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When it comes to remodeling or renovating your home, there is a lot to know and we have gotcha covered.

This is AROUND the house.

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

I'm Eric G.

Thanks for joining me today.

This is Art Weekday Update.

This is the stuff that didn't make it into last weekend show and isn't gonna make it into this weekend's show.

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

If you're out looking for that brand new barbecue with Father's Day coming up, Mother's Day coming up, we have got a lot of great things happening so we can make sure to give those loved ones something special and maybe that's a brand new barbecue.

Check them out@montymcrills.com first off, I want to say happy birthday to us here at the around the house show on April 1st.

That is our 37th birthday.

Yeah, around the House has been around here in the Pacific Northwest for 37 years now.

And I have been on the show for about a decade before that, for nearly a decade was handyman Bob Strong.

And of course there were some other hosts and people on before that, but always great starting out a new season or what I call it.

And here we go on year 37 with some even greater things coming ahead, which is going to be a lot of fun.

Thanks for joining us here on this.

If you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthe house online.com you can find out a ton more information over there.

We've got our YouTube channel.

Make sure and subscribe to that because we've got a lot going on over there as well as all of our other social media pieces and things going on.

It's Twitter or X, it's Instagram, Facebook.

We've got, I've got a LinkedIn, all those different things out there.

Ready to get you more information about your home today.

I wanted to talk about something that's interesting.

We are starting to see these really big companies lining up and buying each other out.

We're starting to see that in the home building supply sector.

Great example last week, James Hardy, who was known as James Hardy siding basically right out of Australia.

It's where they come from.

They offered AZK, the composite decking company, $8.75 billion to combine those companies in a cash and stock deal valued, you know that 8.75 billion, including $386 million in debt.

So it's the second major acquisition of the building supplies and Geez, a little over a week.

So we're starting to see that.

Where QXO Inc.

Bought Beacon Roofing Supply for a deal worth about 11 billion, including debt.

So there's a lot of this stuff going on with housing.

Basically, we're seeing housing prices go up, mortgage rates going up, all those things.

Sales of previously occupied US Homes fell last year to the lowest level in nearly 30 years.

So that's a big one right there.

So anyway, we're seeing what's going on.

It's funny, James Hardy will own about 74% of the combined company, with AZ stockholders owning about 26%.

It's gonna be interesting.

James Hardy really has survived through its early days of asbestos.

They've spent a few billion dollars on settlements over the years with asbestos stuff that they were building back in the day, but they have survived through it and made it.

And they have been a very successful sighting.

Exterior company with James Hardy.

So interesting stuff, but we're starting to see that kind of happen out there.

We're seeing some of these people combine or take it a look at stuff, and it's an interesting space in our marketplace.

Here's a little secret to me.

My house that I've been working on here on around the house is going to go up on the market soon and I'm gonna be looking for a new location.

Not gonna be moving too far away, but gonna be working on the house number two.

So I've got a big plan for that coming up.

Can't wait to show you and share some of that stuff for social media as it comes up.

But yep, we're gonna be moving the shop and doing all other stuff.

So I'm kind of in the market of getting this ready to go and then to go out and find the next location, which will be a lot of fun.

So that means I got a lot of projects coming up because when you're doing a house like this, it's an interesting thing to look at because I have to look at it as I'm in a very expensive land place right here and do I want to go through and finish the house up?

Don't want to sell it to a developer that could put two houses on this piece of property.

There's so many different things to look at, and for me, I have to get in the unemotional side of things out there when it comes to this.

All right, what's going to bring me the best money and the best return on the investment?

So those can be tough questions to ask.

And yeah, do I want to see an excavator come in and knock down this beautiful house.

No, but is there something to be gained by selling it financially and doing something with it?

Yeah, it's wasteful something.

There's always a little twist.

So we'll see what happens with life on this one.

I'm throwing it out in the wind and we're just going to see what the numbers come in and to have some fun with it.

But nonetheless, some exciting times ahead in 2025.

One other thing I wanted to bring up today, and this has been something very interesting, and I'm in a lot of social media groups, Facebook groups to be specific.

I am in so many things.

We have our around the house nation, which we're growing.

I'm in one called Ask a cabinet Maker.

DIY home improvement projects.

There's so many different ones out there.

Ask the appraiser.

All these different groups.

I'm either an admin or a expert contributor for.

And it is one of those things that I'm seeing so very much where the same problems are happening over and over again.

Great example.

Ask a cabin maker.

And this is an interesting group.

There's 33, 34,000 people in this group.

But if I was going to sit there and say, what is the trend in these groups?

And it's interesting in the Ask a cabinet maker group, 99% of all cabinetry, construction, finish and even design issues are because of small custom cabinet shops that probably shouldn't be in business that are just absolutely building a ugly, horrible product.

Bad finish.

All these other weird little things going on, caulking cabinet doors before they finish them.

Just ugliness.

And I'm seeing that over and over again.

So it's one of those things that I wanted to bring up in this episode here to be very careful up there.

Be very careful when you're out looking at cabinetry, quite frankly, the stuff you're going to get in, you know, Home Depot, Lowe's, or a branded cabinetry that's coming out of your local kitchen and bath design center.

That's the place I would go by as my local kitchen and bath design center.

Talk to them.

That is your safest bet.

Home centers.

There's some decent stuff in there.

Are you paying a little more for it because it's the home center?

Absolutely, you are.

But I'm seeing homeowners, contractors walking into these little custom cabinet shops and the disasters that are coming out are horrible.

Just ugliness.

Bad design, bad construction, name it.

But it's always the same Character actors.

Now, there are a lot of great custom shops out there that are small, but you as a consumer have to go do your due diligence to understand it because that is so.

The marketplace is so riddled with low quality cabinet shops using lacquer finishes.

That's one of the first things I would ask.

What kind of finish are you putting on the cabinetry?

If they say lacquer or cat lacquer, I'm done.

Next, I want to see them running that higher end finish to protect your investment.

I've even seen some custom cabinet shops sending out raw cabinets and the contractor is supposed to finish them on site for stain, let alone paint.

That's a hard no.

So be very careful as a consumer out there, guys, when you're out looking at cabinetry, if you're out there looking at it, you're gonna.

I'm gonna do a remodel.

Send me a message over to roundthehouse online dot com.

I'll give you my two cents.

I tell you what I'd be looking for.

Feel free to ask out.

I can be your resource there.

I do get back to people on that.

That drops right into my email box.

I would much rather help you spend a couple minutes there than have to make a show out of it and just talk about how bad.

How bad things went.

So take some time, do your research.

It's going to save you so much money and headache in the end and I want to make sure that you've got that dialed in.

All right, everybody, I gotta run here.

I've got so much to do today.

We've got a great show coming up this weekend and we'll talk about that on Friday.

But tons of brand new content, lots of good stuff.

Happy Spring, Happy birthday to us.

We've got a great week ahead and some epic episodes coming up that you are not going to want to miss.

We've got some new interviews.

We got some great stuff coming up.

Going to be talking about smart home stuff.

We're going to be talking about lighting.

There's so many great things happening that I'm excited because we're going to be talking about some stuff I've been wanting to talk about for a very long time.

I'm Eric G.

Thanks for tuning into around the House.

We'll see you on Saturday.

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