[00:00:00] Intro: It's around the house. When it comes to renovating,

[00:00:23] Intro: this is around the house.

[00:00:26] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house show. This is where we talk about home improvement every single week. This is the midweek special. This is where we. About the stuff that, of course didn't make it into last week's show and isn't gonna make it into this weekend show. And man, what a week for me, I'm a sea fan.

[00:00:44] Eric Goranson: So it was pretty cool to see us beat the Denver Broncos, sorry, Denver Bronco's fan. But, uh, we didn't think that, uh, we were gonna win this one or at least I didn't and I was wrong. So, uh, my voice is a little bad today as I'm recording [00:01:00] here on. Tuesday. So, uh, we're just having a great time here. And, uh, that was a fun, fun time last night.

[00:01:07] Eric Goranson: Well, talking about fun. I had an amazing time this last week. If you watched on anything on my social media, you saw that I was out with my friends, keen utility, keen utility in their boots. Great stuff. We had a big event here. In my hometown here in Portland, a lot of my friends came in and we had just an absolute great time with keen.

[00:01:26] Eric Goranson: They put us up in a hotel downtown and I got to make my own boots, got to go out to, uh, Bridgetown forge and build some blacksmithing. It was awesome. We had such a great time out there and, uh, got to spend a lot of time with a lot of good friends. And that was a lot of fun to me, made some new ones. That was great.

[00:01:48] Eric Goranson: Um, People that I have known, but never had a chance to spend a lot of time with Dr. DS. You've seen him out there. He'll be on the show soon. Sarah listy tool, girls garage. [00:02:00] Uh, you'll see her very soon as well as her, uh, murder house flip television show over on Roku, Jess Crow, epoxy queen her and her husband.

[00:02:09] Eric Goranson: That was just a blast. Of course, my friends like mechanical hub build with Ethan, all these different people out there. I had a lot of fun and, uh, just building new friendships, so many more people on that list that I'm not gonna put on there, but, uh, there's about 20 of us rolling around and we had an absolute great time.

[00:02:28] Eric Goranson: So, uh, those are things I really enjoy. It was great to, uh, collaborate and, uh, talk about some new stuff coming up, which is gonna make some great shows for you to catch out with some industry experts that are amazing out there. So, uh, can't wait to be doing more with these folks and, uh, you'll hear 'em here.

[00:02:46] Eric Goranson: On the podcast and radio show. Now something else that came out this week, uh, which I'll be putting out a video here soon. Just a quick little video. This was a lot of fun, actually. So Lutron has a brand new, uh, [00:03:00] diva, smart dimmer, and a Claro smart switch. So we've got some new lighting controls out there that are smart.

[00:03:07] Eric Goranson: And, uh, I tell you what this fits into that Cassada portfolio pretty well. You think about the, um, Cassada line, you've got the, the smart switches and, and dimmers and all that stuff out there. This is a great. System that adds onto your home. If you wanna have something that's a little less obvious of what it is, it looks like one of the regular dimmer switches and that's, what's cool.

[00:03:30] Eric Goranson: You get the regular paddle in the decor style. It is wonderful. And I just put this into my house and it works so well. And, uh, it's very impressive. Uh, I'm, I'm very impressed with this and they've got it in a, uh, a really good. Smart price points. So not much more than a regular dimmer, you can add this into your house.

[00:03:50] Eric Goranson: It matches all the rest of the white dimmers out there without having so many buttons. It makes it very simple. And, uh, that's, what's pretty cool about this line. So [00:04:00] you'll see a video coming up soon on that and, uh, it just adds a great amount of flexibility. So you've got the switch. You've got the dimmer.

[00:04:09] Eric Goranson: And, uh, you're gonna be able to pair that in with any of the remotes, including the, the Pico remote can work it into a three-way application. So, uh, really cool how you can play this all together and, uh, brand new switch that came out on Monday. Couple of them, they work out really well and, uh, having a lot of fun with it.

[00:04:25] Eric Goranson: So you can, uh, learn more over at, uh, lutron.com and I'll have a video up talking a little bit about it here in the next day or so something to take a peek at, I'll have it up on social media. So pretty impressed. I love it when they expand that line went in very easily. And, uh, boy, I tell you what, every time with these new switches, they install easier and easier and easier.

[00:04:48] Eric Goranson: And, uh, that's a lot of fun to be well coming up here next. If you live in Portland, Oregon, this weekend over at Woodcrafters, you better take a look. Jess stone. My friend is [00:05:00] in talking epoxy this weekend. She's got some classes over there. So if you're lucky enough to be in our Portland area, check that out and you can follow Jess out there.

[00:05:08] Eric Goranson: She's going around the country, doing classes on epoxy and, uh, I might even pop over there. There's so much to learn. With that. So that's, what's exciting. Hey, as you've noticed as well, we've got a new show format here coming up on around the house. Caroline's busy, she's doing her stuff. And again, thanks again for Caroline and all her hard work on the show.

[00:05:29] Eric Goranson: But what we're gonna have is a bunch of different contributors. Caroline is gonna be one of them and that's, what's exciting is we're gonna have all these people popping in. You'll hear Walt Tamala. You'll hear all these different people rotating through, including some new ones that are experts in their field that are gonna come on and, uh, kinda rotate through.

[00:05:49] Eric Goranson: So you're gonna hear a lot of different voices and that's gonna be a little bit of a twist and it's something that nobody else is doing. So we're gonna be breaking some new rules and having some fun here with new [00:06:00] people on the show every week, give you a little different flavor. That's gonna be a lot of fun.

[00:06:05] Eric Goranson: So stay tuned for that coming up. We've got some great interviews coming up, uh, as well. Well, the subject I wanted to dive in today in this midweek special is ghost designers. What is a ghost designer? A ghost designer. Is like a ghost writer. There are some designers out there and this is something that's very interesting.

[00:06:25] Eric Goranson: It's not something that you see typically in the contracting world, but you see this as a hidden thing in the designing world. There are designers out there that can't design, but they've hired people that can, that work for them that do the work for them. I know a designer out there that can't draw.

[00:06:47] Eric Goranson: Doesn't have a good design eye. Heck, they didn't even finish high school, let alone get into design school. They have literally no design education having taken a [00:07:00] college class or anything, but they hire people to do the work for them. So they'll come out, wave their arms around, say they've got a great plan.

[00:07:11] Eric Goranson: Take some pictures. Maybe even bring the ghost designer out with. And then they come right back, come up with the plan and they market it out there to the public. And this is something that I see out there. You see a little bit of this on like HDTV and some of the shows out there where, a lot of people out there will call themselves a designer and there are some great designers out there.

[00:07:38] Eric Goranson: 95% of the industry out there is really good. Kinda like bad contractors. There are bad ones out there that will absolutely blow your mind. And the same thing goes with designers. So you gotta be careful looking at designers, so you don't get that ghost designer shown up on your job site. [00:08:00] And plus, why are you paying the overhead for this big name?

[00:08:03] Eric Goranson: That doesn't do the job for you. So do your research, make sure that the people that you're hiring to work on your project with you really have the work and the skillset and that authenticity to be able to take on your project, because there are some great designers out there that I absolutely enjoy that have just such a great eye that you're paying for that service.

[00:08:29] Eric Goranson: Make sure that you've got the right person doing it. Some of the things that I will say that you need to be careful with out there is when the designer shows up, they've got their assistant with them or whoever they are. And that assistant is giving more information than the designer is, or the designer keeps looking over to that assistant going, Hey, what do you think?

[00:08:52] Eric Goranson: What do you think? What's your opinion? These are all things that can absolutely give you that warning sign, [00:09:00] that you've got a designer with no skills and they've hired a ghost designer to work for 'em. So be careful of that and keep in mind, ask that designer to toss out a sketch for you. What are you thinking if they can't see that, where they can draw it out, then you have some issues.

[00:09:19] Eric Goranson: So again, something to think about, watch out for those ghost designers out there. I've seen 'em more and more just because you can hire somebody out there to do the work and have the skill set that they actually don't have. So there's my tip of the day. Watch out for those ghost designers. Now coming up on the show this weekend, I'm not gonna tell you all that's coming on, but I will say one of the hours, we're gonna be talking about water in the basement of crawl.

[00:09:47] Eric Goranson: Or maybe even water in the backyard controlling it. Do you have that marshy backyard? Do you have water leaking into the crawl space? Do you have water in the basement? How do you control that? I'm gonna give you those DIY tips so you understand [00:10:00] what the best solution is, whether you're gonna do it yourself.

[00:10:03] Eric Goranson: We're gonna make it a project that you hired a contractor for. This is gonna be kind of the one all be all show for controlling water in the basement, crawlspace, or even that flooded backyard. How do we control it? It's gonna be a lot of fun and we'll dive into that. And hour number two is gonna be a surprise, but you just wait.

[00:10:21] Eric Goranson: I'll probably do in an announcement later on this week, when we do that shows tees that we do on Thursdays. It'll be something to, uh, take a listen to. All right, everybody. We've got some great shows coming up ahead. So stay tuned. Make sure when you're listen to the podcast that you have everything subscribed, we'd love to see some reviews over there.

[00:10:40] Eric Goranson: And if you have any questions head over to around the house, online.com and I do have a new thing up on around the house nation. That's really cool. I did put up a thing there at the top of the page, in our closed group on Facebook, where you could put in some requests. For doing stuff on the show. So that way you can sit [00:11:00] there and really kind of figure out, Hey, I got a question.

[00:11:03] Eric Goranson: I can do that. And, uh, we'll add that into the show. Just like the one right now. It was interesting. I had a, a thing on there. It was a question really? And it was a good one. They wanted to hear us talk about hanging pictures and fasteners. So if you put a heavy picture piece of art, Or even, uh, a, a heavy mirror on the wall.

[00:11:27] Eric Goranson: There are different things you can do. Of course, the easy one is to grab studs, get that nail screw into the studs. I like personally using the picture hangers where we have a hook, cuz it'll do better than hanging on a finish nail. Of course, cuz you've actually got something to hook on. Now what happens when you don't have a stud.

[00:11:51] Eric Goranson: This is where I go into my hollow wall anchors with drywall. And this can be pretty good. My favorite. Now these are more [00:12:00] destructive, but they work really well. They're the white screw style hollow wall anchor. So you put a Phillips head in the end, you drill it into the drywall. You screws into the drywall with these heavy courses and you have.

[00:12:16] Eric Goranson: A screw that goes in the inside. Then you can get a, uh, you can hang out on the screw head or you can actually go out and get some screw, style hangers that will hold on there. And then you've got something that might hold up to 75, 75 pounds out there, and then you've got something solid. Now those don't work as well.

[00:12:35] Eric Goranson: Of course, if you've got laugh and plaster. So for something like that, you're almost better using a toggle bolt or something like that, where you drill the big hole, you pop it through and you grab it. But anytime you've got laugh and plaster, it makes it much more of a headache to hang something because you don't wanna have to bow the plaster out or mess with that, laugh, moving.

[00:12:58] Eric Goranson: So you have to be much. [00:13:00] Careful and gentle when you're dealing with that. And those are my kind of my two favorite types of, of drywall anchors really is either going into the stud or just going through with that screw style. I don't like the inserts as well. Those are great for concrete and things like that.

[00:13:16] Eric Goranson: But for hanging onto a picture, putting that in that screw style, white hollow wall, anchor that you drill through the drywall and goes. Is gonna be your best bet on keeping that held together and up on the wall. And if you're an earthquake territory, it's something else to consider too. You wanna make sure that you've got it where it's not moving around?

[00:13:37] Eric Goranson: So what I've seen done too is you hang the picture up on the wall and there is a little product you can get museum wax or some of the Velcro. Pieces. And you could actually Velcro that bottom to the wall. So it doesn't lift that way. If it's in a high traffic area, or if it's in, an earthquake area where you're wanting to keep it on the wall, that actually [00:14:00] will do a pretty good job of keeping it on the wall.

[00:14:01] Eric Goranson: Cuz now you've got tension only it down. You've held it up against the wall and you have a better chance of that standing around. So that's a nice little trick for any of you that are in earthquake areas where it could be an issue of something flying around. That's my best tip for using, uh, hollow wall anchors and keeping that in and, uh, thanks to the request over on, around the house station.

[00:14:22] Eric Goranson: If you've got your. Question, make sure and drop it over there at, uh, around the house nation on Facebook, just go over there, ask to be in it. It's our closed group. So we keep everything safe and protected for everybody. Uh, as best as we can, we give a good effort and we have people always patrolling that looking patrols, but you know, something, you guys are really good.

[00:14:41] Eric Goranson: On that page. All right, everybody have a great rest of the week. I'll see you on Saturday with a fresh brand new show for hour and one and hour two, and as always, thanks again for listening to around

[00:14:51] Intro: the house[00:15:00]