Foreign.

Welcome to around the House with Eric G. Your trusted source for all things home improvement.

Whether you're tackling a DIY project, hiring it out, or just trying to keep your home running smoothly, you're in the right place.

With over 30 years of remodeling experience, certified kitchen designer Eric G. Takes you behind the scenes with expert advice, industry trends, and the latest innovations for your home.

Home.

It's everything you need to know without the fluff.

Now let's get this show started with our host, Eric G. And John Dudley.

Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for home improvement advice.

Thanks for joining us today.

Hey, if you want to find out more about us, head over to our website, aroundthehouse online.com.

make sure you follow us on social media, YouTube, all those different things so you can stay up to date on everything we've got going on.

I'm Eric G. I'm Johnny D. That we're hanging out here.

We're gonna help you out today with some of those projects now that we're in the month of November.

Dude, how did we get into November already?

Where'd the time go?

All of a sudden it's like, Thanksgiving's around the corner, right?

Dude, it was like October 2nd, and they were putting Felice Navidad stuff up down here.

Oh, man.

Whoa, whoa.

Dude, it was before.

What was?

It was before.

Geez.

When was.

It was before Halloween.

Here.

It was, man.

It was probably a month ago.

So that.

What holiday would that have been?

Labor Day.

They were putting the Christmas stuff up in Lowe's and Costco.

And I'm like, well, we got some holidays to respect here.

Yep.

That's about when it started here.

And I couldn't believe it.

I was like, no, because there's not enough pressure around that damn holiday anyways, Right?

No, I know.

I know it.

Let's start.

The pressure button three months early.

Come on.

Oh, I know it.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

I wanted to talk today about just some of those great things you can do because like he said, there's so much pressure on people.

It's.

Oh, man.

The in laws are coming in, the family's coming into town.

And I said I was going to do all these things to the house, and things have been expensive, tariffs, whatever.

What can I do to make this look better?

Like, you did more than maybe you thought you were going to do.

And some of those things can be really easy projects, and a lot of them are.

Some of the easiest ones are right at your front door.

When people walk in, let's set that expectation that.

Hey, right.

I was just going to say that, brother.

New porch light and a new door handle.

Little holiday welcome, Matt.

All of a sudden, people go, whoa, look at this.

Look at this.

Paint the door if it needs it, or reef, reseal it with a stain, make the entry look good.

Put a nice little mat out there.

Like you say, it takes you three hours on a Sunday and cost you 50 bucks.

Done.

It's so simple.

And the lights, you can do so much these days and with LED lights and things like that.

And you don't have to go spend a lot of money.

You could jump on Amazon and get some good deals.

Just be careful when you do that, because some of those lights will have that nice UL listing stamp, but they're not UL listed that somebody's just putting a sticker on it.

So you want to make sure you got something that's going to hold up out there.

You do get what you pay for with lighting, but there can be some good buys if you find the right ones on there.

And between that and just a fresh coat of paint or stain on that front door and a nice old front door lock, you're gold.

Yep.

Put a fancy wreath on there.

Game over.

Yeah, you're good to go.

Now.

One of my favorites is once you get in and this is just an easy one, declutter the house.

Yeah.

Say, okay, I'm going to take 30% of the junk out of my house and literally make it go away.

Almost like you move, right?

When you move, you go through stuff.

And I just did this.

I went through.

And I'm like, I don't need this.

I don't need this.

I don't need this.

I got rid of so much of my stuff that I was like, I had boxes I hadn't unwrapped in nine years.

Guess what?

If that's still taped from the last move, I still open them up to make sure I don't have anything hiding in there.

But really, did I need it?

Yeah.

Yep.

You're talking to a guy that's had my stuff in storage for 12 years.

Did I need all that?

No.

But you got paid tens of thousands of dollars to keep it all there.

Yes, I have.

Oh, man.

I got all my stuff in storage right now, too.

Like 80% of it.

I get it, but that's going to be a temporary for me until we get our next house.

But it's one of those things that I'm looking at it going, yeah, it's so Easy to run up that storage bill and to pay more in storage than what the products are worth.

I think storage units have their.

You're out of the country.

You have to put it someplace that's secure.

Me, I mean, it's motorcycles and guitars and it's not.

I mean, there's surely there's some old boxes of clothes in there.

For the most part, it's tools and music stuff and good stuff.

But even down here, I left with a suitcase and a Telecaster 12 years ago and just started traveling.

And since then, I've acquired all this stuff down here now that every time I move, same thing.

And I just moved to this little cabin up here and got rid of hefty bags full of stuff.

I'm like, what?

I didn't know.

Where did that come from?

Yeah, I don't even know what that is.

That's for the kitchen.

I don't use the kitchen.

Yeah, you do.

For coffee, for tea.

True.

But really that's the thing.

So getting that clutter down.

You can make your house look so much less chaotic and so much cleaner by just getting that down.

And quite frankly, it's less stuff to clean around and dust, you know, and.

If you're scared, put it in the garage for now.

Yeah.

Pull it back out in February and re.

Clutter.

There we go.

There we go.

There we go.

My rule is on shelves and stuff around the house, I follow the 1/3 rule.

If you've got a shelf that's in there and you've got more than a third of it filled up, you probably have too much stuff on it.

That's my rule, that third rule.

All right, I've got a third on thing.

Yeah.

It's about three times less my rule.

Exactly.

I knew I could get you on that one.

But really, that's a good one there.

And that just makes it so much cleaner out there.

And then when you get inside, sometimes that bold accent wall, or just going down and getting a good gallon of paint and painting the room, redoing the trim, maybe that the dog's been bouncing off of, or the kids have been playing around, just really if the baseboards and the trim is taking the abuse, maybe just going around and putting a fresh coat of paint on the trim.

Or a little coffee in the bathrooms.

Yeah.

New bidet toilet seat.

Make that the conversation piece, because everyone will go in there to use the bathroom with the heated seat and come out and go, oh, that was pleasant.

Yep.

More people.

Yeah.

Swap out some of those old.

Some of the old could Be fixtures.

Even things like new.

Some new towel racks, a new hand towel rack, a little things, new toilet paper holder.

Those things, they just.

It's new and it spruces it up.

And I won't notice the dog chewing trim as much.

If I'm looking at a new toilet paper holder.

Like, it's just human nature.

We go, oh, that's nice.

It's so true.

Because what happens is people come in and go, oh, that's fresh, that's new, that's cool.

And it's really just that simple.

It's an attitude that you're at least doing work around the house.

You get a little more liberty and forgiveness on things that aren't so sharp and up to date.

People are going there, working on it.

Yeah, you made some progress since last time.

And that's key, and that's one of those things too, is make all your metals match.

If you've got the chrome faucet in the 1977, the brushed bronze 70s towel racks, maybe it's time to just upgrade those and to make it all matchy match at least.

Yeah, two finishes are cool.

If you've got like the brushed gold and the matte black, that's awesome.

But not so much when it looks like you just were shopping at the Goodwill or something.

For when the tower rack is wood.

I'll even take you a step further.

You've got the oak toilet seat still.

I was just gonna say the old oak dude.

Yep.

Round hand towel, oak hanger.

Oak hanger.

That usually got the crack bottom of it.

Right.

It's got the crack where it broke through the loop and the toilet's.

Don't let my mom hear this episode.

She'd get p. Or even worse, the.

Oak one with the carpeted cover that's wrapped around it.

Oh, yeah, the pink cover.

Emerald green.

Emerald green seat cover to go with the oak.

Oh, yeah.

So cozy and homey.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so awesome.

Oh, my gosh.

That's brutal.

That's brutal.

We've just pissed off at least 100 people that might have something like that going on right now.

Or carpet in the bathroom.

There's my other pet peeve, by the way.

Get the carpet out of the bathroom.

Oh, God.

Gross.

As you're drinking coffee.

Yeah, Just gross.

Just gross.

Yeah.

This is what I say about carpet.

When you buy a house with carpet in it, it's like wearing someone else's socks.

Yeah.

The first business I ever started as a contractor at 17 years old was installing carpet.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You don't realize how gross it is until you tear up a couple houses worth of carpet.

And then the old guy that's teaching you how to lay carpet is.

You know how much skin SLU is in this stuff?

Dude, really?

Right before lunch you had to tell me that?

Thanks.

Exactly.

All right, Johnny on that.

Now let's go out to break.

Let people get their lunch back and around the house.

We'll be right back after these important messages.

Don't change that dial.

Kids these days will never understand what it's like to play an instrument and be in a.

What's up?

This is Sticks it in ya and.

Satchel from Steel Panther.

And you are listening to around the House with Eric G. Yeah, we love.

Eric G. And you should too.

Welcome back to the around the House show.

I tell you what, Johnny and I have been sitting here talking about some of those things you can do really around the house to get yourself ready for the holidays.

And as we were all gagging, going out to break, as Johnny was telling a story about carpet.

He's not wrong.

After taking carpet out, doing a remodel, and shoveling up out of the room a five gallon bucket of unknown stuff, you go, and that was vacuumed yesterday, right?

Yeah, buddy.

It's so bad.

And as Johnny was saying, how do you carry it out?

Johnny, when you're rolling that stuff, you go out to the trash right over your shoulder, right?

Yep, Right next to my face.

Love it.

Stuff's running down your back of the T shirt.

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

And you're sweating, so your pores are wide opens.

All good right there.

Now with the hot roofer.

Yeah, Hot roofer is almost better at that point.

A little cleaner.

A little cleaner.

Yeah, it's just insulation going into your skin.

Yeah, a lot of chemicals, but at least you know what it is.

Here's the thing.

Great example.

Girlfriend's place here.

She's got a beautiful house, she's got carpet.

And for a while in there, this carpet was over cleaned like the.

And I'm not talking about having the professionals come out.

I'm talking about buying the.

The Shark carpet cleaner.

Whatever brand you see out there.

Whatever.

Yeah, the Bissell, whatever that is.

And the problem with those is they leave so much soap behind and they're just nasty as far as that goes.

Her carpet I'm gonna have to spend some time on.

What I'm gonna do is go around and have it cleaned.

But I need to restretch it because as it was cleaned, the fibers relaxed and so now we got some nice little humps in there that I need to go around always and restretch all those rooms.

Because this was a big builder, national builder that built this place.

It wasn't the best carpet to do with anyway.

They did not do it.

And quite frankly, the last thing I want to do is go around and put new flooring down in this house.

My knees are just recovering.

I don't want to do it again.

But I will get in there with a power stretcher and take an inch or so, get the bubbles out, get the bubbles out.

The people that over clean it just rots.

The jute backing which holds the carpet together and it stays wet a while even though it feels dry on your feet under that water.

Stay in there and it's rotten.

The jute backing and you get mold from that.

But like you say, it definitely the jute lets go of the carpet fibers and that allows it to bubble up.

Now it's shot pretty much.

Now it's shot.

I'm gonna try to stretch it and get a little more out of it.

But I feel bad for my carpet guy coming in because he's gonna come in and he's gonna have one sudsy mess in his truck.

Because I only use the guys.

I don't go rent the carpet thing from the grocery store or whatever.

I get the guy to come out with the truck and that way they got the big truck mounted unit, they actually can clean it.

He's probably gonna have too much soap in it anyway.

He's gonna probably hit.

Cause usually those carpet cleaners leave way too much soap residue.

And so he'll be pulling with hot water out, lots of soap.

And so he'll be dealing with that foaming the truck up.

But that's gonna make a big difference on that.

And for the holidays it's gonna make a big difference of how it looks.

It's really gonna change things and it'll really help.

But that's the problem.

When you clean those carpets, the soap that hangs around, you just get that residue and what to do.

It just likes grabbing that.

Now when they built this house, this is another thing that I wanted to talk about real quick.

You ever see like she's got light carpets, the cream colored carpets, like many people have, they kept the doors really tight to the carpet.

In some rooms she has it used because it's a good sized house.

I have the black stripe in the carpet, which is just an air filter.

It's an air filter where it goes through, especially going into the Laundry room because they left a maybe an eighth of an inch between the carpet and the door.

So that's just one big air filter.

And it makes it quiet, but there's no air moving out of there.

And when you've got a dryer that's pulling air out of the house, it may be 100 CFM.

Now you've got 100 CFM carpet filter right there.

Grabbing all the dirt.

Yeah.

Nice line right across there.

Yep.

And when you have that carp, when you have that, people go, oh, my gosh, my car.

My vacuum's missing a spot around the outside edge.

I'm like, no, that's air coming up from your crawl space or basement.

And that's a filter coming up through the base, underneath the baseboard, coming up in that way.

That's not usually the fault of that.

It's just the.

That's just one big air filter.

And it makes a heck of a mess, but at least you see it.

You call it a montage.

It's a detail.

There we go.

It's a perimeter stripe.

That's all it is.

Black spray paint and make it 2 inches perfectly all the way around the room with some tape and a spray can.

There you go.

Design.

It's design.

I like it.

I like it.

I think that's enough about carpet.

But that's one of those things.

And quite frankly, I'm.

The last thing I'm going to do is go tear that up and put down.

I'm done with the whole click together LVP flooring after having to repair mine.

And I had a great brand in my house where maybe somebody, when we were up on the ladders, had some guys doing some texture on the ceiling and stuff in there.

Just the ladders on it made the stuff separate, apart.

And I'm just done with that stuff now.

I'm like, okay, that's a fad that I think I'm going to call over is the click lock flooring.

And yeah, I'm going hardwood.

I'm going to go.

Whether it's engineered or glued down or nailed down, I'm not doing any more floating stuff like that.

I'm just so sick of it without it being glued together or something.

Yeah.

And that's one of those calls you make depending on the property, whether when it's your own home, you're going to do it a different way when you're flipping something or you're making a rental that's going to get destroyed anyway.

Use this.

Use the heck out of that stuff, man.

It's cheap.

You can do a whole house in a day.

It's like picking money up off the floor.

Yeah, yeah.

Not a big deal.

Yeah.

If you're going to stay there 10 years, put down a real floor, it's just.

Yeah, yeah.

And there's some great stuff out there these days.

Some of these engineered floors are pretty good.

Especially when you're going over to over basements and crawl spaces.

And you've got a problem too, I've noticed with the click together flooring is if you're trying to do that for a quick one.

The problem is if you've got an older house where there's a little spring in that floor, like you get into some of these older homes, that stuff just separates apart and now you've got this.

So I'd much rather do that in a glue down than I would a floating floor just to make sure that holds together.

Because they just work their way apart.

Even with the glue down though, you get where you've got those.

My recommendation is just get some cheap self leveler and dump it across your whole stupid living room and get rid of that stuff.

It'll self level it all out, glue down to that because otherwise you're gonna have spots.

It's just like tile where you missed mortar.

And you'll hear the yeah, because it didn't glue because there's a dip in the floor there.

So get some self levelers, spend the 40 bucks or whatever it is.

It's expensive.

Yeah.

But you'll have a better floor and it will stay together and it will last years longer and it won't piss you off every time you walk over the hollow spot.

Oh my gosh.

Right.

It's like that creek, right.

You walk across and say really?

It's so bad.

It's so bad.

Next one up here I had that I thought is a good one and we've talked about this before but just going through.

If you've got knobs in your kitchen, for instance, and it's been a while since you've changed them out, go get some good ones and put it on there.

Put something nice in there and it really elevates what you're doing.

If you've got just those chrome builder knobs in there, go in and put some new brushed brass ones with a new brushed brass faucet.

And yeah, again it's another 50 bucks or under.

And spruces up the kitchen.

Makes it.

I'm a little bougie.

I go Baldwin hardware.

So I usually spend 50 bucks.

Normal human being, not a Kitchen and bath designer.

I've raised my standards, so up yours.

Okay, now we're back to talking about the pizza oven.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Okay, you got me there.

You got me there.

I'm living in a cabin right now.

Dude, don't talk to me about your brushed aluminum nonsense.

Hey, at least you got electricity.

I love it.

We use rocks to hold the door open.

You got it.

There we go.

There we go.

I like it.

All right, guys, tone it down a notch.

Around the house.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the around the House show.

Your trusted source for home improvement.

If you want to find out more about us.

If you're like, hey, I've never heard you guys on the radio or podcast before, just head over to our website, aroundthehouse online.com.

if you take a look over on the podcast, we've got.

Sheesh.

I think we've got almost 1800 back episodes out there if you dive deep.

And then of course, like 1673 or something.

So.

Yeah, yeah, under the 1700s now.

Yeah.

It's crazy how many we've got back there.

So we've got an answer for all your questions.

And then if you want to check out some of the videos that we put up, I just put up one on the right way to do paver patios.

I did some really cool.

Basically just refreshed my asphalt.

Driveway was pretty beat up.

Did a coating on there and then doing a new deck coding as well.

Those are all up on the YouTube page with some how to stuff over there as well.

And we've got some new stuff coming up here shortly.

But you and I, Johnny, have been talking about really, some tricks and tips to do before the holidays here to make things get dialed in.

And one of the ones I wanted to talk about was making your house smell better, but without putting in a bunch of that nasty, you know, plug in type blade stuff or whatever.

Sorry, that stuff there is like vaping.

Just.

You're gonna vape the whole house.

You look at the orange, green, whatever color you're trying to do, you're breathing that now.

I don't need those oils.

No, thanks.

No, thanks.

That's one of those things.

And so I knew the smell issue was gonna come up earlier, right?

I was like, oh, yeah, boil the apple spice thing in the kitchen or whatever it is.

Make some hot toddies and get that going first.

And get your.

They don't let me in the kitchen, but I know there's something in there that smells good.

A lot of it is those hidden smells if you've got pets, if you've got the dogs, like you and I have had dogs.

My ex wife gave away my dog.

So that's a whole other story we're not going to get into here.

But when you've got dogs, sometimes it's as simple as the blanket that's on the sofa or it's the dog bed that's sitting in the corner and running that through the washer or getting those things cleaned up and running them through and getting them smell without putting a bunch of chemicals into it can be a game changer.

Now one of my little tricks, which I haven't been caught doing, but I'll talk about it here is I have a really nice battery powered leaf blower.

So variable speed.

So I come in the house on a nice day, I open up the doors, I open up the screen door, open up the skylight, and I put it on low and I blow out all the dog hair that's hiding under the couch and the furniture.

I don't want to move everything, but I can get into there and blow all that stuff out and then I can sweep it up and mop it up and go from there.

But that's a really big one where I cheated because I put hardwood floors basically in the whole lower floor of my house.

On the last house that I just sold, what I did was I did that and then I got one of the robotic vacuum cleaners, that mop.

I was just gonna say the robot.

Yep.

Man, I tell you what, that is the way to go.

Because I went through, I thought, okay, I got, it was brand new.

I went, I'm gonna go do this old school with the sponge style mop that squeezes that you do it.

I mopped and bucket did a nice simple mop of the whole floor.

I did it twice.

Yeah.

And then I ran the robot vacuum and I went, oh my gosh, the water coming out of here still looks like mud.

How much did I miss?

Yeah, and the robot just.

I use roborock.

But those guys, I tell you what, that was a game changer on keeping the house clean.

And you could smell it.

You could smell the difference.

About every two days I would let it go out and scrub the floors.

And man, that was a game changer on keeping the house smelling better.

And you could sure see what it's.

Oh, and carpets are tough.

You're gonna, you're gonna battle that one.

Carpets and dogs and pets, it's just really not a great mix because they have oils, they have dirt, they have all the same stuff as we do.

And those carpets just love to snag that up and make it smell and hold on to it.

They're just big.

Yeah, it does.

Catchers.

I remember in the.

Yeah.

Anyway, in the 90s, those boxes of hammer.

Yeah.

The white powder.

Because I had came at the time.

Oh.

And.

Yeah.

No, and it smelled like flowers for about half an hour and then it smelled like dogs.

Oh, you just covered it up.

It was like.

It's.

It's like guys taking Ax body spray and not taking a shower and covering themselves with that and then going out and you just smell like a dirty person that painted flowers over yourself.

It doesn't work.

Yeah, no, this is exactly the same thing.

Yeah.

So it just doesn't work.

It's not one of those things that I recommend.

But really getting that stuff clean, getting the smells under control.

And here's another one.

If you're having people over at the house, here are two steps that I recommend.

One, get a really good toilet for the public bathroom.

That's off the living area.

So when your uncle comes over and is going to destroy the bathroom, you have something you're not going to need a plunger on and go get a nice toto toilet.

Get in there.

Something that's not going to clog up.

Because there's nothing worse than a guest coming over and plugging up the toilet and then having to deal with that.

Everybody's embarrassed.

It smells horrible.

And then put in a good bath fan.

That sounds like the voice of experience speaking.

Yes.

Oh, I used to have the mother in law that would come over and decide to help it clean up.

And it didn't matter if I had a thousand horsepower.

Garbage disposal.

She plugged that sink up.

She was good at that.

Nice.

And I'm like, what are you doing?

That's a $600 garbage disposal.

I put in there just so you wouldn't do this two days a week, two days a year in the holiday season.

It's not made for the Tupperware itself.

It's the food that's in the Tupperware.

Where'd the silverware go?

Oh, it took that with it.

Yeah.

It was just.

It's one of those things.

Don't put the rice, the coffee grounds, the onions, the peels from the onions down there.

You're just going to plug it up.

It's great.

And otherwise a smell.

Here's my other thing.

If I'm making cocktails, if I'm making drinks or whatever, and I've got all that old Citrus, the squeezed up lemons with all the peels.

I will take those citrus or even just half a lemon.

You know, if I used half a lemon for doing seafood or something, I've got that other half a lemon that's just a little bit old.

I will take like a pint glass, fill it up with ice, push it down in the garbage disposal and then turn the water on, turn the garbage disposal on, throw those peels down there.

The ice is a scrubber and it fills it up and keeps those oils from the lemon down there.

It's the best garbage disposal cleaner ever as far as getting that.

Good idea because I chews it up, it makes a little noise, but it bounces around.

But it's just like sandblasting the inside of that with the ice.

And then when you get the acid from the oils in the lemon or the orange or the lime, now you've got that going in there and it just cleans it up so well.

Eats all the junk off of there.

Yeah, great idea.

It doesn't cost anything because you're just taking garbage and some ice.

It's not a big deal.

Yeah, that's not a big deal.

So that's a good one.

They don't let me in the kitchen, so I've never tried that one.

But I like it.

I like it.

That's what it works.

And it's cheap and it just keeps it going well.

And again with garbage disposals, if you have to go to another one, you get what you pay for with them.

You buy that little insinkerator third horsepower, cheapy, $51 or $75 one, they're not good.

Just don't just get the big half or three quarter horsepower.

It's the way to go.

It's the way to go.

Now the next one here that I think is really cool is.

And this is one thing I love candles.

Candles are a great mood thing, but you got to be careful.

I have noticed in our house, for instance, I'll get stud ghosting because my girlfriend, who's amazing, loves candles, but because of the where the studs are, that soot loves to grab where those studs are.

I was walking down the stairs the other day with the light, right?

And I went, gotta clean those walls off because I see candle soot and it will get around.

And it's not great for your health.

It's not great for your health.

So I'm a candle guy.

I like the smell, I like the feel of the ambiance.

The cleanup's a little bit more.

And it's really not great for if you've got respiratory issues.

Yeah.

Yes.

Nobody likes the dark marks on the ceiling.

Absolutely.

And yeah, that's one of those things that we're going to have to take care of one of these days.

Now when we come back here, Johnny, let's go out to break.

I've got some really cool ideas here to how to fix up some of those scratches in damaged woodwork around the house without getting into a big refinishing project.

We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

Before we head out for a quick break, make sure you check out our website@aroundthehouseonline.com.

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And Johnny and I are giving out information on some of our favorite topics to help you and your business.

Whether you're a design firm, a new construction home builder, remodeler, or even that inventor coming out with the next coolest thing, we can help you out right there.

Johnny and I have been sitting here talking about, we've been having some fun here, talking about some great things you can do around the house before the holidays here that are quick fixes.

And one of my favorites is trying to get those scratches and repairs done around there.

Maybe it's the place where grandma comes over and she keeps knocking the walker up against the door and damaging it.

Maybe it's a dog trying to get out or the puppy chewing on the wood.

There are some great things you can do to get these things looking really good.

And when we were talking about it off break, Johnny brought up his favorite which was the Sharpie.

Sharpie works, man.

It does mostly on musical equipment and clothing.

But yeah, I'm used some of that.

Old 80s 90s modern furniture that was black and I'd move every three months and hang up every piece of everything.

Yeah, Sharpie.

Sharpie works I used on my door.

Just the door coming into the house.

It's that old at a 70s house.

So I Had that kind of walnut stained fur door or whatever.

I went and hit it with old English because I.

You're carrying saws or whatever else and you're bouncing off the door.

It's an old door.

I wasn't paying that much attention until I got everything else finished up around it.

I went, wow, this door looks a little rough.

I hit it with that old English, the stuff you can get at the grocery store, the Ace Hardware or whatever.

And it's that scratch repair furniture polish.

And if you get the right color that can really add some life and make things look a lot better.

Yeah.

Go over the cabinet, Go over the doors with it if there would.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

It looks new again.

Almost.

Yeah.

And nowadays they've got those pens and Johnny and I with cabinetry and everything else, they're these little.

They look like, almost like a dry eraser marker, but they're metal and they're hollow on the inside.

And they've got like a little rattle, like a rattle can in there and you can shake them up and touch up with cabinetry.

Now they've got them.

Whether it's Rejuvenate or Varathane or Minwax or Wyman or any one of these other companies out there, they have got now those pens that you can do and you can jump on Amazon even and get these repair kits.

I had a spot that was at my house on a bullnose for that luxury vinyl plank.

A lot of that, those bullnoses.

It's like a foam core on the inside.

I had a dark, a gray walnut floor.

And when you nick it, it's white.

It sticks out like a thumb.

Yep.

And so my buddy's like, hey, we need to repair that before we get, get the house on the market.

I'm like, oh, cool.

I got my kid out and I did my best Bob Ross impression of just trying to make it look really good.

You know what I mean?

Just making it look really again and again.

We have no video to prove this.

Damn it.

I have a picture of it.

I'll post it up.

So anyway, he came over later, walks by, he goes, oh, I didn't.

You didn't have to replace the bullnose.

I just wanted you to touch that up.

I'm like, no, I fixed it.

He jumps on the ground.

He's looking at, he's.

Oh, is that where I was?

I know.

Actually it was over here.

And sweet, because you can get in there and some of these kits, they make like this putty paste and then you can add the Color to it, mix it up, and then they have the different fine tips.

You can add the grain in there and anything else.

It looks like a million bucks.

Yep.

Yeah, looks like a million bucks.

Now, one thing that I started doing as a kitchen designer, we would put in the budget for big remodels where they do cabinetry and everything else.

We would put in a half a day for a furniture repair person to come out on site.

They could come out there and this is where artistry is.

Maybe a door got nicked.

I even saw a contractor use them because he misdrilled a door handle on a cabinet.

They came in and filled it.

You couldn't see where that happened.

Yeah, those guys are good, man.

Yeah, they know all the tricks.

He didn't want to do this.

He was just trying to get out of there.

It was when they came in and airbrushed it in there and you couldn't tell.

It was just.

I didn't believe him.

I'm like, oh, my gosh.

There's no way.

You couldn't get in the light.

You couldn't see it at all.

Like doing bodywork on cars for 30 years.

You know how to do it.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

It just changes everything and.

Oh, I think I told you my bodywork car story.

I went to go buy a truck here a few weeks ago and I went into a.

Maybe not the best part of town.

No, it's actually one of the worst parts of town, which.

Okay, you have to go there looking for a car.

You already make a mistake.

But I wanted to see what it looked like and yeah, it looked like an 8 year old tried bodywork for the first time and had a decent painter trying to go over the top of it.

Ah, sweet.

It was awesome.

I used to do that with my bicycles.

There we go.

Take the Schwinn or the Roger de Coster.

Yeah.

But really getting in there and having somebody do some quality work like that can be a really big deal.

And I'm not saying go through and restore the furniture.

There's a lot of good companies out there.

Howard makes that restore finish if you've got that beat up coffee table or something.

But just be careful, take the time, do the touch up.

It makes it look a lot better.

And you can really.

People think if you go around and do that on your hardwood floors, even in spots, there's another product that looks really good.

And the hardwood guys don't like this, but it's a heavy duty wax.

Basically, when you go to refinish it, they'll hate you.

But Bona makes a polish that you can put on there that after you clean your hardwood floors and you can get like a matte polish and it goes on like a liquid, but it really dries like a hard wax and it really will even out those worn spots, those deep finishes.

It really does a nice job.

But if you've got a hardwood refinishing company up, it's going to cost you more to take that stuff off because it comes off pretty hard.

I made a mistake once on my porcelain countertops of putting the wet bottle on it and I could see the ring and I had to go and get some pretty heavy duty cleaners just to get it off that because it just really soaked in.

So be careful with that.

That might not be the best product if you have a finish coming up.

If you're a renter or something like that and you're just trying to make it look good, it's a good way to do it.

Sorry, landlords.

It will buy some time.

Just gonna cost you a lot of sandpaper when it's time to get rid of it.

Oh, yeah, a lot of cleaning.

A lot of chemicals, grease and wax remover that you use on cars takes that stuff off pretty well.

Speaking of auto body, but one other one here that I wanted to talk about before we run out of time going around and updating all those switch plates and outlets.

If you've got the all little old 70s switches going around and replacing those with maybe some white or black decora switches with black plates, you can totally change the entire look of a room by just upgrading those switch plates into something much more contemporary.

And it'll look at just give you that nice jewelry for the space, which can look really cool.

Yeah.

And you can eliminate electrical hazard too.

Right, there's that.

So that's a good one.

That's a good one.

And we talked about it earlier too, and I was joking, but it actually does.

It's a funny one.

If you're ever going to get a bidet toilet, put it down in.

If you're going to put one in, put it down where the guests use it.

All of a sudden people be hanging out in that bathroom a lot more.

Then they'll come out and go, ooh, now you've got a conversation piece that might be able to be the shiny object to distract you away from maybe the other projects you didn't do.

So that's a good one.

That's a good one.

And I think just like anything, cleaning, some updating and just making sure.

That things are clean and cluttered and not clutter free can be the best thing you can do and might keep the keep the in laws from talking about the projects you didn't do that they were hoping you would do when the holidays come around.

Yep.

Paint, polish a couple little fixtures here and there.

Yeah.

And one thing too, by the way, another tip here.

Don't go use the self cleaning oven.

Right.

The days before the holidays.

That's right.

Yeah.

One, everything's gonna taste like you burnt it.

Two, the chance of you burning out that old range unless you want a brand new one.

Here's a hint.

The most likely time you're going to burn that range out is if you go the self cleaning route because it just anything that's on the edge like control knobs or control boards that he can push it across the edge.

So if you're trying to get that new range.

Yeah.

Run the self cleaning cycle on it might take it out for you so your spouse can go get the new one.

Push dinner to somebody else's house.

That's the best one.

I've pulled that stunt one time.

Oh, guys, a kitchen remodel is not going to be done.

We didn't even know you're doing your kitchen.

We just started it last week and it's not going to be done in time because quite frankly, I didn't want the family coming over to my house that year and it worked.

I think I saw that on an episode of some series.

I'm sure you know it works that remodel.

Ah man, house is thrown up.

Can't do it this year.

Just give your siblings or your parents or family a little time to plan and you'll be good to go.

You'll be good to go.

Johnny, thanks for coming on today, brother.

Always great.

It looks like the sun's coming up there and you've got a little more heat coming in at least.

No, not, no.

It's still freezing, dude.

Still freezing.

I can tell.

I see your breath out there.

Thanks for coming on, brother.

Great to see you and the guys out there.

If you're listening to the show, make sure you catch us on the website.

Over to aroundthehousonline.com I'm Eric G. I'm Johnny D. You've been listening listening to around the House.

That's a wrap for this week's around the House show.

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