Show Notes
This week, we’ll show you how to build the outdoor kitchen of your dreams with simple modular blocks, reveal insider secrets to picking paint colors like a pro, and tackle the challenge of transforming rooms that feel beyond repair. Plus, get answers to home improvement questions to make your next DIY home improvement project a success!
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Painting: New hue? Make your project pop with pro tips for choosing the right paint colors.
- Outdoor Kitchens: Stack and sizzle by building an outdoor kitchen with DIY modular blocks.
- Saving Space: Take space-saving steps to make hopeless rooms salvageable.
Top Questions & Answers
- Adding Bathroom: Where is the best place to add a second bathroom? Keri would get more ROI with a bathroom on the second floor instead of the basement.
- Basement Water: Randall’s basement got flooded and still gets damp. He gets advice about having vents in the crawlspace and improving drainage outside the house.
- Worms: Lillian is bothered by all the worms that keep getting into the indoor patio after it rains. We wouldn’t try to eliminate them because they’re beneficial to the soil.
- Ceiling Leak: Vincent’s not sure where the metal roof is leaking through the ceiling. He gets tips on finding the roof leak, using a sealant, and priming and painting the ceiling.
- HVAC: How hard is it to install air conditioning? Courtney should keep the very efficient baseboard heating, and adding A/C ductwork is not terribly difficult.
Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 00:00:00 – 00:0 | ANNOUNCER: The MoneyPit is presented by RumbleStone by PaveStone and Super Flapper by Fluidmaster. |
| 00:00:30 | TOM: Now here are Tom and Leslie. Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:00:38 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:00:40 | TOM: What are you working on this fine fall weekend? If it’s your house, you’re in exactly the right place because that’s what we do every day. We help homeowners just like you. We help apartment dwellers just like you. If you live in a condo, you are welcome as well. Whatever type of project you’re doing around your house, we would love to help if you’ve got a challenge. So if you got stuck in the middle of one, you don’t know how to start, you’re having trouble picking a color, maybe you have a heating system that just flunked out on you and now it’s getting cold, worst possible time, whatever’s on your to-do list, you have a chance right now to put it on our to-do list by reaching out with your questions. Just go to MoneyPit.com slash ask. Or better yet, call us. That’s 1-888-Money-Pit. Coming up on today’s show, if you love cooking outdoors, we do and we do it year round, but building an outdoor kitchen might be on what I call your someday list. Those projects that you hope to tackle someday, well, that day might come sooner than you think thanks to a new type of affordable modular brick that makes building fire pits and benches and even a full outdoor kitchen as simple as stacking blocks. We’re going to tell you all about it. |
| 00:01:47 | LESLIE: All right. All right. Let’s get started. |
| 00:01:51 | LESLIE: Let’s go. All right. So that’s the first thing we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about your home. We know that you’ve obviously been a fan of the home and the home of your living room. Well, it’s a great place for you. So we’re going to share some tricks of the trade to making a winning choice when it comes to paint every time. |
| 00:02:02 | TOM: And you guys have a room in your home that feels like a total lost cause? Well, you are definitely not alone, because according to a recent survey, half of all Americans believe at least one room in their home is unsalvageable. We’re going to share solutions to help clean the slate in just a bit. |
| 00:02:17 | LESLIE: But first, our focus is you. We want to know what you want to know, so if there’s a DIY project on your to-do list, let us help you make it a DIY done project. Whatever it is you are working on, we are here to lend a hand in this perfect home improvement season. We love the autumn, so let’s get out there working. Let us know how we can help. |
| 00:02:37 | TOM: That’s right, because we make DIY doable. We’ve got clear tips and advice to help you get your projects done. Reach out to us right now, 1-888-Money-Pit, or call us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:02:50 | CALLER: We’ve got Kari on the line who’s looking to add a bathroom, a second one. But where is the best spot? Kari, what’s going on? We have a house that’s from 1912. We have a vacant area in the basement that has just some storage. And then we have a partially finished attic space. So our bedroom used to be up there, and we have a huge open space up there. And my husband and I are wanting to add a second bathroom. |
| 00:03:13 | TOM: Okay. |
| 00:03:14 | CALLER: We’re not sure if we should be… Okay. We’re not sure if we should be… You know, which area we should be doing it. Like, is it better to pump or let gravity… |
| 00:03:23 | TOM: Yeah. How does gravity play into this is your question? Well, I would take a step back from that, and I would think, if it was me, I would think more about the real estate value of the house. And I would suggest that having a bathroom on the second floor is probably going to be more attractive to potential future buyers than having a bathroom in the basement. The basement is more of a nice-to-have thing. And if it’s a big rec room and if it’s a big… If it’s a big family area, and that’s almost like, I hate to call it this, but it’s almost like it’s a luxury to have a basement bathroom. In terms of the plumbing, it’s not a problem. You know, we have the technology. |
| 00:03:57 | LESLIE: Up or down, we can make it happen. We can make it happen. |
| 00:04:00 | TOM: We can move that sewage whichever way it has to go. And obviously, upstairs, you have a traditional plumbing, but in the basement, you would use something called a lift pump. And essentially, it’s kind of like a sealed sump pump in a way, but much more heavy-duty, and it grinds up waste, and then it pumps it up until it can catch up. So, you know, it’s kind of like a lift pump in a way, but much more heavy-duty, and it pumps it up until it can catch the drain line out of the house, which is generally, you know, not too terribly high, but, you know, we could do either way. But I think if it was me and Leslie, you tell me what you think, but I’m thinking having it upstairs, especially if it was potentially, if it was or could potentially be like the master bedroom, that would be like an essential part of the suite, you know? |
| 00:04:35 | LESLIE: I mean, it’s interesting because, you know, we’ve been looking to move, and I really want my own bathroom in the bedroom, and, you know, when that’s not an option, and then they’re like, oh, look, here’s this beautiful bathroom in the basement, and you’re like, oh, that’s awesome, but I don’t want to go all the way to the basement. I want my own. I want to go right here. So, I mean, truly, if that’s going to be like your main hangout space, not your only option, then do it there. But for value of the home and resale value, that second floor is really going to work because everybody’s living there. You’re going to argue over who gets to shower. I mean, all the things that happen that you have not yet encountered are going to happen, so avoid them by having that second bath there. |
| 00:05:13 | CALLER: Perfect advice. I didn’t think about any of that stuff. I really appreciate that. That makes absolute perfect sense. |
| 00:05:18 | TOM: Glad we were able to help you out, and good luck with the project, and call us back if you have more questions anytime. |
| 00:05:23 | CALLER: All right. We appreciate you guys. |
| 00:05:24 | TOM: All right. Take care, Carrie. |
| 00:05:26 | LESLIE: Heading over to West Virginia where we’ve got Randall on the line. What is going on at your money pit? |
| 00:05:32 | CALLER: Nothing a whole lot. I just got flooded about five months ago. But I’m dealing with that. |
| 00:05:36 | CALLER: Oh, Terrible. |
| 00:05:38 | CALLER: So, you know, the house was kind of tore up. So my question was, I’ve lived in this house for 24 years roughly, but the basement has never been vented, and I’ve never really had a problem with it. So should I vent it now? |
| 00:05:54 | TOM: Now, when you say basement, are you talking about a full basement, or are you talking about a crawl space? |
| 00:05:58 | CALLER: This is a full basement, but it’s like half underground, half above ground. |
| 00:06:03 | TOM: Yeah. Well, you don’t vent a space like that. You only put vents in a crawl space, not in a basement. |
| 00:06:07 | CALLER: For y’all. |
| 00:06:08 | TOM: So, I mean, it does feel damp occasionally. |
| 00:06:11 | CALLER: Okay. |
| 00:06:12 | TOM: So let’s talk about that, because that’s the heart of the matter. So there’s a couple of things that you can do. First of all, you mentioned flooding, and if that happened during heavy rain and you got more humidity, more dampness, or any kind of leak in that space when that happened, that has everything to do with the drainage around your house, starting with the gutters. If they’re not clean, if they’re not extended, those downspouts have to be cleaned up. They have to be way out away from the foundation, not the two feet that most people have, but I’m talking about six, seven, eight feet, so that the water moves away from the foundation. Keeping that water away as much as possible will definitely have an impact on drying out that basement space. But if you want to dehumidify it further, what you could do is install a dehumidifier in that space. Now, there are the sort of the portable kind, where you have like a tray that fills up with water. You don’t want that. There are more professional versions, more heavy-duty versions, where they can be suspended from the ceiling, and they pull the moisture out based on the humidistat, and then they automatically pump the water outside. And that’s what I have in my basement to help me with some of the humidity issues that we have. Even though my drainage outside is perfect, it’s just a very sandy, damp kind of a soil, and I got a really old house, so the moisture does make itself known in that basement space. So I have a good, solid humidifier hung from the ceiling that does a good job of dehumidifying it, and it does a good job keeping it drier. But you don’t have to put vents in it. That’s not going to help you here. What you want to do is make sure the drainage is right, and then dehumidify what’s left. |
| 00:07:40 | CALLER: Okay. I mean, it’s just a little damp down there. There’s never any standing water or anything. It just seems damp when you go down there. |
| 00:07:48 | TOM: I hear you. But putting a vent in is not going to change anything. |
| 00:07:52 | CALLER: It’s not going to change. Okay, then I won’t bother with it. All right. |
| 00:07:56 | TOM: Well, good luck with that project. Thank you. Thanks so much for calling us. All right. All right. Thank you, sir. Have a good day. |
| 00:08:01 | LESLIE: You know, we love hearing from our listeners, and if you want to make our day, leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. |
| 00:08:07 | TOM: You know, it really helps us know what we’re doing right and how we can improve our show for you. So just go to MoneyPit.com slash review, MoneyPit.com slash review, and you might even win a copy of our book. Hey, here’s a reason to reach out. Have you ever noticed that your toilet just runs and runs or even flushes all by itself? That can be really freaky, but the reason it does that is because you’re using your super flapper because you have a leaking flush valve. Well, we’ve got a solution, and we’re giving it away today on the show. It’s the new Super Flapper from Fluidmaster. It stops noisy running toilets from wasting water and flushing your cash down the drain, and it fits both two-inch and three-inch toilet flush valves, and it fits almost every toilet imaginable. We’ve got a set of three, which is worth 45 bucks going out to one lucky listener. Make that you. Reach out to us with your questions because the new Fluidmaster Super Flapper is available at Home Depot for $14. 98, but we’re going to give away a set of three to one listener drawing at random. You can actually do all of the toilets in your house. Upgrade all of them. Do it once, do it right, and you won’t have to do it again. So make that you. Call us right now with your questions at 1-888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:09:14 | LESLIE: Heading to the beautiful Florida Keys where we’ve got Lillian on the line, and you’re dealing with some worms in the patio. |
| 00:09:19 | CALLER: What’s going on? I’m calling in reference to some worms that we keep getting into our screened-in patio that we seem to have here in the Florida Keys. And I’m not sure what to do about them. I tried different sprays to try to keep them out, and nothing is working. |
| 00:09:36 | TOM: Leslie, I don’t think this is just a Florida problem. I’ve seen this in my own garage here in the Northeast. Have you ever seen the worms come up after heavy rain and get into your patio or your sidewalks, your driveway, that kind of place? |
| 00:09:47 | LESLIE: Oh, for sure. My goodness. They just seem to find their way out of the soil, I think, just because it gets so wet. |
| 00:09:52 | TOM: And that’s exactly right. That’s why they do it, because worms actually breathe through their skin. So when you have a heavy rain, they need to get oxygen. They do that by coming up out of the lawn, out of the dirt, and very often will crawl right up on the patio, which is kind of like committing worm suicide, because then they get baked by the sun or stepped on by us or by pets. But the thing is, worms are really beneficial in the soil. So I think it’s just something you have to learn to live with. I wouldn’t try to do anything to stop worms from enjoying all the soil. It’s unfortunate that they have this behavior where they come up into the patios and the garages and the sidewalks. But for everyone that comes up, I’m sure there are many, many more that are in the soil, helping it become rich and organic and supporting our lawns and our gardens in the process. |
| 00:10:37 | LESLIE: Well, outdoor kitchens are a growing trend, and for good reason. If you’re big on summer barbecues, but you’re tired of running back and forth from the kitchen to the grill, an outdoor kitchen is the perfect way to put prep, cooking, and cleanup all in one place while keeping you close to the party. Yeah. But if this is a project that you’ve been putting off, there is an easy way to build a complete outdoor kitchen yourself using stackable blocks. Yep. |
| 00:11:02 | TOM: It’s a product called RumbleStone, and it’s made by PaveStone. Now, these blocks look like sort of rustic stones, and they come in kits that stack sort of like Legos. I mean, they’re modular. They can be used to build all sorts of popular outdoor features. So think about maybe building a fire pit or a grill enclosure or a planter or even a complete outdoor kitchen. Now, the process to build with these RumbleStone blocks is pretty simple. You start by laying out and setting your first row of blocks on a concrete patio. And from there, the next rows are stacked right on top of each other, and there’s no need for mortar in between, which is one of the reasons this is such an easy way to build an outdoor kitchen. You just run a bead of Quikrete Advanced Polymer Construction Adhesive between the stones. Yeah. |
| 00:11:45 | LESLIE: And you know what’s awesome is that the RumbleStone blocks, they’re available in kits as well as individual blocks that you can use for traditional pavements. And you can use them for projects like patios, walls, even landscape borders. Quikrete also has a step-by-step video of a beautiful outdoor kitchen made with RumbleStone and then topped with a concrete countertop. It’s available online, so you can get lots of ideas and great information out there so you can start these projects yourself. |
| 00:12:09 | TOM: RumbleStone’s are a great way to build a beautiful outdoor kitchen yourself. Learn more at pavestone.com. |
| 00:12:15 | LESLIE: Vincent, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today? |
| 00:12:18 | CALLER: I have got an issue with a leaking ceiling. I’m not sure if it’s coming from my roof or from my air conditioners. It doesn’t do it all the time, but sometimes when it rains, it comes down, and then other times when it’s not raining, it comes down. |
| 00:12:39 | CALLER: So we’re kind of at a loss. We’ve got a metal roof on it. It’s an older, structured house. Right. I’m thinking maybe the drip edge, going where it goes into the guttering, you know, but like I said, I’ve not had any luck. No. Yeah. I think I have it fixed, and then it’ll come in the rain, and it comes in again. |
| 00:12:58 | TOM: It comes in again. Right. So what have you been doing to fix it? Have you been sealing the seams in the metal roof? Yeah. |
| 00:13:03 | CALLER: We got up and put some caulking and stuff along where the edges and stuff was, and it’s supposed to be a 20-year roof, and we’ve only had it on the house for probably about 80 Well, wait a minute. |
| 00:13:16 | TOM: This is a metal roof. It’s supposed to be a 100-year roof. I mean, metal roofs will last a long time. Here’s what I would do. I would try to make it leak. So I would go up there. Can you get up there in that area with a hose? Yeah. Okay. So I would try to make it leak. So I would try, you know, a normal light-duty rainfall when it falls down from the top and see if that does anything. And then I would try some directional pressure against those seams and see if I can figure out what type of driving rainstorm is coming in here, because I suspect it is due to the rain driving in on those, and it might be trapped in there, and that’s why it maybe comes out days later after a rainfall. I don’t know. But I think what you’re going to have to do is to try to figure out what part of that rain is coming in. You know, you can’t really tell what part of the roof is coming in when you’re just You can’t really tell if that roof is coming in or not even. And then once you do, if you’ve already gone the caulk route, I would suggest taking apart that section of the roof and then putting it back together with the proper sealants to make sure you get it done once and for all. |
| 00:14:06 | CALLER: Right. Okay. |
| 00:14:07 | TOM: Okay. |
| 00:14:08 | CALLER: All right. That’s the way to approach that. We’ve got to repair the sealant, but we’re not going to repair the sealant until we get to the air. |
| 00:14:15 | TOM: Yeah, no, you don’t want to do that until you know you’ve got this leak done. And by the way, when you do repair that sealant, make sure you use primer on it, because if you don’t prime over leak stains, they’re going to come right through the finished paint, okay? |
| 00:14:27 | CALLER: Yeah, actually, I think what we’re going to do is put up a lip siding, or like a, not a paneling, but it’s a plank that will go up, and get rid of the popcorn that’s up there right now. |
| 00:14:41 | TOM: Oh, yeah, well, listen, you know the four most expensive words in home improvement while you’re at it. Yeah. All right, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:14:52 | LESLIE: Courtney in Pennsylvania is on the line with a question about adding air conditioning to her home. This is a biggie, and it could be a big, expensive project. Tell us about it. |
| 00:15:00 | CALLER: I guess I’m wondering, if like the best way to do that, we have a Cape Cod house. We’ll need to put in ducting, but there has been some talk from the contractors that had come in, talk about the difficulty based on like the structure of the house, and also if I should consider taking out the baseboard heaters, and just doing like all one system for heating and AC. |
| 00:15:32 | TOM: You know, Leslie, I hate hearing that contractors are advising you to take out a baseboard hot water heating system. |
| 00:15:41 | LESLIE: Which is the best heating ever. |
| 00:15:43 | TOM: The best ever, most desirable, and I would fire that guy, or if you haven’t hired him yet, I would not let him back in your house, because that is somebody that has no clue what he’s doing. And plus, you know, if you’re worried about the complexity of installing ducts for air conditioning, that becomes far more complex. If you now have to also install ducts to get heat into your house. Now in a Cape Cod house, it’s actually not terribly difficult, because the cool air is going to fall. So you’re going to have your air handler up in that attic space of the Cape Cod. It could be in sort of that crawl space area where it’s like the other side of the knee wall, or somewhere up there, you’re going to have the air handler there. And then you’re going to duct down into the ceiling below. And now if the attic is finished, then yeah, it’s a little more complicated. But again, you would duct right from there. So this is not a terribly complex project. You have to be selective, and you have to be crafty about how you run the ducts. And if you’re worried about having, you know, big ducts there, there’s another type of system that’s called Space Pack. It’s a high velocity, low volume system. And by that I mean it uses ducts that are about three inches in diameter, and it blows air through them really fast. And you don’t see it too often because it’s a more expensive system, but it’s often used in older houses where you don’t have to do a lot of demolition to get the duct work in. But, you know, in our house, we added central AC. When we first took it over, we had about eight window units. And we put in central AC, and it’s an old house. And we just have to be, you know, selective and strategic about how we did that. But I don’t think you should consider for one minute taking out that wonderful baseboard heat, because that’s just the best. |
| 00:17:25 | LESLIE: I mean, it really does. It heats up super quick. It keeps the heat in the room. So if you start to switch to a different type of heat, you’re going to feel it differently. It’s going to not be as warm as you want it to be. I would for sure not change that. |
| 00:17:37 | TOM: Yeah, and it’s also super dry. I mean, forced air heats super dry compared to baseboard heat, which is nice and warm and comfortable. So stick with what you got and add the AC. Well, picking the perfect paint color for your project is a task that often causes undue frustration on the part of DIYers. I mean, sorting through two-inch color chips and trying to imagine how that shade may look in your kitchen is really enough to make your stomach churn. Leading paint manufacturers feel your pain, though, and they want to do everything possible to help you choose the color of your dreams with shades of perfection. |
| 00:18:10 | LESLIE: That’s right. And to help, Sherwin-Williams has just introduced the 2025 Color Mix Forecast, and that’s a yearly trend forecast that’s comprised of 48 hand-selected trending colors to help make your decor dreams a reality. So joining us now with the highlights is Sue Wadden, Director of Color Marketing for Sherwin-Williams. Welcome, Sue. Hi, Leslie. Hi, Tom. How are you? |
| 00:18:33 | TOM: We are great. |
| 00:18:34 | LESLIE: Well, this must be the funnest job, looking at colors all day. Please tell me you also come up with the names. |
| 00:18 | SUE WADDEN: I do. I do all those things. That is so fun. I really have the best job ever, ever. I love it. |
| 00:18:47 | TOM: Man, the names alone are just amazing. I have a local Sherwin-Williams store that I visit often because of all my remodeling that I’m always doing. And just to go through those. Those colors, and trying to remember what name goes with what color, and trying to pick a color that somehow is closely connected with the name you end up with, it’s got to be a bit of a challenge. |
| 00:19 | SUE: It is. And, you know, what people don’t really know is we’re a 157-year-old paint company, so you really can’t duplicate color names. So anytime there’s something new, you have to kind of scrub through all of those historic names to make sure it’s got a unique name, color, description. I mean, it’s more of a challenge than you think. |
| 00:19:27 | LESLIE: Oh, I imagine it’s a huge challenge. |
| 00:19 | SUE: Yeah. You know, we always get compared, like, oh, it’s like naming cosmetics or nail polish colors, but it’s not really the same because they have a lot more freedom. We have to, like, really, really think about the colors to make sure that they last the test of time and make sense. You know, colors like emoji and, you know, 18 years ago didn’t make sense. Is emoji yellow? Yes, right? Okay. So I wanted to try a name that that was that color. And people were like, well, what happens when emojis aren’t around anymore? Nobody’s going to know what that color means. So it’s more complicated than it seems, but it’s certainly fun. |
| 00:20:03 | TOM: All right. So folks often get frustrated when they have to pick a color. I know that I have spent probably way too much time staring at color chips in my local Sherwin-Williams store trying to get that perfect shade of, like, linen for an older house that we were working on. Any tips for helping to make this easier on consumers? Especially when they feel unsure or uncertain about their own sort of design choices? |
| 00:20 | SUE: You know, there’s always a couple ways in to select color. People come into our store, and they know exactly what they’re looking for. And that’s easy because they can go up to the selector and make a choice, and it’s usually the right choice. Where it gets more complicated is when people don’t have any idea what they are looking for. And so that’s why a trend report is a valuable tool. You mentioned our ColorMix forecast. It’s kind of our trend season now. And that’s a guidepost on what’s coming. So when you walk into your favorite furniture shop or, you know, your favorite retailer, you can know that the colors we’re talking about at Sherwin-Williams are the colors that you’re going to see when you shop. And it’s just a way to help kind of curate that selection process down to something that’s a little more tangible. And so we use this forecast to really help consumers shop color in a new and interesting way. It’s easy to kind of default to a linen one. It’s easy to default to a white one, which is safe. You know, whites are often our most popular colors because people can understand them. It’s a little bit more of a risk to take on maybe a red or a blue or a green even. And so a forecast report sort of helps with that. |
| 00:21:37 | LESLIE: And do you find that people kind of resonate to the – do you find that people sort of gravitate towards these trends because it’s being suggested to them? Or do you think that the colors kind of bring up a certain feeling in them? That makes them feel more comfortable with the choice? |
| 00:21 | SUE: I think it’s both those things because they can visualize the color. You know, we shoot photography. We create this beautiful artwork. We’ve got a great website. So people can visualize the color in a space and then sort of interpret it and get inspired for their own space, which is really valuable. You know, seeing a color on a wall, even in a photograph, inspires confidence. And so that’s a big part of what we try to do because it’s about creative expression. We want people to be excited about their homes. Try something new. Don’t just default to the same sort of, you know, beautiful but risk-averse color. We want people to take a chance because that’s really what 2025 is going to be about. We’ve talked about color reemerging and that’s where we’re moving. |
| 00:22:35 | TOM: You know, I love what you’ve done with your website, the fact that you can go look at a color and then you could look at that color in a living room, in a bedroom, in a kitchen. You can see all the colors that complement that in terms of choosing trim and that sort of thing. And just with a few clicks, you can change that color. In that same room, and I’ve done it where I’ve had multiple tabs open on my computer just going across three or four different versions of the color for a particular room. And it really helps narrow it down because when you see them side by side, it really starts to show you, oh, this one’s a little more brown. This one’s a little more blue or whatever it is right in front of you on the screen. And the rendition may not be perfect because it depends on so many other factors, your connection speed, your display, that sort of thing. But it really helps narrow down the choices, right? |
| 00:23 | SUE: Yes, definitely. And then I would say you should take it to the next step by getting a color chip. Order online or go run into a store and then grab a couple chips sort of in that color family that you’re narrowing down to. Bring them home. Look at them in different times of day, different areas of the room because color can really have different characteristics, daytime, nighttime, west-facing, east-facing. So start with the digital experience and then grab a chip and take it home. |
| 00:23:44 | TOM: We should tell folks you also have not just the small, I guess it’s about a two-by-two chip, but you have larger ones up to what looks like, I don’t know, maybe it’s like 12-by-12 or 8-by-12 or something, 8-by-8. It’s big. So you can order these and really have a wide sample of the paint so that you can put it on the walls in different rooms and see how it changes with the lighting and such. I think that’s really smart as well. Definitely. |
| 00:24 | SUE: And people always ask us to see the chip represented in a bigger way. Maybe they don’t want to paint a wet sample, but they want a repositionable chip. So those larger 8-by-8 chips are kind of that experience, which they’ve been really popular. |
| 00:24:21 | LESLIE: I mean, it is great because you can put it near a lamp, you can put it near a window. So it’s like you do get a sense of what it’s like in all areas of the room. Whereas if you are physically painting a swath on the wall or a section, you’re kind of just stuck with that spot. So it’s like I love the larger chips. The problem is I love all the colors of the chips. So then I end up going to like patchwork things. It’s like a nightmare. When I was a kid, I was probably responsible for painting. I was responsible for a lot of inventory of paint chips missing from the local Sherwin-Williams because I would take them home. I would make craft projects out of them. They were like my most favorite supply. |
| 00:24 | SUE: You know, I will tell you this, and I’ll probably get admonished for saying this, but oftentimes designers, they love the larger size. And they’ll just take blue painter’s tape and tack them up and then keep them for later. So instead of taking the adhesive back off and sticking them on the wall, they’ll use their own tape. So that way they have the chips for longer. Oh, that’s smart. That’s great. |
| 00:25:20 | TOM: That’s awesome. So what’s next for Sherwin-Williams, Sue? |
| 00:25 | SUE: You know, I’m always trying to reinvent how we look at color, how we think about color. Color is, you know, such an emotional connection for people in the home. I hate that anybody is feeling overwhelmed by that experience. So we just try to create new tools, new experiences, new inspiration so people can have the confidence to bring color in. |
| 00:25:43 | TOM: Well, you can head over to your local Sherwin-Williams store. Or you can go to Sherwin-Williams.com and get expert advice on color and finishes for all your home improvement projects. You can also listen to the Color Mixology podcast by Sherwin-Williams anywhere you listen to podcasts. That’s right. Love it. Sue Wadden for Sherwin-Williams. Thank you so much for stopping by the Money Pit and for all the great work you guys do to make color selection easy for all of our users. Excellent. Well, thanks for having me. Hey. If one of the projects you want to take on this weekend is to stop your toilet from running and wasting lots and lots of water, we can help because we’re giving away a set of three new super flappers from Fluidmaster. Now, these super flapper valves will replace both 2-inch or 3-inch toilet flush valves, and they fit pretty much every toilet imaginable. They are super easy to install. They’re available at Home Depot for $14.98 each. But we got a set of three going out to one listener drawing at random. So maybe you can update all the toilets in your house and never have runny toilets again. Thank that you. Give us a call right now. These are going out to one listener. The number here is 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 1-888-666-3974. |
| 00:26:57 | LESLIE: So do you have a room in your home that feels like a complete lost cause? Well, you’re definitely not alone, guys. You know, according to a recent survey, half of Americans believe at least one room in their home is unsalvageable. And what’s their main issue with these rooms? Clutter. Now, the most challenging spaces tend to be closets and garages with, you know, 33% of people struggling to keep their closet organized and 24% admitting that they have items without a proper place. I always find that I organize the closets probably twice a year, and I don’t know what happens between the closet organization and, like, two weeks’ time. Yeah. But, Boyd, is it difficult to organize? Is it difficult to keep them in that state? |
| 00:27:43 | TOM: Well, it turns out it’s not just about a lack of space. Many people feel cramped in their homes with 34% saying they simply don’t have enough room for everything. But here is the good news. No room is truly unsalvageable if you take the right approach. You know, a huge part of the problem for a lot of us is simply having too much stuff. So it can be hard to let go. But purging items that you no longer use or need is really the first step to reach that goal. And if you don’t, you’re going to be claiming those rooms. Organizing experts often recommend starting small, one drawer or one corner at a time, to make the task less overwhelming. |
| 00:28:21 | LESLIE: Yeah, because if you don’t start small and, say, you just kind of dump everything out of that closet, you will very quickly become overwhelmed, and you’ll kind of just give up in the middle of this giant mess that you’ve created. So if you can do it small, you can conquer that and then move on to the next. Now, another trick. Consider more space. Think about a multi-functional furniture. You know, a piece of furniture that doubles as a storage item. So think about an ottoman with compartments or beds with drawers underneath. This way, you’re not just organizing, but you’re also creating more usable space. Now, let’s not forget about the garage. It is often the place where everything gets kind of dumped. So wall-mounted storage systems, hooks, ceiling racks. These are great for keeping things off of the floor. It opens up space for tools, seasonal items, or perhaps get this novel idea, the car. Remember? The car is supposed to go in the garage. Wow. |
| 00:29:19 | TOM: I never thought of that. |
| 00:29:20 | LESLIE: I’ve never put mine in my garage, just so you know. |
| 00:29:23 | TOM: I never have either. But, I mean, my excuse is that I have a shop in my garage. So we all use the space the way we like to use it. But, I mean, it is all about taking those small steps to make a big impact. So who knows? That unsalvageable room might just become your new favorite space. |
| 00:29:39 | LESLIE: Tracy wrote in to Team Money Pit asking, Should I buy a car? Should I take off wallpaper on top of plaster completely? Or should I just sheetrock over it? I mean, I think this is a it depends kind of question. It’s like what condition is your plaster in? What condition is the wallpaper in? How much of an effort are you looking to put into this project? |
| 00:29:59 | TOM: How many layers of wallpaper do you have? Yeah. I mean, if the plaster is in bad shape, I mean, if it’s cracked, if it’s loose, if it’s physically separating from the plaster lath that held it, you know, then I think it’s kind of a non-starter. And the wallpaper decision is really pretty much made for you at that point. It’s not savable, right? I mean, because you don’t want to try to put good wallpaper over an unstable wall surface. |
| 00:30:24 | LESLIE: Yeah. I mean, it’s true. It’s like if the surface is unstable, don’t spend the time trying to remove all that paper and instead sheetrock over it, sort of reinforce everything. You’re going to have to extend a couple of things out, door jams perhaps, trimming, baseboards, outlets. But that’s definitely the better approach if that plaster is kind of not really holding on to the lath as it should be. Now, if it is, there are some ways that you can try to remove that paper using a paper tiger, steaming, fabric softener and water. You know, there’s a lot of tricks of the trade to kind of dampen that wallpaper and loosen up the adhesive and then you can kind of peel it off. But I’m telling you, it’s going to take a little bit. If your goal is painting, you got to make sure you give it a really good cleaning so that you don’t get unevenness in the sheen from adhesive that may have stayed on. So let’s think about it. If you want to send us some more info, we can dig a little deeper. |
| 00:31:15 | TOM: Well, the three R’s, reduce, reuse and recycle are the key to a green lifestyle. Leslie has tips to help with one green table melding project that delivers all three in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word. Leslie, take it away. Yeah. |
| 00:31:30 | LESLIE: And you know what? This truly is about repurposing. And this is a really great trick of the trade to just turn unusual items that you’ve already got around. You know, you can turn things that you didn’t have around the house into functional and pretty darn good-looking side tables. There’s so many things that you can use that, you know, for a different purpose than what they were intended for. So for example, those glazed ceramic garden stools, I mean, they were the rage ages ago. They’re still available at all sorts of decor centers and crafting shops, even discount shops. And they look great as a little unexpected side table, even in a bathroom. You know, it’s a great spot to kind of put a candle, an orchid, a rolled-up towel, it’s just something unusual and bright and poppy that you might not see in an interior space. Bring it on in from the garden. Clean it up. Use it there. Rain drums. If you’ve got a cool vintage wire basket. Old suitcases. Heck, even old musical instruments, they work very well. You obviously just have to kind of figure out how to stabilize this item that you’ve found, put it on a base maybe, stack something up, secure them together. And then to complete this table transformation, you can get a piece of tempered glass and use that as a table top. So it’s really fun. If you find a cool piece and you’re kind of stuck and don’t know what to do with it, shoot us an email or send us a text or whatever. Send us the picture. Let us know, like, I’ve got this cool thing and I want it to be a table. We can figure out how to do that if you get stuck. But I promise you, once those creative juices start flowing, you’re going to be making some really cool, unique stuff for your house. |
| 00:32:59 | TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Coming up next time on the program, do you guys know the difference between mold and mildew? I mean, look, both can be pretty similar. You can have pretty unwelcome guests in your home, but each requires a different approach to handle. We’ll break down how to spot the signs of mold and mildew and how to prevent them from coming back on the next edition of The Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:33:19 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:33:20 | TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself. |
| 00:33:22 | LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone. |
| (Note: The above referenced transcript is AI-Generated, Unedited and Unproofed and as such may not accurately reflect the recorded audio. Copyright 2024 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No portion of this transcript or audio file may be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of Squeaky Door Productions, Inc.) |
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