Foreign.

The House with Eric G.

Your go to source for everything home improvement.

Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric G.

Is here to guide you through the latest tips, tricks and trends coming up in this week's first hour of the show.

The next one here is what to do with worn out bamboo flooring or click and place hardwoods.

Here's the problem with those pre finished hardwood floors that are veneer that look like a plywood one.

They have that aluminum oxide coating which most floor refinishing companies won't touch because the stuff is so toxic to work with and you really have to sand it down.

The next problem is that veneer on many of those are not as thick as the your thumbnail.

So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap and let's get to work right here on around the House with.

Eric G.

Welcome to the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric Cheath.

Thanks for joining me today.

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

If you're looking at spring and need a brand new barbecue, something that's got some really great things to help you make a better burger or a better steak, check them out@monument grills.com they have got you covered for a high quality grill that'll last you for years to come.

Now today I thought let's dive into some projects here fixing those design mistakes that maybe somebody else did around your house or maybe it's a thing that was too trendy for you and you it and you go wow, that did not turn out correctly.

This is a show that's for you.

And there's some easy ways to fix it.

You're like, okay, this is good.

This is what I think it's going to be.

And then it doesn't always turn out.

And that's just the one thing with especially with DIY projects or when you're hiring somebody and they're not great at communicating with you what you want.

These are things that happen and there's sometimes easy or even tougher ways to fix it depending on what you're trying to do.

So I thought let's talk about some of the most common ones that I see out there and see if I can help you along the way.

And this was all driven by a phone call.

I got this last week which was really interesting.

Kathleen from New York called.

We'll be talking to her in a minute here.

Had a great conversation with her.

And if you want to Have a conversation with me about your project.

833-239-4144.

That number again in the studio here is 833-23941.

If you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouse Online do and then make sure you follow us on social media.

And we do have our own closed group over on Facebook which is around the House Nation.

So if you're a real person, go ahead and jump over there and be a part of the group.

We're gonna be doing a lot more with that here this summer.

It's been a little sleepy over the last few months and I'm gonna dedicate myself to making sure that we put a lot more content up over there and have something really fun where we can share projects, funny stuff.

And it's, it's a place that I've meant to be just a safe place for everybody to share their projects and good advice.

There's people over there that renowned architects to designers to contractors you've seen on your favorite HG or DIY network or Magnolia TV show.

You'd be surprised who comes on there in comments.

It's a really fun group and it's very respectful and we really try to keep it so nobody gets bashed over there.

Which is one of the problems that I see with many of the social media groups as we try to really police that one really well.

So somebody gets out of line, they're booted out and we only allow real people on there.

So there's no bots or anything like that.

If you don't check out, you don't come on.

It's that simple.

Today I wanted to talk about these projects because it's one of the most common questions that I get from people is okay, how do I fix this?

And I had a great question that came in from Kathleen from New York about this and she had a granite countertop question about really overhangs being too big.

And this is something that happens when a granite fabricator or that installer doesn't tell you or doesn't make up, mock up and show you what the overhangs are going to be.

And sometimes, especially if they're using stock size slabs, maybe it doesn't fit right.

Let's go out to that call from Kathleen.

Welcome to around the House, Kathleen.

Yeah, I, I put new granite down when I renovated this place so about three, three years ago.

And I don't think the granite guys are that great in cutting and sizing the granite.

I have this big place where you Sit, you can eat and have your chairs.

And the top of the granite, I would say, comes out about 2 inches, maybe more off the.

Where it should be touching.

I would think the cabinet that it's sitting on, but it's two inches out from the cabinet.

Three, I would say three inches out from the cabinet.

And it's a place where you turn to go into another room.

And the other piece of granite, it's in the kitchen area, comes out too, about 2 inches too far.

So it's really cutting off the walking space and turning space.

It's just like me eating at me since I had it done.

But you don't realize these things till you're living in a place for a while that granted isn't.

I just was wondering if there's any way I could get somebody into size it differently.

But, you know, it's just a silly question, I guess.

No, it's not a silly question.

It's a good one.

And here's what I would say is traditionally, like a kitchen cabinet was 24 inches deep, plus the door.

So you're 25.

And so the countertop should go about a half inch beyond the face of that door.

And when you go beyond that, you run into problems.

And so you've got a problem there.

And that's okay.

What I would do.

And this is the hard part, because the best way to cut that is for them to uninstall it and take it back and do that.

You might be able to find a tile person or a.

Somebody in a granite shop that could come out.

Somebody that does repairs or something like that could cut it down.

But the, the problem is that traditionally when they cut that stuff, they use water.

And so it's, it's very messy because if you dry cut it, then you have problems with silica dust and everything else, which is not good for your health.

So I would see if there's someone in your area that does like granite restoration or granite repairs, where they come in and do epoxy work.

They might be able to do something for you.

But it's going to be a pretty big project just because they have to.

They'll have to create, put plastic down, they'll have to wet cut that and control the water.

And then they'll have to go back and polish it.

So there's.

It's.

It would be a significant project.

And most granite companies won't come in and uninstall because many times when they use the silicone and glue that down, it doesn't come up without Breaking.

And so you basically have to.

Yeah, you have to find somebody to cut it in place, which is going to be a little tough.

Something that's all going to go off my list, and I'm just going to deal with it.

Yeah, it's a tough one.

It's a tough one because even the.

On the.

10 years ago, you would see the professionals come in there and someone might do it, but because of all the new silica dust regulations, it's made it really hard for them to do that without water.

And then somebody doesn't want the liability of having, you know, five gallons of water in the house, and that could cause water damage, which they don't want to hurt your cabinets.

Yeah, I know.

I understand.

It could be a difficult situation.

And the piece is pretty large, and so is the other side large.

So they're long pieces.

Thanks.

I just was wondering, because there's so much innovation today in technology that things are changing every day that repair things, but granite is granite, and I know you have to use water because I watch the guys work and stuff, so.

I understand.

Yeah, that's.

The technology's out there to cut it, but it still makes the same old mess that it has for a thousand years, if you know what I mean.

You're right about that.

Like that linoleum.

I heard the show talking about putting the linoleum down, and it's the same linoleum that they were making 30, 50 years ago.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Same old stuff.

So that's good in one respect.

All right, so listen, I appreciate.

I love your show.

It's really very informative, and it's.

It's interesting.

I enjoy it very much.

Thank you.

And thank.

Thank you.

We'll talk about more of this in the future for you.

Oh, okay.

Thanks a lot.

Now you take care, huh?

So that's one of the big questions there.

Can you change granite countertops after they've been installed?

And it's to expand on that a little bit.

There's just really a tough time even removing granite countertops.

I've only had, over the years, probably a 50% rate of even getting them taken back off the cabinets without breaking them about half the time.

The next question here I want to do before we go out to break, and I'll tease you with this one right here.

Can you change out those glass door cabinets back into regular storage?

Maybe you've got those million doors up there, and they're painted, and you're like, I don't want to have my Cheerios on display because I need to have some storage in there.

I don't want that to be display space.

Can I do that when we come back?

We're going to talk about that in so many more little tricks and tips just as soon as around the House returns.

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Join the around the House insider group and get the podcast 48 hours early with exclusive extended episodes and content.

Try it out with the first 10 days are free.

To find out more, head to aroundthehouse online.com don't change that dial.

Around the House will be right back after these important messages.

Why, in a world of ugly faces, should I be allowed to be so hot?

So many people will welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric G.

Thanks for joining me today.

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

Take a look for the best barbecue bang for the buck@monument grills.com with Father's Day, Mother's Day, all these things coming up, it's time to upgrade that barbecue and get one quick because there's some great value with these grills.

Now if you want to find out more about us, head over to our new website, aroundthehouse online.com where we've got videos, all the different stuff here for the show.

We've got hundreds of videos on our regular YouTube channel as well as the one for around the House Northwest.

We got about 650 TV show segments right there.

That's a lot.

So the question I had here that somebody had offered me was, can you change out those glass door cabinets back into regular storage?

And the first thing is trying to come up with how they installed that glass in there.

Now, if it's just routed out in the back of the cabinet, one way to do this that can be sneaky is if it's a paint color.

You can take that door right down to your local home improvement store, your paint store.

Even better, get that color matched into a color.

If it's a painted cabinet, maybe it's white, maybe it's green, whatever.

Or if it's stained, it could be a little bit harder.

You might want to reach out to the cabinet manufacturer if you know who it is.

Sometimes you can open up a drawer and say, well, that's craft made, it's wellborn, it's crystal.

Name the name, the brand, right?

It could be one of those.

And then with them you might be able to find the right stuff where you can actually go in there and get the right name, color, number, all that stuff, you might be able to still get parts for it.

Now, the wood might not match as well, but they could still have it, especially if it's a newer kitchen.

But what you can do though is you can head down and see if you can get a stain matched up for that.

And if it's stained, maybe it's just a light color stain.

You go down there and try to have somebody at your local paint store match up a stain to come up with something for you.

And if they do that correctly, then you can get that touched up.

And all you have to do is take out that 8th inch piece of glass, put in a piece of maple, oak, whatever that wood is, cherry, and then you're going to stain it to match, and it'll just replace that glass panel.

Now, if you've got mullions in there, it might not look so bad, and it could be a way to do that without doing it.

Now, another way to do that would be to go in there and put in maybe a smoked glass or something like that goes with everything.

Or a frosted glass.

You can't see what's inside.

Now, you'll still see colors maybe through there, but maybe a frosted glass could do it as well.

If you don't want to try to match that paint or stain.

And that's another great way to do it.

So if you go in there, there's some options in there.

Changing out the glass is easy.

Putting in another panel, it's made of wood to match, that could be good.

Or if you wanted to come in with a piece of stainless or something, if you've got stainless appliances, maybe you can make something that's going to look good and match that way.

So play around with your options.

What might be good for your kitchen, especially if it's an older one, it can be tough to come up with those stain colors and get something that matches.

And for instance, if you've got hard rock maple, it's going to have yellowed.

So if you get the exact same color, it's going to be too light.

Cherry will have darkened, woods will have changed.

So just be careful with that.

But maybe come in with a contrasting color.

That's another way to do it as well, to do something that will sneak up and make it make sense.

You want this to make sense and not highlight what used to be glass.

And then you can make that back into regular storage space and not have to put all the crystal, the china, anything else in that and you can reclaim that for More groceries.

So that's another way to do it.

Now, next up here, number three on my list here, is how to change bad wallpaper or wall art that is outdated.

Now, this can be a challenge we've seen over the last, oh, probably eight years or so.

We've seen people put up and take one by twos or one by ones and they'll staple on a wall, they'll put some pattern on there and then they'll paint it.

The problem you run into then is when you go to pull off those moldings because you're like, I'm tired of this fish scale design on my living room wall.

You're gonna pull that down.

Now you've got all those paint ridges which show through the next layer of paint.

So there's a couple ways to do that as well as if you've got like old 20 year old wallpaper that's not a peel and stick, or some of these new wallpapers that will release.

I'll be honest, if you're going to do this as a DIY project, instead of spending all that time, it might be easier to just put up another coat of drywall over the top of that and call it a day.

It might be easier, it might be faster.

Most contractors I know of, they do not strip wallpaper off of drywall.

They will go through, tear it out or go over the top of it because it's more cost effective for them to do that than to sit there and spend hours and hours trying to make that work.

Because you could spend 20 hours trying to get that wallpaper off and you might have half of that putting in new drywall and texture if you've got other stuff going in there.

So that might be the best way to do it.

Now that's the challenge though, if you've got, you've taken off those boards and you've got that fish scale design that's now going to show up through the paint.

So ways to do that would be to go through and basically retexture that wall.

So skim coat and retexture is probably going to be the most cost effective way to do that.

Because if you've got that paint, you're just going to have those lines showing up in there.

So you could go in there and sand it a little bit, but you're going to mess the texture up.

If it's a flat wall, that's easy.

You can just skim coat it and sand it down, get it smooth again and be good to go.

If you've got like A level four finish or level five finish, that's not as big a deal.

But it's when you have that orange peel or knockdown or something like that is where it really starts to mess with that.

And the same thing goes, if you're gonna be putting wallpaper up on that again, and maybe it's a textured wall, and you're like, hey, wallpaper's back.

I want to use it.

That's when you want to go through and skim coat that wall.

You can put some of these thicker wallpapers up behind it as a backer to cover up that texture, and then put another wallpaper over the top of that so that kind of hides that wall texture behind it.

But to me, it's almost easier just to go ahead and skim coat that, sand it down, prime it, put a coat of paint on it so it's sealed up, and then go ahead and hit it with your wallpaper.

That'll make a really nice job that way, and you'll have a very smooth wall.

And if it's one of the ones that comes off, it'll come off a little bit easier with that paint on there.

And it's good just to go ahead and seal that up.

So that's a great way to deal with that.

So that can be a lot of work undoing those things.

We had one when I was a little kid.

I'll tell you this quick story before we go out to break.

We moved into a house.

It was in the early 70s.

It was probably 77, I think, when I moved in there.

So it was late 70s, in the mid-70s, probably 76, during the bicentennial, somebody on what would been my bedroom wall put a full on off scale.

They did it weird USA flag with stars and everything.

And they painted all on there with multiple coats.

And I remember with my parents, they came up with a good way, since I liked posters and stuff.

We put poster board on that entire wall so I could hang all my rock and roll posters from the 70s up there in 80s.

And it worked out really well.

But again, that was one of those just.

It seemed like a good idea when you saw it, but when you realize that the scale of the flag was completely off the corner with the stars was half of the flag.

So it just didn't look good.

So it was cool for a year, and then we fixed it.

But that's one of the things.

Covering it up is usually usually the best way to go.

All right.

Hey, if you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouse online.com and we're going to be talking here about all the fixing, design mistakes in your home.

All those things that can happen.

Maybe it's that project that somebody else tackled before you got there or it's something that seemed like a good idea at the time and it'll look beautiful for a couple years.

And you're like, wow, I am tired of that trend.

And that happens with our homes that we do updates on updates.

It's like that 70s wall paneling that went away, that's now back in a newer type of form.

But these are things that really show up in our homes and lead to something that looks beautiful at the time but can be super dated later.

If you're going to hang up some paneling or new something, do something up there.

Maybe it's smart not to put construction adhesive up on that wall.

Maybe it's safe to nail it.

Maybe it's a few more nails are easier to patch.

And when you try to take construction adhesive off of paneling, we're putting up these acoustic walls right now that look beautiful.

All right, guys, around the house.

Be right back after these important messages.

We're get back to talking about fixing design mistakes or design changes in your home.

To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online.com don't change that dial around the house.

We'll be right back after these important messages.

Welcome back to the around the house show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric G.

Brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

Check them out.

If you're looking for that brand new barbecue, you found the right place@monumentgrills.com if you missed the show so far and you're just joining us, we've been talking about fixing design mistakes in your home.

Whether or not it's yours or it's something you inherited or it's just something you go, wow, I miscalculated that.

I have that in my home and I've had to do changes just because I went, that is not turning out how I want it to.

I did a segment here just for the around the house Northwest TV show where we were installing wallpaper and this wallpaper was so low quality I tore it down and took it back.

Yep, started putting it up there and I'm like, this stuff was no different than peel and stick stuff you'd put in the bottom.

It was contact paper really, even though it didn't say that on the package.

And there's no way to make that look good and just touching it and moving it, it stretched, which means you couldn't get anything to line up and it was just a hot mess.

Hey, if you want to be a part of the show, if you have or just send a Message@AroundtheHouse Online.com the next one here I wanted to talk about, and this is a tough one.

So if you have engineered hardwood floors that are pre finished or bamboo for instance, that are, there's a lot of different hardwoods that you see out there for floors, but there's kind of two main styles.

You have your solid plank, which is maybe three quarters of an inch most likely, and then you have the engineered stuff which is a plywood composite panel with a wood veneer on top.

Now the next one here is what to do with worn out bamboo flooring.

Or click and place hardwoods.

Here's the problem with those pre finished hardwood floors that are a veneer that look like a plywood one, they have that aluminum oxide coating which most floor refinishing companies won't touch because the stuff is so toxic to work with and you really have to sand it down.

The next problem is that veneer on many of those are not as thick as the your thumbnail.

So it is so minor as far as you could over sand that and ruin the entire floor.

So really that stuff to me is, you know, maybe you can scuff it and put another clear coat over the top of it if you're lucky.

But really that floor is not meant to be refinished.

And I've had some pretty bad luck with people trying to do that with stranded bamboo floors as well.

Because bamboo is really what it is.

It's grass and it does not finish the same as a regular hardwood floor.

And I tell you what, I put bamboo in.

Sheesh, man.

It was probably 20 years ago when it first came out.

I wanted to try it out, I wanted to see how it worked.

And I put it in my living room and in my dining room and I didn't have it in there probably four months before I ripped it out.

It just didn't hold up from.

I had little kids at the time and just them scooting in and out the dining room chairs with pads on.

It was denting it and it was crushing it and it just didn't work.

And so in these instances like this, I'm going to be honest, I would just tear it out and put in a new floor.

And I know that's expensive, but I think for the health hazards that are in the aluminum Oxide.

If you try to sand that down and get that dust all over the house, that's not great.

Two trying to do that and not cut through that veneer, which is sheets of paper thick, that doesn't work.

I think you're just going to be not worth trying to mess with it.

You might be better off just putting down new flooring, pulling the old stuff up, pull the baseboard moldings, unclick together that stuff.

Now if it's glued down over concrete or something like that, it's a much bigger project.

But maybe you can go over the top of that if it's a glue down.

But really follow the instructions of your new manufacturing and put that down.

If you've got high wear areas, maybe that click together is not your best friend.

Maybe putting in something like a real hardwood or something else in there that will be more durable, like a vinyl click or something like that.

One of the vinyl planks might be a better way to go.

But that's the tough part with these pre engineered floors, depending on the quality of it, a lot of the lower quality stuff just isn't worth trying to refinish.

If you've got a good wear layer on the top, maybe you can do some repairs to it.

But really I think it's just going to be one of those things.

You're probably better off replacing the entire floor.

And I know that's expensive and I know that's not easy to work with, but unfortunately that's probably your best bet.

So something to think about with that bamboo flooring or the click and place engineered hardwoods.

Now the next one here is just as bad and this one can be really tough and it's depending on what you're going to try to do to save this.

And there isn't an easy answer.

Let's talk about it.

How to fix painted brick.

Maybe you had this beautiful mid century fireplace and some house flipper came through and sprayed latex paint all over the top of it and now you got a hot mess because you wish you had that brick back again.

And it is one of those things that I never tell people to paint brick unless that's your last resort.

Really say, hey, enjoy it, embrace it, work with it in your space.

Maybe you could put another bricklayer over the top of it and do something with it.

But really that brick, if it's mid century, if you can save it, that's awesome.

So here's the problem we have with newer paints, at least that are latex, it is a little bit easier to get it off there because you can take some of the strippers and paint removers and get some of that off there, but you also run a risk of damaging the brick.

And so really just about anything you do can damage that brick.

So the first thing I would do is get up there maybe with some orange stripper and try that in a non conspicuous place, not on the front, maybe on the corner, on the side and try to see if you can get some off there.

I've heard some people come in there and sandblast it with soda blasting and they'll have a soda blaster come in.

And the problem with that is if you've got a more traditional brick that doesn't have a broken face to it, that can take that shine off of it and make it look pretty rough, but if you've got one of those maybe more dry stack stone ones, it could work.

I've seen people go in there with wire scrub brushes by hand.

I've seen people go in there with scrub brushes on a drill that are nylon and using some paint remover and that kind of stuff.

Some of the less caustic ones, not the aircraft stuff, but maybe some of the orange stuff and getting in there and doing that, it is a really tough one.

And I'm going to say you're going to probably have to try five or six different ways to to do it.

I've seen people come in with heat guns and be okay with it.

But the problem is it's depending how good of prep work they did, if they came in there with a really good primer and did this job right, it's going to be a lot harder to get that out because it could have soaked into that brick, which means it's not going to just come off the top.

So we've been fighting this at the beach house Right now we've got a brick fireplace that we've tried a lot of different things at it and since it was done 20 plus years ago, it is not coming off of there.

And I think what we're going to do, it's going to be easier at this point because it's just a small fireplace.

To remove that mid century brick and we have new and probably just put it back up there and restore it with a new layer of exactly the same matching brick.

What's cool is my brother found this on Facebook Marketplace.

It was somebody's demo.

They were removing a fireplace that was mid century and it's the same color of brick that's underneath it.

So we could put that back in there and make it look like it was the original and no one will know any better.

And so that's another way to do it.

But just be careful.

Paint and brick out there, guys, especially on these architectural style homes.

If you bought this house because it was mid century or is Victorian or whatever, sometimes that painted brick can cause a lot of damage and it's hard to replace.

And sometimes they just don't make it anymore.

And so then you have to go through and try to figure out how you want to save it.

And on the exterior as well.

Painted brick is not always the best situation.

You can trap moisture in and it can cause all sorts of other problems, especially with winter, with freeze thaws and things like that.

So that can cause a lot of damage by just painting brick.

So my rule generally speaking is please stay away from the painted brick if you can.

If you're trying to save something, make it look better because somebody else has done a bunch of damage to it, that's one thing.

But if it's beautiful brick, my best advice is embrace it.

And that way you don't have to go stripping that down later or trying to do it.

That can be a massive job.

All right, next up here is another one here that's important.

How do you fix a bad tile layout in a shower or one that's just leaking in the bottom of the shower?

Now this all of a sudden when she start talking about leaking.

Now we're outside of design mistakes.

And maybe it was a design mistake.

Maybe you put the wrong tile down.

Maybe you put the wrong system underneath it.

Maybe you just put it over concrete.

You just thought, I'd put a little red guard down and lay tile.

And it of course is leaking like it would.

Maybe you just didn't design the right system out underneath it because it was your first tile job.

That happens.

I was just commenting on a online thing the other day here, and this was pretty crazy where somebody had paid a contractor to come in and again, it looked like another tile job.

That was their first.

And of course they've got water leaking.

It's less than two years.

They've been battling with the contractor for a year and a half trying to get this resolved.

When we come back, I'm going to talk about how you fix that and what are your options just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't go anywhere.

To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online dot com.

Don't change that dial around the House will be right back after these important messages.

Welcome back to the Round the house show the next generation of home improvement.

Thanks for joining me.

Today we've been talking about fixing design mistakes in your home.

Now, again, this could be not your mistake, could be somebody else's, or it could be.

You're right.

Wow.

This did not turn out the way I thought it would.

And now we're going to talk about how do we get back on track with that project.

Now, this could have been something that happened years ago, and you're like, finally, we're going to go fix this, or it's something that you just got done.

I went, oh, how do we undo this?

And that's what we're talking about in this hour of the show today.

So we were going out to break, and I was talking about a bad tile layout in the shower or shower leaks.

And unfortunately, a bad tile layout.

And it's already done.

It's already in.

And you're like, wow, this looks horrible.

To be honest, your only great answer here is going to be to tear it out and do it over again.

And this is one that there's really no great way to go into a shower and take that tile out and turn around and try to save it.

It is just absolutely brutal taking tile that was laid correctly out, because now you've ruined that system down beneath it, which is really bad.

You've got that system behind it, and it's waterproofed because tile and grout are not waterproof generally.

So you have to have something behind that for it to stop that water from going down through the bottom, through the walls, whatever.

And when you pop that tile off, generally speaking, if you did it correctly, you're going to take the waterproof again with it, or you're going to have that mortar in there that you can't remove very easily without ruining that back.

And at that point, you're better off just taking it back to the studs in starting over, which unfortunately, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this can be one of those things that can cost you 5,000, 10,000 bucks if you're having somebody do it themselves.

And that's where the issues run into it with this.

So leaky shower, there's really no way.

I've seen people do okay jobs on patching a leaky shower, but there's never a guarantee.

If you've got a shower pan that's leaking and it's tile, really, there's no way to get in there without just tearing that whole thing out.

I've seen people come in and seal the grout and try to do something with it.

But usually by that time, the water is underneath the tile and it's popping tile up or it's busting apart and there's no saving at that point.

You really just need to do it over.

Now, like I said, I've seen some Hail Mary shots where it actually works, but generally speaking, you're always chasing it, because if you do the base now, you're going to have a seam in the corner there where it could leak, and you want to have that waterproofing go up the wall a little bit.

So if you take the wall tiles up now, there's going to be a line in that area there, too.

So my best advice, if you want to do it right, is to go ahead and just tear it out and take care of it once and for all.

So that's the big thing with showers.

When you're laying it out, make sure if you're sitting there doing this and you're having somebody do it, or if you're doing it yourself before you get any farther after laying that tile, if it's not perfect, take care of it right then it's one thing to maybe break one out before you've grouted it and get in there and fix it while it's still setting up.

That's one thing.

But once that thing is grouted in and once it's set up, you're pretty much stuck with what you got.

And I don't recommend going in and trying to repair that at any point.

You just really need to go in and start over, unfortunately.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

That's just what it is with that.

That's a one you can't really save too easily.

All right, now, how to fix an ugly fireplace.

This can be a fun one because you don't have to actually go through and do a lot of work sometimes.

Like I said earlier in the earlier segment, I don't like to go in and paint brick, but you can go through and clean it up.

I've seen people go through and stain the mortar to be from basically say it's a concrete color.

Let's say it's just a regular mortar, stain it black.

I've seen people do that.

Really, one of the best ones is adding a mantle or building a mantle and doing that, cleaning it up, maybe putting a new insert in it that it's upgraded.

If it's a gas fireplace, putting a new insert in.

If it's got a log set, there are some great log sets out there.

And this is really where you can make a huge difference for not a big spend.

If you've got that old 1970s or 80s or 90s fireplace where it's.

You got the wood fireplace that was converted into gas, all you have to do is get in there, remove that log set and put a new one in.

My favorite are from Grand Canyon Logs.

They have this new series that is super real.

This is awesome.

I did a whole segment on it for my show on around the House Northwest.

You can go over and take a look on our YouTube page for that.

It's on the KPTV Fox 12 YouTube page.

So that's KPTV Fox 12.

Go to the around the House playlist on there.

Take a look at the fire logs.

It is absolutely amazing.

It's super cool and it looks very real because they actually made the flames come out through the logs, through little channels in the logs.

So when you're using it, it looks like a real wood fireplace.

It's the most realistic gas fireplace I've ever seen.

So it's a great way to do it.

So something to consider when you're upgrading that, maybe that mantle, maybe some lighting around the fireplace, a good cleaning of it.

And if it's a gas one, put a new gas log set in there.

And maybe some doors or something, if you want to have some doors, a couple different ways to go with that.

But that's really the little upgrades you can do to update that.

Now, of course, if you've got hideous brick up there that's been abused, I've seen people go in there and smooth it out and put tile, like large format tile on there.

I've seen some really cool updates trying to fix a really boring and ugly fireplace.

And yes, there are boring and ugly fireplaces out there where it's just red brick and it's just nothing spectacular to write home about.

And the rest of the house looks great.

You can go in there and skim coat that.

I've seen people put tile up and it looks really good.

So there's ways to do that.

Especially the large format porcelain tiles.

They can look really like a million bucks all of a sudden.

You can change it from that red brick that maybe was painted and you could turn around and take a look and all of a sudden looks like steel panels up there.

And it's something that's fireproof as well, so you don't have to worry about that.

One of the biggest things to make sure of when you're doing this is make sure to check your local Codes.

Generally speaking, you don't want to have anything within 12 inches of the firebox.

It's combustible.

I've seen people go in there and try to put wood around it, put paneling over it or something like that to make it look rustic.

But guess what?

You can't have something that close to the fireplace that will cause a fire.

All right, now let's get to the last one on the list right here.

And this is a tough one, guys.

This is.

How do you deal with outdated vinyl siding?

Now, this can be a controversial subject.

I have seen people go through.

Maybe you've got that what was once white vinyl siding that is now yellowed, it's brittle, or it was baby blue and you want to have a dark gray house, something like that.

This can be tough.

This can be really tough.

I am not a fan of painting vinyl siding because it can go bad very quickly.

And yes, there are companies like Sherwin Williams that make a specific paint for it.

But here's the challenges that I see when trying to paint vinyl siding.

First off, it is formulated for the color it's in.

So if you had a dark green vinyl siding, many times that vinyl is completely different plastic mix than if it was white.

And so the melting temperatures can be completely different.

I have seen way too many people take that cream colored vinyl siding or the light blue, and I'm going to make a charcoal gray.

And then the first hot summer day that they get direct sun on it, it melts and looks like a house fire was right next door and it turned into string cheese.

So you can have some serious problems with the heat coming off a hot summer day.

That can be the first problem.

Second of all, vinyl as we know expands and contracts a lot.

So if you're out there on a cool day and you're doing a drastic color change, that is going to be okay.

Let's say it's 70 degrees, you're out painting it.

The problem is when that stuff expands and contracts, the seams where those panels came together are going to move.

Now when it shrinks, you're going to be okay to a bit until you get to that point where it actually did.

So you'll see stripes of where it shrank down and got colder from there.

So all of a sudden maybe it's 30 degrees outside instead of 70.

Now you see paint stripes around, but it's too cool to paint, so you can see that happen as well.

And it's just really hard to make that look good, especially inside those J trims and Things like that.

So for me, the first thing I would do is get in there and inconspicuous spot and take a look.

If you have an older home, you could have a gift hiding behind that.

I have seen so many times where a vinyl siding salesperson was killer in your neighborhood.

They came down, there's a bunch of houses that needed painted.

They knocked on the doors in the 80s and 90s and said, hey, for this, for as much as a paint job, I can put vinyl siding on this thing and it's going to look like a million bucks.

And it's a lifetime warranty.

They'll say, well, 15 years later, it's starting to look not so great.

That company's no longer around, or they didn't remember who they got it from at that point, or they sold it and somebody's bought it and there's a beautiful sighting underneath it.

So sometimes by unsnapping that, taking a look underneath, you might have some beautiful siding down there, or you might have plywood.

You won't know until you get into it.

And that's where you can really make a difference on that.

I have 25, 30% of the time seen beautiful siding that just needed some prep work and some paint.

And they got rid of that vinyl siding.

And they had cedar shingle, they had shake, they had lap siding.

All the different types of siding you had down there, maybe, except for steel or aluminum, but they had great material underneath it, so don't be shy to take a look.

Now, that could have also went on when they did an addition or changed out windows.

So you might most likely will have some siding repairs to do, but it's not going to be a complete siding job.

But you won't know until you start popping it off.

And at that part, you're committed.

So what I would recommend you do at that point is to go ahead and say, okay, we're going to pop it off this area here.

Try it, see what happens.

No matter what, what's coming off, it's probably going to break.

So you're not going to put it back on there.

But you're going to have to at least commit to some kind of sighting at that point, so have that in your budget.

Thanks for tuning in.

I'm Eric G.

And you've been listening to around the House.