Popular Remodeling Projects and Trends: Kitchens, Bathrooms, Tile, Trim, and Quality Materials
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
You can also call them at 608-636-3343. That number is easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
Joining us in studio this morning is Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. Mike, how have you been?
Mike:
Great, Sean. It is good to talk to you.
Host:
We are going to break things down and get into the year-end spirit as we start a new year. We are going to talk about an overview of some of the most popular areas people focus on when it comes to home remodeling.
The first one on this list is one we have covered a few different ways on this program: the kitchen remodel. More specifically, how to do a kitchen remodel the right way.
There is a right way, a wrong way, and a “wouldn’t it be great if you could just snap your fingers, turn around, and suddenly it was done” way.
I think a lot of people do not always fully understand everything that goes into a kitchen remodel. Is that one of those rooms where people tend to underestimate the process?
Mike:
I blame TV, actually.
They make it look so easy. There is always a hiccup because they need a little drama, but in a half hour they peel stuff off, put stuff on, paint it, throw down a little flooring, and suddenly they have a new kitchen.
But if you do it right, half the work in remodeling anything is the stuff you do not get to see. It is the work behind the drywall.
Host:
As we talk about these bigger remodeling projects, the kitchen is one you really want to get right. I was going to say you want to get it right the first time, but really, you just want to get it right.
Mike:
For a couple of reasons.
First, it is expensive. I do not care what your budget is. If it is $20,000 or $200,000, it is still a lot of money.
You also have the pain and suffering of being without your kitchen for a while. It disrupts your life.
Now I can tell people are looking at it a little differently. It is not just like putting new tires on the truck. It is also asking, “What is best for the house?”
A lot of times, that means it affects more than just the kitchen. If you look at the remodels we do, yes, we are doing the kitchen, but we may want some continuity. If we are doing flooring in there, we might also do flooring on the rest of the first floor or in the common areas.
So it is not always just the kitchen.
The long answer is: how do you avoid going through this every 15 years? You pick good products. You want products that are going to last.
There is a wide range in cabinets, and I know we have talked about this a lot over the years. As a company, I want cabinets to be attractive. I want them to do what they are supposed to do. I want options for color, wood species, and the overall look.
But they really need to last. If we are putting in a product that needs to be replaced because it fails in 20 years, that does not feel like a success to me.
Host:
Are we in a good time for kitchens? It feels like with the options and quality available now, fewer compromises need to be made.
If you are interested in doing it right, it seems like you can do a fantastic kitchen remodel right now with some really amazing products.
Mike:
You can.
I will touch on cabinets and flooring a little bit.
If you have a cabinet on the lower end, like the particleboard stuff we have poked fun at before, it is common. When those cabinets are installed brand new, they are going to look like a brand-new car. They will look great.
But that is not enough for us. I want that cabinet to look good 10 years from now, 20 years from now, and hopefully much longer than that.
You have to pay specific attention to how they are made and what products are used.
Is it a golden age? Yes, because for a long time we had trouble even finding products we liked.
Our main manufacturer for many years was Wellborn Forest, and we still use their cabinets. They are probably about 30 percent of our supply. It is a good cabinet, certainly upper-middle in quality.
We talked to them about what we wanted when we bought cabinets, and they accommodated us. They made cabinets that met our minimums. I have those cabinets in my own house.
Now our main supplier has become a Wisconsin supplier: Great Northern Cabinet up in Rib Lake, Wisconsin. I can make fun of Rib Lake because those guys are so far away they will never hear it. You go to the North Pole, then just keep going.
They do a beautiful job. I love how they manufacture, and for us, it was a step up in quality for sure.
We gained a lot of other things with them because we can customize their cabinets much more than we could with the standard cabinets we had.
Does that come at a cost? Yes, it is a little more expensive. But those are the things you need to have your eyes open about when you walk into a remodel. You do not want to do something you will have to replace in too short a time.
Host:
You mentioned getting a chance to tour up in Rib Lake. Kohler is another Wisconsin company when it comes to fixtures and faucets.
I know over the years you have really familiarized yourself with Kohler products, and there is a reason you use them.
Mike:
Right.
I believe the last statistic I saw was that about 60 percent of the plumbing products used in the United States come from China. Good, bad, or otherwise, I am sure there are good products, but it can be a little bit of a minefield for us.
I get a lot of comfort out of Kohler as our standard starting point. We know the products. When we have had issues, they are usually fixed right away. They have never balked at a warranty item. They are always there to help us.
They also have such a wide range of products to choose from. You have all the options you can imagine.
We have gone up to Kohler as a company. You can go to the town and see all their products. They have amazing showrooms. We have had homeowners and customers go up there, look, and see what is available.
One of the best times of year for me is the Builder Show. This year it is in Vegas again, and Kohler has something like a city block there. It is phenomenal.
As designers and as a remodeling company, we can get pigeonholed a little bit. We find products we like within their portfolio, and that becomes our comfort zone. It is great for us to go to the show and see everything they have, because it is usually amazing.
We try to stay away from the really trendy stuff, but you can see where the trends are moving. Some years, not every year, they even have stand-up comedians talking about their toilets. That is pretty funny.
Host:
Speaking of good products, I think of Kohler as an example. I do not know how many fixtures and faucets they are producing each year — tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.
Obviously, once in a while, something will not be perfect. When you are judging products, it seems like the real test is what happens when that rare issue comes up. How do they respond?
Having relationships with cabinet makers and having reputable fixture companies matters, doesn’t it?
Mike:
It does.
Great Northern and Kohler are two wonderful Wisconsin companies, and both are responsive that way.
Things happen. I would love to say there are companies so good that they never mess up, but occasionally something happens. Like you said, it is how they respond.
Sometimes it is not their fault. Sometimes we order something wrong. We have checks and balances, but human error happens.
We had a recent bathroom remodel where we ordered two cabinets wrong. I am embarrassed to say it happens once every year or two.
We got on the phone with Great Northern, and within a little less than two weeks, they produced those two cabinets and got them down to us. It was an inconvenience to the homeowner, but it could have been much worse.
Two years ago, that might have been a four-, five-, or six-month process just to get those two cabinets. So it is great to have companies that are close and will help and respond to us.
Host:
As we talk about popular remodeling projects and trends, quality has to be one of the greatest trends to come about. People now expect very high quality.
Mike:
I think so.
You are going through this remodel. You are investing money, and you are out of your kitchen for a while. It is not worth saving $100 on a fixture, a shower fixture, or a sink fixture.
There is cheaper stuff out there, and some of it might be fine. But we like sticking with what we know for a lot of reasons.
With cabinets, quality can be hard to fit into the budget, but you do not want to have problems.
How many Yugos do you see driving around?
Host:
I saw one at a car show.
Mike:
When they were new, they appealed to people because they were cheap.
You can buy a product that looks good when it is brand new, but families are tough on kitchens. I am sure your family was, and my family sure was.
Host:
In our house, it was one particular person. For you, it was a trio.
Mike:
Yes. I seem to remember hockey games in the kitchen when my wife was not looking.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
It is a great time to start that conversation and start planning for that remodeling project. Again, pick up the phone and call 608-636-3343.
If we are talking about popular remodeling projects and trends, one item on this list is choosing the best drain for your shower.
I feel like drains are overlooked. But without a drain, you have a flood and a big problem. People may wonder why anyone would focus on a drain, but it is amazing what they can do functionally and aesthetically. There are some really good drains available now, aren’t there?
Mike:
Yes, that is an interesting thing.
We do quite a few full tile showers. We used to call them mud-set tile showers, where we would build the base of the shower out of a cement base. That has changed a lot over the years.
Now we use a combination of that and some premade products to make it all work.
Drains in showers are something you may not notice, but life would be inconvenient without one — or if it failed.
We have experimented with several different things.
A common drain would be a smaller center drain. As showers have gotten fancier and bigger, you need pitch on that floor to get water all the way to the center.
Sometimes people say, “I do not know if I want a two-inch pitch in my shower. What other option do I have?”
We can put in a tray drain, or a linear drain as they are sometimes called. It is a long drain, maybe three or four inches wide. It could be against the back wall of the shower.
Some people do not want to stand on a drain, so we can do something like that.
Those are much trickier installs, by the way. Once you get away from the normal little drain in the middle, things get a little more complicated, and you need a really good trained installer.
It is not just about looks. When it comes to water, it has to function well.
There are times when we say, “Okay, we have two supplies coming into this big shower. We have a rain head in the middle and normal shower heads on either end. That is a lot more water coming in here, so we need to upsize everything.”
That may mean upsizing the drain, pipes, and other components.
Host:
Are people sometimes surprised that this is part of the conversation? I would not have thought about drain options.
Mike:
I am laughing because I am thinking of people saying, “Oh no, I have to make one more decision. I have to pick one more thing out. My head is going to explode.”
But yes, you can do that.
There is cool stuff with drains too. We have tile-over drains now. It looks like maybe you forgot the grout in one spot, and that is where the water goes down. You leave a little space, but you are basically tiling over the top of the drain.
It could be a linear drain or the smaller drain in the middle.
Again, you are stepping up the skill level of the install, and you really want to make sure you are using good products.
Host:
One final thing on drains: for a lot of people, especially as we get older, not having to step over even a small curb is beneficial and desirable.
Some of these drain options can make it almost a seamless transition between the outside of the shower and the inside.
Mike:
Yes. You are talking about a curbless shower or something similar.
I love that look, and it makes a lot of sense to me. But houses are not often built to accommodate it.
If you are building a new house, it would be kind of easy to accommodate that. There are things you can do when framing the house and building the floor system to allow for a zero-threshold shower.
What we have also done is put in a smaller curb. When I started in construction, it seemed like all those curbs were four or five inches tall. I do not know why they were built that tall. We did not have to build them that tall.
We have installed smaller curbs and even handicap-friendly options. That is the term they use.
For example, we put in a Kohler fiberglass unit that was about eight feet wide and maybe six feet deep. It was a really good-sized shower. The person using it was in a chair, and they could roll over the top. It had about a one-inch curb.
It was a way to get in safely, and it worked really well. We did not have to do anything fancy with reframing the floor.
There are a lot of options out there.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction.
We will continue our conversation about popular remodeling projects and trends. We will get into glasswork and tile, since we have already touched on bathroom spaces.
You can find Edge Construction online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
More of the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction is next here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
It is a great website. If you have not had a chance to head over there, it is a great way to spend a little time. You can check out some cool projects. There are also links to Pinterest, Houzz, and Facebook.
Houzz is a really good place to get remodeling ideas, and you can link to it right from EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
With the new year and year-end wrap-up, we are going over some popular remodeling projects and trends.
We started by talking about shower drains, which are a very important part of a shower, even if they are not always something you think about.
Another area that has become very popular, and that ties into shower options and shower drains, is glasswork. I do not know the exact industry term, but the shower surrounds and glass around the shower are a big deal now.
Glass has so many great benefits. It looks great and makes the room feel more open and spacious, which is something you really want in a bathroom. That has become a very popular thing, hasn’t it?
Mike:
It has.
Do you have glass doors on your shower?
Host:
We do not.
Mike:
I mean the old ones with the rail, where the doors slide.
Host:
No.
Mike:
Even those have gotten nicer, but the trend is toward frameless glass.
That gets rid of all that track stuff. Now you have a door that swings out, and it is much simpler looking but much nicer.
It is also customizable. I will give Todd at Mid-Wisconsin Glass a plug. They do almost all the glass in town and even outside of Madison. They are really good people.
They come out, and we talk them through the design. We talk through where we want the glass and what we want those showers to look like. They have great ideas and a ton of options.
We have had people find interesting things online on Houzz or Pinterest and ask, “Can we make it look like that?” Todd always has a solution.
With custom glass, you can build the greatest shower in the world with beautiful tile work, but if nobody can see it because there is a weird door in front of it, it does not work.
The trend in glass is definitely more open.
Twenty years ago, the custom showers we were doing, even in custom houses, looked more like caves by today’s standards. You would walk in through an entrance, and there might be a lot of tile, even tile walls. We would light it up in there, but it still felt like a tunnel.
Now the trend is to get rid of those walls and use glass. It is a much nicer situation.
Host:
As we talk about custom glass, am I wrong that as it has become more popular, it has become more achievable for more budgets?
There is cost, of course, but it feels like it fits into a lot more budgets now.
Mike:
It does.
When we price things, we could price everything on the lower end and make you upgrade every time you go up. I think that is dishonest.
Our base pricing includes frameless glass because we know that is what people will tend to want. You just have to make room in the budget for it right away.
Has it gotten cheaper? I would not say that. But it has not gone up at the same pace as everything else. It has sort of maintained its pricing, so maybe it feels more reasonable because everything else has gone up.
There are also a lot of different looks you can get with glass. Clear glass is probably the most common.
We get factory-treated glass, too. Remember when people had a squeegee in the shower and had to wipe the glass down because it spotted so badly? The new stuff is much better.
It is like stainless steel appliances. People liked them but felt like they were cleaning them all the time. The new stuff is much better and does not show as much.
We have also done cloudy glass in the middle.
Host:
The important area.
Mike:
Exactly.
You can do rain glass, wavy glass, and a lot of other options. Pretty much any glass out there seems to be an option now.
Host:
We are talking with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Why glass? Because you want to show off the tile work. That brings us to the next trend: the right tile.
Tile is very cool, very customizable, and can add a lot of character, especially in showers. What a great area that has become.
Mike:
I hope the way people view tile is changing because of the options available now.
Some people come in and say, “I had tile in my last house, and I did not really like it.” What they usually did not like was the big grout joints.
That has kind of gone by the wayside. The trend is not there.
The new grout products come pretreated, so they do not get dirty like the old stuff did, and they are much easier to clean.
Another thing I am noticing is that tile in the past always looked perfect. Every tile out of the box looked exactly like the last one.
The trend is moving away from that. I forget the term they use, but when they fire them now, they are making sort of imperfect tiles. They are not perfectly flat, and they have some personality.
One tile that has made it into our lineup, or at least one style of tile, is a four-inch square tile with a lot of flavor. The color changes within it. It comes in just about every color you can imagine.
If you pick blue, for example, it goes through different shades of blue, and every piece is just a little different. When they fire them, the edges kind of come up.
It does not look perfect, but it is perfectly imperfect.
Host:
I think that helps combat the sterile look. People like a clean look, but sometimes it can feel too sterile.
That character offsets it a little and makes it feel more comfortable, more personal, and more like home.
Mike:
Yes.
Host:
If you want to see some amazing tile work, head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com and check out the portfolio. You can also link to Houzz and see some really cool work.
A very popular feature in showers — I would almost not call it an option because I think every shower I have seen you do has one — is the nook, or niche.
Mike:
Niche, yes.
It takes a little effort to put niches in, but people love them, and they have become a design element too.
A lot of times, we will do an accent in the niche. The base tile may be one style, and then there is something special in the niche.
I pick on our designers because I ask, “Can’t you design a shower with an easy niche? Maybe one 12-by-12 niche right in the middle? That would be awesome.”
But no, they like to do more.
You will see niches that run the length of the shower. You will see two or three niches staggered.
An interesting one that has shown up in the last few years is a small niche down low, maybe a foot off the floor. When you are shaving your legs, you can put your foot in there.
I said if I ever want one for myself, I want one at head height so I can put a mirror in there and shave.
We have actually done that a couple of times too. There are a lot of different ideas.
Host:
Does that require special framing?
Mike:
Not really.
If there is a two-by-four in the way where the niche needs to go, we can cut that out and block for the niche.
If it falls within a stud space, which is what happens if we design and build it right, that works well.
We make those out of a Schluter product. It is the orange stuff you may see behind tile on TV shows.
Schluter has a product called Kerdi-Board. It is like insulation board, but it has their Kerdi fabric on the front. We custom-make our own niches out of Kerdi-Board.
It is a great substrate for tile work. You get super-flat, clean lines, and a little extra insulation never hurts either.
Host:
Certainly not in the shower.
You mentioned Schluter and some of the techniques. One old concern with tile was that as things age, tiles can become loose or things can settle.
These modern products, not just what is behind the tile but even the products used to attach the tiles and grout the joints, are much better at holding for a long time, right?
Mike:
Yes.
When we tear out an old shower, you may look at that tile and think it is impervious. But the mortar, which is a cement product used to attach tiles to the substrate, and the grout that fills in the joints, are not perfectly impervious.
If you look at it under a microscope, it is not perfectly flat. There is air and texture in that concrete material. Moisture can work its way through.
What used to happen is that moisture would work through and reach whatever was behind the tile. A lot of times it was plywood or something else that would hold moisture. Then it could rot that mortar, and tiles would start popping off.
With the new products, there is less of that migration or wicking.
The Schluter product, the orange membrane, is really your shower. I tell our people that the waterproofing membrane is the shower, and the tile is the artwork that goes on top of it.
That gives you a different perspective. It places a lot of importance on doing the background work right, because if water makes its way through, you want it to stop at the membrane.
Host:
That is an important perspective.
Check out some of those bathroom remodels at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. You can look at the portfolio there and also link to their Houzz page. There are dozens and dozens of bathroom ideas and some really great work.
We will continue our conversation about popular remodeling projects and trends next as the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are talking about popular remodeling projects and trends. I am laughing because I read the note right before we came on air about interior trim, and the first line says, “Trim is often subtle unless it is done wrong.”
That is so true.
Mike:
There are epic fails out there. There are Facebook pages just for weird things people have done with interior trim.
Host:
I still remember more than a decade ago, when you and I first met, learning about trim and talking about the work Edge Construction does.
Trim is completely underappreciated. Maybe it is because it is beautiful but subtle. There is an art to trim, isn’t there?
Mike:
There is.
There are a lot of traditional things that help you — kind of dos and don’ts.
In our Monday morning meetings, we have a bunch of different people in the room. I grew up as a trimmer. I spent my time outside building houses and then moved inside and felt like I never worked another day in my life.
Interior trim has an art to it.
Our people who do that work — we have more than 20 trim carpenters — are all just a little bit different. They each have a little flare they can put on things.
If you turn these guys loose, it is amazing what they can do. They can do beautiful work.
You also do not want to put something in a 1970s ranch that really belongs in a 1901 Victorian. There are different ways to do things.
Trim has been pretty utilitarian for a long time. Since probably the 1960s and 1970s, the trend has been what we call thin-line trim. It is about two and a quarter inches wide and not very interesting. It is there but does not want to be noticed.
Lately, though, people have been willing to kick it up a notch and maybe go a little wider. You cannot go too crazy or it will not fit the house, but people are opening up to more.
In our Monday morning meetings, when we are talking about woodwork, I notice Dale, my electrician, his eyes glaze over and he takes a nap. Then he gets excited when he talks about wire, and the rest of us go, “This is really boring.”
But it is needed.
Host:
With trim work, there is precision that I think is often underappreciated.
Nothing against framers — they do great work — but it is not the same level of precision. The art and skill required to install trim well is very high-level.
To do trim right, you really have to be a skilled carpenter, don’t you?
Mike:
You do.
Either that, or you need an infinite amount of time.
We are always training new trim carpenters. They will get better at hanging an interior door for years. That is sort of the base level.
As they progress, we add more onto their plate. At the upper end, they are doing very fancy work. But you have to pay your dues and work your way up, because you are not ready for that right away.
I have a saying: when you first start doing trim, I can teach you how to cut a board in a few seconds, but the wood will not do what you want it to do for a while.
I do not know what happens, but all of a sudden it starts to flow. It just takes a lot of time.
Host:
I get caught up in YouTube shorts. Apparently because I watch a lot of Ask This Old House and This Old House, I get a lot of these carpentry videos.
There are ones I love where someone is doing trim and coming to a corner. It has a really cool profile, and they bring the two pieces together, then tie in horizontal pieces. When they slide it all together and everything is tight, with no gaps, it is beautiful.
It is amazing.
Mike:
It is a culmination of a lot of skill, years of doing it, and the right tools.
Host:
What about the design of trim?
You were talking about different types of homes. Trim is going to be different, and you want it to work with the house. When you are working with a designer, understanding the space and the home’s character is part of the trim conversation too.
Mike:
It is.
It is kind of like flooring. Coming out of 2008 and 2009, flippers did just enough to get people to buy houses. A lot of times, we walk into the first floor of a house and there are two, three, or four different types of flooring.
Same with trim. Whoever touched it did whatever they did. Maybe they had a master plan, but it got abandoned, and then somebody else bought the house.
If you have a kitchen remodel, it will probably touch other areas because you need to pick a theme and say, “This is the direction we are going.”
We have done several projects with return customers where we did a couple of bathrooms and maybe the upstairs trim, then came back later to do the kitchen and downstairs. Now everything ties together.
Host:
We are talking with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great website, and you can see beautiful trim and other projects there. There are also links to Pinterest, Facebook, and Houzz.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We will talk more with Mike about popular home remodeling projects next as the Home Remodeling Show continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are talking this week about popular remodeling projects and trends.
Mike, real quick, over the holiday weekend, I noticed some people with built-in vacuum systems, and I am always a little jealous of those.
Do you see ease of cleaning as a trend? Whether it is built-in vacuum systems or surfaces and areas that are easy to clean under, around, and alongside?
Mike:
There is always cleaning. A 12-year-old just finished cleaning, and it is ready for another cleaning.
Kohler makes a self-cleaning toilet. If I were a real bachelor, I think I would have that.
But yes, with surfaces, generally the lower-maintenance products clean better. That has certainly been a trend. People do not want to have to do a bunch of upkeep on surfaces over time.
Granite got a little bit of a bad rap because you are supposed to treat it once a year. It is so easy to do that it should never stop anybody from buying granite countertops. But you do not have to do that with quartz.
The surfaces, paints, finishes on wood floors, and finishes on cabinets have all gotten better. I think all of that has moved in the right direction as far as ease of cleaning.
Host:
You mentioned grout earlier too. That is easier to clean now, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is.
It comes pretreated, so you should not have to treat it. You used to have to clean it, put something on it, let it sit for a while every year, and it did not work that great.
The new grouts are much better. Even the mortars we use to apply tiles are much better, so you should have fewer problems keeping that stuff clean.
Host:
That is pretty cool.
If you have been thinking about doing an update — kitchen, bathroom, basement, whole home, trim, or any of the great things we talked about — Mike and the team at Edge Construction would love to talk with you.
Pick up the phone and call 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Even better, head over to the website at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction, right here on 1310 WIBA.