[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house exterior projects, like building an outdoor kitchen and what I have learned out of building mine and some of my tricks and tips and secrets to really building a nice one that you can work in nearly all year round, depending on your climate, of course. And then the next one here, later on in the show, we're going to talk some exterior painting tips.

[00:00:26] Eric Goranson: And that is Chris Berry, the Idaho painter and owner of paint life supply. Welcome back to around the house. I'm

[00:00:33] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: glad to be here. Once again. So we can help your audience out, solve some problems or give them some new painting tips and tricks. Absolutely, man.

[00:00:42] Eric Goranson: First thing I wanted to tackle was it is such a challenge when you're doing the exterior house.

[00:00:47] Eric Goranson: And I know it's an exterior house painting season right now. What are some of the best practices for people that are going to go out and try that DIY paint job, because this is where it seems when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to [00:01:00] know, but we've got you covered. This is our round.

[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: Welcome to the round the house show. The next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric G for hour two of our show. If you missed the first hour, don't worry. If it's on the podcast, you can always go back and catch one there. And if you're on the radio, you can always catch around the house on your favorite pot player.

[00:01:23] Eric Goranson: Today, we've got a bunch of different things we're going to talk about. Uh, first off here, we're going to be talking about. Exterior projects like building an outdoor kitchen and what I have learned out of building mine and some of my tricks and tips and secrets to really building a nice one. That you can work in nearly all year round and depending on your climate, of course, and then the next one here later on in the show, we're going to talk some exterior painting tips with my friend, Chris Berry, the Idaho painter.

[00:01:52] Eric Goranson: And we're going to talk about what makes a good painting project and the great way to do it like a pro, whether or not you're a pro or not. He is [00:02:00] training all those pros out there. So in the last segment of the show, we'll be talking with Chris, the Idaho painter. I just completed my outdoor kitchen project and this was a lot of fun.

[00:02:11] Eric Goranson: And it's been a, probably a four year project off and on as I have tackled it. And it is something that as it grows, it evolves, but there's some things as it evolved that I learned some hard lessons that are super important. And I think it's stuff that might help you along the way. And there are things that I really did, right?

[00:02:33] Eric Goranson: There's some things I redid cause I went, I didn't plan that out well enough. And I didn't take things into account and not that there are mistakes, but I needed to beef some things up and make them a little bit stronger. So we're going to talk about that here to start the show out. Now, one thing that I've learned when you're doing an outdoor kitchen is you need to really plan ahead.

[00:02:53] Eric Goranson: So first off, do you need natural gas for a grill? Do you need a place to run [00:03:00] ventilation up? If you're going to be putting a vent hood, if it's covered, many outdoor kitchens are just to keep you smack dab right out of all of that, because it's nice to stay out of that nice to stay out of the weather.

[00:03:12] Eric Goranson: Now, the important part here is, is, is you're staying out of the weather. What does that mean? Is that wind? Is it rain? Is it humidity? What's it going to be? And that can require other things. Maybe you need fans. Maybe you need misters out there. Maybe you need other things like putting in a fireplace or something to heat you up.

[00:03:32] Eric Goranson: So really it's going to be climate to climate and how crazy you're going to get. But don't forget early on, if it's something you might need, add onto it. That way you can put it out there, rough it in. Maybe you don't need it. Okay. But you might need a couple electrical circuits out there. If you're running a bar refrigerator, I'd put that on its own circuit.

[00:03:51] Eric Goranson: If you're running a vent hood, I'd run it on its own circuit. So you might need two, three, four circuits out there. Depending on what you're doing, [00:04:00] lighting, all that stuff really comes into account because you run out of power really quick with some of these higher amperage poles. And so just make sure that you're not doing too much.

[00:04:11] Eric Goranson: Cause the last thing you need is kicking off a GFCI or an arc fault or anything else because you're have got issues. So you want to make sure you've got that electrical and of course your natural gas dialed in. Now, if you're going to do water and drainage that in areas that freeze can be problems that can be overcome.

[00:04:27] Eric Goranson: But that's something where you need to insulate and create ways to drain that in the wintertime if you need to. And those are things that you should think into and making sure that that's going to work in your climate. Now, one of the things that I want to talk about is if you're building a deck area, or even if you're pouring concrete, this stuff adds up in weight.

[00:04:48] Eric Goranson: For instance, I built. A wood fired pizza oven. Now, I didn't go out and just buy one. I went out and got a kit and put it together. By the time that thing was [00:05:00] all said and built, I'm going to call it 3, 000 pounds. By the time I get everything on it, then I stack wood inside of it. Could be even a little bit more if I weighed it all out.

[00:05:10] Eric Goranson: So think about that for a moment, how much that weighs. And I sure am not going to put that on a normal decking surface because you didn't probably design that for that. So that one there, I actually didn't put on the deck. I poured a massive footing on that. So I wouldn't have to worry about it moving around.

[00:05:32] Eric Goranson: Cause that's the last thing I knew it was going to be heavy. I knew it was going to be big. And that took up nearly a five foot by five foot area. So you think about how big a, Small restaurant size wood fire pizza oven ways and how much space it takes. It's a lot So make sure that you plan these things out and then when you get into the decking part of it I want to make sure that you have got that built up because whether or not you put that on a on a composite deck or Not that's one thing but [00:06:00] if you're just building in an L shaped And you're putting on a composite countertop or a quartz, which I don't recommend because that doesn't hold up on the exterior very well.

[00:06:12] Eric Goranson: But if you're going to be doing all of that, that adds up in weight. So you really need to engineer that deck. To take a few an extra 1500 to 2000 pounds and you don't want it to move around because if you actually have, let's say, you put down a slab porcelain countertop, which is one recommended surface.

[00:06:33] Eric Goranson: I would say you don't want that moving around much out there. So you don't want to have any bounce to that deck. So you want to make sure and put beams and engineer this. So it's all underneath where that countertop is. And then of course, design it for the people that are going to be around it. If you've got an eight by eight Island, you could have a fair amount of people sitting around there.

[00:06:52] Eric Goranson: So make sure you design that and make sure that you really plan for that. So you don't have that thing bouncing around a little bit. And [00:07:00] remember, the higher you get, the more you can get spring out of 4x4s, where you probably need to get to 6x6s. And this is where you really need to start engineering if you get over a couple feet off the ground.

[00:07:11] Eric Goranson: You're starting to put some pretty good weight that you need to really block this out for. So you don't get any shifts side to side. It's like when you put a hot tub outside on a deck, you really need to make sure that that is engineered correctly for that to hold up. And so you have something that's going to be nice and sturdy.

[00:07:28] Eric Goranson: So really plan ahead for that. But that's going to be one of those things that we really want to plan ahead, really plan ahead. So think a little bit more about that. When you're planning that stuff out, it can really save you A bunch of headaches. And of course, how do you get the utilities? How do you get the framing, all that stuff?

[00:07:46] Eric Goranson: How are you getting back to the area where that is? So that's one thing there. Second of all too, and we talked about a little bit that planning ahead. You need to make sure that you can get all those utilities out there as well. So is that going through a crawl [00:08:00] space, going through a basement? Are you having to dig around the house and put that in?

[00:08:04] Eric Goranson: Where are all those, how far is the panel away? All things that you should be taking into account. And my best advice I can give you for planning ahead is plan your dream scenario. What would be your end all be all and it gives you the room to expand it to that one day. I built my first one and I went, I don't have enough covered patio space.

[00:08:28] Eric Goranson: So I designed out a covered patio space that met building code that met an area in my area, I could do a cover that was under 200 square feet, not have to pull a permit. So I did that and I followed all the rules for that and that worked out really well. But these are things that you should really plan ahead to make sure it's going to work and what permits you need, how many, Things are you going to have to run out there?

[00:08:52] Eric Goranson: I should have ran more power out to mine. I have the ability to add it if I need to, but that will probably be a project down [00:09:00] the road that I left the ability to do that. And I will probably add more to that down the road because I clearly am going to need it. So think about all those things. And lighting, lighting controls.

[00:09:11] Eric Goranson: How are you going to do that? And of course, where's the TV going to go? Where's the sound system going to go? Are you, what are you doing out there for exterior lighting and music sound, that kind of stuff. And maybe that seems like way over the top for you, but those are all things you should take into account.

[00:09:28] Eric Goranson: When you're planning things out, how do you keep things dry? How do you keep things from burning up to the sun? How do you keep it under control with the wind? How do you keep that stuff dialed in? Now, when we come back, I'm going to talk about some products that are really smart for countertops and things like that.

[00:09:44] Eric Goranson: Things that you might not have thought of, but could be really smart for your next project. We'll do that in just a sec. So round off, here it comes.[00:10:00]

[00:10:10] Intro: What's up? This is Sticks It In Ya.

[00:10:11] Eric Goranson: 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.

[00:10:30] Eric Goranson: I want to show the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. I appreciate you. I'm Eric G. Hey, if you want to find out more about us, head over to AroundTheHouseOnline. com And of course, you can give a call at the studio at 833 239 4144. And that number again is 839 239 4144. Before we get back to outdoor kitchens here, I did get an email, actually got a voicemail into our system here.

[00:10:57] Eric Goranson: And I wasn't in the office, of course, but I had [00:11:00] an anonymous caller that wanted to know, definitely said anonymous. What are my favorite appliances? In cookware. So basically what is the best stuff to use out there? And I am a person that likes to have decent cookware. Cause I am the, the philosophy of buy it once, and then you never have to worry about it again.

[00:11:25] Eric Goranson: So that is one of my things that I like to buy at once and have it last nearly a lifetime. If I like to buy it and then forget about it, cause. There's nothing worse than a pan coming apart or the finish coming off on the inside and creating the health concerns that we see with that. And I have a different couple of different brands that I have used over the years that have really held up.

[00:11:47] Eric Goranson: And some of these things I've had for over 15 years. So I've got older all clad and I have a Berndes, which is made in Germany. It's a B E R N D E S. That stuff has been [00:12:00] really strong as far as holding up, but I don't like too many. I prefer a pan that's either cast iron where I can use it and get that really nice aged crust on the inside of it.

[00:12:13] Eric Goranson: Or just using a all clad type multi layer pan. Or of course that burn does, which is a coated aluminum or it's baked in on that. So it doesn't really come flaking off. Both of those are great pans. So I hope anonymous caller that answers your question. As far as. Appliances. There's a lot of great brands out there of appliances, and it's really going to be what you can afford to cook with.

[00:12:37] Eric Goranson: There's a lot of different brands. GE used to be an American company. Now they're owned by a company out of China. We have other brands out there. One of the most reliable for me right now has been LG. And I know people. Give LG a hard time, but knock on wood might've been pretty flawless so far. I've had no issues with my, my washer and dryer set, and I've got a really nice [00:13:00] refrigerator.

[00:13:00] Eric Goranson: All of those have been doing really well. So of course, get what you can afford. That's the big part right now. Cause all those things are pretty expensive and there's some great brands out there that'll hold up. And if you want something, that's going to be. Super reliable. It's more money than you can look at brands like Mila laundry.

[00:13:19] Eric Goranson: There's speed queen. There's a lot of different brands like that, but you're going to pay a lot more for those luxury, more durable brands. All right, back out to outdoor kitchens. We'll pivot back to that because that's what we've been talking about here in the first part of the show. And when you're planning an outdoor kitchen, like I decided I was going to build my own cabinetry.

[00:13:37] Eric Goranson: Now you can go out and jump online and buy pre made cabinet boxes that are Steel or concrete board or whatever material you want and then do a tile or a stone over the top of it. I decided to build my own. So I built my own cabinets. I put plywood over the top of those. I did a whole more, a whole segment on my around the house [00:14:00] Northwest on that show just on building that.

[00:14:03] Eric Goranson: And then what I did is because I wanted to have The grill and the doors and stuff match. I went with my blaze grill built in style that turned out really nice. And then I ordered some of their doors that would fit under it and around it for storage. And that's what I did. Now, I will tell you when you lay this stuff out and figure out your countertop heights, cause most people want a countertop height.

[00:14:27] Eric Goranson: That's about 36 inches. That's what your kitchen countertop is. But you have to do the math to figure out, okay, if I'm putting doors underneath it, and then if I've got a gas cooktop that's built in where that countertop is going to finish up, I only had about three eighths of an inch to work with on the whole thing to get everything to go together.

[00:14:47] Eric Goranson: So you really have to plan this stuff out to make sure it works really well. And it's all about trying to make it all fit within your plan. And then of course, making sure that you've got a deep enough to fit that [00:15:00] grill, because. Sometimes like in my application, I had a raised bar top behind the L shaped kitchen.

[00:15:06] Eric Goranson: That raised bar top now gets in the way if you have a grill hood that tips up. So I decided to make sure that mine fit. I made mine at 30 inches deep instead of 25 and a half. To make sure that that would fit correctly. So I didn't have to worry about any clearance issues. And I had an inch, but I didn't have a lot of space back there by doing it that way.

[00:15:29] Eric Goranson: And it gave me a lot bigger place to work. Like with my pizza oven on the other side, I can put a, a full baking sheet on there and work with it and really make something work really nice. That gives me options. for countertop. And so that extra depth I think is really important. I would make mine 30 inches deep if you can pull it off.

[00:15:49] Eric Goranson: So that's one great option. Now I have two countertop materials in my outdoor kitchen. First off, I did a, on the top part where the bar is, I was the [00:16:00] rollout kind of project for DuPont Corian Endura, their slab porcelain or sintered stone countertop. That stuff has been super durable, tough as nails, can't hurt it.

[00:16:11] Eric Goranson: I really like that stuff. On the lower kitchen, I wanted to do a different material there, but I got something that corresponded nicely matching it, by the way. And what I did is I went with a different product. I went with paper stone. Now paper stone is an amazing product. It comes out of here, the Pacific Northwest, but it's available nationally.

[00:16:31] Eric Goranson: It is a wood composite. So they take wood and a bunch of phenolic resins. And pressure it together and it is a cool living finish on it, but it looks a lot like soapstone. So you have to oil it and wax it and take care of it. But I tell you what, this stuff is super durable. I have it next to my pizza oven.

[00:16:52] Eric Goranson: It works great. It's good. You can get some temperatures up to it, closer to 500 degrees, which is good. Cause next to a barbecue, that stuff [00:17:00] happens, but you really need to plan that stuff out to make it work. So I use that it boy, I tell you what paper stone is great. It is, you can cut it. So here's the cool thing.

[00:17:10] Eric Goranson: This is why I went with this is that when you have stone work, like that slab porcelain countertop, you need to work with a fabricator. That fabricator has to turn around. Work with it, make it work, get it put together. And that's an added expense. So I thought, okay, I'm going to do a durable material that I can work much like wood with a lot of the tools that I have where I don't have to be cutting stone or a quartz material.

[00:17:37] Eric Goranson: It's not like cutting tile. It's cutting. I don't have a CNC machine to cut that out and do that correctly and all the polishing stuff. So I'd have to have somebody else do it. So I thought, okay, I'm going to save some money and do this as a DIY project that would work. So take a look at PaperStone. com One, it's made out of recycled materials, which is great.

[00:17:55] Eric Goranson: The stuff I did was FSC certified, which means it's a green product. As far as [00:18:00] where that's coming out of, it's using a recycled paper that was sustainably forest as well as resins that were something that is a waste out of another product. So you're using all this recycled material to create something.

[00:18:13] Eric Goranson: Really beautiful, really durable, and it's food rated. So you don't have to worry about it being outside. It's going to hold up to the weather. It's going to hold up to the, to the use. And, uh, it gives a really cool patina when you work with it. So you've got some options with it. It's a really great way to go.

[00:18:30] Eric Goranson: So take a look at paper stone for an outdoor kitchen. It's one of my favorites. We come back, we'll wrap up my thoughts with outdoor kitchens, and then we'll run out to Chris Berry, the Idaho painter with some painting tips. Don't go anywhere around the house. We'll be right back after these important messages.

[00:18:46] Eric Goranson: Hey,[00:19:00]

[00:19:01] Intro: this is Ron Keel, the metal cowboy from Keel, the Ron Keel band and Steeler, we are rocking around the house with Eric T.

[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. We've been talking outdoor kitchens and outdoor projects like that, trying to get that designed out.

[00:19:22] Eric Goranson: What are the tips? What did I learn from doing mine? Now, if you want to find out more about us or see some of the videos that we did on this, head over to AroundTheHouseOnline. com and you can find out more information there. So we've been talking about this and this is, you know, kind of important if you're trying to plan out that outdoor living space.

[00:19:39] Eric Goranson: And just remember to create and to, uh, well, not paint yourself in a corner with some of these projects. Now, here's the thing. As you're working on these kind of projects, you want to think about what are you going to build for the face of the cabinets? I thought about doing tile, but with our freeze and thoughts and everything else we have around here, that could be a big issue.

[00:19:58] Eric Goranson: So I went out with a product that I've [00:20:00] used in other projects called Evolve Stone. Now let's run out to my buddy Dom and we'll talk a little bit more about Evolve Stone because this stuff is great for a DIY project, whether you're wrapping a fireplace or wrapping an outdoor kitchen. Today we've got Dom, my buddy from Evolve Stone.

[00:20:19] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house. My friend.

[00:20:22] Dom Rybeck: Perfect. Eric, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

[00:20:24] Eric Goranson: For coming on today, man, you guys have created such an amazing product that you can use inside and of course, outside it's on our TV set at the station. But I tell you what, talk about a product that's easy to use. But looks beautiful.

[00:20:38] Dom Rybeck: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, something that leads into the beauty of that product is we actually mold off of natural stone. I've got, funny enough, I got, we're, we're working on a new style right now. So I get pallets of stone from the various quarries for the, for the, uh, the texture that we're trying to, uh, recreate.

[00:20:57] Dom Rybeck: And yeah, when you mold off of natural stone [00:21:00] and you've got like a one to one replication of that, it tends to look like the real thing. This, this product fools people all the time. It's actually a problem. People walk past the wall and not realize that that stone is not real, super lightweight and went up with a finish.

[00:21:16] Eric Goranson: See, that's the thing that's cool about it. And when you and I were down in Florida doing that seminar that time, and you threw that piece to me in the seminar. So of course we'd set up. It's full, it just fools you out how light it is compared to you think it's a rock coming at you. But it weighs like a coaster

[00:21:33] Dom Rybeck: after doing this three years now with the trade shows.

[00:21:37] Dom Rybeck: The one thing I never get tired of is someone reaching down into a box, picking a stone up, expecting it to weigh what a stone weighs and all this mash in their teeth because they pick it up so quickly. They're like, Oh my gosh, that's one thing I never get tired of. I also never get tired of someone that volunteering to come up to a wall and shoot some stones up.

[00:21:58] Dom Rybeck: And then they're looking for the nails [00:22:00] and they're like, I can't find them. I just shot them. I know where they should be. I can't see them. So those couple of things really bode well for a product that you get to show.

[00:22:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And this can be used what inside, outside, around fireplaces. You can use it just about any place.

[00:22:14] Eric Goranson: Can't you?

[00:22:15] Dom Rybeck: So originally the materials been around for a long time. I, uh, Talked about that in the past, but as veneer, it's basically stone siding. If you can think of wherever, you can put ti siding, you can put the stone. So right here I've got basically a a, an exterior mockup. I've got my substrate, which right here is seven 16 OSB.

[00:22:37] Dom Rybeck: You're gonna see that 90% of the time. I've got a house wrap type one, two, type two, weather resistant barrier. And then the most important part, I've got the, the brain screen. This is an eighth inch rain screen. It's dark. So it has between the stones, you have a nice reveal and then yeah, you're shooting it on exterior with a 16 gauge finish.

[00:22:55] Dom Rybeck: Now for interior, it likes to go up. [00:23:00] Over what that's what it's been designed for. We have a class B fire rated product that you can put almost anywhere except inside the firebox and outside of the basically what they call the non combustible zone. The no go zone. Yeah. So you respect that. But if I'm doing a fireplace, I cover the studs with some or, or some scrap.

[00:23:18] Dom Rybeck: And then I, I roll out some black oops, paint from the big box store, some gray paint, and then I just shoot the nails up over that and I just make sure to buy the fire rated version.

[00:23:27] Eric Goranson: That works well. Yeah, absolutely. And you guys are, are you have snuck your product into so many major retailers out there as well.

[00:23:35] Eric Goranson: Just because it's so easy to put up.

[00:23:37] Dom Rybeck: Yeah. So the cool part is, yeah, a box has a little over 14 square feet in it. I can ship a box easily, but now that distribution has started to gear up and rock and roll. I got truckloads of this stuff. We started in the, basically the mid Atlantic and the Northeast and, and, you know, the, the Southeastern states, and now we're making our way.

[00:23:58] Dom Rybeck: Now we're making our way West. I'm [00:24:00] going to be in Dallas at the build expo next week. That's April 12th and 13th. And then I'm going to be in Anaheim at the end of May at the PCBC. And a lot of those people haven't seen it yet per se and everything like that. So we're expanding West and yeah, the chances are whoever's selling your siding, call them up and say, Hey, I want to evolve stone.

[00:24:21] Dom Rybeck: How do you figure out how to get it to me? I need to grow up. And they'll, they should be able to help.

[00:24:26] Eric Goranson: Nice. And it's cut so easy too. Basically, you're just using, you're working with it like wood, correct?

[00:24:32] Dom Rybeck: Yeah, so it does. It cuts like a, it cuts like, like almost balls of wood. If you could imagine, on average, the stone, let's call it five eighths of an inch thick.

[00:24:40] Dom Rybeck: If you can imagine just flat stock balsa at five eights of an inch thick, that's what you're using. I use a miter saw, but guys are out there deciding guy loves his 4 inch angle grinder and he can cut it with that. I love the miter saw because it gets me a true square cut every time and I'm usually only.

[00:24:56] Dom Rybeck: Cutting square cuts. If I'm doing my, if I did my layout well, but [00:25:00] you can use the table saw. A lot of guys just use the table saw with the miter with the sliding miter block. And then they can make their cuts however they want. If they got to do a tapered cut, they can do that. If you're cutting pieces into a, like a gable end and you got a pitch.

[00:25:16] Dom Rybeck: You can set up a quick little jig with two pieces of plywood and just run your, run your cuts through that. The other thing what's become really popular and what people are going bananas for is you can take it just a flat piece of stone and you can miter it, take two bevel cuts out at two 45s and put a little bit of adhesive in the back of that cut.

[00:25:37] Dom Rybeck: And now you've got a perfect. 90 degree, uh, mitered stone, which you can't do, you could do, but it'd take you all the crazy tools and everything that you need and all the scrap you're going to have and mistakes, just give, give this a shot. You, you can't do it with any other kind of stem product.

[00:25:53] Eric Goranson: And what I love about too, is that, that really you can work with this stuff and have little waste because.

[00:25:59] Eric Goranson: When you're [00:26:00] cutting a piece, you can just use that piece someplace else.

[00:26:03] Dom Rybeck: Yes you can. And the way that it works out in the field, if I'm, I spend a little bit more time, I'm probably like you, I do a little bit of thinking and layout 'cause I'm lazy. I don't wanna make a bunch of cuts, right? So I always utilize like trim and if I have to rip down a piece, one piece of trim.

[00:26:19] Dom Rybeck: Ripping down 1 piece of trim is so much faster than ripping, cutting down 50 stones on towards the end of a wall or where you bought another wall. But the way that the math works out, if I have to make a cut as I'm coming to a door, that other piece. As you come over the other side of that door, or you, but into the wall at the end, that piece, it's really close.

[00:26:41] Dom Rybeck: If it's not the perfect piece that, you know, shoot onto the wall there. And then you, then you only made 1 cut. You got 2 perfect pieces.

[00:26:48] Eric Goranson: See, and then that saves you on material because you don't have to buy an extra box or 2 material. Just because you're throwing away so much material, like you do sometimes with other materials.

[00:26:57] Dom Rybeck: Now we did, we did a commercial job. [00:27:00] I was helping the guys get started. It was one of those, Hey, we don't know about this product. Can you show us? I'm sure I'll come out there and I'll help the guys get started. And with over a 1000 square feet, we had the scraps at maybe half of a 5 gallon bucket. Wow, so that that's a, that's pretty minimal waste and they were trying to be material conscious.

[00:27:23] Dom Rybeck: You could just cut it off and throw it off the, off the scaffold or the ladder or whatever it. And never look back. But a lot of times those pieces are nice because you don't have to cut them. They're going to be the perfect piece. Mathematically, just like flooring or, or tile or anything like that, you try to hold on to those pieces because chances are you're going to need it.

[00:27:42] Eric Goranson: That's like late laying that luxury vinyl plank. That cut piece is sure going to work best on the next run. And when you have some standard sizes in that, it works out great. If that was natural stone and I was a Mason out there, there's so many random pieces, you end up having a lot more waste.

[00:27:57] Dom Rybeck: Yeah.

[00:27:57] Dom Rybeck: Funny enough, you can tell when a Mason's [00:28:00] doing the work because a Mason will take one of our boxes. Take all the stones out of the box and then organize them by length and, and then choose those onto the wall. Yeah, everything's basically a running bound, right? So you're staggering your horizontal and vertical seams every so often.

[00:28:16] Dom Rybeck: If you use, if you utilize something like trim, I am the laziest when it comes to putting it up. Don, thanks

[00:28:22] Eric Goranson: for coming on today, brother. I really appreciate it. And that website is. Evolvestone. com.

[00:28:27] Dom Rybeck: Check it out. Yeah, I'm ready. Let me know. And I can, if I can, I'll get out there for you. If not, I'll send it to you and you know what to do.

[00:28:35] Eric Goranson: Absolutely, my friend. Evolvestone. com, this is an easy project. I like taking on. Round the house, we'll be right back after these important messages. Don't change that dial.[00:29:00]

[00:29:03] Eric Goranson: It's the end of the show. No drinking down people, it's time to go. It's that time again. It's Last Call. Welcome back to the round the house show. The next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric G if you're catching us on the national radio show, I do appreciate you. And we do have our around the house insider exclusive content.

[00:29:25] Eric Goranson: So if you're a podcast listener. Or you're someone in the radio. You can head over to around the house, online. com. We have extended podcasts over there where we go into things a little bit deeper than the radio show here, or the typical standard podcast. And if you want to hear the show a couple of days early, you'll catch it over there on Thursday in its form instead of on Saturday.

[00:29:48] Eric Goranson: So there's a lot of little perks right there, including. Access to me directly. When it comes to painting, there is one expert that I follow on social media that gets me all the answers I'm looking for, and that is [00:30:00] Chris Berry, the Idaho painter and owner of paint life supply. Welcome back to around the house.

[00:30:05] Eric Goranson: My friend,

[00:30:05] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: glad to be here once again. So hopefully we can. Help your audience out, solve some problems or give them some new painting tips and tricks. Absolutely, man.

[00:30:14] Eric Goranson: First thing I wanted to tackle was it is such a challenge when you're doing the exterior house and I know it's an exterior house painting season right now.

[00:30:22] Eric Goranson: What are some of the best practices for people that are going to go out and try that DIY paint job, because this is where it seems things go off the rails.

[00:30:29] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: I think it all starts with the prep work and your paint job is only going to be as good as the proper done. And that's the part that you don't see, but you do see it in some respect when comes to caulking and stuff like that.

[00:30:43] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: But. The prep work is, is vital and it's very important, especially the coughing and sealing process. And I think that's probably like, when I see homeowners do it, tackle an exterior paint job themselves, a lot of it is, they just don't even know what to call for seal on a house and [00:31:00] usually almost nothing gets popped on it.

[00:31:03] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: And we actually. As professional painters, we call quite a bit on a house, and I would say probably the average house 3500 square feet. We're going to use probably a case of coffee on the average home. And that's going to be a home. That's your 1st time repaint. If we've painted it previously, and now it's getting another repaint.

[00:31:23] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: There's not going to be very much coffee because we do a lot of coffee initially. But when the house is built originally, the ciders don't do very much coffee. And then the painters almost do zero coffee. And so that's something you don't want to like miss or skip.

[00:31:38] Eric Goranson: And I think it's important too, because one, it helps protect it, but it also makes for a better looking paint job in the end,

[00:31:43] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: right?

[00:31:43] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: It does. So there's two things about coffee. And I, and I like to, when I hire a new guy, I'm walking through the process What we call functional caulking, and then there's aesthetic caulking and functional caulking serves a purpose, like a window that [00:32:00] doesn't have an overhang on it. You're driving rain could be hit the side of the house.

[00:32:03] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: It could be running down the house that the window is a flash. Properly. We see it all the time. The windows leak. And so the top of the window tram, we caught that and come down the sides and pop that. And that's what I would call functional caulking. Even a nail head when a nail had penetrates the siding.

[00:32:19] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: On a composite sided house, it penetrates, it creates a little divot in there and water moisture can get behind that. It will get behind it. It'll cause the siding to start to swell the nail to rust. So we caught all the nail heads on a house. So that's what I call functional copying. Now, aesthetic copying is just what makes your house have that.

[00:32:40] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: Final polished look and finished look. And there's, I would say the majority of the caulking we do is aesthetic caulking. So the house just looks awesome when it's painted.

[00:32:51] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So you're talking about right where the, maybe the soffit meets the siding and those kinds of things. There's little chance of that getting.

[00:32:58] Eric Goranson: Water up in there, unless something's getting crazy [00:33:00] with a pressure washer or a hose, but that's where it really gives you those clean lines, right? Yeah. It's

[00:33:04] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: just siding. When you put a piece of tram on top of the siding, you got a lot of holes on the side of it. And by filling all that up, aesthetically, it just looks a lot nicer.

[00:33:15] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: Now that. Could, if you, what we do a hundred percent caulk a house, we caulk all around all the door jams around all the window trim, all the inside corners, outside quarter boards. If you caulk all of it, you are in essence, keeping wind out, you're keeping moisture out, but, and so it can be aesthetic and it can be functional at the same time.

[00:33:36] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: Aesthetic caulking, like caulking the sides of the windows. If you have cutter bees, a lot of cutter bees get in there and making that can actually aesthetically look nice, but it actually could serve a function of keeping bugs off your house. The more coughing you do, the less likely you're going to harbor bugs.

[00:33:53] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: The less likely you're going to have air moisture getting in your house, getting behind the siding and doing damage to the siding.

[00:33:59] Eric Goranson: Makes [00:34:00] sense. Now, primers have placed, and I think there's a lot of mistakes that happen out there. What's your take on primers out there before you paint?

[00:34:06] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: There are a lot of paints, say they're a paint primer in one.

[00:34:09] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: If there's something that needs a primer, we want a prime. Now, one of the misleading things I actually worked at a big box, do it yourself store before I actually even became a painter and one of the things they taught us was to upsell the customer and always sell them a primer before they do their inner.

[00:34:28] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: They're painting and they're selling you a primer, possibly when you don't even need a primer, because that's their job is to upsell you and sell you products. Now, typically a homeowner, they have their house. They're going to get ready to paint it. It's been painted before more than likely. If it hasn't been painted, all comes exciting.

[00:34:46] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: Typically it comes pre primed hardy plate comes pre primed metal siding is typically pre painted. So if it's in good sound condition, the substrate doesn't have any leaks. Your problems with it. It doesn't need to [00:35:00] be prime. So typically the average repaint we're doing, we're approaching the house. It's been painted probably once or twice before if it's in good sound condition.

[00:35:09] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: If you use a high quality paint, you do not need to find the house. Now. There are going to be places. In situations where we're going to use a primer and so if we got anything blistering on the siding, if you got blistering on the composite siding, that's opening up the siding itself, exposing what we call this glorified cardboard to weather damage and water, and we're going to want to prime that if your house is wood and you got peeling paint and exposed wood, you're going to want to prime that.

[00:35:40] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: So we do spot by me, but we don't. We typically don't find the whole house. There are scenarios where we would find the whole house and that's if you have a condition called wax bleed, or if you're doing some say a yellow house, yellow is really, really difficult to cover with and finding the house. So you get [00:36:00] better paint coverage is probably a good option.

[00:36:02] Eric Goranson: Nice. And then what do you recommend for paint? Cause it's so confusing. Someone walks into a big box store, even a paint store, and they see this Maybe 30 gallon, a gallon paint. And of course, then you've got the a hundred dollars stuff. What do you recommend for paint grades? Cause it gets really confusing for home.

[00:36:16] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: It does. Cause you, you walk into a big box stores and they're just aisles of paint and it can get overwhelming. Just the paint brushes. There's a bazillion paint brushes out there. And when it comes to paint, you really do get what you pay for. And I'll say my entire career painting for over 25 years, I've We've always only use the lifetime warranty coding.

[00:36:37] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: So whatever manufacturer we choose, and I would say every manufacturer out there has a high end paint and a low end paint and everything in between. And in order to make a low end paint versus high end paint, if you're. The money. You're gonna be adding what we call resins into the paint. Higher quality resins, more resins, the more resin, [00:37:00] the more expensive the paint and the resins.

[00:37:02] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: What gives the paint the ability to bond stick? It's what gives the paint the ability to weather strong and be weather resistant and, and water resistance and fade resistance. UV resistance. Your resins are what you'll give the paint that strength. In order to make a cheaper paint, you're just going to take out resin and add in binders and fillers like calcium carbonate chalk clays and stuff like that.

[00:37:28] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: So, a cheap paint is just not going to bond as good. It's going to fade a lot faster and it's going to probably. Get choppy and and peel over time and pretty quick. So I would highly recommend. So whatever paint you choose, always choose the best option, even though it is more expensive. Another thing is, is an experiment we did with 1 manufacturer last year and it was a 1 coat paint.

[00:37:54] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: And we did spray the whole house in 1 coat, and it used probably half as much product as a [00:38:00] cheaper paint would use. And so you're really not saving anything because a high quality paint covers way better than a cheap paint. So, you're going to be doing multiple coats with a cheap paint. So, it's 30 a gallon, 2 coats, you're going to end up paying 60 versus a 70 gallon of paint.

[00:38:16] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: So, you do really get what you pay for. And I would highly recommend always. Thanks. Choosing the best paints is protecting your investment. So, makes

[00:38:26] Eric Goranson: sense.

[00:38:26] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: Yeah,

[00:38:26] Eric Goranson: makes sense. So we're running outta time. Chris, what is the best place for people to find you? Because you're all over the internet, my friend. So, yeah, I, I create

[00:38:34] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: YouTube videos.

[00:38:34] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: I've got over 2000 how to videos on paint life, tv, on YouTube. So that's where it all started 13 years ago. We're also on Facebook on the Idaho Painter, Instagram, Idaho painter, TikTok. We're, we're on everything. All you gotta do is. Search for Idaho painter or the Idaho painter. And we're giving tips and tricks every day on social media and twice, twice a week on YouTube, paint life TV.[00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: You can also find all the tools necessary to complete a paint job at our store that you mentioned, paintlifesupply. com.

[00:39:07] Eric Goranson: Perfect. Thanks, my

[00:39:07] Chris Berry the Idaho Painter: friend. You're welcome.

[00:39:09] Eric Goranson: I'm Eric G, and you've been listening to Around the House. We'll see you next week for another episode