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Interior Design Talk w/ Doni Douglas
5 Plays1 year ago
This week we're joined by our friend, colleague, and serial collaborator Jaclyn of Doni Douglas Design.
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Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest
00:00:01
Speaker
The American Craftsman Podcast is sponsored by Hayfla. Hayfla offers a wide range of products and solutions for the woodworking and furniture making industries. From hinges and drawer slides to connectors and dowels, sandpaper, wood glue, shop carts, and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as looks LED lighting and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com.
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome to the show.
Jaclyn's First Encounter with Rob
00:00:50
Speaker
Yeah. This is so cool. Rob, why don't you introduce our guest? Ah, with us we have Jaclyn from Donnie Douglas Designs. Longtime friend and colleague. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Keep going. Well, I don't want to embarrass you. How long have we known each other?
00:01:15
Speaker
When did you send me that like hater DM? I was going to say it would probably be good for you to I think we've we've given our side of the whatever the backstory of meeting.
00:01:29
Speaker
But we'd like to hear yours. I think it was probably Rich was still with us, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's, uh, it's gotta be almost three years. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. Well, it's all started on Instagram. Jeff sent me a very rude direct message and was like, Hey, that Walnut built in looks cool, but why didn't you just use real Walnut? And I was like,
00:01:53
Speaker
Go away. It's only worked once so far, that message, apparently. Hey, it worked pretty well because I'm still here. Yeah. And then I think from there, I gave you a job to price out and I realized we could work together.
Collaborative Projects and Challenges
00:02:12
Speaker
And that's kind of how it all began. Yeah, we worked on that coffee station.
00:02:19
Speaker
Was that the first one? Oh my gosh. We've done so many projects together that it's pretty wild. The first round of things that we bid were for Salaya, which were like some barn doors. We did the chaise lounges. Oh, and those came out gorgeous. Yeah. They're beautiful.
00:02:39
Speaker
What else do we bid on that? I forget. I think it was like a co-working bank account. Yeah, which you gave to some other guy. He did. He's cheating on you. Technically, I didn't award that to somebody else. That's fair.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, we we've done a lot of work together. Yeah, we have. I mean, you guys have built like a tree. That's right. An 18 foot tree. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We almost nearly didn't get paid for. Right. That almost ended in a lawsuit. There's an entire file in that cabinet over there. It's like like four inches thick.
00:03:15
Speaker
You did a reproduction anti-cabinet that holds an ice maker and a zip water system, which is absolutely wild. The Dutch door for them. Oh my God, that Dutch door is incredible. We did the under stair, cherry, inch and a half cabinet.
00:03:33
Speaker
One of my faves. That banquette there. Yep. The fireplace. The drippy stuff. Oh yeah. The drippy edge. I forget about that all the time. Oh my gosh. And the Star Wars themed, well, sort of. Yeah. The wall unit. Yeah, the wall unit is kind of. That's like where it started and then it kind of went off. Yeah.
00:03:54
Speaker
Wait, let's back up to the drippy edge because I feel like that's a pretty epic project. And we don't have any posted pictures of it. No. Not yet. No.
Social Media Irony
00:04:07
Speaker
Surprisingly, you like we built something like that and expect that to be like to go crazy. Like viral. And yeah, you know, things like that fall flat. And they're like, oh, man, you put a screw into a piece of plywood. Ten million views. Yeah.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, the world is basic, my friends. It's okay. Yeah. Do apologize if you guys are getting a bunch of fuzz. We have fans running because it's 92 degrees outside right now. It's 107 inside. Yeah, which means it's 92 inside. Only Jacqueline's not sweating. She doesn't even perspire, folks. No, I really don't. I'm bionic. I'm actually a robot.
00:04:48
Speaker
By like 8 15 a.m. it's like, smells like a locker room in the shop. What about the bathroom? It's very fresh today. Yeah. Jacqueline inspired a small renovation,
Shop Environment and Journey
00:05:01
Speaker
we'll call it. Cleaning. On the bathroom. We had to do a biannual vacuuming of the cobwebs. Yeah, it was kind of scary in there. Those spiders in this place, we have a lot of spiders and they're big. They're like, no, they're about this big.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, you're welcome. So anybody else who comes in here to pee, you can thank me. Yeah. We've had, uh, one female client, you know, men will be in a five gallon bucket if we have to. Uh, Nancy, our Hamptons client, she's a trooper though. Yeah.
00:05:39
Speaker
One thing though, we do have nice toilet paper and nice soap. That's great. And the toilet's brand new. And a new toilet. There's, you know, that bathroom's on the up and up. You've got a really cool sink in there. New toilet. It just, everything else is terrifying. You're going to want that sink when we replace it. That and these window treatments here are mine. I've already called it, so.
00:06:02
Speaker
These are like right out of like Anchorman. Yeah. They're awesome. Brady Bunch. Has anyone who listens to this podcast seen this room?
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, a couple of people like our buddy Keith came by yesterday, actually, and we did a podcast. Yeah. The guys at RT. Yeah, John. 70s, porno. Yeah. Loveliness. It's like, it looks like a tweed jacket that somebody wore in the 70s. What was that advertising show? Mad. Mad Men. Yes. That's what this was.
00:06:33
Speaker
I mean, you could see where they were smoking in here because there's all kinds of artifacts on the wall. Yeah. That there was like a deer up there. It looks like some kind of plaque. I love it over there. So cool. And so creepy filing cabinet or something right there. Yeah. Yeah. It's all wood paneling. Yeah. You're in a very cool building though. I'm jealous.
00:06:56
Speaker
Bit by bit, I mean, I think in six months we haven't been able to do a lot just because of time and the finances are moving are crazy. But, you know, with the outside getting painted, we've got some sconce, some solar sconce is coming in that we'll put up on the columns and stuff. So we had to get the outside.
00:07:16
Speaker
a little bit buttoned up. You know, the town's been asking us to do a ribbon cutting for six months. It's like, we don't want any, no publicity with the state of the shop right now. It's like, I don't even want. Oh, that's so cute. Yeah. So exciting. We can finally do that. Okay. And then maybe we could start doing something in here. Am I invited to the ribbon cutting? Of course. Okay. You're part of the, you're part of the under the green street umbrella.
00:07:43
Speaker
Thanks, guys.
Humor and Workplace Dynamics
00:07:44
Speaker
You're part of the family here. Why isn't my name on the van, though? It's on the inside. What's so funny about that is, you know, Jeff and I are both married. So we have we have women in our lives. And like that comment doesn't surprise me or shock me in the least. You know, it's like you give and they want more.
00:08:13
Speaker
Not even going to deny that. No. I was like, I don't get an office in here for free. I have to pay you rent. Screw you guys. You guys for that chair right there. Thanks. I'll take this microphone. It looks very expensive. It's like I always do something like that with the wife. You know, it's like, look what I did like that. What about, you know, nice van. What about me?
Future Shop Locations
00:08:32
Speaker
It only has steel wheels. It's pretty fun to think about where we all started together in Rob's backyard, which is still one of my favorite places.
00:08:47
Speaker
It remains untouched for the last six months. Oh my god. Yeah. Is it one of those like after bomb type of scenarios where it just like you guys just left? It is. Yeah. It's not too bad in there though. No, it's just really dusty. That's about it. Like a simmering cup of coffee that was just laid to rest and that was freezing and you have like a sketch. Kind of like that layer of mold on the top. Yeah. Like just a layer of dust on like
00:09:11
Speaker
I'm going to go out there in the fall and like, you know, open the windows and sweep and just, you know, what are you going to do with that space now that you guys are here? Nothing. You know, it's just part of the property, the value of the property. You know, hopefully I'll get to sell the place and somebody will tear it down. And are you moving? No, not yet. But you know, when I retire, I'll move. You're going to move to Keensburg.
00:09:36
Speaker
Oh God, no. It's only up and up. Keensburg's only up and up. So I'm hearing. We keep saying it'll manifest. Yeah. Oh, so it's not true. You just been telling me that. Yeah. Well, I heard a rumor that a New York City ferry is coming to Keensburg. Yeah. I heard that about a lot of towns. Yeah. They've been saying that about Long Branch for, I don't even know, 20 years probably. You would think that a ferry is not that difficult to
00:10:06
Speaker
put somewhere, only because all you really need is what? Like a barge. Just need two docks. And a building. Yeah. Like the one in Belford, which is now Seastreak, which we took a couple of times recently. It's literally just a building, maybe three times the size of this office.
00:10:26
Speaker
three finger piers where two boats can pull in and that's it. And the water is shallow. Yeah. And if you've been on a sea streak, I mean, or if you've seen them pull up to their dock, I mean, they fly into those things. Oh yeah. So it's not like we've got like, you know, some nice entry onto the boat. Like no, you just walk onto the, yeah. That's moving. Yeah.
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, wild. Cool. We were doing some helping out Hayfla with some stuff in the city and going to that lighting class and stuff. So we just took the ferry. It's the easiest way.
00:10:58
Speaker
It's so easy and it's so expensive. You feel really bougie getting off the boat. It was like 96 bucks, I think, for the two of us, round trip. Yeah. When you could take the, the bus. Yeah. For like $2 and 50 cents. I see those people, you know, I pass, I don't even know how many bus stops on the way here in the morning and I'm only five miles away. Um, probably, probably close to a dozen.
00:11:24
Speaker
and be those people. I took the train for about a year and a half.
00:11:30
Speaker
Me too. I took the train from Rutherford a couple of times. I don't mind it. Ferry's the way to go to them. For sure. You can get coffee in the morning. You can get drinks in the afternoon. We did miss the ferry by about five minutes. Yeah. Oh, that's the worst. It was like the worst day of the Canadian wildfire smoke. We're like sitting on the- Is that done yet? Pure 11. No, I don't think so. They say not. They say not.
00:11:57
Speaker
What's the deal with them not wanting anyone's help? No, I thought they were helping them. I thought they were like, we want to do this ourselves. I'm like, well, that's cool unless you're affecting the entire world. You probably should ask for help. Canadian independence. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that I thought that was a thing. Maybe not. I don't know. I don't watch the news. So maybe I saw it on Instagram.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, I did. I heard on the radio they were talking to a couple different like, not smoke jumpers, but whatever they're called. What's a smoke jumper? Like the guys that jump out of planes to like get into the wildfires. What? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, you were going to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to be a smoke jumper.
Accidents and Marketing Creativity
00:12:39
Speaker
Just shut the front door. Yeah. When I was young, I was pretty fearless. Now I'm old and I'm afraid of everything. That grill, there's too much smoke coming out of that grill. He's like, we're going to do a plunge cut, huh? He's like, it's hot in here. Jeff. I don't know if you know, Rob, he ended up in the hospital. I didn't know that. Two stitches there. What's that from?
00:13:02
Speaker
Kickback table saw. Yikes. Yeah, that was a lot of dangerous equipment in here. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's gross. It was, it was, um, that's a serious stitch. That's nine stitches. Oh gosh. It's actually, it's, did you put that on Instagram? We try and get a street big. Yeah. We're trying to win a, a vertical panel saw.
00:13:32
Speaker
So you were like, hey, go get stitches and we'll put on Instagram and that's how we win. Well, on that machine, I don't know if you've seen at Home Depot where they like put a piece of plywood vertical and then they cut it. It's like that, but like a real one, not like some bullshit from Home Depot. Colonial saw is giving one away. It's like a $40,000 saw. And you were like, this is what happens when we don't use Colonial. That's right. That's a great marketing campaign.
00:13:58
Speaker
That's our whole angle. It's should have used a street big. We've done like about 10 of them. So we're pulling out all the stops. We're the only people who have entered, but I did just get an email from colonial saw saying, like advertising the giveaway. So maybe somebody else will.
00:14:17
Speaker
I have a dumb question that I feel like many of your listeners probably know the answer to.
Setting Up Shop: Machinery and Budget
00:14:21
Speaker
How do you know which machines you needed when you opened this lovely shop? Like was there a set of machines that you were like, we need this in order to do X? Or where you're like, these are all the machines we want to buy.
00:14:34
Speaker
That is a good question. Is it? Well, for somebody who's the uninitiated, you know what I mean? And I feel like you have a lot of very expensive equipment, like every, like tens of thousands of dollars, like a car. Yeah. Yeah. In like terms of like in the industrial world, what we have is pretty tame in like a general cabinet shop. It's pretty, we've got a lot of stuff for a small company or just two guys. Yeah. But I mean, like when we started, Rob had a lot of machinery already. Um,
00:15:03
Speaker
Are those machines here? Some of them. Okay. You know, we replaced them as, you know, they either broke or we upgraded. Yeah. Cause I had stuff that was, you know, when Jeff and I got together, it was like 15 years old. Oh, wow. So, but still working and fine. Yeah, but you know, makes your life difficult.
00:15:21
Speaker
Sometimes you get like, I mean, the planer in retrospect, maybe we could have kept it. But yeah, like, just like we do now, when I started, I would just sort of like work a tool price into the job.
00:15:37
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. So, you know, well, if I had this machine, I could do this process. So I'm going to design this job that calls for that. And then you go out and you buy it. So sometimes you have to work on a budget. You don't get the machine you really want. What's a budget, Rob? It's this thing. Gets in the way all the time. It really does. Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
I'd love to hear a client not use the B word. Yeah, that doesn't. I feel like even when a client has a lot of money, they still have a budget. There's still a number that they don't want to spend. Every now and again, you get somebody who's not concerned with the cost. They just want what they want. You run into any of those folks? I feel like they act like, I feel like on the back end,
00:16:35
Speaker
that may be what they're thinking. They're like, I don't really care what this costs, but I'm just gonna ask for a discount because I can. So I know that they can afford it and I know that they don't need to be negotiating, but everybody likes the deal. And I respect that. Why pay more for something when you can get it for less?
00:16:53
Speaker
I'm not like that. Like if I have the money and I know I'm dealing with something that's like, well, I can afford this. Yeah. And it's where I know I'm taking the money out of somebody's pocket. I'll pay for it. Yeah. Yeah. And to avoid the whole
00:17:12
Speaker
But if I can talk less, like not have to have a conversation about like, oh, can you do
Client Negotiations and Perceptions
00:17:17
Speaker
it for this much? And like, well, we could do it for this. Then you go back and forth. It's like, I don't want to do that. I don't need to save $50 that much. Yeah. Or even like, you know, you're spending a hundred thousand. Does 5,000 really matter? Right.
00:17:31
Speaker
No, sometimes. That's the way we felt with the edge band. Yeah. You know, once you got to this, it's like what we were talking about with Keith. Keith works on these really high cell phone towers. So that's not what I thought you were going to say.
00:17:49
Speaker
So after a certain height, you know, you fall, you, you die. So like, like 300 or 500. What's the difference? So for us, the edge band was, you know, 50,000 55. What's the difference? We don't have that money in our pockets.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it's relative, right? Like there are things that I will spend money on that my clients would never spend money on. Or there are things that I think are very valuable and I'm never going to negotiate the price. I just want it or need it. Like antiques. I do that a lot with antiques and vintage furniture. Those are my babies.
00:18:21
Speaker
I usually never negotiate, even though that's a market where you totally can. And I will say dealers also are like, hey, if you come back at this time, like I can give you 40% off. It's like, yeah, but I want it now. Because if I don't take it now, then I may never see it again. But most other people would be like, oh, you know, that's crap. I want something new. And they're willing to pay for that, but they would never pay for like a vintage piece or an antique piece. So I think it just depends on what you, you know, what you value. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:49
Speaker
Like I would never spend $55,000 on a piece of machinery, obviously. It's an investment. Yeah. But that's probably like so exciting to you guys. The hope is that we can turn it into, you know, whatever, 550,000. Whoa. Yeah, true.
00:19:03
Speaker
Actually, we're nearing a million dollars in sales. Are you? Oh my gosh, we need to have a party. It's a better profit margin. So low. We can't afford a party. I have heard that. Gosh, I was listening to a podcast. This is a great podcast. I forget the name. It's so great, but maybe I'll share it later.
00:19:24
Speaker
They mentioned like when you get to a point in your business where you've made the most amount of money, your profit margins are probably the smallest they've ever been.
Business Growth and Market Demands
00:19:32
Speaker
And the year before you hit that major mark was probably your most profitable year. But now you're in this swamp of success, he calls it. One to $3 million is your swamp of success and you need to get out of it as fast as you possibly can. I've got to get another 2 million in sales real quick. Hurry up very quickly.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think Brian from RT was telling a similar story. He wasn't about somebody. Carl from Meridian was saying like years, he's like, yeah, you know, years zero to three, you do really well, you know, and then three to six, it's like you're in this growing pain time where you're trying to grow the business and you have to deal with all the things associated with that, spending all the money.
00:20:12
Speaker
And then six to whatever, six to 10 is another growth period. And who knows? There's no. I feel like the 10 year mark people have told me, like when I was in it for 10 years, like that's when I started to see real success. I'm like, Oh God, I got like five more years of this.
00:20:29
Speaker
I mean, we're so dependent on the whims of the market. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what we do in some sense is a luxury item. You know, people don't necessarily need all the things that we do. They want them.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yes. But it's kind of cool because I feel like I also grew up in the best market ever, right? Post COVID and COVID was so frothy for all of us. And now we're getting to a point where like we may be in a recession for a really long time. Yeah. So just kind of like
00:21:01
Speaker
an interesting dynamic. How did we treat our businesses during the best of times and what are we doing in the worst of times? And I think if you're good at what you do, it'll be fine. You're going to have to cut back a little bit, but people still want quality and they still want talent.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. I agree with that a hundred percent. And we've chosen to like trying, not try, we've chosen to grow at this time. Um, I mean, we, you at least a big ass building. And didn't just move into the building, but we, you know, we got more machinery to sort of double back on your question. Um, and try to make the most of the space by not just.
00:21:41
Speaker
doing what we did in the old small shop, which was sort of, you know, that kind of, um, we have parameters there. So the, you asked us, you know, we always just worked with solid woods and did things like that.
Expanding Capabilities and Quality
00:21:56
Speaker
And that was our niche.
00:21:59
Speaker
And it kind of fit our space and our tooling and everything like that. But now we're in a bigger place. We've got bigger machinery that does different things. We're looking to sort of not abandon what we did, just add to what we used to do. Right. Because those kind of jobs don't come through the door as often as, you know, more run of the mill type stuff anyway. Like a kitchen. Yeah.
00:22:24
Speaker
people want kitchens and they, their expectations compared to our expectations are different. Oh yeah. I mean, they don't understand the way things are built. I think people want, I think people think that they understand it, but they don't at all. I mean, I don't, I do this with you guys all the time and I don't, you show me something. I'm just like, I'm confused. Just let's not even talk about that. Like, are you cool with it? Okay, great. Don't talk to me about it anymore.
00:22:48
Speaker
That was like, so you probably saw right in the overhead doors, a big pallet of drawers that were delivered yesterday. And I posted a story about it and I had a couple of people say like, oh, why don't you just build them?
00:23:00
Speaker
Well, because to build them would cost, you know, four times, literally four times as much. Yeah. And people, you know, it's this for a kitchen. People don't want to spend $10,000 on drawers in a kitchen. That $10,000 is going to go into the refrigerator, the wine cooler, the range. They don't care about the drawers. Right.
00:23:21
Speaker
So, if the difference between us getting the job and not is building the drawers or buying the drawers, I mean, we're at the point in the business where we're going to buy the drawers. Whereas in the past, we may have, I mean, we've passed on jobs in the past that were
00:23:40
Speaker
I want to say what we thought was like beneath us, but we were in that niche of doing everything ourselves because like Rob said, that's what the shop was set up to do. Right. And now we have the capability to do it a different way.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, but I would say, sure, you're maybe using different materials and you're doing it a different way. But like, I love you guys, because I know even if you bought the drawers or you built them, it's still going to be an amazing product at the end of the day. Oh, thank you. The clients are going to be like, every single time I've had you guys at a job, no joke, everybody's like, Green Street's amazing. Those guys are awesome. Except for that one job in Newark, actually, I should say, but he was not very nice.
00:24:24
Speaker
Oh, the guy that didn't pay us? Yeah. He's got some nerve. The best was when I... No, he was like, I'm so surprised. What was it? I'm so surprised at you, Jeff. So disappointed. So disappointed. It's like, dude. Like he's like my father. Yeah. I think he's like maybe like five years older than me. But I will say the work that you did there is incredible. It's beautiful. Yeah. And he was another one. Beat us up on price. We came down and
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah. They always get more than he was like, you're not like building the whole building for me. No, but honestly, you guys are, you run a really, really great shop and a great team and it's very impressive. Thank you. I mean, we didn't lose our eye for quality. No, you definitely didn't know, but to sort of add something to the idea of the, of doing a kitchen.
00:25:14
Speaker
The stars of the kitchen now are the appliances. You may be even the countertop, the little gadgets that, you know, the range, the hood, the wine cool. This is what everybody imagines when they're redoing their kitchen. You say that, but I think it's funny that most of the appliances are still paneled and covered.
00:25:36
Speaker
So like they're the star kind of, but not really. And I wouldn't say the cabinetry is, I would say like the full package is the star of the kitchen. And also the little moments, right? Like the dry bar or that antique cabinet with the water system in there. Like those surprising, really cool, but functional. I know. I have those pictures back. I need to post those on Instagram. They're amazing.
00:26:02
Speaker
Um, but those like special moments that are not just cookie cutter kitchen, like that, I think makes the space. So you're a designer. I am. And you're talking like a designer now. You guys can't see us, but I have the Italian hand movements. What is this called? The chef's kiss. I need to stop doing that. They do that a lot. Don't ever stop.
00:26:24
Speaker
Your world is very different than mine. I mean, your Instagram followers, the things that they say on your videos and posts are very different than what my followers and colleagues are always thinking. And like, I don't know. Do we have, is it time to ask Jack on a couple of questions? Yeah, we can. Lightning round. Yeah. Let's see.
00:26:44
Speaker
Should we just, disclaimer, I don't know what these questions are. Oh yeah, that's of course not. The listeners know that none of this is prepared. Oh you have, that's so cute. Your listeners. Aw, hey listeners. Here's a funny one. Why don't you have more of a budget for us? This is coming from a furniture maker. Ask the clients, I have nothing to do with that. Drippy furniture is awful, why do you like it?
00:27:09
Speaker
I heard craftsmen. Freddie, she got you. Is that really from Freddie? No, drippy furniture is just... I think it's just so cool how it's made. And I say that because I know how you guys crafted the drippy countertop after the drippy bookcase. I just think it's so cool. I don't know. I get bored, Freddie, all right? Leave me alone.
00:27:31
Speaker
It is cool. It was fun to make. You know, I wouldn't have a drippy countertop in my house, but nobody wants it. I'll make it. I mean, I have the drippy bookcase, but, you know, it's like a piece of art, something different. I don't know. You want to cut and make square boxes all day? Give me a break. No. Here's a related question. Any drippy furniture in the near future? Do we talk about. It's right behind you. Oh, it is. Yeah.
00:27:59
Speaker
Oh, it's on the floor in the corner. We just dusted it off. There is. There is a collaboration on Drippy Furniture, Donnie Douglas, and Green Sheet Joinery. But I feel like we're still working out the kinks. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun to see who adopts that because Drippy Furniture is very trendy right now. Yeah. And I think we've made it accessible to a lot of people.
00:28:21
Speaker
And I think we are going to ride a really fun wave together, but we just need to get our shit together, aka Jacqueline needs to get her shit together. There is some dude who's doing drippy stuff. And he was following us before he ever did anything. Oh, that's rude. Yeah. I won't say anything bad because I don't know if he listens. Not that I have anything to say. Right. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Whatever.
Popularity of Drippy Furniture
00:28:44
Speaker
Good. Good for him. More drippy furniture, the better. Yeah. A rising tide raises all ships, right? Correct. That's right.
00:28:52
Speaker
What's the best way for a mill worker to begin working to begin a working relationship with a designer? There you go. Well, let's talk about why I'm obsessed with the two of you. So back in the day, when you were
00:29:09
Speaker
bidding projects for me. This is how the process would go. I would send Jeff a terrible sketch at two o'clock in the morning. And eight hours later, Jeff would send me a 3D model with like seven different views done in what sketch up or something? What were you using? It was probably probably fusion fusion. Okay.
00:29:29
Speaker
a breakout of pricing and a formal proposal for this piece of furniture that came out of my ass literally the day before. And I could take that, send it to my client and be like, hey, look at this amazing piece. It took us weeks to think about and whatever. And here's what it would cost and we could have it for you in four to six weeks. That is amazing. And that makes my life so much easier because I can be creative
00:29:56
Speaker
And I can be thinking about my client's project that late at night and literally send something to somebody and whatever was in my brain is now able to be created and on paper in front of me. And that's pretty cool. And I don't feel like you guys have ever, I've never sent you something where you're like, we can't make that. You've literally never told me now. I don't think we've ever said that to anyone. No. We said we won't make it, not to you.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah, you've literally never said no. You might say like, we could do it this way or whatever from like, hey, that's really expensive. Can we think about a different way to do it or what else can we do? And I just think having that type of relationship with someone who can actually make what you are designing and do it in a very frictionless way has been why we have worked together so well. Because I have worked with others in the past and, you know, they're fabulous and I, you know, all my eggs are in your basket, which is probably not great.
00:30:51
Speaker
You know, maybe I should try not to break them. But no, it makes my life easier. And I think when you can work with a designer who whose life you could just make a lot less complicated, because design is very complicated, especially when it comes to these very high end luxury products or projects, I should say.
00:31:11
Speaker
And if someone could get into the groove of just being like, whatever you need, send it to us first. Let's think about it. We can give you a 3D model. We can at least give you a ballpark and let them know if what they're designing is possible. Then, you know, that's just, that's how I would start. And you, I mean, you know, I would DM designers if you're looking to work with designers and be like, Hey, you know, this is our work. And when you have something really custom or complicated or whatever your wheelhouse is, right? Like if you've got cabinetry, like we can make it for you. It's handmade.
00:31:38
Speaker
I'm making it in Jersey and you can customize any finish and we could do it in six weeks. I think that that's helpful. When we first started, I cold messaged probably. You cold like Hater DM'd or you just cold messaged? Just messaged. Like probably over a thousand designers, architects. Really? General contractors.
00:32:01
Speaker
like zero leads. Really? Yeah. I haven't done it in the past too, where I, this is before social media existed, where I made up envelopes full of stuff with like glossy prints and an intro letter and everything like that. I sent it out. I had lists of architects, designers. What? And no one responded? You got zero response. Oh my God. I'm such a sucker.
00:32:26
Speaker
We did that. So you've seen we've done a bunch of work for several Catholic churches and it was the timing was bad. It was like.
00:32:38
Speaker
During COVID or shortly thereafter, we had like a tri-fold brochure made up. Uh-oh, that could have been bad. A nice cover letter, custom envelopes, we sent one to every church in the Diocese of Trenton, not one phone call, zero. But who makes the decision to have you guys come in and do that kind of work at the church?
00:33:06
Speaker
Uh, probably the priest, whatever the, is there a name for like the head priest? Could be the monsoon. No. Well, the deacon's not a priest.
00:33:15
Speaker
I know, but who's the one that's actually saying, we need new whatever. Confessionals. It all depends on the hierarchy of the church. Yeah, the hierarchy of the particular church. At St. Anthony's, Father Al seems to have, he's got kind of free reign to make the decisions, but he's got to get a finance. So he's got to run it past that. Okay.
00:33:39
Speaker
But he makes all the decisions. I think the final decisions is probably some kind of committee. Yeah, that he's got to have, you know, look at his stuff. Yeah. I did work for St. Mary's. It was the Monsignor and he so he was like the head priest. He was Monsignor Walsh and he did everything as far as like calling the shots. Wow.
00:34:04
Speaker
I mean, I guess my question for you guys would be like, clearly you're scaling your business for growth. Where like, what, what was the deciding factor for you to be like, we're ready to go to the next level.
Shop Expansion Challenges
00:34:18
Speaker
It's because we couldn't get that shed. Yeah. We were having some growing pains. Like we got the laser. That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Yeah. We bought this laser that's, you know,
00:34:32
Speaker
half the size of this table, maybe a little bit bigger and plopped it in the middle of the shop and it's like, we can't work. And the shop didn't have enough power going to it to run the laser and the compressor and all the stuff at the same time.
00:34:50
Speaker
So it would shut the laser down. But did you get to a point where you had enough work coming in where you were like, okay, even if we move forward with this lease and we buy all this equipment, we have work enough to sustain? No, no, no. You just kind of just take a chance. Hey, more power to you. I mean, even now it's not like we're booked out like six months or even three months, you know, they they come in. Little sports. Yeah. Like our lead times are pretty short because it's always like
00:35:17
Speaker
And well, you know, as a designer, like designers always need something. They're like, oh, yeah, we need it in three weeks. And it's like, OK, so. Yeah, that's been me the past three years. Yeah. I'm like, wait, what? I'm sorry. You have an eight weekly time. Meanwhile, I'm waiting 42 weeks for a sofa. So. But yeah, we always we always get injected into the job like, you know, as the job is wrapping up. So, you know, when somebody comes to us with a job, with a project,
00:35:45
Speaker
They're not looking to have it done in six months or 12 months. It needs to be done within usually 12 weeks is like really like a far. But I think that's like the competitive. So here, like you're like my secret weapon, even though you're not secret. But I feel like there's been, I mean, we've made sofas and like upholstery where I know that there's a frame that I love. It's either not available in the size that I need and needs to be customized or there is an insane lead time.
00:36:15
Speaker
or customizing it is going to cost just as much, if not more, with the vendor than it would be with you guys. And I work with you and Jim Jamal, and we get exactly what the client needs in like eight weeks, which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a custom made sofa. He's doing a 43 foot bankette that we built right now, channeled, full channeled back. I'll have one of those, not 43, 20, but it'll come up in the next two months, probably three months.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah. I'd like to have some of his work in my house. Yeah. You built him those sawhorses. So it's worth at least like one throw. That's what I was going to say. Get a pillow out of that. I mean, he runs out of a really small shop too. Oh my God. I don't even know how he does that. He wants to come down next week to do the podcast.
00:37:05
Speaker
Oh my God, you guys should like, you should have a little upholstery shop here and you would be a little powerhouse. Yeah, powerhouse peeps. I like building the bank cuts and stuff. Yeah. It's nice work. It's a different kind of thing. It's all, you know, plywood frames, you know, nailed and screwed together. And it's
00:37:24
Speaker
Oh my God, that giant sectional that we did in Closter. We forgot about that. The pulse thing, the stealing glass wine cabinet. Oh my God, the pulse bar. So that project hasn't yet to be photographed. I can't wait. Oh, the beams. The beams. You guys have done everything. Wow. The stealing glass wine cabinet. That's still one of my favorites. The stealing glass wine cabinet. With the exploding glass. With the mirror wall in the back.
00:37:51
Speaker
We found glass when we moved. They wanted to literally take that and ship it down. Remember we had that very brief discussion of like, how much would it cost if we broke this piece down and hauled it off to Florida when they moved? And we were like, it's gonna be very expensive. I wonder what the new people thought of it. They wanted to rip it out. Cuz taste is so subjective. Yeah, no, they were totally renovating the whole house. If only they knew how much that thing cost.
00:38:13
Speaker
They have no taste. They're new owners. Let's just say that. Sorry. Oh man. But I mean, that was a great cabinet. They moved what? It was like not that long, six months after. And we were supposed to work on their basement too. And they're like, we're moving to Florida. I was like, what? I got lost in the basement trying to find the electrical panel. That's so big. That's right. I mean, it's like three times the size of my house. Their house in Boca is really, is really awesome. And they're doing an addition, which we're working on with them, which is really fun. They're just fun. Like they're open to creative ideas.
00:38:42
Speaker
You know, we can be creative, which is always nice. What else did we do there? We did the mirror wall. Oh, yeah. Oh, the credenza credenza is kind of mirror wall credenza and the glass cabinet as like one big install. Was there anything else that we did in there? No, right.
00:38:58
Speaker
And I literally drew that, like, I just need to dig that up. I literally drew that on a piece of paper. I sent it to you. I threw it in the design plan and you were like, here, here's a 3d sketch. It's going to cost literally. Yes. Graph. I don't even have graph paper. I take like an old piece of computer paper and I'm just like, no, no, no, no, no. Here you go.
00:39:17
Speaker
Dimensions are the biggest thing. As long as I have dimensions, like I do, do you follow Wild Willy's Woodshop on Instagram? No, that sounds fun. He's a buddy of ours. He's got a table actually in there. You should take a look at it. Wild Willy's? Wild Willy's Woodshop. Yeah. Yeah. He's a buddy of ours. He's a Jersey guy. He was working out of Brooklyn for a long time. Now he's in like Lambertville.
00:39:40
Speaker
he has a shop space in Pennsylvania. Where the hell was I going with this? I do drawings for Will, and he sends me stuff and it's like, can I have some dimensions? I can figure some stuff out, but it's like, man, you gotta give me more dimensions. Yeah, at least I have to make a lot of assumptions here.
00:40:02
Speaker
What are the, what's the one thing you like working?
Complexities in Woodworking
00:40:07
Speaker
Well, I should rephrase this because I'm actually not really interested in this, but I'm actually more interested in what's like the biggest pet peeve you have working with designers.
00:40:17
Speaker
You're the only one that we really like working with. So why do we hate working with everybody else? Oh, that's right. We just started working with Lindsay. She's cool too. Yeah. Why are we cool? Why? What do you not like about everybody else? Because you come up with ideas. Yeah.
00:40:34
Speaker
Right. Like you don't just say, oh, I need a kitchen and we're going to put the same cabinets in and, you know, it's just going to be new. Not yet. You always come up with like a sketch of something, right? You know, where you dream something up. Yeah, it's unique. That's, that's the best part. Yeah. So you like working on complicated abstract things. Oh yeah. Really? Okay. Is that most of the woodworking world?
00:41:03
Speaker
Depends what drives them. Yeah. I mean, most of it is just boxes with doors on it. Typically, you know, we always make things, I mean, not, not always to our benefit, but we always make things a little more complicated then. Yeah.
00:41:20
Speaker
Yeah, you do. That's true. Sometimes it fails miserably. Yes. Yeah, we don't always succeed, but it hasn't stopped us from trying and trying. That was like those cheese lounges, man. Yeah. We probably spent twice what we got. Yeah. Building those. What about the the simple corner banquet? Oh, we had to remake. Yeah. Our buddy Keith that was here yesterday, we gave it to him and he actually had to cut it and make it smaller. He like cut it straight in half.
00:41:50
Speaker
That was some day. Yeah. It's like you screwed up. What? How? Like you guys have built some of the most complicated things. I was like, what? We just took it for granted. How do you screw up a bank? It's just a bad assumption. Like, oh, bay window, 45 degrees. Not this one. 60 degrees. And so that day we were, you know how far it is up there. So it's the drive going home and it was, was it Friday? Well, it started, you know, we were. I thought it was over the weekend.
00:42:20
Speaker
It was on a Friday. Yeah. So we, we packed the van literally all the way to the roof. The, the beam was between Rob and I, I couldn't even see Rob because the van was so full and we get down there. We're up there, I should say, and we're installing and then we find out the bank cat's wrong. So it's like, all right.
00:42:38
Speaker
Then, I think Sam was there and you called her and you're like, what do you mean they're not installing the beams? Electrician's coming, you know, tomorrow or something. I'm like, what? It was a nightmare. So I ran back down here, had to load up the scaffolding, drive it back up there. So that was like, you know, four hours of driving. And then,
00:43:03
Speaker
we leave it was late and we had a we got a flat tire on the turnpike and then it starts raining so so that was the day and we were like what are we going to do about the banquette how are we going to fix the banquette hey what's that noise
00:43:22
Speaker
Yeah. So you had a really bad day. Oh my God. And I, my wife was somewhere reading or something for training, like taking a hair class. So I had Hunter with me in the shop for two days and a weekend. Oh yeah. Yeah. We, so we rebuilt that whole Bankette. Oh my God. I remember that over the weekend. Yeah. That's wild. Um, so you make everything look so easy.
00:43:50
Speaker
That's what everybody says. It wasn't easy. It was hard. Yeah. Yeah. That's the cool thing. I think it's like, it's always super impressive to see how you guys take what I feel like is a complicated idea and you're like, yeah, yeah, we'll just do X, Y and Z and blah, blah, blah. And like, it just appears. It feels like it just magically appears.
00:44:11
Speaker
Like the Fluted Bankette, like that looks amazing. Like we made our own knives and what I'm like, Oh wow. What? You didn't just buy Tambor? It's probably you. Yeah. It's just really wild how you figure that out all out.
00:44:26
Speaker
Neil's like us. We send him a drawing and he just makes the knives and they come in like two days later. Yeah. Wow. I feel like every time I've tried to do something custom, people are like, Oh, you've got to make a knife. It's going to be $10,000. No, that was like 200 bucks for those knives. What? Yeah. Oh my God. My world is just.
00:44:43
Speaker
They have like, you know, like Monteith molding is a place in, what's that? Bowlbridge? It's in Old Bridge. And they have, they do like milling and stuff. They sell lumber, but they'll do like runs of whatever, crown molding. If you want paneling, they'll make that. So I could actually do like custom crown molding. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We can do that. And it's not that expensive? No.
00:45:06
Speaker
It's like a hundred bucks an inch is basically how you would figure the cost for knives. Oh, for the cost of knives. So if you have a four inch crown, 400 bucks for the knives, that's like a good way to figure it. You've just opened up a whole new world for me.
00:45:22
Speaker
Monteith would, they would want to charge you probably like a, I don't know what they charge a $1,000 set up fee. So they have to that, that would include maybe knives if they needed them setting up the machine, blah, blah, blah. They have a molder, you know, it's not like the archaic thing that we have. Interesting. But you're just getting it because you're, you're getting a
00:45:44
Speaker
Well, no, we do it ourselves. Oh, okay. Nevermind. Wow. That's pretty cool. Yeah. We have a William and Hussey. It's just a thing that you bolt the knives to and it just spins really fast. It's so primitive. You can't believe it. It's just, it's just like a motor that spins these two blades. Feed it through. My thumb still hurts by the way. Are you going to do classes here?
00:46:11
Speaker
We had talked about it. We have something in the works. We probably shouldn't talk about it yet, but maybe some sort of online thing. I know, but this is so fun for you to host something. I don't know. I'm a big in-person gal.
00:46:28
Speaker
I mean, I would love to do classes. It'd be cool. It's just, you know, you have to figure out how to work around the stuff that's already in the shop. I'll teach it guys. It's fine. Write me a script. Design 101.
00:46:45
Speaker
A lot of people could use that class. Yeah, a lot of designers. Yeah. Designers and homeowners. I mean, I'll say one thing about working with you. I don't question your plan anymore. I was going to say, yes, you do, but you said anymore. Yeah. I used to think, is this going to work? It's like black ceiling. And then, you know, it's all done.
00:47:13
Speaker
Man, this works. You did say that to me one time, so kindly, but also just hilarious. You were like, you know, I used to be like, I don't think this is going to look good. And I'm like, this looks great.
00:47:30
Speaker
because we had, you know, pretty traditional sensibilities in terms of like furniture and design and stuff, you know. And then I came into your life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've definitely taken design inspiration from it, you know, it broadens sort of our.
00:47:48
Speaker
idea what's possible, like what goes together and things like that. I mean, it's really anything, right? Like it's, it's really what is the, is there budgetary restraints? I think we've always just had to be cognizant of like, I'll design something kind of sort of knowing where this is going to fall. And either you send me a number where I'm like, I can make this work for this client. Or I'm like, wow, I just, I can't make this work. So I have to totally rethink this idea or it's got to drop off, which is helpful. Yeah. Um, cause it does have to be practical at some point.
00:48:14
Speaker
Right. I mean, cost is always a factor. It's a big part of what we both do. Yeah. No, it is. I mean, I can sell in a dream all day long, but if a client doesn't have money for it, then what's the point of that?
00:48:30
Speaker
Yeah, and it has to be really good for them to spend the money. Right. Well, that's why the 3D render when we present, because I remember you and I, Rob talked about one time you were like, we're selling things that don't exist. Like we're just selling something from our imagination. So if I'm just sending them a sketch of something, that's not appropriate. If I'm asking them to spend $40,000 on a built-in, it better be amazing. So that's why you had asked, how does someone have a working relationship with a designer?
00:48:57
Speaker
giving me a 3D render is literally telling someone like, look, we actually can make this. It kind of sort of exists already. And this is exactly what it's going to look like. Yeah. And this is what it's going to cost. Yeah. All you have to say is yes or no. Yes. Or maybe the invention of SketchUp and the availability of SketchUp way back in the day changed my business completely. Really? Yeah. Because even though I'm a trained, what would you call it? Technical Draftsmen. Draftsmen.
00:49:26
Speaker
you know, and I could create, I used to create the drawings, 2D, 3D, and present them. It's still not the same as, you know, this color rendering that you can navigate around and move it. It changed everything. And I didn't have to talk hardly at all. I would just say like, stand there.
00:49:46
Speaker
This is it, you know, especially wood, you know, if you're drawing something painted, it's a little bit better, but like drawing something made out of wood. Yeah. And it's just lime drawing. It just doesn't do it. No, no. Yeah. But I also, I, I love the 3d cause you can sell it in, but sometimes if you have
00:50:04
Speaker
Sometimes you have clients that take the 3D too seriously. Like I'll have clients to be like, well, that's not the right color. And it's like just relax. Use your imagination. Yeah. You're going to get a physical sample and it will be the right color. Don't look at that. But then I'm like, look at this 3D render. So it's a blessing and
Visualizing Designs with 3D Renderings
00:50:22
Speaker
a curse.
00:50:22
Speaker
Yes, people can get hung up on small details. Totally. I was at a point in my business where I was like, I'm not going to do any photo realistic 3D renderings anymore because clients will be like, I'll do a 3D render of the space. And they'll be like, well, you have the light fixture in the wrong. Like my recess lighting is, I'm like, why are we talking about this? It's so silly. So I got to a point where I was like, I'm just going to do sketches. Like I'm going to have somebody do a nice watercolor, like digital sketch. And then they're like, well, I can't really
00:50:49
Speaker
Can we just get like, is, can we just do like this photo ones? Like, I don't really understand. Like I kind of get the calm. It's just hard. Okay. Can't wait. I don't think people understand. I'm going to show you a piece of fabric and you're just going to have to use your imagination. How difficult it is to massage clients. Yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker
That's another great thing about working with designers. It's a great thing or a bad thing? It's a great thing. Yeah. Well, you don't have to. Yeah. You know, the interim. It can be a blessing at a curse sometimes, you know, I was going to say it because sometimes getting the information can be difficult because it's got to go an extra step.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, I like working with clients. That's my favorite part. So I don't mind being the liaison, but I would imagine that if you need to make sure that someone communicates something to a client and you don't know if they did it at the end of the day, you don't really know what you're walking into on instill day. Like they may have forgotten to like get drawing signed or they may have forgotten to send that update. I mean, we had that issue with our one at the TV cabinet that you guys did.
00:51:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and it was very clearly stated in Basecamp and we had like a backup, but the client wasn't really paying attention. It was what, 55 inch TV, they said. Yeah. But then it was a 70 inch TV. Well, she was going to be reusing. No, she had a 70 inch TV and she said she was going to be buying a new smaller TV. And then she said she doesn't remember ever talking about that, even though there's multiple conversations recorded about that. I was a little wind up when I wrote that.
00:52:21
Speaker
You know, and to her credit, she's the busy lady, right? And like, whatever, maybe she's not reading Basecamp messages, but we did talk about it. And then all of a sudden it's just kind of like, whatever, figure it out. That's it. We fixed it. Yeah. I mean, all you guys was like, so here's where we're at.
00:52:35
Speaker
with a quarter inch on either side, literally a quarter inch. But it looks great in that room and she can watch her 70 inch TV, no problem. That was a cool cabinet. It would have been much cooler if it had panned out the way that it was supposed to with the pocket doors, bi-fold pocket doors, inset, but it still came out.
00:52:55
Speaker
It did. No, it came out great. And she will be another future client of ours as soon as she's ready to go again. That's cool. Did we do the inset on the bottom and overlay on the top or no, it ended up all the way. Yeah. We had to change it because of that. Yeah. We had that discussion.
00:53:12
Speaker
That was the paint that I just used in the bathroom. But I feel like you guys have a great process where you have such a detailed estimate and drawings. I haven't received that from a lot of other people that I used to work with.
00:53:27
Speaker
That's something that we've heard from other people, designer we're working with now, Lindsay, on this kitchen. She showed us what somebody gives her and it's like a checklist. I'm like, what is this? I mean, we do it to protect us and to... I mean, it just makes our lives easier.
00:53:48
Speaker
I literally a lot of times I'll print out the scope of work letter and bring it into the shop with me and I reference back. It's like, what did we say we were going to do here? It's like, oh, it's right here. Right. Yeah. And, you know, it's purposely ambiguous in some areas and purposely hyper specific in others. You know, so if we want to if we want to change something on our end, like you never know, sometimes you have to go with the flow as as you're building something, you know,
00:54:14
Speaker
True. And I wouldn't know what should be ambiguous. So I guess it doesn't even matter. I actually take what you put in the proposal and I put it in my proposal to the client. Yeah. Because I use that as a backup to be like, these are the dimensions. This is what we said we were going to do. Here's the visuals of it. So they can't come back to us and say, well, I thought we were getting X. Right. Like it's a smart, we're all on the same page. You have to, you have to.
00:54:38
Speaker
Well, that's the biggest fear is on install day you show up and the client says, well, I thought it was going to be like this. Like that is, that's the absolute worst case scenario for us. Um, cause we're going to have to remake it. Yeah. We lose every time. Yeah.
00:54:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would say like even for designers, it's so important to just have your paperwork together. Like we could design beautiful things all day, but if someone hasn't talked about like what species of wood and what kind of stain and what the dimension. Yeah, like overall height, overall width. And obviously I have you guys come in and do field verification because I need you there to say, Hey, I didn't like the outlet at Frangetic.
00:55:20
Speaker
I knew there was an outlet there, but when we actually are sitting and drawing things out, we need to talk with the client about where we're moving that and how we're moving that. And we have that discussion there. So it's not just like, oh shit, we forgot to move that outlet. What are we going to do? I'm trying to think if we had any jobs where we showed up and it was like, I thought it was going to be... Didn't we have one with you? The beams maybe? No.
00:55:49
Speaker
I feel like I've always sent you like pictures of things, like pictures of the space. Yeah. No, where the client thought that what we delivered was going to be slightly different somehow. New York? Not well. The ropes? The rope wall. Yeah. Oh my God. I feel like that's the new one. Rob still has a whole container of ropes on the porch. Yeah, I'm bringing them down to popcorn Fox Zoo.
00:56:12
Speaker
What do they do with them there? Monkeys use the climb. Really? Yeah. Oh my God. That's so cute. Those came all the way from China. Yeah. But the monkeys are the rope. Both. No, I don't remember us. Yeah. The beams were a nightmare, but that was not really your, I mean, that was just the structure of the. What about the job with the under stair cherry cabinets? Wasn't there something there where
00:56:40
Speaker
Um, the, I think the plaster had to be repaired, but that was more like, you guys were scared that it was going to affect your, um, the finish of your cabinetry, which it didn't. No. Um, the fireplace thing that we did there was that, I don't know. I thought there was something where the client was like, I thought this was going to be something else. I think that was, that wasn't a job that was, that was there, but that wasn't the, um, the closet door. That's what it was. Yeah. That was something you guys handled. See, see what happens when you try to work around me.
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah, she did say she did have a comment about that. But I mean, overall, I think she was happy with with the work. Well, we got in there and it was like what the the casing was like.
00:57:25
Speaker
Yeah, what was it? Something was like screwed into something. It was the corner. I mean, it was really- It was a mess before you got into it. It was a real hodgepodge that couldn't just be- Yeah, I mean, really, it should have been like a stop work change order. But people don't realize that. No. It's like, listen.
00:57:44
Speaker
You made out on this. Yeah. We should have just stopped doing what we were doing and charged you triple. Instead of, you know, making it nice. Right. Just like slightly different. Oh, the hinges. The hinges were behind the trim. Yeah. Oh, yes. Screwed in with like three inch screws. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it was.
00:58:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's the problem too with some of these like retrofit things that you guys end up getting thrown into because you're already on site, right? So they're like, well, while you're here, I hate any sense that starts with while you're here. Yeah. So
00:58:19
Speaker
But overall, I mean, you guys will make a handrail and then that's from our barter. It's a barter from hell. Yeah. I don't, I have never done a barter. I mean, I wouldn't say that I'd never barter again. I just would treat it differently from the get go. You know, we were, Jeff and I were a little bit too trusting. We were a little naive thinking, well, we're cool. So they're going to be cool, right?
00:58:48
Speaker
Never. Yeah. There you go. We got worked over big time. Yeah. Big time. I don't know how to structure a barter agreement that is fair when you're not doing similar work, which obviously negates a barter arrangement.
Barter Agreements in Creative Trades
00:59:02
Speaker
Like how do you know? I just, how do you calculate that? We would have spelled it out.
00:59:07
Speaker
with a scope of work, like crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's and just said, this is exactly what we're going to do exactly. And you're going to do exactly this. Instead, we kind of went into it. You're going to put electricity in our building and we're going to build you a closet.
00:59:25
Speaker
Hmm. I mean how, I guess it got complicated. It did. Handrail in a closet. Well, it's, it was their attic. We were fitting out their attic. We'll tip roofs and everything. It's like, why doesn't this go up to the ceiling? Why is this the drawing? Didn't go to the ceiling.
00:59:44
Speaker
When are you going to do the wainscoting on the walls? I never. I thought you were paying for the material. Oh my God. Yeah. Really? Yikes. Okay. That makes sense. So what do you do? You put together a scope of work as if they were a regular client and you say, this is what it would cost you. Yeah. Maybe, maybe not with the cost, but we would just spell out every single little detail of what we would provide.
01:00:10
Speaker
Yeah. And then if it's not, doesn't seem equitable, you know, it could go back and then we could adjust it. I feel like I'm in those barter arrangements all the time, but I'm not actually bartering so much as being like, Hey, can you design my bathroom since we're friends? Yeah. You want to avoid friends and family kind of thing.
01:00:30
Speaker
110%. That never goes well. No, friends are free. That's it. Or not at all. It's like, if you need a favor and we can do it, we'll do it. But you're not hiring us. Yeah, exactly. Because then I have to treat you like a client and then you're not going to enjoy it.
01:00:47
Speaker
And the other thing is for friends, how do you say in a nice way, you can't afford us? You just say it. I can't afford me. That's what I say. I can't afford me. Jeff can't afford him. Yeah. You can't hire us. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to feel embarrassed when I send you the price. Yeah. I just tell people now, like, you know,
01:01:13
Speaker
We just, we can't do it. Like I would love to, but we just, we can't do it. That's it. It's just, it's too hard. It's too complicated. I have a lot of friends who are like, I would love to work for you. I'm like, no. I'm a psychopath.
01:01:29
Speaker
Nobody knows. I heard Jeff. I was outside. I think it was like sweeping outside the bathroom. Jeff's in there saying, yeah, everybody thinks green street joiner, blah, blah, blah. I'm on my hands and knees now cleaning the toilet. And I didn't even use it. Everybody sees the finished product, you know, and they think it's like.
Gritty Reality of Woodworking
01:01:51
Speaker
Oh man, you guys are living the dream and get to build all this cool stuff. It's hard work and we have to do all the other stuff. Yeah. There's nobody out here doing the weeds in the back, cleaning the toilet, sweeping the shop. It's us two. Yeah. Like if there's downtime, like if I don't have anything to do or I can't think for a minute, I'll just pick up the broom. Let me just sweep up this little area. Wait, so when I walked in in New York,
01:02:18
Speaker
sweeping? Were you needing a break mentally? Or were you actually cleaning? Yeah, I was cleaning it. It was either, you know, you need a mental break or you're in between tasks or something or there's, all right, if I start something now, how much time do I have to finish it? So instead of just not doing something, there's so much upkeep that has to get done. You pick up the broom. There's always stuff on the floor.
01:02:44
Speaker
That's, that's a little like, that's a tweet. You can lean, you can clean. We come from the restaurant business. There's no, you got time to lean, you got time to clean. I love that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Nobody sees, I don't post on Instagram doing the taxes. I just doing the sales tax yesterday. Nobody wants to do that kind of stuff. No, everybody wants to build cool shit, but they don't want to do all this stuff. It takes to have the business to do it.
01:03:10
Speaker
Right. Especially at the level that you're doing it at. Yeah. Even the investment that you've made the bench. I mean, sanding in between those little things by hand. I mean, that's what I said. I don't want your job. Then, you know, I'm going to put finish on it and sand it between codes. I just draw it on a piece of computer paper and I'm like, Jeff, Rob, can you make this for me? Yeah, it's tough. But would you ever want to go and work for somebody? We've, we both did that. Yeah.
01:03:49
Speaker
You wind up doing all the same things anyway. Like if you're the type of person that's going to sweep up your own shop, you're going to probably sweep up their shop too. So what's the difference? Yeah. You're the, you're the pilot of your ship here. Um, there's security and letting somebody else worry about getting the job and stuff like that. But I don't, I mean, that all sounds nice.
01:04:07
Speaker
It would depend, I mean, I don't know.
01:04:19
Speaker
Yeah. It's a different kind of person to want to be like, I want to do this myself. I don't think I could go back. Yeah.
01:04:27
Speaker
There's just, you know, when you have to do it somebody else's way and you have qualms with the way that it's being done, it just eats you up. Well, you guys are makers and artists and I think I don't know how this works in the wood shop world, but I would imagine that if you're working for somebody else, they're going to want you to build things a certain way or they're going to have specific equipment that you have to use. So then you do have to build things a certain way.
01:04:53
Speaker
You're going to want you to cut that corner and that corner. That's mostly it. It's the honesty. You know, we're both very honest. Yes, you are. You know, and we're going to, you know, we're going to tell you what we're going to do and we're not going to do it differently because you don't, you won't ever know. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:11
Speaker
Very true. Whereas some people, they get pleasure out of that. That's weird. It is weird. It's, it's, I mean, it's, it's criminal.
Dishonesty in Restaurants
01:05:22
Speaker
Yeah. So if you, it's like, you know, knowing what goes on in the, in the restaurant, you know, like what's going on back there. Oh no. I don't know if I want to know that. Like they say, Oh, this is a A5 Wagyu steak. Yeah. But it's like from restaurants. That happens all the time.
01:05:40
Speaker
Oh, no, I don't know about that, but that's like an analogy, you know? Wait, give me one example of something people think is happening in the restaurant business and it was all the time.
01:05:52
Speaker
I don't know about all the time. I worked at a place and sometimes they would have venison and they would say that it was like elk from Wyoming. Oh, really? But it was like from, you know, some deer that somebody shot in New Jersey. Disgusting. I think people would be very surprised to learn how much stuff comes from the Cisco truck. Yeah. U.S. foods in Cisco. Really? Yeah. Like even in the nicest of nice places. Is that why they say never order the special?
01:06:23
Speaker
That was like an Anthony Bourdain thing. Because usually it's like something they're trying to get rid of. But it could be either way. If it was like a design special and they brought something in specifically. Right. Like when I was a chef at a place, we had like eight or 10 specials a night, you know, for each spot in the menu and things like that. And those items were all prepared specifically for that night. And then the next day, they were no good.
01:06:51
Speaker
And I would package everything up and there was a church on the corner and I would bring all that stuff up there. Oh, wow. But so the idea is to learn how many of these can we sell? Yeah. You know, you ideally you want the special or sell out, right? You want to sell out of the special. So why was there ever like a desire for you guys to go into restaurants after working in the food business?
Career Shifts after Life Events
01:07:20
Speaker
That's, that's what I thought I was going to do. Me too. Yeah. Like I was going to school. I went to school for a couple of different things, but I, my last stint in college was for hotel restaurant management. And I always thought that I might open a restaurant. Can you cook? Yeah, I was in the front of the house though. Like I worked in the front.
01:07:44
Speaker
And, you know, I kind of fell into the trades and I was, I, I didn't know what I was missing. Like I, I fell into it after Sandy and it was just like, hmm. Like I actually prefer doing this. I fell into it too. That's interesting. Yeah. I was going to be a teacher. Really? Yeah. I was a teacher actually. Not going to be. I was a teacher. I feel like you have the patience for teaching. No?
01:08:12
Speaker
Oh boy. I mean, they test it. They'll test it. I taught high school. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. What did you teach in high school? I taught history was my main subject. I have a degree in history. Okay. I also taught English, but English as a second language. I taught economics. Can you speak another line? No, not fluently. You have, you're teaching the kids English and so you might have
01:08:42
Speaker
A Spanish speaker, a Chinese speaker. Yeah, so that's it. Your class is filled with all the kids that don't speak English as a native language. So how are you teaching English to kids who don't? It's a joke. I mean, I could tell you all kinds of crazy stories about being a teacher. Next podcast. Solo podcast. I wanted to be a teacher so that I could have benefits.
01:09:12
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that is also something that is entrepreneurs. We don't get to have kind of crazy when I had my daughter.
01:09:23
Speaker
I mean, you look at all these people who have like a nine to five and they've got my husband, 14 weeks of paternity leave. That's insane. Well, how about the guy? He's like, yeah, I got three months. Yeah. Oh, that's only 12 weeks. Yeah. He's got three months. The guy who's like a handyman at Hayfla has three months paid vacation.
01:09:45
Speaker
And I pushed a baby out of my body and I had short-term disability or something like that for maybe six weeks for 30% of my
Entrepreneurial Work-Life Balance
01:09:53
Speaker
pay. I mean, it's kind of sick. Two weeks ago, we're like, are we going to work on 4th of July? There's been so many times where I'm like, oh, that's a holiday on Friday. Do I have to give people off? I'm like, aunt, are you off on Friday?
01:10:11
Speaker
Are you off on this holiday? Is it federal holiday? Does that mean if I don't give off, I get sued? How does that work? Cuz I'm working. It's like if we don't work, we're just pushing an entire day's work that we're gonna have to absorb into all these other days.
01:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you can still work 80 hours a week, but do you want to work 80 hours a week in four days or five? Right, right. I mean, it's nice to have a day off if you have some structure to it. Most of the time I find I don't have anything to do and I can't really enjoy myself. Do you find it difficult to relax?
01:10:51
Speaker
for one day. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, I get not anxiety, but I get very, I'm going to say I get very anxious. Like if I'm sitting around at home on a Saturday with no, like anything to do that's scheduled, like I'm like, I gotta get back. I gotta go back to shop. I'm like, there's so much that has to be done. Like, yep. And my wife wants to, so what are you going to do today? Uh, nothing.
01:11:19
Speaker
Okay, and so then you know like you're waiting for that other shoe to drop. Like what plans do we have? I don't like the surprise plan. So why don't we go over to John and Dottie's house for dinner?
01:11:36
Speaker
Like, no, like I need like several days notice. I need to prep for that. Minimum, minimum. Yeah. It's like, I hope they don't listen to this podcast. No, I'm using, I'm using pseudonyms. Like Saturday, Sunday, I want to be, I wake up at the same time, no matter what, but like I want to be up and out of the house doing something by, you know, 7am or something if I can. Otherwise it's like, I'm just going to write the whole day off. Yeah.
01:12:00
Speaker
I'm just going to sit, you know, watch some TV, whatever. Maybe I'll do some office work if I have it. But yeah, I was thinking we could do something together today. Oh, I have that schedule time this Saturday. Anthony will be like, so do we have plans this weekend? I'm like, I don't know. Do we have plans this weekend?
01:12:20
Speaker
He's like, well, I don't know, do you want to make plans this weekend? And I'm like, just, can we just talk about it on Friday at 3 p.m.? Like, I don't even want, it's Tuesday and I have 75 million things ahead of me. I don't want to think about Saturday. But I'm the same way. I don't like an open-ended vacation or like, I don't know, I can't, I get frustrated by the idea of like, and I think women get hit with this little bit more self-care Sunday, where you're just like sitting in a tub. Like that sounds awful.
01:12:50
Speaker
sitting somewhere like wet and naked for three hours and you can't hold your phone or you might get electrocuted or like just read a book. Like how do we accomplish nothing? But I think that's just business owner. You know what? I wish I did. I wish I was that person. I forgot how to relax. It's difficult. People with nine to fives, they're living those five days for those two. Yeah. You know, whereas we actually enjoy what we do. It's hard work and it's not easy, but
01:13:18
Speaker
I like coming to work. Yeah, I don't wake up in the morning. I'm like, oh, I got to go to work today. Yeah, that's what 90 percent of people do. Right. Every day they wake up. Oh, it's Thursday. Tomorrow's at the old shop. We used to say Friday, junior Thursday was Friday, junior. You know, you go from Monday, Tuesday, hump day, Friday, junior and Friday. Yeah. It's like you're just living to get to Friday at four thirty. It's more integral to your life here.
01:13:45
Speaker
Like today I had a great day and it felt like a weekend. I had a two hour console, a paid console, a client. She was lovely. And we just walked around her home and I told her what to do with everything. And she was fabulous. And then I come here and I record a podcast with the two of you and then I get to go home. And that was a work day for me, you know, and that, and I can do that because I own the business. But if I worked for somebody else, I would have had to been in the office designing, product managing, answering client calls, whatever it is. And they'd be out doing this. Yeah.
01:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. But then I don't get maternity leave. No, that's it. I mean, so this is the trade off that we've all made. I mean, we willingly make those trades.
01:14:28
Speaker
Yeah. Do you think people though, I think people with a nine to five get tired of hearing entrepreneurs being like, I work so hard. I don't have a break. Cause they could just be like, well, just get a job. You know? Well, yeah. I mean, people used to say, my wife's a retired teacher. She taught New York city schools for 27 years. And people used to say, oh, teaching, that's like a part time job. You got the summers off. My wife, you say, Hey,
01:14:55
Speaker
Yeah. Go get it. Go take a job. Go be a teacher. Yeah. It's so easy. Get yourself your master's degree and go teach. Yeah. Right. Um, they're always greener. Yeah. They're always hiring. That's for sure. Um, I mean, in New York city, I think I can't remember what my wife finished with as far as salary. You may, they make a little bit more, but it was over a hundred thousand. Wow. As a teacher.
01:15:21
Speaker
She started at 12. Oh my God. Yeah. $12,000 and change. I feel like it would cost her more to just go to work every day. Right. So it's like, that's why nobody wants to be a teacher. It's like, yeah, after you work your whole life, you're making a hundred grand. Yeah. But I don't think it's like that anymore though. No, the starting salary. Like when I started it, it was 39 I want to say. Yeah.
01:15:52
Speaker
I feel like this is like on the Joe Rogan podcast where they're like, hey Jamie. Yeah, Jamie pull that clip up. Yeah. So we used to have that iMac set up next to the mouth. I'm not supposed to say what that is. This says 34 to 71. That's a huge range. Starting salaries for teachers range from 61,000.
01:16:15
Speaker
Bachelor's degree, no prior teaching experience to 83,972. Master's degree, eight year. Is that New York city or? Yeah. teachmyc.net for 21 to 20. That's very low considering the cost of living. Yeah. So that's pretty low. So I would imagine New Jersey's maybe like 20 grand less on each level.
01:16:36
Speaker
It depends what school district, it's hard to get a job out here, that's why I didn't become a teacher out here. I took all the tests, I passed the test for both English and social studies, but I couldn't get a job. I got offered a job down in Point Pleasant Borough, maternity leave, but I said hell, I'm not gonna do it.
01:16:58
Speaker
No, Point Pleasant Borough is so lovely. It was. It was, I mean, carpeting. And if you saw where I used to work, forget about it. It's like this, you know? Oh, yikes. No air conditioning. No. Oh, God, no. No air conditioning. And they take the weights out of the windows because they don't want you to open the windows because there's no bars on them. Shufflebook in there. Yeah. So I used to stick books up there to hold the windows open.
01:17:25
Speaker
When I was in high school, it was a long time ago, but I didn't have air conditioning in brick a long time ago. It was a long time ago. I graduated 30 sold to my 35 36. I graduated high school in 2005. Okay. You're not much 2007. Yeah. Oh my God. You're two years younger than me.
01:17:50
Speaker
I'll make you feel better though. I graduated high school in 1980. I was not even born yet. But we've had many a discussion about how fortunate I was, you know, to grow up and be young at the time I was young compared to what in many ways I wouldn't use that phrase.
Childhood and Education Perspectives
01:18:17
Speaker
But why was it so good?
01:18:20
Speaker
compared to now? Well, I mean, childhood and adolescence and your teenage years, they were still reserved for kids of that age. There wasn't that insane pressure to succeed. We didn't know
01:18:42
Speaker
what was going to happen after high school. I mean, kids had plans to go to college. I thought I'd go to college right out of high school. It didn't work out that way, but, um,
01:18:52
Speaker
Like, I never even took the, what's the test you take? Yeah, I never even took the SATs. Like, maybe it was just me. Maybe I was oblivious. Your past past made the list to this. You're like, here's Rob, talking about how great his life was when he was young. He didn't even go to college. What you always say, like, you know, you had a job delivering pizzas and had a brand new truck, had his own place. Yeah. Yeah.
01:19:21
Speaker
I mean, that's impossible now for somebody. I mean, just the stresses, the economics of two things, transportation and housing were totally within the grasp of somebody. Like when I was... Don't forget student loans. And student loans. On my student loans, you know what I paid? 0.9%.
01:19:46
Speaker
Whoa, 0.9%. And that was in what, the 2000s? I finished in the 2000s because mine was in like the 20s. Because I went back to school at the new school, which is like, you know, a hoity toity private school in New York, you know, real. No idea. Yeah, it's like one of these. It's it's like, isn't Parsons school design? Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, I didn't go to school for design.
01:20:12
Speaker
That was one of the questions. The answer is no. It's one of these places where you make up your own curriculum. Okay. It's like real, I don't want to use the word lefty, but I did. It's like super liberal arts. It's super liberal arts. Okay. Yeah. That's where I got my diploma.
01:20:32
Speaker
Anyway, 0.9% for student loans. Things went off the rails for people your age. And I don't know how somebody that's in their 30s can really, I mean, you guys are a testament to that. It can be done, but that you're really bucking the trend.
01:20:53
Speaker
It's not easy. I mean, I, I just recently, I were just recently, but a couple of years ago, I finally paid off my student loans, but I went to a college where I had, I went to month university. So I had, uh, I think that tuition, there was like 32,000 a year and I had a half scholarship. So I was like 15,000 a year. So I just recently paid off my student loans, but my siblings, I mean, at one point my brother was paying like over $2,000 a month just in student loan payments.
01:21:20
Speaker
And it's like when you're graduating and making $60,000 a year, how are you ever going to pay that off? And I blame the government for that. I do too. They need to step in and just be like, here's the rate slash you cannot increase it before. Like you do that with real estate. No compounding interest. Yeah, that's insane. You're enslaving this generation.
01:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, I've been paying for whatever. Left school in let's say 2010. So it's been 13 years. Like my balance hasn't gone down. I've just been paying the interest for 13 years. I mean, I think it just, you know, I talked to Anthony about this and he's like, Mila's never going to college. She's going to be an electrician. Well, the trades are very overlooked as far as making a good living union tradesmen.
01:22:04
Speaker
Oh my God, they make so much money. Who's to say that there shouldn't be college for electricians, you know what I mean? Yeah, it should just be, that's like a solution for a problem, but it's the wrong solution that, you know,
01:22:20
Speaker
in order to not get saddled with student loan debt, you shouldn't go to college. No, college should be affordable. That's the answer. And then he's a very hard line. Student loans shouldn't be predatory. Right. Yeah. Because the liberal arts education is a great thing. I mean, it's, it's, it opens up your worldview, especially if kids have just lived at home, maybe you're in a
01:22:42
Speaker
they never really venture outside the neighborhood. You get to go to a campus, live amongst different people. Especially after you get out of your freshman and sophomore year, experiment with classes, take things. Drugs.
01:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, of course, you know, you know, experiment sexually. I have a daughter. I can't think of these things. I'm kidding. But like, I didn't go to school to get a history degree. Right. I didn't know what I was doing, but I took this class and the history professor was just so great. I thought, wow, this is this is the best professor I ever had. I'm going to try another history class. And that's cool. That's how I kind of got hooked on it.
01:23:28
Speaker
But you're doing nothing with history. No, but all roads led here. Yeah, it did. And even though I don't earn my living with my history degree, it still improved my life. You know, all the things I learned, like studying the life of Paul Robeson,
01:23:49
Speaker
really impacted me. And getting exposed to other different ways of looking at history and how the world is formed and how people react to the history that's taught versus what maybe happened to another person with a different point of view.
01:24:12
Speaker
But how can you replicate that? I mean, so you can't go to college. Is it travel?
Impact of Parental Interests on Children
01:24:17
Speaker
Is it like, you know, I don't know what Mila is going to do when she gets older and I hope she doesn't do interior design. But, you know, I think about like, you know, what can I expose her to as a child that maybe she will be like, wow, my, like, I think really a lot about this now. And I don't know, Jeff, if you have, but
01:24:37
Speaker
Like, when she grows up, she's gonna say, well, my mom and I used to do X, or my mom was really into Y, and I love estate sales and antiquing, and I'm gonna take her to Texas to Round Top. And, like, is that gonna have an impact on her? Is she gonna look back on that and be like, my mom and I, we used to go on a family trip, and it wasn't to, like, Bora Bora, it was to the middle of nowhere, Texas, and we were buying dead people stuff. Yeah, we went to Atlantis in the Bahamas. Yeah, right.
01:25:02
Speaker
Like how is that going to affect her growing up? Is it going to be good? Is that going to, you know, push her to a passion or is she just, is every child kind of hardwired to find something
01:25:16
Speaker
You know, that maybe I'm not inspiring her to be exposed to like, is she going to find it anyway? Like you found history and that impacted your life. But if you didn't find history, like what would have happened? Do you take a different, different route? I think as a, as a non-parent, but as an observer of people, young people growing up to be good citizens.
01:25:39
Speaker
What I take from it is that if you expose your kid to something that you're excited about and passionate about, they might not dig it in the moment, but there will be a time in their young life when let's say their thirties, late twenties, where are they going to go? And they'll have that, that recognition.
01:25:59
Speaker
Man, my mom was pretty cool. Look what she did as opposed to going to Atlantis. Look how my mom thinks about this stuff. And the relationship that you have is more important than anything else. Right. I just don't want to raise a serial killer. That's it. Yeah.
01:26:19
Speaker
That's all I ask. Is that the concern nowadays? No, I think it is. I mean, there's a lot of crazy stuff on social media.
Social Media Trends
01:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. I was reading. How do you protect your kid from that stuff? An article about the TikTok. It was like a one of those health magazines, like Atlantic Health, whatever. And you get that, you know, and it was like, you're the the latest TikTok trends in health that are bad for you. And it was literally like
01:26:46
Speaker
soaking chicken and NyQuil. Here's why you shouldn't do that. Who does that? Like this is happening on TikTok. What else was it? This is like not, this is not appropriate. But I'm just gonna say like, there's a trend of like using your vaginal fluids as perfume.
01:27:06
Speaker
Like in the idea that it's like a fair amount but there's and it's like there is no scientific data that humans can like the firm ones exist for humans like it's a mammal thing but it's and and this is bad like body odor and hygiene it's like really do we have to have these conversations with people. How do you protect your kid from like back then it was like again in my day is like your friend circle.
01:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, that was that was the extent of how you were going to be influenced outside your home. Yeah. Like your parents could see it's like, OK, he hangs out with these six kids like Johnny's trouble. Tim is OK. Yeah. Yeah. So now, I mean, you're right. All the all the stuff coming in from outside the world is your friend circle. How do you monitor that and and stop a kid who's really so easily influenced? So young.
01:27:57
Speaker
from soaking that stuff up like a sponge. Well, you see, I won't say who it was, but we were talking to that woman about her nieces and how affected they are from seeing all this stuff on social media. They go to school and they think people are gonna say and do things just because of, it's hard to talk about it in such a big manner, but it's having a very negative impact on their life. That makes me really sad. Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:28
Speaker
Sorry. It was better when I was young. That's it. That's what gone back there. Yeah. You know, and I was like, Hunter, like he wants to make YouTube videos and we're like, listen, like you can make videos and we can send them to, you know, Granny and Graham's and medium Pat, but like, you're not going to be like a YouTube.
01:28:47
Speaker
But like he's seeing that somewhere, right? So he's like, first of all, he knows YouTube. So does he know that through you or does he know it through friends? And what are they looking at when they're looking at YouTube? Is it like, I mean, I have so many questions, but I don't know.
01:29:01
Speaker
Yeah, when they start, you know, watching like Ryan, who's like a kid who makes like 30 million dollars a year opening toys, you know, that's what that's terrible. That's like a kids now aspire to be like a YouTube star or a TikTok star. Like that's a vocation or an aspiration.
01:29:18
Speaker
Well, I think when Mila is older, I think there's vocations or jobs that don't even exist right now. Like I, she's going to go to school, but eventually at 30, right? In 30 years, she's going to be something I've, I didn't even know existed. We don't even know exists right now. Very true. I agree with that. Especially with AI, like what are the, what are the jobs? I don't even know. Crazy. Yeah. Um, I mean, they'll always be trades.
01:29:47
Speaker
Well, humans don't change. Yeah. Right. So we all have to eat and shit and sleep. So that's it. So she's going to go be an electrician or a plumber. Yeah. They might have robots by that point. Maybe wiring stuff up. But I mean, the repairs probably need a person for. Yeah. Like you can, you can re you can prewire and have like a remote guy who works like at a desk and he's controlling the robot, you know, putting in the new wires.
01:30:16
Speaker
I don't know. It's crazy. Yeah. I'm glad I'm not young. I'm glad I had the childhood that I did.
Family Traditions and Their Decline
01:30:27
Speaker
Yeah. What's some good memories from growing up?
01:30:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh. We lived in a cul-de-sac when I was growing up. So I feel like that whole world of like riding your bike up and down the street and visiting your friends and getting together with the neighborhood kids. Like, I don't know if that still happens, but that was always, did your mom and dad say go out and play? Yeah, literally go out and play. Yeah. And we didn't have cell phones. So I was always asking my mom, like,
01:30:50
Speaker
How did you know where I was? And how did you know what I was supposed to be? And would it like I that boggles my mind. I forget what it was like to not have a cell phone. No, we didn't know. We didn't know. It's like it's like you let me leave the house like alone when I was 10. Yeah. Are you crazy on a bicycle? Yeah. I can just go kidnapped. Yeah.
01:31:12
Speaker
And then, you know, some far away country by now. But yeah, that's I mean, I feel like that was always a favorite memory of mine. I have incredible set of parents. I mean, my mom, she was a she was a beautician, but she stayed home to work to be like a stay at home mom. And we just we had such a good childhood like we would go on vacations everywhere. I remember my dad.
01:31:34
Speaker
always working really hard. And I remember looking at him being like, you know, he would take calls while we were on vacation. And I would look at him and be like, I want to be so busy. We're like, I need to look at a planner. You know, I would have all these planners with like nothing in them. I'd be like, I want a full. Yeah, I was. I loved that stuff. I was like, I want a full planner and I can't even like talk to my friends unless I look at my calendar. And now I'm that person. Oh my God. Careful what you wish for. Yeah, I know. Like I manifested that shit to my fault.
01:32:04
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, he was, my parents worked really, really hard. I had a great childhood, never wanted for anything. I will say I spent a lot of money when I was young on like clothes, shoes, like I would go to limited too. And Hollister.
01:32:19
Speaker
Did you have a job as a kid? I did. Yeah. So I was spending my own money, but I never saved anything. And then I, okay. My first car was my dad's Lexus. It was like a GS 3000 or I don't even know something like that. So, but Oh my God, I was driving around my dad's Lexus and
01:32:36
Speaker
I didn't hear the end of it when I went to high school, but I remember I leased an Acura and I wasn't paying for it until I graduated college. And my dad gave me like all of my bills and I had like a $4,000 credit card bill, a $400 a month Acura car payment. I was paying for like my cell phone and all of a sudden, and I'm making like $35,000 a year when I graduated college. I was like, oh my God. So. Just for inflation, that's $25 million a year.
01:33:04
Speaker
So that's, that's my only, I don't want to say regret, but I never really learned like frugality, saving, things like that. But, um, I wouldn't say it was a terrible, but you had a job. I mean that, oh, I had a job. I liked to work. I always liked. I think there's a difference between people who worked as kids and kids who didn't work. No kids have to work. They grow up differently. You know, they don't understand.
01:33:31
Speaker
things in the same way. Their worldview is different, I think. If your first job is after college, that's a problem. Okay, I will say my first full-time salary job, but I worked at Target, I worked at a bridal shop. Those are jobs. Yeah, I worked everywhere.
01:33:48
Speaker
I liked working though and I don't know if that was because like I knew my dad was always working so like it was kind of just a thing like we knew in our family like my dad worked really hard my mom although she was stay-at-home mom like you could see she was like dinner every night five o'clock house was always clean like she was just she worked you know as a stay-at-home mom so I think you're just exposed to that but
01:34:11
Speaker
You mentioned dinner because it's funny, you know, Andrea and I, we dinner together every single night, which is kind of an old fashioned thing. Like nowadays people don't really eat. It seems fragmented. Do you eat dinner together? Oh my God. Yeah. It's a, it's a big thing. It's kind of really disappointing if I call Anthony and he's like, I'm going to be late or he's like, where are you? I'm, I'm running late. So what are we doing for dinner? Like it's a,
01:34:39
Speaker
It's sad. Do you eat dinner with your wife every night? Um, well, she's a hairdresser. So like a lot of times she, like she gets off at like eight o'clock. Um, but Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like, yeah, a lot of the times we sit down, the three of us and have dinner, but not always, not always. It's not like a guaranteed. Well, Anthony has a nine to five and I have a, my own thing.
01:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, but I've talked to lots of people who have, especially as the kids get a little bit older. They got soccer practice. Yeah. When all that stuff starts happening, dinner goes.
01:35:14
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not there yet. Yeah. And I always thought, Oh, that's, that's kind of not, you know, how I would do it. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a kid, it was every, you know, same thing. Five o'clock dinner. Yeah. On the weekend, it was like all day thing, you know, you would just eat all day. Yeah. Pretty much. You know, especially, you know, Sunday with football or, um,
01:35:39
Speaker
like the holidays were literally an all day affair. Which is different now like because my parents live in Mercer County and so now most of the time we're with my wife's family and they're not like that. They're like 4th of July barbecue starts at 3 o'clock. I'm like 3 o'clock. At least like 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock.
01:36:02
Speaker
You've lived nine lives before, three, when you have children. Yeah. It's also, I remember coming out here and like my first, I'll call them friends. They weren't, they were acquaintances where people that Andrea knew from Brooklyn that had lived out here and you go for a barbecue and there'd be like four hamburgers or something. What the hell is this? No. Like, you know, one slice of tomato or whatever.
01:36:30
Speaker
That's, I will say that's another memory. Like my mom and our family just, they make my mother-in-law too. They make so much food. I always, I can't stand same thing going somewhere where you think you're going to eat. And it's like, now we have to like one cheeseburger per person. Like there should always be more than enough.
01:36:48
Speaker
Yeah. Like if there's like appetizers and there's two left on the plate, nobody wants to take one of the last two. There needs to be 12 on there so that everyone feels comfortable having another. Yes. My wife's not good at planning. First of all, she hates having people over. She hates the responsibility. She hates the cleanup.
01:37:09
Speaker
I'd rather have people over than go somewhere. Yeah, so no, she wants to go somewhere. That's her. And then so whenever we're gonna have somebody and we're putting the menu together, she's like, all right, we'll have like 12 of you. I'm like, no, no, that's not enough.
01:37:25
Speaker
That's not enough. Plus, if you're going to go through the trouble of cooking something, there better be leftovers. Right. I don't cook a thing. I buy everything. Yeah. That's where she's at now. Like when you guys came up for dinner. Yeah. Yeah. We had Belford Beach. I mean, nothing wrong with that. Food is food.
01:37:48
Speaker
I guess if you like cooking, it's different. I like to cook. That's like an excuse for me to cook. I dislike it. I love cleaning. I like to clean. Oh no, my wife hates to clean up. She doesn't like cooking or she likes saying, yeah, when you retire, we're going to cook together. That sounds like a nightmare. The shiver runs up the back of my neck. It's like, no, that's not going to work. That's like.
01:38:11
Speaker
I mean, I cook for a living. It's like the processes, then the speed that I work at and the focus, it intimidates her. She's like, no, I want you to relax. No, that's not going to happen just because I don't have a job anymore.
01:38:29
Speaker
Anthony loves to cook and he's very good at it. Yeah, let him do I hate cooking I know when we first like kind of sort of like when we were living together I would try to cook and I was just so angry about it And it would come out in the foods like the food would just be terrible and I think you have to just kind of realize like if he's not cooking We're not eating or we're going somewhere. I'm not making a thing your fuse. I
01:38:51
Speaker
Now, my wife makes about five or six things. So that and that's what we. OK, see, I need variety. Yeah, I can't. Kelly's the same. She she's got like a couple go tos that are good, but she's like needs a recipe where it's like, I don't might reference a recipe, but I'm not just a good cook unless it's baking or something. I'm not following, you know.
01:39:14
Speaker
So when are you having a barbecue and cooking for all of us? I mean, we could really put a big wing ding together between the two of us. You should, though. You have a huge space. I mean, let's have a party. Yeah, we should do like a ribbon cutting party after the ribbon cutting. Oh, 100 percent. We'll have the whole sidewalk just full of people for the ribbon cutting. There you go. We'll have to do a panoramic. Any other open questions that we didn't. Did you get that many questions? Yeah, let's hear them. There was like maybe some of them were kind of like repeats, you know. Speaking of children, I
01:39:43
Speaker
You're being summoned. Oh yeah. Um, when you're sure the client's idea is stolen or borrowed, but claim it's their own as original, do you build it? Oh, I feel like that's a question for you guys. The client doesn't come to me with an idea that just needs to be built as is.
01:40:05
Speaker
I mean, our thing is as long as the money's green. I feel like you could tweak something. Well, but OK, so I'm sorry. When is anything really original? Yeah, we were talking about that yesterday with like music and stuff, you know, it's and design. We were talking about like.
01:40:20
Speaker
you know, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Green Brothers. And it's like they were very original, but they were borrowing from things that people just weren't that familiar with. Right. Outside the country. Right. Like restoration hardware, the biggest copycat. I mean, if they copied Waterworks plumbing, every single one of their pieces is a dupe to like a vintage piece, but they are charging $10,000 for a sofa. And I'm sorry, I feel like the entire country loves RH. So I don't know. I can't, I can't understand this.
01:40:48
Speaker
Well, it was it was high time for gray plain furniture. That's what everybody wanted.
Design Pricing and Profit Strategies
01:40:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That neutral. Neutches. What's a typical markup for a designer on a cabinet project?
01:41:05
Speaker
Well, my markups, we do 15% on labor and 30% on furnishings for most clients. Some clients are not that. That's very reasonable. Yeah, that is reasonable. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I'm coordinating it and I don't charge hourly and that's why we have a markup. I think some designers charge hourly and then I'm not sure if they charge a markup, but I don't like to have that hourly discussion unless they're an hourly retainer client, in which case I don't deal with any of that. I just send them to you guys directly and you know,
01:41:35
Speaker
It is what it is. I think people in our trade would have thought you guys make more. Maybe. I mean, I've heard I was in a group on Clubhouse. That was like some kind of interior design thing that I would pop into every now and then. And some of them were talking about like 100% markup on furnishings. Yeah, I've never heard that before.
01:41:58
Speaker
So I think it depends on one, the discount, right? So like if I buy in volume, I maybe get 60% off so I could charge a 40 or 50% markup on those things. Um, I've done it this way because I feel like it's fair. If somebody asks me about it, I don't, I could pass the red face test. I don't think it's greedy. Right. It's hard to make a living. We got to get where we can. Yeah. And most of my discounts aren't like, I'm not getting 80 to 90% off of something. And you got a whole inventory of a bunch of stuff anyway. So there's a risk involved.
01:42:27
Speaker
Right. And I'm doing all the work for you. So I need to make money. I need to pay. We need to live. Yeah. I mean, we don't make a lot of money. No. You know, we do this partly because of the love we have for it and things like that. That was like the Dewey pile driver yesterday, dropping off the drawers. Yeah. You know, he pulls them in. He points at our cars. He goes, Hey, you guys go. Yeah. He goes, Oh, you guys doing pretty good.
01:42:56
Speaker
I know. Everybody thinks that we're, you know, because let's say we charge $30,000 for something. People just start doing the math in their head. It's like, by the time it gets to our paycheck, there's not that much left.
01:43:11
Speaker
Well I mean I've definitely met people where it's like I've been given a price where I know like I know the like I break it down sometimes by and I used to I used to do a lot of work with this one like spec home builder and he said the way that he would break down an estimate is divide that number by like the number of days you think that
01:43:29
Speaker
project or task is going to be worth. So if somebody gives you a price of like $10,000 and you know it's only going to take them a day of work, you start to be like, okay, are you bringing 15 people to the job for this one particular task? And if it's just, and then it's exorbitant, then you know the profit margin is ridiculous. But if you're a specialized trade and you have all this hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and nobody else to do what you do, then you can charge.
01:43:55
Speaker
Yeah. In the Hamptons job, they had a guy come out and he's actually from this area and put some kind of sealer on the stone countertops. And I heard the exchange at the end. He's like, okay, yeah, it'll be $2,000. And she's like, $2,000. Wow. He was there for half hour. Right. But can you find some other guy to do it or is he the only guy? He was the only guy. You got to pay him. Well, there you go. Pay the man. Yeah.
01:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's different. I've heard, um, designers who charge like for their fees, for example, like 50% of the FFNE or whatever, you know, the client's budget is, um, some clients, some designers charge hourly and they charge a huge hourly rate, but they pass along their discounts. I just think that does a disservice to other designers by not having like a, you know, uh, a standard charging. I think designers should charge for their design because that's why people are coming to you. Yeah, intellectual property. Yeah.
01:44:51
Speaker
And then if we're offering things to you at a discount that we get because of who we are and the licenses that we hold and the resale licenses that I have and the sales and use tax that I have to pay so to pay an account. Like there's a reason I get the discount. Do you have a resale license? No. Well, then you can't have the discount. Like I've never understood that. But if a client asks for me to share it, I just say no.
01:45:11
Speaker
In a sense, we pass on the discounts that we get because we charge. We buy wholesale. Yeah. Our material plus a small markup for handling and everything like that. But we're not buying at like Monteith's prices. Right.
01:45:27
Speaker
But, you know, if we have a job that needs 50 board feet of lumber, we have to buy 200 board feet minimum to get it here. Right. And sometimes we have to charge that full amount to the client. That could all be the make or break point. Yeah. I've always been a fan of like cost plus. I just think if clients want to
01:45:48
Speaker
You know, audit you, for example, and they're like, well, show me your invoices from OK, great here. And here was my 15 percent market like it's just very easy to calculate. Yeah, that's basically how we figure we figure the jobs time and material plus the markup. And that's how we get the number. Yeah, they can come in and audit art.
01:46:07
Speaker
I mean, oh my God, totally agree. How many hours and hours of changes where I'm like, we charge after two rounds of changes and I've never done that, you know? So yeah, we're a great deal. We really are. I got time for one more. Yeah.
01:46:24
Speaker
Cabinet shops, what makes the shop a pleasure for you to work with? What do you look for? Kind of piggybacking on the other question. Yeah. For me, it's, I think, just that frictionless experience. Like if I have to, if it's hard to get in touch with you, if I can't get a sample to give to my client, and if I just don't get enough information to sell the, like I have to sell your idea and I have to sell the job in order for you to
Facilitating Creativity in Design
01:46:49
Speaker
make it. Yeah. So give me the tools I need to be your salesperson.
01:46:52
Speaker
That's it. You know, make my job and my life easier. Right. That's. But isn't that all what we want? Like are willing to pay more money so that we don't have to do as much work and our lives are more convenient. So just make my life easier. We feel like we get that with you.
01:47:09
Speaker
Oh, do you? I feel like I make your life really difficult. It's inevitable. Yeah. You're like, yeah, sometimes you're paying the ass and other times you're great. But that's the way, you know, you have it's all about your expectations. Yeah. I mean, if you there's no perfect, like, no thing. But my favorite is always like, oh, yeah, I got an email from Jacqueline last night. It could be Tuesday. You know, she's presenting Thursday. Yeah, she's presenting Wednesday at one o'clock.
01:47:39
Speaker
All right. You know, it doesn't even phase me now. Yeah. Well, Jeff did yell at me one time. He was like, you need to give me more than a day. I was like, but I didn't have to give you more than a day before. Yeah. It's hard now. There's less bandwidth, which I respect. And I, you know, it's, you know, I appreciate that.
01:47:55
Speaker
I always figure, you know, it's just, it is what it is. You know, like if you had more time, you'd offer it to us. My issue is I've always been somebody who like inspiration strikes me late in the evening and when I have a deadline. So like I will put together a presentation and then I don't look at it for two weeks. And then the night before I'm looking at it, I'm like, Oh my God, this would have been so cool. And I'm working till 3am putting it together.
01:48:20
Speaker
I think they call that procrastination. They do. But I'm a creative, so it's called something else. You're still working. We're just about getting up. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. And then I go to sleep and then I wake up to Jeff being like, I needed more time, but here's a render and here's a price. You did it to yourself. Yeah. You created the monster. As long as I have the information, that's the hard part. There always needs to be a revision.
01:48:47
Speaker
Cuz we have to make assumptions like we're talking before. There's always some unknown where we have to fill in a blank. And then we gotta change it to.
01:48:56
Speaker
But you tell me that and I think, you know, I pitch that to the client and just say like, and I, we always do two rounds of presentations. So I always say like, version one is just to get your initial feedback, personal reactions to things. Tell me budget wise, if we're okay or not. Cause I always, I mean, I always go over budget. It just is what it is. So if, and nine times out of 10, the clients will spend it. Yeah. They'll give me a budget and then all of a sudden it's like that budget doesn't exist by a hundred thousand dollars. Like, well, that's not fair.
01:49:20
Speaker
So I just design and I was like, I will give you the most amazing package first. And then you tell me this budget is crazy. Or you know what, we could probably do a little bit of this, you know, or I will totally spend on that. I think that's a great idea. Because I think when you pigeonhole yourself into the budget conversation, you pigeonhole the creativity.
01:49:40
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, definitely. I've created for clients who were on a budget and they were upset with the presentation because it didn't meet their standards. And then I go with a revision where I paid zero attention to the budget and they're like, this is amazing. I'm like, but it's $50,000 over what you told me. So why didn't we just start there? So I don't even, I mean, I get a range, but I'll be like, that's kind of what we do. Cool.
01:50:05
Speaker
I always say like throw some at the wall and see if it sticks. Like we have to design something for the client and you don't know what you want until you see what we designed and then we're going to change it to something else anyway. So start with a dream and then kill it. That's what Anthony does to me. I call him the dream killer. What if we did this? He's like, we can't afford that. I had a similar nickname for my wife and she hated it. It's a called a dream squasher.
01:50:32
Speaker
She's like, don't you dare call me that. Squash my dreams. Love that. Yeah.
Conclusion: Life over Woodworking
01:50:41
Speaker
So this has been great. This was fun. I feel like this is a little therapy. Yeah. You get to talk, talk it out. Nobody really listens to the end, do they? Oh yeah. Really? Yeah. Good for you guys. All over the world. I think you would have lost me when you started talking about like depressing childhood.
01:51:00
Speaker
No, we veer off course all the time. Oh, yeah. Everybody knows we're going to snap back to it. Yeah. Yeah. The show is probably like less woodworking talk now than everything else. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. It's just two guys who happen to be woodworkers talking now in a room from the 70s. Yeah. Yeah. One hundred and seven degree heat. So you're lucky it wasn't in the other room. Any parting thoughts for the audience?
01:51:28
Speaker
Um, I mean, assuming that your audience are woodworkers, yeah. I mean, I would just say from a design point of view, as much as you can make your customers lives easier, you know, the same kind of thoughts around working with designers, it's just, we want to be creative. And if you could facilitate that creative discussion, then you will forever be busy.
01:51:52
Speaker
Oh, and tell everybody where they can find you on Instagram and such. You know, it's funny. I think it's Donnie Douglas underscore design, but I forget. So I think that's why. Search Donnie Douglas. D O N I D O U G L A S. Yeah. D O N I Donnie Douglas design. There's only one of us.
01:52:11
Speaker
Yeah. Donnie Douglas underscore design. Yes. Donnie is spelled D-O-N-I. We're green underscore S-T underscore joinery with two underscores. Okay. So yours is more complicated. Yeah. DM me and say hi. I will follow you back. I don't look at my followers that often, but if you say that you found me on the podcast.
01:52:32
Speaker
Oh yeah. That'd be cool. Don't anybody try and weasel in on our work here. Weasel in, man. I need like some competitive bidding, I think. That's what I'm learning. Almost anybody's probably gonna be cheaper.
01:52:44
Speaker
But they won't be frictionless. I was going to say, will they give me a 3D model in 12 hours? I think not. And will it be as good? Oh, I feel like there's a lot of challenges here. We'll see. I don't know. Maybe there is. Yeah. Well, everybody, thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next week, probably with Jim Jamal from Jamal upholstery.
01:53:04
Speaker
As always, Rob and I, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week. If you want to help support the podcast, you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Again, we appreciate your support. Thanks for tuning in.
01:53:34
Speaker
the chain