attainable size, but it's also aspirational.

But I think that that's what makes specifically what y' all do with the Daltao booth.

Impact.

Impactful for the consumer.

As you're walking around, it inspires you.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got the shower system behind us, which is the cloud.

You've got the rain coming down in this, which is like the water.

It's just so beautiful.

And it just sets the stage for your imagination walking in here.

I think I need a new, like, you know, like zoom, like Microsoft Teams backdrop in my office.

Mine would be the tub.

Already ordered the crystal.

Ship this to my office.

That's right.

Yesterday, I was tired at the end of the show, so I was looking at that tub going, if that had hot water on it, I'd be embarrassing everyone.

With the.

I can take the masculine guy in the tub thing with the tattoos.

It'd be an interesting look.

More potpourri, Eric.

More potpourri.

We might be able to make that happen.

Okay, we could do that.

Great marketing, right?

That's a vignette for you.

I'm not sure how great it would

be, but it would definitely get some buzz.

That's a fuzz.

Well, you know, on that, you know, for us, there's three big things going on here in our space.

And as we look forward, the first one is technology and visualization.

Visualization.

One is, to Chip's point, how.

How you see it 12 by 12 is one thing, and sometimes you' but we're making that expansion into what they can see digitally on their phone, on our website, when they're looking at something, they can visualize it in their room.

We know when they visualize it, our Delta stylizer helps them with that.

They're five times more likely to purchase it.

Wow.

So we're trying to bring them visualization because one of the challenges we have, and we fuel this, is we have a tremendous amount of products.

Tremendous.

Almost too many for a consumer to get their head around.

How do you put all the parts and pieces together?

So visualization, to Chip's point, it's aspirational, but also functional to help them understand.

And you can put all these together.

That's why we do that.

We have our.

Our curations, we have our vignettes, we have our website.

All to help them get through that process.

You know, I'm so excited that we're out of the seven years of gray that we had, and we're into this maximalism stuff now where you can have color, you can have texture, you can have all this stuff.

Because for a while there, I was starting to get a little yawn tired as a designer.

Right.

Going, okay, this is cool.

But now there's so much more you can do.

You guys have been leading that for a number of years.

You know, it probably three years ago in here, it was like, all right, we're changing the.

Changing the tone a bit.

This is coming from a guy that lives in the Pacific Northwest, right?

Yeah.

This is his whole life.

Yeah.

Shakes right.

Bring the color, please.

Yeah, we have five months.

What's up?

Yes.

Yeah, bring sideways.

Yeah.

But I'll tell you what, while you guys were frozen this year down there, it was 62 degrees at home.

So, yeah, I'll take the one off, but you know what I mean, there's no doubt.

No, color is definitely here.

Yeah.

What I like.

What I'm seeing specifically with a lot of the new product offerings that I like is I believe y' all are taking some cues off of just the.

The public response to, like, the Remedy tile line, which basically, the Remedy tile, historically, the last couple years has been more of like, in a long, like a larger subway esque tile with a contoured high, like, high glossy glaze.

And while we've heard the term, like, handcrafted tile for years, it hasn't always looked.

You're like, okay, I see a little contour on there.

But like this, it feels literally like somebody very artisan, like, yeah, absolutely.

Like, did it with their hands, but now in different.

Different cross sections, different sizes.

And it looks.

There's something about the way the light hits it on a larger format wall that's amazing.

Somebody that's installed Tile 2 to give you that third dimension, really, without making it tough to install or clean and clean.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because you see the handmade hand stuff.

And as a tile installer, you look at that, you go, oh, this is going to be a nightmare.

But you guys create the look without the nightmare.

That's right.

I think you're seeing a couple of things.

One, color brings out the individual style, shapes, sizes, and texture is very important right now.

Especially.

You talked about Remedy.

You know, you're getting a little more of that undulation.

You're getting more of the.

We call it almost the Kit Kat tiles, where it's looks a little bit different than tonnage tile.

Like, and that's the whole individual.

Like, Chip and I were talking this morning with Paulie.

Like, people are designing spaces to live in, not necessarily as operational.

So have the space you want to have.

Shape, size, color, texture, performance, all wraps together.

And that's what dowthyle can bring.

Yeah.

And you guys do such a great job I love.

What was the first booth I hit on Tuesday morning?

Walked in here, I was like, all right, what do we see?

This is setting the stage for the entire show.

You just wanted one of those bags.

Those bags are really popular.

Yeah.

I hear they're notorious.

Oh, my gosh.

The bags are a hip.

Yeah, you can put your arm in the sling in the bag.

See?

Exactly.

Stylish.

Yeah.

It's like in Paris.

I found out yesterday, your little champagne flutes fit right inside this really well for walking around the show.

We built them for the.

I appreciate the injured warrior, but, you know, the thought and process in all this.

And you know, I want to talk about del tile because so many on the consumer level walk into a home improvement store and they see that 3% of what they do, and they say, oh, that's what you do.

Yeah, maybe they haven't been into one of your showrooms and went, oh, my gosh, I can look at slabs, I can look at penny tile.

I can look at whatever I need to for the project.

So people get accustomed to what they see and where they go, right?

They do, but they don't get the

whole width of the product lines.

That's interesting.

I talked, you know, there's really three things we talked about visualization and technology, which was the first one?

The second one is made in the usa.

Let me just plug that for a minute, please.

Interestingly enough, and we didn't go down this strategy because of the tariffs.

We've been in this strategy for 79 years.

Delta turned 79 years, 79 years old this year.

And we make 80 plus percent of our products we sell in North America is made in the usa.

Nice.

And the third one that ties to that is the kind of third core is.

We are.

It's one package.

So we have floor tile, we have wall tile, we have mosaic, we have exteriors for those that want to do an outdoor kitchen, patio area, grill area, and we have countertops.

Our quartz is made in Dixon, Tennessee.

So we have.

When people come into our Daltay showrooms, our preferred dealer network, we want the full package.

We want to make sure they know they can get that here and they have confidence that we've been doing this for 79 years.

So that's the message we want to give everybody, that it's one stop.

It's not just.

It's easy to go to a home center and pick up the four light switches you need.

And then, oh, also, wow.

They have wall tile and they do an amazing job.

But we want to show the full package.

You know, one thing that, I mean, the fact, I love the fact that you are so heavily weighted with American manufacturing and quality.

Obviously that helps distribution, that helps pricing, but at the same time, you guys have this kind of double edged sword with you have the American proficiency and regional manufacturing, but you have the global design.

Absolutely works.

We get the best of both worlds.

That's right.

We're just talking over in Paris.

You got the best of the looks that are over there that, you know, do set a lot of the, the overall kind of world stage for fashion and design and all the.

So you, you guys are on the ground in all of these places, but bring all of that design proficiency to American manufacturing, which is unbelievable.

Marazzi is our, you know, 90 years old.

It's part of our portfolio of brands.

It's kind of that higher end, sexy brand.

I mean, they do a great job and we bring that, we, we bring what influence we need because the designs a lot of times start in Europe and they work their way here.

So we know what's coming and we build our portfolio around that.

Well, especially today with social media.

Think about 15 years ago and we've all, we were all around here 15 years ago, really.

We didn't see the way things change now in styles because it used to be.

And you know, as a contractor and designer, same with me.

We sit there and we would design out a project.

It would take a year from the time that you first started, maybe tell, okay, it's picture day.

Yeah.

And then it took another three months for the magazine to come in there and take pictures.

And in 18 to 21 months, that style that was then is now being shown in a magazine today.

You're designing for a client.

I'm designing for a client.

They haven't left the parking lot and it's on their Instagram.

Right.

And so.

And that's worldwide.

Yes.

And so we see this whole thing where people didn't see that before the Internet and social media stuff.

Maybe you'd get a magazine at the grocery store or the hardware store or whatever and that was it.

Now things happen so quick.

But that's gonna be really hard for a manufacturer to try to st day.

So forecasting so far ahead because the reality of product development, testing, manufacturing, distribution, I mean, it's not a, by the time you get in the parking lot thing.

I mean, you guys are quick as anybody.

We're very quick.

The one thing I think consumers need to be careful of or cautious of is, you know, we hear about it on the in the clothing world, fast fashion.

Right.

Because things literally before they even ship it, it's on your Instagram page.

Right.

You talked about it.

We want to take a more methodical approach and make sure we're bringing something that's going to last a long time.

And I.

That's.

That's an important piece sometimes fast fashion.

And we look in ceramic tile and countertops.

You have people that get in and get out of a product.

We're going to be in it for life.

We're going to be behind that product.

So I think it's important to make sure you get behind a manufacturer and a brand that stands for what it's producing.

Well, and here.

Here's the thing with that fast fashion, great.

You spent $12, and six weeks later, you donate it to the charity of your choice and you walk away.

Right.

You're not doing that with your kitchen countertops.

You're not doing that with your tile backsplash, let alone your shower that you just spent $20,000 on.

And when you want to get it, you want to actually be able to get it.

Yes.

Like, when you see something, you're like, I like that.

But, like, you did a small.

Like a small batch of something that you want, and you can't source it.

You guys don't do that to the customer.

You don't tease it and be like, don't you.

That's why even going to other trade shows, sometimes it's like, it's all concept, and it drives me nuts.

I'm like, that's cool.

But like, that it's never gonna get made.

Or it's gonna be made in such a small batch that it's almost purposeless.

Like, don't get my hopes up.

You guys make sure that it's stocked.

You guys make sure that you can get it.

Not in six months.

Yes.

You're like, thanks, but no thanks.

If you see it, generally, you're gonna be able to get it.

That's exactly to your point.

Like, a lot of companies in our space will come and show products they might want to launch, and they gauge the reaction, and then they base their launch pattern based on that.

Everything in this space is going to launch within the next 30 to 60 days.

It's all part of our launch process.

And we're going in.

We're all in.

And one of the things you'll notice, I don't know, Chip, if you saw this walking around, or Eric, a lot of our.

Like, if we're launching a line like, we added to remedy, we didn't go 16 colors.

We went with the seven or eight we knew were gonna be the successful ones.

Because we wanna make sure we know there's also a little bit at the dealer side.

There's a lot of churn like oh, those six colors didn't work.

We gotta drop those, bring something else in that's little friction, that's disruptive.

We wanna make sure we're being a good, loyal vendor to these customers and these dealers when they're having stuff in their showrooms.

It's so tough as a designer, you know, designing kitchens and bathroom.

35 years now getting my age on this.

But I hated going into the, into the tile retail wholesale retailer that had 32 brands in there.

Because you have to go, oh, she fell in love with this.

What's the lead time?

As I grim is going and oh yeah, well that's on the next boat from Italy.

Cool.

Is that next week or next year?

Yeah.

What does that mean?

What's that mean?

And I naturally steered away from those brands because.

And then the problem showed up is maybe that company was small and they had that made in four different places.

And the chance of that looking like it was all supposed to go on the wall or the countertop of the shower together was a nightmare.

And that's why I love about you guys being the leaders coming out and saying, this is our stand, this is what's coming up.

You're right about it.

That's right.

And then you have the consistency.

When you open up a box of tile to go through it on someplace, you know what you got.

That's exactly right.

And we're here to back it up.

And you know, listen, if it's on that, if it's on that boat coming from Italy, man, I hope you didn't under measure.

You better have.

You better not need an extra carton.

That's right.

And I mean just shipping overseas with high quality, heavy, robust materials, you're just asking for more problems, really.

I mean, that's why I like American made and distributed products like this.

Just because even the best packaging, the best containerizing, you don't know who's man in the forklift.

I've received some crazy stuff.

I'm like, how do you break a ladder in half?

Yes.

Like, yeah, right.

Like totally.

Like you'll get a box of tiles.

Sounds like a maraca.

Right, right, right, right, right, right.

Well, well, I've literally seen.

I've seen containers that were coming off the truck, coming off the ship get dropped.

Oh, right.

And you know, the container Gets dropped.

And you've been waiting on that thing for four months.

Absolutely.

Now you're back.

And then you're back at square zero.

Yeah, yeah.

And now you start that process over again.

And then it's a nightmare for your client because they wanted to move into that kitchen or bathroom in 45 days and to tell them maybe next quarter.

That's right.

That's right.

Now, one, one thing I saw actually a little bit ago that I actually wanted to ask you about because I hadn't seen this yet, is the, obviously the big porcelain panoramic slabs that you guys have.

One of the notorious.

It's like, it's almost like I love the fact that they come in such huge panels.

Yeah.

But when you're thinking about, you know, okay, I'm gonna put this in my shower, I'm gonna put this somewhere.

How am I gonna manipulate this, you know, this large piece and how am I gonna cut it?

You guys are now releasing panoramic slabs that are pre cut for showers.

So it's like.

Yep.

Wow.

So I mean for anybody that's not familiar with that, I mean we, we want more solid surface, more porcelain facing, less grout joints.

Less grout joints.

So that's why the porcelain slabs are so great.

Especially shower that's notorious for mold, mildew, constant moisture, steam showers and stuff.

Now you don't want to mess with it.

I did slabs in mine.

That's right.

And so mine was crazy because, you know, it was a five foot wall panel, seven foot high.

Well, guess what?

You have to come up the stairs to do it.

So we actually made the template for it and then did a pre walk of walking the template in the door, up the stairs, around the corner.

Is this even going to go in the room?

But now you can.

And you're not paying for material you don't need because it's cut ahead of time.

It's actually the twofold approach.

It's smaller, it's more manageable, it's perfect.

It's already cut and you're not buying extra material.

So thank you all for doing that.

Couldn't wait to get here and launch it.

I mean, that is a big, big to tip's point.

Less grout lines when the customer wants that.

Easier to install.

You know, porcelain is thinner, lighter, easier to manage.

It's a great long term Porcelain is really going to be premier.

And we're catching up.

Europeans use it every day.

Yep.

We're catching labor pools.

Catching up with that.

It's going to be a fantastic program going Forward.

We just launched it last Friday.

Literally just launched it.

The vignette that I saw this, I was like, oh, this looks great.

Pre cut.

What?

That's the easy button.

And whether you're a contractor, homeowner or whatever else to go.

You mean I can get that at that size and roll with the project.

Well, you're removing.

You're removing any remaining pain points.

Oh, 100%.

Which is.

We're trying to be less.

We're trying to provide a less friction process or frictionless process.

Better way to put it.

And it's that how they design, how they look at it and ultimately how you can get it in the home and installed.

That's right.

When you look at that whole chain of links, if they all work smoothly together and the consumer loves it, that's loyalty.

Well, and the thing is, with larger slabs like that, you need to have a team out there installing it.

You can't have the CTA tile installer doing that by themselves, even with their helper.

That's a big ask to cut that.

I will say, though, my last project, I did some big porcelain slabs.

I had one guy and I just sat there and I was like, you just let me know if you want a secondhand.

But the installer base is actually getting a lot better than it was four years ago.

Exactly.

Just the technology and a lot of like the material handling tools.

Oh my gosh.

Grabo and those guys.

I talked to the guys at Grabo yesterday.

Basically they're these suction cups that, you know, you can pick up anything from rocks or pavers or anything with fabulous, but just allows you to manipulate a lot easier.

But yeah, they did a big master shower.

Even with higher overhead stuff, like with one guy by himself.

I was, I was impressed.

That's impressive.

I was impressed.

I was trying.

I was actually taking notes because I was like, yeah.

I think a lot of the installers, it's not that they can't do it.

They haven't done it enough to be

comfortable, which, which is with any.

Which is with your new type of installation method.

And I like with stuff being made in USA too, because you know, the quality you're getting.

And I have to thank you for that because I love that we're, you know, you guys support so many local communities.

We do.

With work bases and people that are, you know, a lot of things went overseas and anytime that I can support this Made in USA stuff, I just absolutely love it.

It's like, let's go.

Yeah.

And for any installers that are trying out product.

That's one thing I also love.

When they try any of the porcelain from dal tile, they appreciate that they want to be able to use it again because they've had horror stories of other types of products.

That the worst is it's not square, it's not flat.

And that's what daltile does.

Like when you get a big porcelain slab, you can have these beautifully straight, tiny grout joints.

All these tiles are rectified.

They're absolutely going to be 90 degrees.

That's exactly right.

And when an installer is gone to the effort to do a luxury install or beautiful install, the last thing they want is subpar quality of product that's not square.

Like you've done all the work, you're literally have it mudded and you're putting it up there and you're like, what is this?

You know, what do I do?

Yeah, it ties back to that fast fashion look.

We spe a tremendous amount of time and energy and resources building a better product on the front end.

So downstream it's not a problem.

Yeah, we have to do that.

Well, anybody that's worked with dowel tile knows that.

And that's why so many people go back to it, I think.

And the slabs are so good for fireplaces, outdoor kitchens, things like that.

You can put it in the outdoor kitchen, like Pacific Northwest.

It's great.

It could be 100 degrees with the snow hitting it.

It could be 12 with 2 inches of freezing rain on top of it.

Yeah.

And it doesn't care.

It takes it and it will take anything you throw at it.

You know, I had a question for you about that because y' all have expanded the porcelain line beyond just the panoramic line, which is the, you know, the thinner, larger format, into full 2cm thick porcelain.

So it looks like, I think to the average consumer or even developer or builder, you know, a lot of this solid surface, it starts to get confusing because there's composite quartz and there's solid quartz and there's obviously the natural stones.

But now there's porcelain and we can use porcelain slabs and bonded together and build out a thicker profile.

Now you guys are literally making solid body porcelain slabs that are as thick as this table with through veining all the way through, which is amazing.

I personally love it because it's kind of.

It's like the difference between working with a piece of quarter inch plywood or a piece of butcher block.

You know, like I have meat to be able to support itself and it's just as easier to work With.

And I just installed a lot of countertop material with that porcelain slab.

Amazing.

But these are.

You can get them in big cross sections as well.

How are y' all doing that, by the way?

How, how.

What do you.

Can you enlighten us a little bit on, like, the complex.

How complex is it to make a porcelain slab this thick?

It's com.

It's.

Well, you make it just like you make regular porcelain.

The challenge is it's slower, because when you run it through a kiln, you have to run it slower.

So because you're, you know, you're.

You're baking something that's thicker.

Right.

The strategy behind it is really to give a concrete pavers is really the commands, the size of the market.

But your fastest growing component is a porcelain paver.

Yeah.

And our strategy really is to take it outdoors.

What we want to do is we want to bring, whether it's a kitchen, bathhouse, a dealer, a commercial, anybody.

Hey, there are spaces outside that Dow tile can be a part of.

We want to help them grow the capabilities that they can bring a consumer or a project lead.

And that's really the strategy behind it.

And we make a great porcelain paver.

I mean, it's amazing.

Although I did have somebody have somebody ask me yesterday, can they use the porcelain pavers, the exteriors indoors?

Sure, I know, but I was like, of course we can.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, I was like, this is a trick question.

That's my favorite design element is when you can take that inside the house and take it out, do a large, you know, panoramic style door and continue it out flawlessly.

That's clean.

Because these porcelain pavers, I mean, they're even made for elevated scenarios.

So you don't even.

Typically, when you're dealing, like historically with landscape design, when you're putting flagstone or whatever down, you either your sub base has to be compacted, so specifically correct, or you have to use something that has such a cross section to get the braking strength right.

So when big Uncle Phil, you know, comes cruising through there, he doesn't snap the pit.

But these porcelain subs are so strong, literally, they can be supported on the four corners.

They can even on elevated decks.

I love those platform pieces to keep things out.

But you can go on grade as well.

So certainly the robustness and resiliency is sufficient for going over a subfloor.

Funny story about this.

So my brother and I just this last week sent me a picture from our beach house project that we've been working on that we got Done.

And when we were building the front deck.

Walter.

No, that's, that's William.

We'll talk about William.

Okay.

Remember William?

Yeah, William.

We'll bring William back into this in a second.

He's been trash talking me and you since last year.

Yeah, we got out of last year.

We went in full, full court press.

Yeah, exactly.

So anyway, I was like, hey, let's do this.

12 inches on center.

Because I don't know what's going to happen.

We're Airbnb in a kind of thing.

It's out front.

It's a covered porch.

The other day he sent me a video of a full grown elk standing on that.

Well, there's a ton on four points.

Oh, yeah.

Standing on the deck.

And I, and he sent me a message with the, with the video from the security system.

And he goes, thanks for, thanks for over engineering this.

I hadn't planned for this as a need.

That is a cool.

And there's an.

I'll show you guys afterwards.

On the outside.

It was just, just, just came up there looking around.

Looking around.

We have a, there's many times we'll see eight or ten elk in the, in the front.

It's great.

I don't have to mow the lawn.

It's fertilized.

It's great.

It's ready to go.

So we need an elk.

We do.

I mean, that was great.

He was, you know, so it's funny you have to plan for these things.

Proof.

That's right.

New designation.

Yeah, so plan for that stuff, guys.

You know, and Uncle Phil that comes over for the holidays.

Yeah, everybody's got him.

Everybody's got an Uncle Phil.

Not everybody has an elk, but.

Yeah, but it's one of those things.

That was his nickname, Elk.

Well, you know, I'm gonna bring William into this because it's just easy.

And it's an annual tradition.

Yes, it is.

Yes.

William's.

William's a secret star here.

He's our secret star.

I love that because he did.

He used the product, you know, your porcelain on his fireplace.

Oh, good.

And again, Master Tyler, he mitered the edges on it, of course, by hand, by eye, and it was beautiful.

And then color matched the epoxy down the outside with it so it looked

like it was just wrapped.

That's next level.

And it's next level.

But when you have the right installer to do that stuff, it looked like you had just cast the piece.

I love watching some of these artisan guys.

I mean, these are true craftsmen.

They really are.

For years you know, working with materials like that and creating all kinds of intricate floating benches and all these things that are just so, so beautiful.

But now it's even easier.

Now the average can get pretty good results without having to be William, which I think is also an important thing because we all get really inspired to do things, but not all of us have the skill set to execute at a ultra craftsmanship level.

And that's where the ease of use of material really, it just keeps us happy and being able to do the things that we want to do.

It is an art.

And I would love to see pictures of that.

That's fantastic.

I'll get you some pictures of that.

That's beautiful.

Turned out really well.

But again with slabs in the bathroom, you can now that niche that has lighting in it because you've got the thanks to the slab.

If you drop that down a little bit, you can back like that.

Now you've got your niche in the shower.

You can have the lights low, but you can see what shampoo you're grabbing.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

Except for you.

You don't have to worry about the shampoo.

You know, I'm a simple man.

I'm a simple man.

It's one, it's one bar of soap.

Took a while to get to the

hair gym with low hanging fruit.

It's kind of an easy one.

I got it.

That's right.

I am going to bring a wig next year though.

Oh.

Oh, good.

We're going to go, we're going to go full on rockstar for you.

So both of you guys with your real hair, you get hair, I'll go bald.

Oh, you and I will go the bald caps on here and you'll have the hair.

That's a deal.

The only thing, you know what I'm proven to be able to get out of the house with a bald head.

I don't know.

I don't know what y'.

All scary things lie under the hair.

Yeah, I did that one time.

I had a guy that I was working with that was going through cancer and I did that and I went.

I have a lot of scars, you know.

Oh yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Dents, like weird injuries sure showed.

Is that a fault line?

What is that?

That's right.

Let's put the hair back.

That's right.

That's right.

Never again.

Never again.

No, no.

Got it.

You know, one thing I invested in this year was just I was doing a lot of tile work this year and I went and just was kind of scouring to see kind of what new tools and stuff were out there.

Obviously a lot of the, you know, the, the material handling stuff.

I got a couple of different racks that just hold everything nice and sturdy.

Not only the suction cups, but do you.

Have you seen any tools that are out for even a homeowner that might, you know, just occasionally go into the home improvement center and you know, you got your, you got your trowels and you got your floats and sponges, but have you seen any tools or what.

What tools have that you think are must haves for the average DIY or that might feel more pro but maybe a little bit more mainstream?

I think for the average diy, I think I'm going to go back to grabo as one of them.

If you're a DeWalt guy, you can grab, use that with their system or you have the grabo out there because it gives you that extra hand.

If you're moving a big piece of slab, you can get it up, you can do that one person install.

But if you need to go get a piece of drywall for the other side of the bathroom you're working on, you can do that and have that extra hand.

Yeah, I think that's just one of those that makes it really easy.

But the tools have elevated themselves as well, from a really good float to really good trials out there that just make your life easier.

It's like a paintbrush to me.

If you go buy that cheapest paintbrush for a DIY thing, it looks like you grabbed the cheapest paintbrush.

That's a great point.

I mean, listen, the float, the trowel makes a difference.

It matters.

You can't underestimate the importance of good basic tools.

To your point, the paintbrush.

I mean, a good paintbrush makes all the difference in trim work.

It does.

And reading the directions using the right materials.

Yes.

Well, I mean, especially when you're hanging a slab on the ceiling of your shower, you want to kind of follow those directions and use the right trowel.

That's right.

Yeah.

So you have to prime the back of that before you use the thin set, all the steps, know the system, manage it and use the same system.

Yes.

I don't, I don't like seeing people going, okay, I'm going to go brand a, B, C and D on this.

Right, Great.

Stick with one.

Own it.

As a homeowner, as a contractor, as a. Yep.

Own the system.

Master it.

Master it.

Yes.

You know another tool that I found that I think even an average homeowner would probably have only seen professionals using, but you can now get these pretty readily available.

Is.

It looks like a cone.

It's a diamond bit.

So not just like a.

Not just a hole saw for cutting out, you know, holes for your shower valves, but it basically looks like a.

Like a little cone and it's just covered with bits of crushed diamond.

Yeah, but it is like the fixer tool.

And especially when you're dealing with porcelain and you're doing little details, glass, all of these things, it just allows jagged little cuts that you would make with an angle grinder.

It just allows you to just make it.

It looks like professional results.

But now you can pick them up not only just, you know, on online retailers, but you can go in your local home improvement center, grab one for 20 bucks.

Bucks.

That's a tool that really, if you're going to do any type of tile, just get one of those because it's going to make the work look so much better.

You'll end up using it a hundred times.

You're like, how did I not have this thing?

Absolutely.

Because it just, it makes, it makes those little mistakes of the saw or the cutter.

That's right.

It solves that and it gives you just that clean line.

If you're not putting a.

A metal trim on the end of it or anything else, it just cleans it up and it, it really shows and makes it look perfect.

Like it came out of that way, out of the factory.

That's right.

That's right.

So, Patrick, what other trends are you seeing out there right now?

I mean, we're, you know, things change fast, but again, we're in that maximalism kind of thing out there.

We've really come in chip, YouTube.

What are you guys seeing out there as far as 20, 26, 2027 kind of trends?

You know, there's a couple of things I think first is, you know, what we're learning is when.

When people are building a space to live in, not necessarily operational.

We were talking about that this morning.

You know, sometimes they'll do a kitchen.

It's very operational, like to back of house, kind of like at a restaurant.

Restaurant build spaces to live.

And we try to bring that whether it's in color, whether it's in design, whether it's in shape, whether it's in the type of product, how it's going to be installed, indoor, outdoor, we try to bring all that together.

But there's, you know, I was looking over here, we have, you know, there's a throwback to nostalgia.

You Know what is old is new.

Absolutely.

My wife and daughters are heavy into needle pointing now.

Oh.

Like big time into needle pointing.

And I'm like, what happened?

When did that come up?

But it's.

Yeah, it's come up.

And they make these.

But it's cool.

They all have headlamps, so it's really.

It's kind of sexy, by the way.

But so you have that kind of nostalgic bringing.

Bringing it forward.

That's the colors, your jewel tones, bringing all those to life.

But also it's that.

It's that accent.

Like it's okay.

You know what, you can do what you want to do in a space, and we're going to be here to help you get through that.

Whether it's in our showrooms or our dealer network or our compet.

Our.

Our customers, we have products that we can help you get to where you want to go.

So the trends are you can do it on your own.

Delta has it all free you.

But also there's some, you know, there's some nostalgia.

There's some looking forward to your point on the gray.

You know, 50 shades of gray is gone.

Yeah.

What we're looking at now is everything's getting warmer.

You're seeing a lot more veining.

There's a lot more characteristics in the product that look natural and bring that whole room to light.

Absolutely.

It's awesome.

And it's one of those things that I just love.

The man cave is gone.

It's now the whiskey library.

That's right.

You know, guys, when you're trying to sell this to your spouse.

Spouse.

It's the whiskey library, not the man cave.

Man cave sounds a little bit too little Simpsons esque, maybe.

But if you do the whiskey library, your spouse is now going to go, oh, that's a place for you to go relax so I can watch my shows and it's okay.

Yep.

Yeah.

It's a non needlepoint room is what I.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Now we're gonna have to get back to the hook.

You know, the stuff we did in our kids.

We had the yarn and you do crochet.

The crochet stuff.

Yeah.

Now that's the next thing for us.

Next year we'll do that while we're doing the show.

I'm sure it's popular.

You know, one thing that I've noticed, even walking around the show.

Show seeing that is just over and over again is I believe, a movement.

I think the consumer is demanding more resilient materials, especially on the exterior.

Oh, yes.

What's Happening is a lot of things look great initially.

Yes.

And the more com.

The more enabled general homeowners are for doing projects.

I think we're starting to.

The homeowners are getting a lot more educated because they've tried a lot of things with high hopes that this was going to be to look.

And it did look good for a year.

Yes.

And then all of a sudden you're like, man, that was a little cheaper.

But now I'm having to address this and I'm very disappointed with how my exterior siding or whatever is holding up.

What we're seeing is a huge amount of products and technologies coming into pre finished and much more resilient coatings.

Oh yeah.

And finishes for exterior products that I think will ultimately end up moving inside.

It's just more expensive now.

So typically exterior products are more expensive than interior products.

But this just where tile is kind of like that old wise sage grandfathers.

Like it's already got it.

Yeah.

You know, it's already like all these other things are really just trying to get to the level of what porcelain is or what these exterior quartz already are.

And so I think that you're gonna see much more adoption of tile being like, oh, if we're looking out, if this is now a really important thing and I now understand that exterior materials need to be incredibly robust.

Let's use the right ones.

Let's.

Let's see what's really out.

And I think it's going to be an insurgents of opportunity.

And I learned a valuable lesson last year design wise with somebody, a friend of mine we were talking about and we're doing his exterior deck.

Pacific Palisades in that neighborhood.

Oh, hopefully it's fireproof.

Well, it was class A fire rated.

It didn't matter.

It didn't matter too soon.

Didn't matter.

Yeah, it didn't matter yesterday about that.

It didn't matter.

It didn't.

It was gone.

I mean his Harley, it melted the handlebars, they were, you know, so it was a frame and part of the engine.

But I look at things now and go, porcelain would have not combusted.

Right.

Doesn't add to the fuel.

It doesn't add to that.

And so I look at that hindsight being 20 20, what I know today versus a few years ago, I would have said, hey brother, instead of using this brand of composite decking out there, let's look at port porcelain and do that instead.

It would have been a smarter look back.

Now hindsight's always 20 20.

Right.

But if I was down There if I was in an area where I had.

I mean, down here in Florida, where we're at, I was watching the news we were last weekend, I was like, well, that's a wildfire.

Not used to seeing that here.

I'm used to seeing it at home in the Pacific Northwest.

But this is coming to be a more of a bigger issue for people out there.

It is.

I think, you know, people, oh, use the concrete pavers.

I don't know if you ever had concrete pavers of the barbecue on it.

Every time you put drop grease, one little bit of grease off the absorb, it's there permanently.

It's the.

It's the.

It's the stain in the driveway that everybody hates.

And I don't want that on my living area outside that I'm trying to keep clean.

So porcelain, to me, is the ultimate exterior project product for that.

Because you could put it out there.

It's fireproof.

If I drop something on it, I grab a damp rag or a paper towel.

The rain just warrants it off.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

One of the things we found with our research is, is consumers are very.

Are looking at the ingredients.

Right.

Whether it's tile, we'll talk about tile.

But whether it's our products or what goes into their home, almost like they're looking at the ingredients that go into cosmetics and products that they put on their body.

Like, it's very important to have things that are good for the environment, things that are not going to be bad for the environment.

These are going to last a long time.

So they're really putting a lot of thought into the right things to go to their.

Into their home.

That's going to last a long time.

Again, back to that fast fashion.

You know, to your point, it's going to look good in the showroom.

It's going to look good initially, but it's going to last.

Yep.

And if it doesn't, you've got to go with the manufacturer and products that

do be on the lookout for ground.

Porcelain face masks.

Makes the skin like butter.

Yeah, exactly.

That'll be part of our.

Part of our morning routine before we do shows like that.

It probably would work.

I'm thinking about it.

It's probably not as crazy.

You just call your tile installer friends to take what's in the bottom of the saw and send it to you.

You're good to go.

Yeah.

Your collection looks great.

Yeah.

And stepwise, my down tile is that thin set.

Give me a little bit of that.

My nails have never looked.

Oh, gone.

Tell Me need to sand and grout.

Right.

I love it.

We're running out of time, guys, like we always do.

But I wanted to talk, Patrick, about where people can find your stuff and talk about the showrooms for a little bit and really about the whole design process so people can be educated on the, on the comfort level of going in and having a one stop shop for everybody.

So Delta, you can find us@deltal.com let's start, start at the website.

You know, we have 114 showrooms around the country.

We have a locator on our website.

We also have a dealer network, authorized dealers, dealer elite.

They can go online, find us.

You can find us on any of the meta, Facebook, Instagram, we're on LinkedIn.

And our showrooms are designed, 114 showrooms are designed to bring the products that Daltile manufactures to a consumer, a selector, project, person.

And it can be, they can be commercial, new residential remodel.

About more than half of our people that come into our showrooms are consumers.

But we have everything there and it's designed for us to help them, to help them work through the products.

What will work well together.

Like we talked about, you know, the complexity of all the products we have.

People just don't know, will that really look good with this?

You know, it will.

I mean, we have people come in with pillows and blankets and all kinds of things.

I want to be that guy.

I'm that guy.

I have too.

Yeah, like the commercial.

I want you to build me a house around this faucet, right?

100%.

So we're here.

We want to make sure we have people come into our showrooms.

We're designed to help them select, put confidence, confidence and allow, ultimately help them get closer to that decision.

So Daltile.com has it all for you.

There we go.

And I love it.

You walk out there, take a look at the slab material, put your name on it and go, that's for me.

Yep, that's what we're here for, guys.

Thanks again.

Always great.

Can't wait for next year.

This always is like the fastest part of the day of the show.

Sitting in here, just having a great time and talking about the beauty in here.

And of course those just groundbreaking trends that we're going to see next year and beyond.

And I got to say, you guys do such a great job of forecasting those trends because I love coming here to say, wow, what's next?

And you guys nail it year after year.

Well, we appreciate you do a great job.

And Chip, a longtime partner.

Friend.

Yep.

Just does a great job for us.

And he killed it.

It's fun.

It's always fun to be here.

Thanks, guys.

Chip.

Appreciate it, brother William.

We said hello, William.

Our best William.

Hello.

Thanks, brother William.

All right.

Thanks, guys.

I'm Eric G. And you've been listening to around the house.

To find out more about the around the house show, head to our website, aroundthehouse online.com.

make sure you subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Thanks for tuning in to the around the house show.

We will see you next time.