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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 information.

Thanks for joining us today.

I'm Eric G. And we got Johnny Dudley here in the studio on the other side of the world.

Hey, Johnny, how you doing today, brother?

Doing great, man.

How are you?

Ready to make a difference?

Oh, yeah.

Excellent, man.

I am stoked.

I'm super stoked because today I want to say thank you to all our friends over at Connoisseur Media.

We have came back home and what I mean by that is around the House in about April of 1988 was founded on KXL when it was an AM station in Portland, Oregon.

And today we are back on kxl.

Thanks, guys for tuning in, Portland.

I appreciate you.

We are back and we were on that station till 2019 until they ended up getting rid of all their live and local stuff and we ended up going over to Salem Media.

They were wonderful people, don't get me wrong.

But with my buddy Mark going back over there, he's the guy that helped me create around the House Northwest TV show in Portland and he ended up over there and with Ross and Grant and all the people over there.

Thanks for having us back on.

I'm excited you're going to hear a lot more from us.

But thanks for tuning in here, Portland, Oregon.

We appreciate you and all of you listening around the country, around the world.

Thanks for tuning into around the House.

We got a great show today.

I feel like we need balloons and cake.

Ah, I'll get some cake because we can have our cake and eat it, too.

I like.

Well today I know it's a holiday season, but I thought, you know, we've done some holiday stuff.

I thought let's talk about here in this first hour, our top 10 DIY projects that every homeowner should get, you know, under their belt.

Understand that can save them serious money out there.

Because I tell you what, I have learned so many lessons watching people spend way too much money when it could have been a DIY Project.

Yep.

Like, great example.

And I'm going to throw my little brother under the bus.

My mom living in eastern Washington.

Water heater let go, you know, filled up, water coming out underneath the garage door.

You know that garage water heater, it's 40 gallon gas.

Water heater.

Brother didn't want to take my advice.

That's what brothers do.

Hired a plumber to come out.

Simple.

40 gallon water heater.

Guess how much it cost to replace that sucker, Johnny, for a plumber to come out on the same day.

I'm going to say 600 in labor and a thousand for the machine.

Nope.

3,500 bucks.

Get out of here.

Well, same day.

Yeah, same day.

Come on.

Somebody else paid two grand for it, which is a little bit better.

Well, I could do 10 of those in a day.

So maybe we should get into a different business.

Like they literally.

It takes an hour.

Come on.

Yeah.

I mean, holy smokes.

You know, and really, even if there's natural gas in there, if you do it right and follow the directions, it's not that hard to do.

You can make sure that you do it correctly and get it done.

But these are all things that I think every homeowner should be able to do, and it's worthwhile to learn these skills.

Yeah, no, that's a super simple one.

And people are right.

I've had the homeowners that are like, oh, it's a water heater.

I'm like, man, give me 300 bucks, I'll swap it out for you.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

I tell you what, depending on where you're located, it can be absolutely crazy.

I remember 10 or 15 years ago, there was a city that required a building permit to swap out your water heater.

Oh, come on.

Well, here's where it got even crazier.

A guy hired a plumber to come out and do it.

He was a city council person.

And I know there's people in our.

Lydia, we're on in this station in this area, so people are going to start known who I'm talking about.

There was a police standoff with the city councilor that hired the plumber because the building department official showed up and went, ah, you don't have a permit for that water heater and wanted to come inside.

And they literally had a police standoff over the permit of the water heater.

So, okay, well, that's a $3,000.

That's a $3,000 job then if you got to stand off at the police.

Right.

I can see that's justified.

That's justified now.

Yeah, but you know what I mean, that's the crazy part is you look at and go, holy smokes, that just got out of hand.

And some cities, it's not a big deal.

You know, homeowners can generally always work on their own stuff, so that's pretty easy.

But if you got to get a permit for it, just go get it.

But, man, that bugs me when I got to get a permit for that.

Even when you want a replacement, I.

Mean, you're connecting hoses.

Yeah.

You've been doing that since you were four.

You've been doing that since you were four on the water slide, like, come on.

Connect the hose, turn it on, push the pilot light.

Go, go.

Yeah.

You know, and again, you know, it's funny.

So I replaced my gas water heater in my old house.

I replaced it with one of the heat pump ones, and that saved me so much money.

Yeah.

I mean, it saved me probably 250 to 300 bucks a year on heating water, which is a lot.

That starts to pay for the heat pump one.

Another one, though, that I think is super important.

Replacing a toilet.

Pay someone.

You hate it, don't you?

I always had laborers, so I didn't have to touch them.

And I did pull that toilet.

I'll put the new one down, but you pull the old one.

Yeah, pulling it's not so fun.

It's a little bit better when it's your own, you know, but still, you know, get some gloves, replace it.

But here's one thing.

I mean, really, what are you talking about?

You're talking about maybe a utility knife to cut the caulking away from the floor.

You might be talking a wrench.

Wrench?

Yeah, yeah.

Wrench to get it.

Or 7.

16, depending on how small that is.

You've got to turn the water off, disconnect the water supply, grab your shop vac and suck the water out of it so you don't make a mess.

Or just like you do, just waddle.

It across the board.

Bend your knees.

I have screwed up my back pulling toilets so many times.

Like, oh, man, it's so bad.

They're awkward to carry.

Carry.

Let's just say that they're awkward to carry.

But get dirty.

Bend your knees, lift that thing off the wax ring, Get a new wax ring.

Clean up the O ring.

Slap a new one down right on top of the bolts.

Done.

Good to go.

Caulk it in, call it a day.

If everything I just spit out way too fast.

Doesn't make sense.

YouTube it.

You can replace your own toilet.

It's not that hard.

Now here's the thing too, man.

And this is interesting.

I saw a test where somebody was testing the home center brands.

You know, that you see when you walk into, like Home Depot, Lowe's, all those different things and oh, my gosh, dude, when you go into those and see how they be, all the toilets are the same.

No, they're not.

If you look at like the Glacier Bays and all those house brand ones.

Yeah, they're gonna work.

Can they work?

Well, no.

You know, those are the ones you need the plunger for.

And there is a lot of science that shows you how well you know, the totos always flush the best.

I think second place in that who's been catching up is Kohler.

I think third is American Standard.

And then it goes down from there.

But really, if you want to have something that you don't need a plunger for, just go for the Toto.

Yeah.

The other issue is those, those cheaper ones, they don't polish the inside, right.

So the porcelain.

There's no porcelain.

They don't even pol.

Porcelain all the way down through the.

Yeah, through the entire toilet.

So you've got rough.

You know, ceramic in there that's just catching and catching your toilet paper and your.

And they really get down to a small opening in the inside as well.

So.

Yeah, and it happens quick.

It happens in a couple of years, you're like, oh, but I saved money.

Yeah, but you're replacing it in a year or two.

Like.

Yeah.

I mean, the cool thing is you can see sit there with the totos.

I mean, what was it 10 years ago?

They had a bucket of golf balls like you'd get at the driving range, and they pour the toilet and flush it down.

Really not doing that with a.

With a Glacier Bay or one of those other house brands.

You're just not.

So I bet you can with your garbage disposal, though.

Oh, yeah, well, my former garbage disposal.

I knew the new owners can.

That's for sure.

So you could.

You could chew all those up.

You could chew all those up.

Hey, Johnny, we're running over here.

Let's run out to break.

When we come back, let's dive into some more of those top DIY projects that every homeowner should know.

And if not, you should learn it.

We'll tell you how just as soon as around the House returns.

Welcome back to the around the House show.

Hey, guys, if you want to find out more about the show, if you're just hearing us for the first Time, head over to aroundthehouse online dot com.

We'd love to hear from you, especially our new Portland listeners that are catching us today, the first week on kxl.

Thanks for tuning in.

I'm Eric G. And I got John Dudley here and we were just talking as we were going out to break and I wanted to continue this conversation for a minute.

We were making fun of my ex mother in law jamming stuff down the garbage disposal.

Johnny, you know the difference between in laws and outlaws, right?

Theoretically, yes, but not the way you're going to tell me, I'm sure.

Yeah, outlaws are wanted.

There you go.

I should have known that one.

You should have known that one.

See, you should have known that one.

So I may have known that one 20 years ago, Eric.

Yeah, it's been a bit for you.

So that's all good.

That's all good.

Hey, man, we've been talking about our top 10 DIY projects for every homeowner out there.

The next one I wanted to talk about is a good one.

Repairing that leaky faucet.

Whether you're tearing the whole thing out or just throwing in a repair kit, it's really not that hard.

Or it can be, depending on how hard it is.

Notice my long pause there.

I'm like, yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Working on that stuff that's been in there plus 20 years is where it gets difficult.

If you've got that old 1960s shower valve and you want to replace the cartridge on it, you could be in a monumental tug of war.

Yeah, replace the faucet.

I'm going to put this out there for the few people that still won't listen to me.

When you're doing things like this, whether it's even including the toilet, the water heater.

Replacing a faucet, do not over tighten plumbing.

It is not meant to be cranked down with a torque wrench.

It is meant to be hand tightened and then about a quarter to a half a turn and you're good.

If you over tighten it, you will screw up the seals and you will.

Your new leaky faucet repair will leak.

Please do not overtight.

Man, you are speaking the truth, brother.

Yeah.

And the bad part is if you got hard water, it's gonna put its own little loctite on it anyway.

Oh, indeed it will.

It's gonna be worse.

It's not gonna be easy.

It's gonna be a sawzall sometimes.

And I've used the sawzall.

I have come.

I've gone in there and cut the band on Or a nut off of something so I could peel it back and still try to save it.

But, yeah, sometimes you just got to get in there and cut it out and replace it.

Especially when you're dealing with shower valves and stuff like that.

But leaky faucets sometimes.

Here's the cool thing is, if you've got like an American Standard or a Delta or Kohler.

Moen, call their 1-800-number, their 1-88-number, call customer service.

They might just send you that pack for free.

A lot of them have lifetime warranties.

They might just go, oh, you need this?

Okay, cool.

And they might just send you the parts for free, which isn't a bad deal.

I know Moen does.

That's why we used to always use diverters and showers and things like that.

And, yeah, they'll send you out a new packing kit, like, Yep, no problem, no problem.

So now it's just taking the time and researching it.

But a lot of them are pretty easy to do.

You replace that cartridge at some point, it's good.

If you.

If it's not in style and you want to update it and the finish is bad, don't worry about repairing it.

Just toss it, get something new, you know, that's the big one.

The other thing is, and I want to bring this one up, too, here's a little hack for you guys out there that are out shopping.

For instance, if you go into your local Home center, and I mean the big ones like Lowe's, Home Depot, those kind of things, and you go into your local plumbing repair place, like a Ferguson or something like that, across the country, if you go into there and you look at a Home Depot faucet and let's say it's 199, and you pull that box open and look at the part number, you'll go to the plumbing store and go, why is this A little bit more.

I did this about a decade ago.

I bought two and pulled them apart.

Same model number, different packaging.

Home Depot one had all these plastic parts in it.

The one from the Home center was all brass because they were making ones in their, quote, retail packaging.

Yeah.

And the same thing with other brands of toilets and stuff.

When you go to the Home center, there might be.

They're B grade, there's flaws, like a little dimple on the side from the porcelain.

But the one that they're selling to their local licensed plumbers, to the plumbing repair place doesn't have that.

So there is a difference.

Sometimes depending on the brand, there is a difference.

And there's a reason giant discount stores can give discounts.

And it's not just because it's bulk.

It's because exactly what you're talking about.

The quality might be a little less on some.

Not on everything.

Not saying on everything.

But there are some notable differences that only guys like you and me would probably notice.

But good for the average DIY homeowner out there to know that, yeah, maybe you spend an extra $7, but I'll bet you even just that one brass washer instead of the plastic one might save you $200 next year.

Exactly.

That's a big one.

That's a big one.

And so that's one of those things that you learn.

It's a good way to go.

I tend to buy my stuff that I'm going to keep.

Guess what?

It's going.

I'm going down to the local plumbing store because just don't want to deal with it.

And if you're in the trade, you get a bigger discount anyway.

So you're getting it about the same price as what the Home Depot product price would be anyway, and you're getting the real thing.

My other little warning on that is don't buy it from the online marketplaces out there.

Because I tell you what, we've talked about this in the show year after year, but literally, Johnny, I could go down to.

Let's say I'm going to go down to Home Depot and I pick up that Kohler faucet off of that, I can jump online, ship that thing off to Canada, throw it a DHL package, send it over to China over there in three weeks to a month and a half later, plus tariffs, I could have all these Kohler faucets showing up that aren't made by Kohler.

Now, customs might grab them, but if they don't, they're knockoffs.

Then you sell them online.

And when you go to buy repair parts, the repair parts don't fit.

Because guess what?

It's like the knockoff Coach purse you bought at the market.

It ain't real.

It just looks like it.

Yeah.

And there's a ton of that.

Yeah, it's a ton of it out there.

And not to say you can't buy online.

There's reputable, reputable marketplaces.

But, yeah, be smart about it.

Yeah, I don't know any of them because I generally don't buy online things.

Like, I won't even bring up names, but you see some of them where you're like, dude, that cannot be $3.

This can't.

Yeah, Absolutely.

There's not.

What's the deal?

What's the deal?

Too good to be true.

It is.

It always is.

It always is.

The next one up here, man, is a good one.

I want to hit this before we go to break real quick.

Patching drywall holes, learning how to do that.

Learn how to do a California patch.

And I hate doing drywall, man.

I hate it.

I do stuff with the last of the house and man, there is nothing.

I would rather change a toilet than do drywall.

Yeah, I've done this stuff too long.

When pretty much everything you're bringing up is supposed to be simple, I'm like.

Nah, pay somebody again, it depends.

If you're just patching a hole in the wall and you don't have some crazy texture on it, it's one thing.

Yeah.

The art is in the mat is in the matching of the texture more so than it is the drywall.

And by the way, almost everybody out there, when you're doing drywall, you put on 10 times too much mud and then you have to sand it back off again.

Yeah.

Little is best.

Careful with the red mud.

You'll be sanding a long time.

Oh my gosh.

Some of that hot glue.

15 minute mud.

Yeah.

And it's a 45 minute sand, so.

Yeah, better with that.

But oh man, it used to be like, okay, did I mix up plaster and mud?

Like silver set, the blue package, blue bag, hot mud.

Oh, did you put that stuff on like concrete?

It was like fix all.

You're like, oh my God, this doesn't sand.

Then they finally came out with light hot mud.

Yeah, they have.

By the way, I say, I say pay somebody for all this stuff.

I'm gonna do it myself.

You're not gonna pay anybody.

I know, I'm just being lazy.

True.

It's one of those things if you can do that many times to have somebody come out and repair, that's four or five hundred bucks for that hole in the wall.

Yeah, easy.

Yeah, you can go buy.

Don't they have little kits now?

Go to Home Depot.

You can buy it.

Yeah, you can buy the spray can with the.

They also have those stick on metal with the yellow tape around them and.

Exactly.

Hey, when we come back, I'll tell you the best way to do that without having to buy one of those.

And I can save you some money while doing it if you just got a piece of drywall.

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

Welcome back to the around the House show.

Your trusted source for home improvement information.

Thanks for joining us today.

Johnny Dudley and I are sitting here talking about some of those top 10 DIY projects from, you know, that every homeowner should learn out there.

And we were just talking about patch and drywall holes.

And, you know, you can get those little.

Like Johnny was talking about, man.

You could get those metal plates with the, you know, yellow or white fiberglass mesh on.

You can stick over the hole and patch it.

What I like to do is do a California patch.

You ever do one of those?

Yeah, it's better.

It's better.

That metal plate always shows.

I don't care how big you are, unless you fan it out four feet, either way, it's gonna show.

So everybody's asking what a California patch is.

So take.

Let's say the hole is the size of a doorknob, right?

You're gonna make it.

You're gonna take a piece of drywall, and you're gonna cut it in a square that's a few inches wider than what that is.

And then what I do is I go in there and square out the hole, basically for where that.

That hole was, you know, for the drywall in the wall itself.

So I'll take that round hole from the.

From the.

From the knob, square that out, and then I'm gonna make a corresponding piece on the new piece.

So I will actually draw out that same square on it.

And then I'm gonna remove the drywall around the outside and just peel it off the face on it.

So then what I can do is take that square and slide it into the hole in the wall.

Whoops.

And then we can do that.

And that'll work out really well.

And when you do that, it's kind of trick.

I like how we can just put some mud in that, and then all you have is that layer of tape, and you have drywall.

It fixes it really quickly.

Yeah, yeah, it's the best.

It's the best.

I wouldn't say it's super fun.

That's a little over the top, you.

Know, but it is cool when you get the first coat of mud on it.

Yeah.

Okay.

That looks good, right?

It is cool because you're like, oh, that actually works.

Works really good.

And I look like a professional.

Yeah, yeah.

It looks like I know what I'm doing.

And I've been doing drywall my entire life.

I am no drywaller.

You know, my auto body skills come into.

Into account.

But I watch professional drywallers out there, and anytime I'm doing drywall on tv.

I'm like, oh, man.

I know every drywaller is laughing at me, but I don't do it every day, you know?

Yeah, it's tough.

I've done way too much, and I'm still not good at it.

Like, yeah, it's one of those things.

You got to do it every day.

Like, you just got.

Absolutely, absolutely.

If I do it, if I do a whole house, you know, not that I would now, but, you know, back in the day, like, okay, I'm just gonna.

It's a.

It's my rental property.

It's my owned house.

I'm like, I don't got the budget for the drywall guy to come in here and, you know, take my deposit and disappear for a while.

So I'm just gonna do it.

Just gonna do it.

And by the time I'm done doing the entire house, I'm like, I'm pretty damn good drywall.

Yeah.

See.

Then I never want to do it again, of course.

No, but, you know, great example, though, drywall.

You know, out at the.

At the beach house at Cannon beach, we'd gotten a price for drywall from our local.

Local home center that would deliver it, you know, and for an extra.

And that was a whole house that we needed in drywall.

So it was, you know, 1500 square foot house and everything, but one room.

So it's probably, what, 1350 on the square footage, Got a price, drywall, mud, all that stuff.

It was only 1800 bucks more to have those guys come in, hang it, texture it, prime it.

I cannot believe.

All the prices that have gone up so insanely.

And drywallers are still working for a buck and a quarter.

Buck 50 a square foot, right?

Dude, that was 15 years ago.

Yeah.

The same price, like, ow, buddy.

And they showed up drywall.

I feel like there should be something, a foundation for them to save those poor passes.

It's crazy, man.

It's crazy.

And so, yeah, I mean, they're getting more money, but those guys out there, you know, and here's the thing, too.

You got to think about it.

What's going on in the states right now, you know, with building being so far down, those guys are trying to stay busy too.

So, you know, it's.

It's a lot less house construction, a lot less stuff going on.

So I think they were trying to stay busy even a year and a half ago, but still seems they came in and did 5H drywall, where I was pricing half inch.

Oof, man.

And I was watching those guys throw up four by 12, five, eight on that.

Like it was, you know, three, eight wallboard.

And I was just like, no, thanks.

Oh, yeah, no, man.

No, no, no, no good.

But anyway.

Hey, man, the next one on the list here, installing a ceiling fan.

And there's, I think, one most important piece of this.

And this is where it can go really sideways.

Two people.

You need to have a fan.

You need to have a box up in the ceiling that can support a ceiling fan.

That is super important.

This is where DIY projects go wrong, is somebody put a light fixture up there.

It's an older house, and they put a remodel box up in there.

And somebody goes up and puts up the big hunter 52 inch fan that's hanging off the edge of the drywall and two little clips and it's over the bed.

And next thing you know, that thing's laying on the bed.

Yeah.

And you don't know what happened.

So note to self, if you plan on doing a ceiling fan, plan on doing the drywall repair that's going to be required after you cut that section of drywall out so that you can add a block to go across to support a new electrical box for your new ceiling fan.

Here's my trick.

Okay.

Oh, tricks.

I got a trick for you.

They make those boxes that you can put up there that have the metal arms that come out.

Yeah, like a can light.

Yeah, like a can light.

So if you get up in there, and you might not if you cut out the box that's in there.

First off, turn the power off, guys.

Yes.

The breaker, confirm that's off.

Get up there.

If you can remove the box that's up there, that's just a regular little box, then you can go up and put that in there.

You can actually do that without destroying the drywall.

You know, it can be done.

You know it can be done, but that'll get you in there.

And if you have to do a little bit of drywall work, who cares?

Or if it's an attic space above, just go up there and do it.

Right.

But you can do that without getting up in the attic if you do it right with the right kit.

Johnny, there's one that I found that has a turnbuckle in the middle.

So you can get it out there and then you can tension it and it pushes the rods out that have spikes on it that'll go into the studs on either side.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Nice.

So a tension fits in there.

Because, for example, with the can lights, you just have to.

You Know, hit the teeth in with a hammer or and put two screws in it and it'd still bend and.

Oh yeah, still sheet metal everywhere.

Yeah.

Cut your hand doing it, you know.

I don't miss the frustration.

No.

But anyway, that works well.

So really all you need is a mile of patience.

Screwdriver, wire stripper, ladder, your fan and probably the right box to put up there.

And then you'll be good to go.

But read the directions.

It will be intimidating.

If you've got one of those multi speeds with the remote control and all that other stuff.

Just make sure you follow the directions on that.

Couple extra wires.

Yeah, so that's a good one.

And the same goes for a light fixture too, guys.

When you're out there looking at it, light fixtures, really easy, same thing.

Just make sure you got all the right parts for it.

Make sure that you're going to cover up, you know, what you got.

And like a ceiling fan.

I don't recommend them for anything under an eight foot ceiling.

Unless you like reaching up and stretching and knocking your fingers off or getting dressed in the morning in the bedroom.

Be careful with low ceiling heights.

I speak of experience.

Yeah, I've done it a hundred times.

Yep.

I actually saw a guy.

Oh my gosh, I felt so bad for him.

He was.

This was my early days working in a hardware store and the guy was up in the electrical part department.

Working on a fan and it was where all the different fans around.

And this, this is how old this is.

This is Ernst Hardware.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna give you old school.

And the guy had turned the breaker off, did everything right.

Turned the breaker off, turned the light on.

Didn't realize that the one next to him he was standing away from had reset it.

He'd turned it off.

And we took the breaker on it, turned it back on again.

No, that thing came around and hit him right over the eye.

Oh.

And just split him open.

Knocked him backwards off the ladder because he was about 9, 10ft in the air and he should just dunk.

And then I hear him hit the ground.

I'm like, oh, dude.

Well, you just got three, three months off.

Yeah, he just got the time off.

I was like, dude, ouch.

Just got clocked by that thing.

So yeah, I've taken him in the head, taking them in the hands.

I've had a hand shot a couple, couple times, so.

A couple times.

Well, next up here, before we go out here, we're going to have to go out to break here, actually.

Let's do that.

Let's go out to break.

When we come back, I've got a couple more here that are really good, that aren't that hard but can actually change the look of the room.

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

Welcome back to the around the house show.

Your trusted source for home improvement advice and information.

Thanks for joining us today.

Hey, if you want to get a hold of us, head over to aroundthehousonline.com we want to hear from you.

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I've got some great videos coming up, Johnny, what I'm going to be doing here for the end of the year, I'm going to be putting up some of our favorite interviews that I've done and I'm going to remix some of these video formats so people can see them out there.

Some of them we've never actually put out in full video form.

I've got a few I'm gonna put up here on the YouTube that people haven't seen in the way that we've seen them.

Because I just never at the time, I think it was because I was doing the TV show.

I caught some that we never put out on video.

So it's, hey, let's have some fun and throw up some best ofs.

Won't be replacing this show here, but it'll just be some new stuff that you haven't seen before on YouTube.

The people like seeing people.

Yeah, yeah, we've got some good ones.

All right, next up on our list here, brother, painting interior walls.

Pretty simple.

If you learn some things, you get.

This is what I call basic diy.

It can go out of hand.

Get way out of hand, though, if you don't prep it or if you're in that staircase.

I'm gonna paint my hallway.

And they're like, oh, I gotta get up there above the second story stairs in the hallway.

You know what I mean?

Some of that stuff gets a little sketch.

Yeah.

I will tell you that painting is still my favorite thing in construction.

I love to paint.

Nice.

And I will tell you that it is one of the most underrated, oversimplified trades there is.

Everybody thinks they can paint and nobody knows how to paint.

And I don't say that to be a jerk.

Yep.

But seriously, like what?

You said one thing.

Prep is huge.

Right?

Prep is good.

All about prep.

Use some tape.

Use a drop cloth.

Buy a good roller.

Don't buy the cheap one.

It's not worth it.

It Will look, you'll have to put 17 coats on it.

Keep your roller strokes up and down.

Keep them even.

Don't start painting figure eights in the wall.

They will show just.

There's.

It is an acquired taste and I appreciate it because I love doing it and I love doing really good paint jobs.

Yeah.

But yes, of course anybody can walk in and paint a room blue.

But for me, I'm like, no, no, no.

Do it like this.

Like, I don't know.

I don't know why it's a thing for me.

I love to paint, man.

Oh, yeah.

And the most expensive mistake you can make is buying cheap paint.

Yeah, I was just gonna say don't buy cheap paint.

Don't buy cheap rollers.

Don't.

It just doesn't work, dude.

It's so cr.

And I've done this test before.

You go buy the $30 a gallon paint, or you can buy the $60 a gallon paint.

I can pretty much guarantee you're gonna buy twice as much of the 30 gallon paint to cover that area as you will the 60.

Because the 60, you'll probably get a coat and a half and it's gonna be looking gold.

You'll have three or four coats of the other cheap stuff.

You've now worked twice as hard, you spent twice the money to do it.

And in five years, when that thing's not scrubbable or the colors faded or.

It just looks like garbage, it's a different color.

Oh, my gosh.

There is a caveat.

There is a caveat.

Buy 5 gallons of the cheapest paint you can find at Home Depot and Branchy.

If you're blowing out your rental units.

Sure.

Because they're just going to destroy them anyway in six months.

So go in there, blast everything white with the cheapest paint you can find as fast as you can.

So you can use the least amount of paint to just cover the dirt because it's gonna get wrecked again.

You're that landlord, aren't you, Johnny?

Look, man, after people cost me tens of thousands of dollars destroying my properties, I learned how to take some shortcuts.

Yes.

Not because I didn't want to provide a decent place to live and be a fair person, but because it behooved me to do it that way.

Like, I just.

I can't go in there and put Sherwin Williams at 60 bucks a gallon and paint it all pretty like I'm doing a kitchen in Mercer island when I know that within two months, the three kids, they're going to move in with Are going to crayon all over the walls.

And I'm like, no, no, no.

Bucket of kills and a bucket of the cheapest paint loses.

God.

There you go.

There you go.

Pray and pray, baby.

Spray and pray and pray.

Yeah.

The nice thing is too, though, is I always do on the ceilings when it's going to be a matte white, I don't care.

That can be a cheap paint.

It's already primed.

It's not that big a deal.

You don't want it to have any gloss to it, that kind of thing.

If you're doing white ceilings and colored walls or whatever, that's one thing.

Yeah.

But if you're talking about a dining room and you go in, especially if you're going like reds or burgundy's, gosh.

The bolder the color, the better paint you need to buy.

Even with the best paint, I put five or six coats of burgundy on one of my dining rooms.

Oh.

The deeper the color, the worse it is.

Yeah, it's bad.

It's bad.

And that's.

That's the thing.

Next one up here, brother, is I've got.

Is regrouting tile, which is no fun.

I like.

No fun at all.

I like it.

Here's the.

Here's what I do.

This is if you're going to regrout tile, you got to remove the grout out.

I don't use the little grout removal tool.

This is where you get the grout removal tool that goes on to your multi tool and you hook it up to a vac and then you can run it right up and down there.

You can get that knocked out really quickly.

And then when it comes to grout, when you get it all cleaned up ready to go, use a good one.

And I don't go to the tile store.

Stay away from your home improvement stores.

Go to your tile store, get the ardex, get something like that.

That can sit there is going to be very color consistent and it's going to be automatically sealed so you don't have to worry about sealing it ever again.

So you'll never get it dirty.

You'll be able to wipe it down and it's going to look like a million bucks.

So that's how you save yourself some money and do it that way.

Get some good grout and then it's going to be good.

And the problem with grout is if you buy the powder, just remember you got to.

You're baking.

That amount of water is going to dictate the color.

If you put too Much water in a black grout that's going to look gray.

So measure out what you're doing.

Make sure you know what you're doing.

You don't like grout?

I don't know.

For me, it's.

It's like painting.

I don't like grinding it out.

That's always the nuts.

And no, yeah, no, that part sucks.

But I like spreading grout.

It's like meditation.

That's why I like painting.

Like, you get in that flow, you get in that zone.

Yeah, I dig it.

What I like about the Ardex stuff is I've done their black a couple times and we did a video on doesn't because the color is in the stuff itself.

When you're doing a black grout, you don't get black hands.

You don't have the dye in your hands.

It's just.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's way easier cleanup than if you go to the home improvement store and you get the powder, you mix it up there and it's.

Oh, my gosh.

It looks like playing in the fireplace.

Yeah, it's a mess.

It's a hot mess.

And so way easier with that.

And then when you're doing that, make sure if you change planes.

So like with the countertop, it's a backsplash.

It hits the countertop.

That's silicone.

If you're going around a corner, anytime you change direction, that is not a grouted corner.

That is a caulked corner with silicone.

And make sure you do it right.

Yeah, good call.

That's important.

That's a big one.

Last one.

You'll be chasing that crack forever.

Oh, my gosh.

You'll be doing it again.

Doing again, Doing again.

Last one on the list, your favorite.

And my favorite.

Replacing that garbage disposal.

Hey, your mother in law.

I had to bring it back home.

And if you've got a rental, or if you've got a rental and it's got a septic tank, remove that.

Yep, yep.

Just.

You don't want to mess with it, so.

Good call that one.

Just.

Oh, my gosh.

Just.

Oh.

We just say garbage disposal and you get rattled.

I do get rattled, man.

It's just.

It's a draw.

It just drives me crazy.

It's just.

Oh, do we have a Patreon?

Eric's gonna need some garbage disposal therapy.

I don't know.

It's just one of those things that I've just.

When you've dealt with it long enough, you just go, oh, and by the way, don't Buy a cheap one.

Don't buy that badger five quarter horse thing or whatever.

Get like a one horse.

Spend the money.

If you're gonna have one, just get the good one.

It's quieter.

It's not gonna plug up as easy.

And then just use common sense with it.

Common sense.

There's a wide array of interpretations there.

We could go on to a rant with that.

So here's.

Yeah.

Now here's the thing I actually did.

So here's the thing I did and this was really cool.

I actually changed.

I didn't do a insinkerator on my house.

Here's the secret.

Before we go out to break, check out mountain plumbing.

These guys make the.

These are like chipper shredders that go in the back of a tree trimming truck power.

These things are awesome.

And they're quiet.

You sink for your sink.

This thing.

Mountain plumbing products, I gotta say, they are mother in law improved.

They are mother in law approved.

They will deliver when you need them to deliver.

It's pretty amazing.

I'm gonna have to deliberate on how I feel about that.

How I feel about that.

Because not sure I want something that damn powerful sitting in my sink.

Be careful with things too.

You could put too big of one if you've got one of those like porcelain English apron.

Some of these will break them when you turn them on.

From the start of the motor, they.

Told me I can shove a 2x4 in it.

I imagine it's got some torque.

It literally the torque of it's starting will actually blow out the bottom like you dropped a china plate on the concrete floor in the garage.

Just start a compost pile, people.

There we go.

Johnny, we're out of time.

Thanks for guys tuning into the first hour of the around the house show.

We got to go out to break.

If you're tuning in on the radio, you'll see our two coming up next.

I'm Eric G. And for Johnny D. You've been listening to around the house.

For more information, head to our website aroundthehouse online.com.

while you are there, subscribe to our YouTube and social media accounts.

Thanks for tuning in to the first hour of the around the house show.