[00:00:00] Corbin Clay: It is around the house, zoom. We just had a call a while ago to where the painters were going to do basically a pickled finish on white oak, pickled and Saru pretty darn fast. Yeah. Okay. Let's take a look at the samples. Samples were awful. I mean, awful. And they actually, samples are

[00:00:25] Eric Goranson: awful. There's

[00:00:25] Corbin Clay: your warning set, right?

[00:00:26] Corbin Clay: Exactly. And it's just like, hey, I mean, these guys don't know what they're doing. Like I'm sure they're great guys. They're just trying to expand their scope. I get it. I was there too. I want the biggest scope as possible, but, but they are not technically capable of creating the finish you want. So what would you like to do?

[00:00:47] Corbin Clay: When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know that we've got you covered. This is around the

[00:00:54] Eric Goranson: house. Welcome to The Round the House Show. This is where we help you get the most outta your home through information and [00:01:00] education. Thanks for joining us today. Well, we got a special guest in the studio 'cause you know, there are so many people out there that are tackling larger projects and of course probably haven't done it before.

[00:01:12] Eric Goranson: And Corbin Clay really has this new program, help designed to help you out. Welcome to Around the House, my friend. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Let's talk a little bit about you, man, and your background, because you come from a fun background and before we get into what you're doing, I think we need to tell your story a little bit.

[00:01:32] Corbin Clay: Yeah, absolutely. I, um, I, uh, out of high school went to a, um, motorcycle mechanic school. Nice. Uh, coincidentally enough, and long story short, um, turns out I do not care why your turn signal doesn't work or, or why that tire keeps going flat. Now, if you wanna make it look better or go faster, let's chat. So, yep.

[00:01:56] Corbin Clay: Turns out, um, to do that you [00:02:00] professionally, uh, at a manufacturer's level requires an.

[00:02:06] Corbin Clay: Flash to or cut to 22 year old Corbin. Kind of a kind of a heart to heart with myself. Do I want to be, because I didn't go to college. Yeah. So it's like, okay, do I want to be a 22 year old freshman entry level of my career at probably 28, 29 or I'd happened to have gotten a remodeling job to help pay for the community college I just enrolled in.

[00:02:35] Corbin Clay: Or do I want to maybe explore this woodworking thing? Because I really liked the kitchen and bath part of that specific remodeling job. So yep. Made the decision to go full steam ahead with it. Um, two weeks later I joined an apprenticeship at a cabinet shop, uh, pretty high end shop in Clearwater, Florida.

[00:02:57] Corbin Clay: Nice. And then, yeah, offs. [00:03:00] So I two apprenticeship, then moved Colorado. And there, I ran a cabinet shop for a while. They kind of morphed into a, um, a furniture shop. Mm-hmm. And then they had ultimately closed. Meanwhile, I was learning about the 4 million acres of dead pine trees that are in the Colorado Rocky Mountains from the result of a beetle infestation.

[00:03:25] Corbin Clay: I don't know if you guys have any of them. I know Cal California certainly does. Do, do you guys have any Yeah, we still have

[00:03:29] Eric Goranson: them here too. They just, they're just sitting out there ready to burn.

[00:03:32] Corbin Clay: Exactly. So British Columbia has 40 million of these dead pine trees. So anyway, um, you know, while I was working for this, uh, this cabinet company, we would have customers often ask us like, Hey, why don't you guys do anything with this pine, all these dead pine trees just sitting there?

[00:03:50] Corbin Clay: Why don't you guys do anything with it? And honestly, I didn't have a good answer for them. I thought, well, surely it's, it's.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Corbin Clay: Infestation gotta be good, right? There has to be a reason why no one is doing anything about this. Um, so I reached out to the, um, US Forest Service and the, the forestry department at Colorado State University. Turns out there's a big outbreak back in the eighties of the exact same beetle, the exact same problem.

[00:04:19] Corbin Clay: It comes from the winters not being as cold, so the Beatles don't die off every year. Well, there was just this confluence of, it was kind of a perfect storm. You had warmer winters, then couple that with basically no age diversity in the forest. When we moved west in the industrial revolution, we basically cut down like every tree in the forest we did.

[00:04:42] Corbin Clay: So then all of the trees are about the same age. Sure. So now all the trees are kind of old and, and more, um, susceptible to an infestation. So that's why it's just gone crazy 'cause the beetles are killing trees year round and most of the trees in the forest. [00:05:00] So that's why I started my company, was to create as many good things as we can from that toothpicks, pencils, uh, cabinetry, furniture, whatever anybody wants to buy that we can make.

[00:05:11] Corbin Clay: Let's see how much of a good situation we can get from a really bad situation. Um, I, that company got much bigger than I ever planned on it, than it getting. Um, and, uh, I'm very much a product, customer facing, uh, fellow. I'm not very interested in, in, um, you know, corporate operations and that type of stuff, but at scale you need all these things.

[00:05:37] Corbin Clay: Yeah. Yeah. So, so in um, 2019 we decided, well, actually earlier we decided to sell the company, but in 2019 we sold that business. I then got into, um, custom spec building. Okay. Um, some for ourselves, others, you know, to, to sell. So then I got this awesome education over the course of three years. With, um, green [00:06:00] building design, you know, performance building.

[00:06:03] Corbin Clay: Nice. Um, yeah, just, I mean, just really nerding out on building science and how to do things properly and close cell, open cell, all that stuff. There's a lot to that. Oh, there's so much to it. And the thing is, is you move, you move this one and then three things over here move. Oh, and then it's a game. Yeah.

[00:06:21] Corbin Clay: And it's, you know, we get asked a home, for example, it's like, should I foam? It's like, well, we need to, well, I mean, hold on now. Like, is your crawl space, is your crawl space sealed? Because if your crawl space isn't sealed, putting spray foam on the roof probably isn't gonna do that much. No. But now if your entire house is, is fairly airtight, then yes.

[00:06:43] Corbin Clay: Get that spray foam up there. 'cause that'll air seal as well, you know, so there's just, there's so many variables. Yeah. To.

[00:06:54] Corbin Clay: There are very few, just one size fits all answers. And you know, no matter what research you do, [00:07:00] unless you have all the information like that phrase, you don't know, what you don't know is really, really applicable to to home building and furniture and the trades and finishes. Yep. So

[00:07:12] Eric Goranson: what is building science?

[00:07:13] Eric Goranson: So, I mean, this is something that's evolving. What you learned 10 years ago doesn't relate to today. Right?

[00:07:20] Corbin Clay: Yeah. The notion that houses need to breathe. Like we want leaky windows and leaky roofs because we're, we're breathing in air from the crawlspace, the vented crawlspace, and then we're expanding through.

[00:07:30] Corbin Clay: It's like, no, how about we don't do that? How about we, how about we not, um, breathe in the filthy air from the crawlspace, the unsealed, vented crawlspace? Like, why don't put a RV or an hrv? Wouldn't that be, wouldn't that be better?

[00:07:42] Eric Goranson: And you know, the, I think one of the biggest problems in that whole space of high performance homes, Is that you have, I'm gonna make a number up.

[00:07:51] Eric Goranson: You have 20 big companies out there that are making parts and pieces of the puzzle, but they have, they don't work together to see how [00:08:00] they can all work together. If you're taking on a project, and I've learned this with projects I'm doing, or I gotta call five companies, I know it's gonna take me 10 times as long because I have to read through the, the fine print to see where the problems are.

[00:08:15] Eric Goranson: Just to get those five companies to play well together. And they mean to play well together, but the instructions don't overlap. Right,

[00:08:23] Corbin Clay: right. So, yeah, I mean it's, you know, you take that, you take all the confusion, you take a lot of bad information. You take, um, every builder in the country approaching it differently.

[00:08:35] Corbin Clay: Um, for better or for worse. Yeah. Basically no standardization in the industry. Um, the code only goes so far. The code is effectively there for safety. It doesn't necessarily apply. The crown molding is not in the code. Um, cabinet door adjustment isn't in the code cabinet. Door finishes isn't in the code.

[00:08:54] Corbin Clay: You know,

[00:08:55] Eric Goranson: you and I could go install a kitchen that was one inch out of level, [00:09:00] including the uppers, and they'd sign off on it. Mm-hmm. Even though everything's gonna be sliding around in those cabinets because it's outta level, it's not covered.

[00:09:09] Corbin Clay: Just don't keep your marble collection in that cabinet.

[00:09:11] Corbin Clay: Right? Yeah.

[00:09:13] Eric Goranson: Round put

[00:09:14] Corbin Clay: in the drawer. That's fine. But, um, but yeah, so there's that frustration coupled with, throughout my entire career, you know, in the trades I would have friends and family often reach out and they would just sort of had a. Bathroom remodeled or kitchen countertops put in or whatever.

[00:09:33] Corbin Clay: And they would just say, you know, they, Hey, can we FaceTime you real quick? Like, yeah, of course. What's up? And they go, well, here, we just got this, you know, figured marble countertops goes pretty veining. And the seam is right there. Like, is that normal? And then it's, you know, it's all, it's all chewed up and it's got know a putty.

[00:09:53] Corbin Clay: Did you know. Yeah. What was the layout, right? They took your exact, yeah, they took your exact slab and [00:10:00] they mocked it up. Yeah, we saw it. Okay. Is that what it looks like? No. Did you a hundred percent have a case That is not right? I'd find a picture online like this is what a seam should look like done properly and you know, whatever, a courts countertop or whatever.

[00:10:13] Corbin Clay: So like, here's what you need to say to get that person to come back. Hopefully we've withheld money. Yeah. We've got 40% left. Great. That's your leverage. And I just kind of coach 'em up and give 'em a bunch of good, like visual assets, for lack of a better word, videos or photos, and then say, lemme know how it goes.

[00:10:31] Corbin Clay: And it's just always bothered me. Like, what do people, the millions of people that have their countertops installed incorrectly or have someone botch their floors or go into a new build remodel just with this feeling of anxiety and, and apprehension. No one's really just looking out for them,

[00:10:53] Eric Goranson: man. Cor, I've got one I'm working with right now.

[00:10:55] Eric Goranson: This is crazy and it's the worst one I've seen yet and I've seen some bad stuff [00:11:00] and I just brought in, uh, I was over there on Sunday. I took my buddy who's part of the global tile posse out there, uh, the big Facebook group for tile setters, and I wanted him to take a look at the bathrooms. This guy, I think their family paid 140,000 for a contractor who was not licensed on insured.

[00:11:17] Eric Goranson: Didn't have any of that stuff like they're supposed to. In the state of Oregon where I'm at and at 140 grand out of pocket, I went over there a month ago and said, stop the horses on this one. You, anything you're having him install is gonna have to be removed, so it's gonna cost you more money. So don't let him touch it anymore.

[00:11:37] Eric Goranson: And I mean, this is how bad the outside, they did siting and all this other stuff and some windows. And this is just a regular kind of split level type sized house. It's nothing extravagant. His bid to get the siding all removed, all the windows put in correctly, just in the windows was a hundred and siding in Windows 150 grand [00:12:00] just to fix what he had already paid.

[00:12:03] Eric Goranson: 'cause it's all except for the windows. I mean, he is got drywall screws holding the the sliding glass door in. You know, it's stuff like that. It's, uh, geez, they cited the hardy plank right over the top of the 1960s, seventies, like that homo soap siding board that they used back then. That was kind of that fiber homo soap board.

[00:12:24] Eric Goranson: They went right over the top of that. No TARP paper, but I mean tarp paper in places. Bathroom tile job, worst tile job ever seen. There's three bathrooms that, um, For waterproofing. They use the blue stucco, uh, sealant that you paint on before stucco. Great. Uh, but they put that over drywall and, you know, that kind of stuff.

[00:12:47] Eric Goranson: It was just, it's all gotta go in the dumpster. Ouch. You know? And yes, I mean, the homeowners really cool. Did they not do their research? Did they not do any of that stuff? Did they [00:13:00] let that project go way longer than it should have? Absolutely. And he'd be the first one to admit it. But it's still costing him 150 grand to fix this.

[00:13:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And the guy underbid it too, so it's not gonna cost him 150, it'll probably cost him 2 25 to do it. So it's brutal, you know, and that's where I think you guys really can help people.

[00:13:22] Corbin Clay: Uh, yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, that's, that's, that is as purely as I can say, the reason why home. Is to help people get out of a, out of a pickle like that.

[00:13:35] Corbin Clay: Or ideally, you know, you can't unto bread. Yeah. Ideally we can help homeowners identify red flags like you do on your show to say, Hey, license bond, insure bare minimum. That's what we need to see. Yep. You know, but then additionally, um, let's ask for when something goes wrong. How do we handle it? You know, something has gone GC.[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Corbin Clay: Maybe you had a sub that you didn't, uh, vet as well as you should have, and he botched a project. How did you fix it? How did you communicate with the homeowners? It's just kind of like when you're applying for a job, you know, they say, what's your biggest mistake? What's your biggest failure kind of thing.

[00:14:14] Corbin Clay: Like that's a reasonable question to ask. Right? So, yeah, and then we just can take all of our knowledge. And then, and then most important is

[00:14:28] Corbin Clay: size fits all. Solutions or, or advice. What we're able to do is just listen. Yeah. The first step we do is just listen and say, what's going on? They say, okay, well, we had, um, the, the finish on our cabinets is all wrong. Okay. What was the inspo photo Agreed to. Did you have samples? Right. And then we could just start this kind of basic q and A process because there's so many details, there's so many variables and there's so much nuance in the [00:15:00] solutions that we suggest and the advice we give to where it's like if your, if your is, is, is just a recalcitrant.

[00:15:10] Corbin Clay: Child, like, we're not gonna get very far with them. So let's cut that cord as soon as possible, and then here's how we can say, bring in a new finisher. Or maybe we have a d i y solution to get you the look you really wanted on your wide oak cabinets. You know what I mean? You

[00:15:25] Eric Goranson: mean, you mean the, uh, the, the guy that came into finish those cabinets on site shouldn't have been rolling the finish on, is that what you're saying?

[00:15:33] Corbin Clay: Hey, it's a, it's a good technique for, um, for a nice orange peel finish, an intentional orange peel. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's artisan. It's artisan.

[00:15:41] Eric Goranson: Artisan, yeah. Yeah. Artisan latex. Yeah.

[00:15:44] Corbin Clay: Yeah. Artisan orange. It's textured, textured artisanal latex. But yeah, so that's, that's where we're at. 'cause like I said, my entire career is just, it's, I mean, really breaks my heart because, you know, I'm happy to take care of my friends and colleagues and family.

[00:15:57] Corbin Clay: But what about. [00:16:00] A son-in-law in the trades or, or an old neighbor or something they can reach out to. Um, so that's why we created way Home because hopefully we can be that trusted expert resource for everybody

[00:16:10] Eric Goranson: else, you know? And there's so many good contractors out there, right? There are so many good guys out there in the fields and, you know, male, female, whatever out there that are, that are out there, and they're just absolute craftspeople.

[00:16:22] Eric Goranson: And that's what you wanna find. You wanna weeded out the one, two, 3% of these clowns out there that are, that are really, you know, borderline if, depending on where you're located, it's criminal, but that are out there basically stealing money from people.

[00:16:36] Corbin Clay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's, you know, so, so we do it mainly through, through, um, zoom consults.

[00:16:43] Corbin Clay: We have another. Mm-hmm. Service where we can message back and forth and it's a monthly thing, but, but I love when we get on a call with a homeowner and I just kind of start like, here's the finish we want, we do a lot of cabinet finishes because, um, Texas and Oklahoma, for whatever reason, finish primarily on site [00:17:00] and then, and then Ally, that's

[00:17:03] Eric Goranson: like, it's like LA people hot mopping, showers, and they scratch my head and go, really?

[00:17:06] Eric Goranson: Right.

[00:17:07] Corbin Clay: Exactly. So then, and then you, you also have this thing to not get on too much of a tangent for whatever reason. Finishes are not part of the, um, high-end cabinet making curriculum, let's say. It's just this afterthought. And, and, and I just happened to luck out in my apprenticeship. I was in a spray booth for a year and a half.

[00:17:29] Corbin Clay: Nice. Um, And it was awesome. And that was one of the, the huge benefits we had when I had my company is we did our finishes in-house. We can control everything. We had great partners on and on on, but, but even if the cabinet maker is incredibly talented, great communication, good, solid business, at no fault of their own, and then, and this is not to, um, to, to talk poorly, they just aren't as competent on the finishing side.

[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: They're only as good [00:18:00] as their paint rep. Right?

[00:18:01] Corbin Clay: Exactly. Exactly. So it's like, okay, did you see samples? Yes. Can I see those samples? We look at the samples, just be like, yeah, whoever did this does not know what he or she is doing. So that's, it's what it is. But now what are we gonna do? Are we gonna try to simplify the finish?

[00:18:18] Corbin Clay: So that this person can, can accomplish it, or do we want to bring in a professional finisher or whatever the case is, right? So even the good ones, I love when we get on calls and I ask a question and they say, no, this is what, this is what our builder said. And I was like, that's the right answer. You got a good one.

[00:18:35] Corbin Clay: You have a good builder there. I hope to never talk to you again. I mean, I'm happy to. Yeah, but, but you've got one of the good ones, like we wanna hold the bad ones accountable. Hopefully put them out of business. Because we have educated and empowered homeowners calling out gaslighting, calling out dishonesty because we're helping them.

[00:18:56] Corbin Clay: But then we also wanna put shine on the good ones. [00:19:00] Yeah. To say no, that that guy, that's the right answer. That's a beautiful project. Go with him. And then that girl did it right. See how she did the seam right there? That's exactly what you want. Go with her. So yeah, we're trying to push out the bad ones and elevate the good ones.

[00:19:16] Eric Goranson: Yeah. During Covid here, kind of, we covered the, uh, sledgehammer contractor outta Colorado. Did you catch that story? Oh,

[00:19:23] Corbin Clay: goodness,

[00:19:23] Eric Goranson: no. Wow. So, uh, we covered this one because it showed up and, uh, ended up getting to be friends with the homeowner now. But, uh, uh, you know, single lady hired a contractor to come do her bathroom, came in, did one of the wor it was up until I saw this house, it was the worst tile job I'd ever seen.

[00:19:42] Eric Goranson: This one almost goes beyond it, but. Installs one of the worst tile jobs ever seen. I mean, um, over drywall. The bench was made outta drywall in the shower. No waterproofing go down the list. It's just looks like a, a blind eight year old tried their [00:20:00] first tile job. It just, nothing made sense. Job gets 80% done.

[00:20:09] Eric Goranson: A, a contractor, I'm gonna guess figured you better get paid before the homeowner sees anymore and tried to collect on the job. Even though it wasn't done, there wasn't a shower door in it, there was other things missing. And she goes, no, I'm not happy with the quality of the craftsmanship right now. You need to fix all of this and then I'll give you your next scheduled payment, which was the right thing to do.

[00:20:29] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. Uh, contractor gets mad. She told him not to go by the house contractor comes by with a sledgehammer and repossess the bathroom as it was installed and does a 15 minute demo with a sledgehammer all while the roommate recorded it. So it got on national news, inside Edition was covering it, and uh, somebody of mines in the tile industry went out there and, um, did the job for free to make it right for her.[00:21:00]

[00:21:00] Eric Goranson: So bought the contractor, uh, got charged criminally, uh, had a, um, uh, pleaded guilty to a plea bargain, you know, had to do some days in jail, um, that kind of thing. But again, that's so rare, but spending the time on the front end in the management of this is really where that ounce of prevention stops.

[00:21:22] Eric Goranson: Majority of that pain.

[00:21:24] Corbin Clay: Mm-hmm. And yeah, and even if, even if, um, let's say one of the bad ones gets through the cracks, you know, so presented a good, a good, um, initial say, interview, and maybe there was, uh, some dishonesty in the portfolio photos that we just got offline instead of actually being responsible for them.

[00:21:44] Corbin Clay: Say we get into it. We're still able to To help coach through, right? Yeah. To just say, Hey, this, this guy does not know what he's doing. We just had a call a while ago to where the painters were going to do basically a pickled finish on white oak, pickled and [00:22:00] ERUs. Pretty darn advanced. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

[00:22:03] Corbin Clay: Let's take a look at the samples. Samples were awful. I mean, awful. And they

[00:22:09] Eric Goranson: actually lose samples are awful. There's your warning sign, right?

[00:22:12] Corbin Clay: Exactly. And it's just like, Hey, I. These guys don't know what they're doing. Like I'm sure they're great guys. They're just trying to expand their scope. I get it. I was there too.

[00:22:23] Corbin Clay: I want the biggest scope as possible, but, but they are not technically capable of creating the finish you want. So what would you like to do? Do you want to reevaluate the finish you want? Something more user friendly, you know? Or do we just wanna kick these guys loose? Hey, we're gonna have you paint the rest of the house.

[00:22:43] Corbin Clay: Love your work. Everything's great. We're just gonna bring in this new guy to handle, you know, whatever the, the stain on the cabinets or whatever. But yeah, it's, it's, um, it's frustrating to say the least.

[00:22:55] Eric Goranson: It is crazy. It's crazy. And when you're dealing with [00:23:00] specialty fi, I guess first to me, I look at it and go, oh my gosh, why is that being done out in the field and not at the cabinet shop where it's controlled?

[00:23:07] Eric Goranson: Right. That blows me away. I've, the only time I've seen here in my area, and that's West coast, basically out here, is that I've seen that, is that, um, maybe a custom cabinet job will turn around and, uh, you know, uh, They'll finish the whole painted job on site. You know, they, they kick all the trades out, they clean the place up and they spray it out because they've got all these cut crown moldings and stuff that are four layers deep and they wanna do it that way.

[00:23:36] Eric Goranson: I get that. But stain finishes, I don't understand it. Yep.

[00:23:41] Corbin Clay: Neither do I. Yeah. Uh, I think, um, I think it's just a general lack of, of an understanding of how advanced, or, or rather how difficult it's to get a good stained finish. Sure. The builders don't know any better. The painters say, oh yeah, of course we can do that, and then we go down and buy a can of minwax and start wiping away, and [00:24:00] it's just like, oh, no, I, I think that there is a conflation that that painting, painting is, I mean, effectively zero skill, right.

[00:24:08] Corbin Clay: You're, you're, I mean, a homeowner can, you know, dump it in and just with, with, with very, very little skill, we can paint a wall and have it look pretty darn good. And I think that there's just this, this, yeah. I think that there's just this misunderstanding that wood finishing is insane to where it's wooding is like car finishing.

[00:24:27] Corbin Clay: Exactly. Exactly. It's like, oh, we're just gonna brush on the the, and like that quarter million dollar kitchen on the cover of Architectural Digest. Yes, that's both stained oak or those are both stained oak, but they're very, very different skill levels. So I think that's where it comes from. I think that they don't understand the difference between like catalyzed coatings and latex paint because we see, we see the regular wall paint being sprayed on cabinets all the time.

[00:24:55] Corbin Clay: Oh, and then additionally, I don't think that there's just an [00:25:00] understanding of, of how technically difficult. Most wood, let's say clear topcoat finishes are sustained, glazed, you know, toned on a mo. I think that's where we, and not have a

[00:25:14] Eric Goranson: blotchy finish, right?

[00:25:15] Corbin Clay: Mm-hmm. No, it's bad. Yeah, we've seen some, I'll send you some photos actually.

[00:25:19] Corbin Clay: Um, yeah, I'm doing a, I'm doing a new blog post because yeah, that's, that, that's become a little, uh, A little mission of mine. It's like, please stop finishing your cabinets on site. Please, please. Or at least, or at least clear only, you know, maybe just you, like, you can get a good catalyzed top goat and even spray it on site.

[00:25:41] Corbin Clay: Well, let's run a shop back first. I mean, like, I, it's, it's still not ideal. But, but again, back to back to what I was saying earlier about how we, we just listen first and we try to be genuinely helpful. Yes. I would love to say fire that builder, fire those painters like, this is not [00:26:00] working. But we can't, we close in 60 days.

[00:26:03] Corbin Clay: Yeah. We're already in with this builder. The painters we've gotten to know because they painted the exterior and the interior, like, you know, it's, there's a ton of variables. Every, every situation. It's complex. Exactly. So it's nice because we'll say, okay, where are you at in the country? We're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

[00:26:18] Corbin Clay: Awesome. You're gonna have a, let's say Sherwin Williams wood coatings distributor there, get them to tempt the top coat, add a little color into the top coat. Do two of those, maybe three on site. It's gonna blend all the color variation in the oak, and you'll be fine, even with a lower skilled professional.

[00:26:42] Corbin Clay: And they go, okay, great. Uh, and, and, and we're batting a thousand so far, knock on.

[00:26:48] Eric Goranson: Nice. Yeah. I mean, and finishes keep changing. You know, we keep getting into, it used to be that in cabinetry especially, we'd have those waterborne finishes and they always kind of looked a little plasticy, a little milky, [00:27:00] a little not awesome.

[00:27:01] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And now you're hard pressed if you see a piece of, if you see a cabinet to figure out if that's a, uh, a water-based or a, or a, uh, more conversion varnish or a, you know, a. A varnished base. The solve been

[00:27:13] Corbin Clay: a solve. Yeah. Yeah. Bu yeah. They actually make an amber, um, colorant to add to waters to replicate the look of solvents.

[00:27:21] Corbin Clay: That's how good the waters have gotten.

[00:27:23] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And it, before you'd kind of go, ah, that looks okay, but just don't do a natural maple in it. 'cause it's gonna look funky. It's gonna look like you plastic dipped it. Not

[00:27:31] Corbin Clay: anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cabinet finishes. That's, that's a, I have a special place in my heart for finishes.

[00:27:37] Corbin Clay: Uh, and especially the right ones. You know, when you do it properly, it looks really, really good. And when you do it poorly, it looks really, really bad. So let's make sure you do

[00:27:45] Eric Goranson: it, you know, and let's talk about that for a second. 'cause I think it's an important one that people need to realize is that, you know, and I hate to say this 'cause there's so many great custom shops out there, but many times if you walk into a home center that finish, that's on [00:28:00] those.

[00:28:00] Eric Goranson: Box cabinets that are in there, that are the big name brands that are in every kitchen department and in a big box store. Those finishes are pretty solid.

[00:28:10] Corbin Clay: Very solid. Yeah. And that's actually it. It, it's kind of, um, it's kind of a, the, the efficiency and production. Obviously benefits the manufacturer because they can turn it out more profitably, but it also really benefits the homeowner, the customer.

[00:28:27] Corbin Clay: Mm-hmm. Because those finishes, these professional grade finishes that we talk about, that, you know, catalyze coatings or, or, um, like proper cabinet coatings. Yep. Think of, um, like a polyurethane that you would buy at a hardware store. Mm-hmm. If you brush that on, it's probably gonna stay wet, which we call open stays open.

[00:28:49] Corbin Clay: Probably two hours and then it's not gonna fully dry to where you can sand it and recoat it for probably 24 hours, depending on the humidity and a few other things. [00:29:00] These professional cabinet finishes, they're ready to sand in 20 minutes. Yeah, they're, they're stackable in five hours. Then you can speed all that up by running it through an oven, by putting it in, you know, a, a UV curing or anything else.

[00:29:15] Corbin Clay: So when you couple all that together, they, the, the manufacturers want the speed. They don't want wet surfaces, wet horizontal surfaces sitting in the middle of a factory for dust to settle in and bugs and everything else. So they're, yeah, they're, they're using the most durable finishes to where we don't have any shipping damage because we've got a big durable finish on there.

[00:29:37] Corbin Clay: And then

[00:29:37] Eric Goranson: my, my seeing has always been, yeah, in this cabinet market is custom, the word custom does not mean quality. Yeah. It just means somebody's building it more so by hand than in a factory. But it doesn't mean that you have a better product. No,

[00:29:55] Corbin Clay: no, not at all. Not at all. Um, and again, it's, it's become a marketing [00:30:00] term too, kinda like artisanal.

[00:30:01] Corbin Clay: It's. What's artisanal? You just, you just decided one day you are artisanal. Yeah. And then you just decided one day that you're custom. It's like, well, there, there's something behind that. Like I had, we, we were part of a, of a, of a, a marketing campaign years ago with a, with a pretty big company, and they kept referring to me as a master craftsman.

[00:30:24] Corbin Clay: And I said, I'm flattered, but I'm not a master craftsman. That is not a marketing term. That is something to which me and my peers aspire daily. Like yeah. The whole point of being a master craftsman is that you actually never get there. Right? It's right. It's not, it's not just this throwaway marketing term, oh, artisanal custom master this and that.

[00:30:51] Corbin Clay: It's like, so to your point when we say custom, yeah. That doesn't necessarily mean we still need to do our due diligence. We still need to do the research. What kind of finish are we using? [00:31:00] The the, here's, here's the, like the magic question for anybody, um, listening that might be considering custom cabinet makers.

[00:31:06] Corbin Clay: The first thing we ask is what type of coatings do you use and specifically use the word coatings, coatings. Because cabinet coatings smarts are different than paint or anything else. So if they say, oh, well, you know, sometimes we use, uh, oil and other times we use a, you know, we go down to the hardware store and get this, this, and that, that is a big red flag.

[00:31:28] Corbin Clay: Hundred percent. Now, if they, if they say one of the companies like Mo Campbell or Moee or Gemini or Centurion or any of these professional grade companies,

[00:31:44] Corbin Clay: What comes with working with those companies is ongoing training, new product research, new product training. Yeah. To where you don't just set it and then put it on cruise control for the rest of your career. You go to I W F every year and learn about the new finishes, and now here's this one that drives in [00:32:00] 15 minutes instead of 20.

[00:32:01] Corbin Clay: Here's one that doesn't look as plastic, like. There's this constant. R and d going on constant innovation. And then unfortunately, some custom shops just choose to not take advantage

[00:32:12] Eric Goranson: of it. Well, yeah. And then the finish rep, I mean, I've spent tons of time in the, in a cabinet shop. The finish rep comes in every week or every two weeks and goes, Hey guys, um, I got something that might be a good fit for you.

[00:32:24] Eric Goranson: Let's, um, Let's go do some samples of this real quick on your equipment and see how this goes and Exactly. You spend an hour and play around with stuff and all of a sudden you've got the latest, newest finish that, uh, you're trying to evaluate for the cabinets going forward. So it's, it's that constant evolution that gets missed.

[00:32:44] Corbin Clay: Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's one thing ultimately we would love to, to better encourage at WayHome is, for example, my wife's a physician. She is required every year to do, um, C M E, continued medical education. I would love for something like that to exist in the [00:33:00] trades. So maybe there's some type of pledge we all take, or there is a certification.

[00:33:05] Corbin Clay: It doesn't have any weird profit motive behind it of it. It's just this, we are, well, 'cause you know, you get the pay to play model and it's like, well are you really qualified or did you just pay the fee? Yeah. Um, but yeah, to where it's like, no, we commit to whatever, 40 hours a year of this ongoing education and these trade shows exist.

[00:33:25] Corbin Clay: The finish reps hold trainings. Um, YouTube University, whatever you want do. Yeah. To where we're constantly, and maybe we don't even take advantage of the new things we learned because the way we're doing, it's pretty darn good, but at least we're exposed to it. We can consider it, and then I'm pretty sure nine times out of 10, there's gonna be at least one better option to doing it now, but all of this is happening on behalf of the homeowner.

[00:33:50] Eric Goranson: Yeah. One of my other key words that I hear that I always is my red flag. Oh, my cabinet maker, he's a master carpenter. [00:34:00] Okay. Who's calling him a master carpenter? What organization is he a master carpenter with? Or did he just throw that out when he was measuring up the kitchen? That he is a master carpenter and he is gonna make it look good?

[00:34:11] Eric Goranson: Right,

[00:34:13] Corbin Clay: right. And, and again, it's, it's hard,

[00:34:18] Corbin Clay: excuse me. It's hard once you're in it to kind of say like, oh, okay. Because again, like we, we can't un the, so. Let's see. I like what you

[00:34:29] Eric Goranson: guys are do. Yeah. I like what

[00:34:31] Corbin Clay: you guys are doing this in the first place.

[00:34:33] Eric Goranson: Yeah. That's the whole thing is trying to avoid those, those pitfalls of, of bringing in the wrong people or making the wrong product decisions.

[00:34:43] Eric Goranson: Right. We've talked a lot about poor quality craftsmanship, but sometimes you're putting the wrong product in, which is never going to perform, and it's not the product's fault, it's the. Decision making process that Gotcha to that.

[00:34:58] Corbin Clay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And [00:35:00] additionally, because we, we see a lot, again, let, just to stay on this, on this, um, topic of finishes we see a lot where they say, oh, we'll spray whatever you want us to spray.

[00:35:09] Corbin Clay: And it's like, first of all, why would a homeowner know what is a good cabinet coating and what isn't? But secondly, we don't want, say, say you have a tile guide and um, you're gonna redo your bathroom. You say, we're gonna waterproof that shower, right? And he goes, oh yeah. What, how, how would you wanna do it?

[00:35:29] Corbin Clay: You go, I, I don't know. He's like, well, no, just tell you. Tell me however you wanna waterproof it and I'll do it. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're the professional. We want professionals with preferences. This says, I don't know, we use, you know, whatever. I don't know if we're allowed to use brand

[00:35:45] Eric Goranson: names on this show or not.

[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: Yeah, whatever we use, whatever. I don't care. We, yeah,

[00:35:48] Corbin Clay: we use Red Guard, um, and Dur Rock, and then another guy says, yeah, you know, the Schluter is more expensive, but we like that. Whatever, let's have some preferences and then we can, we can help them, you know, um, [00:36:00] um, validate those preferences. But no, just this idea because we don't want any of the liability that should be on the professional shifting onto the homeowner.

[00:36:10] Corbin Clay: 'cause the shower leaks and you say, Hey, the shower leak, what the heck? And he goes, well, I did the one you told me to use. And it's like, no, no, no, no. We want you to tell us what to use. And we want you to say like for, for the, the houses we built after I sold my business, our plumber would only use Delta shower valves because he's used them for decades.

[00:36:32] Corbin Clay: He knows they do not leak. He can warranty them for decades. And it's like, okay, cool. So he is like, so buy a Delta trim kit because I'm using the valve. And you know, like that's, this is non-negotiable. Yeah. And I actually liked that. I thought, okay, cool, yeah, this guy's worried about his reputation. He wants to use something.

[00:36:53] Corbin Clay: This is an informed opinion. This isn't what's most convenient for him. This isn't what he's gonna make the most money on. This is him [00:37:00] saying, I don't want you to have to rip your wall apart. Or, or get drops on your head, you know, while you're watching TV one day, because some shower valve I never worked with before failed.

[00:37:12] Corbin Clay: I know these for a fact to be good. This is what we're using. It's like that's a pro you wanna work

[00:37:16] Eric Goranson: with. No question. No question. Well, before we run outta time, I wanna really dive into what you're doing out there and, and in your program, because you and I could tell horror stories here for hours about things gone bad.

[00:37:30] Eric Goranson: And I have a lot of great cabinet shop stories that we could go down into, but that's gonna get to be pretty long-winded. But I really want to talk about way home and just how you guys are helping people and how do people get involved in this program because I think it's really cool that you can save people money in the long run because the project's probably gonna get, has a higher chance of getting done correctly because somebody with the knowledge is keeping an eye on it.

[00:37:54] Corbin Clay: Absolutely. Yeah, it's, um, right now we have, we have, um, three or [00:38:00] basically two different virtual calls you can do. We have one's called Expert Call, and that's just more kind of general construction. Um, you have an issue or several, or you're trying to vet a builder or you just want some, you know, a second opinion on the floor plan to see if this works out well.

[00:38:17] Corbin Clay: You want design advice for the exterior finishes. This shingle over this. Should we do standing sea metal or should we do asphalt shingle? Like that's what we like the expert call for. Then we have what's called a cabinetry consult, and this is all@hellowayhome.com. Cool. The cabinetry consult is a little bit longer.

[00:38:37] Corbin Clay: It's 40 minutes and that's where we can do a deep dive and it's usually, you'll appreciate this. It's usually right before the cabinets are ordered. Is generally who we, we see booking these calls to where we're about to spend 80 grand for this whole house worth of cabinets, or 50 or 120 or whatever the case is.

[00:38:57] Corbin Clay: Can we just double check everything? [00:39:00] Make sure you know that basically, um, is any way to save money. Are these finishes done properly? Does this configuration make sense? We have a blind corner cabinet. Is there enough clearance? Like Yeah,

[00:39:13] Eric Goranson: we, yeah. The dish dishwasher is gonna hit the blind corner of the lazy Susan.

[00:39:18] Eric Goranson: You put in a French door refrigerator, it's up against the wall. It's not gonna open up. And you're never gonna see those crispers.

[00:39:24] Corbin Clay: Exactly, exactly this. Just make sure someone's seen a million times, make sure it's done properly. This is when we can identify potential issues on. You know, the cabinet maker that, you know, that provided these drawings that we've been working with said that he doesn't use this finish.

[00:39:41] Corbin Clay: He uses Ollie's Oil. And it's like, okay, that's a little concerning, not the most durable finish, and then we can learn, you know, so, so that's the cabinetry console. But then we just launched, what we find is we'd have these, these conversations with homeowners, but they would've so many concerns and issues, and they'd be excited about their [00:40:00] project and they wanna talk about this.

[00:40:01] Corbin Clay: Yep. So you just have like a follow up question or two. 'cause a lot of the time we'd say, okay, ask your, ask your cabinet maker, what type of coatings do they use? And I was like, and then just, just shoot me an email with what the answer is. And that'll really kind of tell us what our next steps are. Well then we'd get three emails and five emails and 10 emails.

[00:40:19] Corbin Clay: And I'd say, okay, this, this needs like, there's obviously follow ups. So now we just launched what we call our project partner. And it's a monthly subscription. It's unlimited texting during business hours, unlimited texting with your expert. In addition to however many video calls we need to do a blue tape walkthrough to say like, Hey, in, instead of, let's just FaceTime you quick.

[00:40:42] Corbin Clay: Exactly how I used to do with my friends and family to where now that's a.

[00:40:51] Corbin Clay: 25 questions over the course of, of three months or six months, or you're starting a new build? A lot of the time we get involved usually [00:41:00] right after the architect has been brought on to where like the drawings we're, we're, we're almost home with the drawings. Um, so now we're vetting builders. We're, you know, what should we ask them here?

[00:41:11] Corbin Clay: The.

[00:41:20] Corbin Clay: On demand expert that lives on your

[00:41:22] Eric Goranson: cell phone. Man, that is smart and such a need out there because there are so many people out there kind of navigating in the dark, doing the best they can. But, um, until you get burned many times you don't know what you don't know exactly.

[00:41:36] Corbin Clay: That's what, um, that's what, so how so many of these introductory calls start off with,

[00:41:49] Corbin Clay: You were lost. We just don't know. We didn't know what decision to make. We don't know who to trust. We go on YouTube and do this, and we go to these Facebook groups and ask a question, and there's 20 answers. [00:42:00] Three. Three of which are toxic, 10 of which are saying this. And then the other ones are saying this.

[00:42:05] Corbin Clay: And, and it's just like, so we're right back where we started. Um, so we're just happy to have found you guys. And it's like, well, great. 'cause yeah, we got you now. Like we're, we're here to advocate only for you. And, um, yeah, it's working out really great. So I appreciate your interest very much and your advocacy because you, you know, as well as

[00:42:27] Corbin Clay: that's need as.

[00:42:32] Eric Goranson: It's crazy out there. And, uh, as things get more complex and money gets tighter, you know, it means, uh, the chance of bad decisions goes even worse out there because people are trying to save money and they don't know what they don't know. So I appreciate what you're doing out there for the public and for homeowners and stuff.

[00:42:49] Eric Goranson: And uh, that's really where, where I think you can really help steer people into finding the right people to do the job. And that saves people hundreds of thousands of dollars in the [00:43:00] long run.

[00:43:01] Corbin Clay: Absolutely. And then you, yeah, you start getting into schedules to where we can't, we can't go back and redo things because we have our schedule closing and we have a, um, a construction loan to where this needs to kick over to a, a, you know, a fixed mortgage on this date, no question.

[00:43:17] Corbin Clay: Or unfortunately, like your, like your, your colleague or your, your friend that had the, the botch tile project. I mean, where do you even start? Like, where do you even start? Hopefully he or she has the money, but so many times we hear the story to where it's part of the American dream to own a home. Yeah.

[00:43:41] Corbin Clay: But to not just own a house, but to make it your home. So then you start this process. Let's say we finally saved up. We, we got the, the, the, um, the starter home and we sat in it for a while and now we made a little money on selling that we're gonna build a house. The expectations of the beginning are [00:44:00] set by H G T V and Joanna Gaines and it's all, you know, puppy dogs and picnic baskets, and then there's just, it happens over that slow.

[00:44:07] Corbin Clay: Yes. And it's just the slow erosion of any excitement or optimism you have. Oh. Where you get to the co, the certificate of occupancy and you go, just go away. I just wanna get moved

[00:44:18] Eric Goranson: down. Just get out, please. Just go away. Just get out. Exactly. It

[00:44:20] Corbin Clay: breaks my heart, so it's like, no, we got you. We are here to help because let's keep that, that same excitement and optimism and fulfillment to where after you've moved in, you're sitting there Saturday morning, say before the kids have woken up and you're just having a cup of coffee and you're looking around at your brand new house and you just go, yes.

[00:44:48] Eric Goranson: I love it Corbin. I love it. So how do people track you guys down?

[00:44:52] Corbin Clay: Yeah, so we're at hello way home.com. We also have a Facebook group called Ask a Cabinet Maker, and that's me [00:45:00] personally in there, just giving as much free advice as we can. Um, sometimes, you know, we can only, we can only do so much just through exchanging Facebook comments.

[00:45:09] Corbin Clay: So now,

[00:45:15] Corbin Clay: I I need to ask you 25 more questions before I can give any type of actionable, valuable advice. Exactly. So you'll see me, you'll see me, um, pitching my home quite a bit in the group, but for the most part, yeah, that, that's a great group. We give a ton of free advice there. Um, we're almost of the socials, uh, so yeah, hella way home com's probably the best place.

[00:45:36] Corbin Clay: And then have a great blog as well. But yeah, hello home com. Then you can, you can get everywhere else from there.

[00:45:42] Eric Goranson: Perfect brother. Hey, thanks for coming on today, man. I love what you're doing out there and I'm excited to see this thing grow 'cause I think there's a huge need for it.

[00:45:49] Corbin Clay: Uh, I agree and I appreciate your, your support and, and advocacy and excitement.

[00:45:54] Corbin Clay: It means a lot.

[00:45:55] Eric Goranson: Thanks brother. I'm Eric, chief and you've been listening to Around the House.[00:46:00]