Why Homeowners Renovate: Kitchens, Quality Materials, Flex Spaces, and Hidden Details
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 easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
It is a great website. Not only can you peruse recent projects and see their portfolio, but across the top you will see icons for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Houzz. That is H-O-U-Z-Z. It is a really powerful tool when it comes to looking at remodeling work and getting ideas for your own home.
Again, just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Joining us in studio this morning is Mike Twohig of Edge Construction. Mike, how was your Thanksgiving?
Mike:
It was great, Sean. Thanksgiving is my favorite.
Host:
It is?
Mike:
It is. I never thought a lot about it, but yes, you are 100 percent right.
Host:
Are you a cranberry sauce guy?
Mike:
I do. I love everything about Thanksgiving, except — and this is going to get me in trouble — I am not a green bean casserole guy. I can fight my way through that.
Host:
Have you ever heard of cranberry pudding?
Mike:
No.
Host:
Really? Normally cranberries are a little tart for me, but my mom has this recipe from my grandma, rest her soul, who was a great cook. They have this cranberry pudding with a butter cream sauce you pour over the top. It is a once-a-year, maybe twice-a-year thing. You might get it at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So Mom, if you are listening, we have some fans here for the cranberry pudding.
Is there anything special that your family does?
Mike:
No, nothing big or traditional. It is pretty basic stuff.
Host:
You may have to come up to my mom’s and try that cranberry pudding one of these weeks.
This week, we are going to talk about renovations, an overall view of renovations, and what homeowners care most about.
With the holiday behind us, one of the big areas is kitchen space: workability, accessibility, and kitchen remodeling. What you are able to do at Edge Construction, and what we expect out of a kitchen, has changed a lot over the last couple of decades.
The expectations are much different now as far as how that kitchen should perform.
Mike:
Kitchens are a big one.
This is a good time of year to evaluate a little bit and come up with a plan for the new year.
We have noticed traffic picking up. It seems like people are starting to think about projects again. We do this thing every four years that frustrates people and makes them not want to do anything, and gladly that is over.
Host:
Unless you want to do that every year.
Mike:
No, thank you.
There are trends in remodeling and kitchen remodeling, but we are also noticing an overall trend, even in new construction, where the emphasis is more and more on the common spaces — the places where your family gets together or friends come over.
The kitchen is a big part of that great-room area. You are designing these spaces for people to congregate.
Bedrooms seem to be a little more right-sized. I do not want to say they are getting smaller, but right-sized is a better way to put it.
In the past, we built houses with huge primary bedrooms. That trend has faded a little. People are saying, “I am sleeping in there. I want a nice bathroom, and the primary bath has to fit the house.”
If you have a nice house, you want a nice primary bath and a nice kitchen. But with bedrooms, I think it is healthy to really evaluate where you spend your time and what you are doing there.
Maybe you do not need a couch in your primary bedroom.
Host:
It seems like a nice thing, but everything is a give-and-take. If you had to prioritize, would you rather have more common area or a couch in your bedroom? Probably more common area.
When we talk about the kitchen, it feels like the kitchen has not always been treated as a common area, has it?
Mike:
No.
Traditionally, friends and relatives did not see the kitchen. If you look at 100-year-old houses or 80-year-old houses that have not been remodeled, or have not gone through a remodel where the kitchen was centralized, the kitchen tended to be in a back corner of the house, shut off like a galley.
It might have been a small 10-by-12 or 12-by-12 room, because people were not spending time back there. They were not socializing in the kitchen. It was seen as an area you did not want anybody else to see.
The concentration was much more on other rooms. Those houses had parlors, which might be like a den now.
Host:
I love that. That would be cool.
With the design conversation for kitchens, historically you might have treated the kitchen almost like an industrial kitchen: this is where we prepare food, and that is it.
Now, I have to guess a big part of the design conversation is how people want to entertain in that space and how the space is going to be used, whether for entertaining or for family. There is a different level of function that needs to be applied to kitchen design now.
Mike:
There is.
We went through a progression. Older kitchens were functional and got the job done, but they were not open, inviting, or meant for entertaining. A lot of times, it was almost uncomfortable to have more than one person in there.
When I started in construction in the late 1980s, we felt like we had really jumped ahead because we started opening things up. Open concept was coming in, so there were fewer walls. We still had walls, but fewer of them.
You would see an island once in a while, and certainly peninsulas. Those were pretty big. Breakfast bars were a step in the right direction.
But when I look back at pictures from my early days, everything kind of looked the same. When we get into houses from the 1980s and 1990s, I almost have those plans memorized in my head. It was sort of the same deal.
Design just was not advanced enough. We were still designing on paper for the most part.
Things really progressed when CAD started making it down to people like us in the mid- to late-1990s. Then we started having more options.
There is a reason things in the 1970s and 1980s looked the same. There were fewer things to pick from. The pipeline was very condensed. There were probably three versions of cabinets.
Host:
As we talk this week about renovations and where people are putting their focus, the kitchen and that changing perspective from what the kitchen was to what it is now is a big part of that.
When people call Edge Construction, I have to guess kitchens are a very high percentage of what they are asking about, especially if they have not had a recent remodel. Kitchens have to be at or near the top for spaces people want remodeled.
Mike:
Oh yeah. Probably about half of what we do is kitchen remodels.
Then we do some of those bigger remodels. We seem to do a few each year where we do additions, tear the roof off and go up, or maybe build a new house once in a while, like we are right now.
But kitchens never stop.
If you come to Edge Construction, you are going to think, “Wow, these guys are geared toward doing kitchens,” and we are.
A lot of the choices we have in our showroom are cabinet options, countertops, tile choices, and flooring choices. We can show you those things in real-world applications.
Host:
Years ago, when we were looking at buying a home, I remember kitchens were obviously important. One of the things was, “Maybe we can talk to Mike about doing some work.”
Do you get people who say, “The house is perfect except for this,” and because Thanksgiving just happened, maybe I have kitchens on my mind? Do you hear from people who just bought a house and say, “We loved everything about this house, but we want the kitchen redone,” or maybe the basement done?
Mike:
Yes.
Over the past bunch of years, we had that dirty word: flip. When times were tougher, people would buy houses and kind of Martha Stewart the kitchen a little bit. They would paint the cabinets and do things to buy more time for that kitchen.
There was a time, and we are still working through this once in a while, when people would paint laminate countertops to give them a more updated look.
Host:
You have to be kidding me.
Is that as bad of an idea as it sounds?
Mike:
If you look at this countertop in the studio, it is probably from 1975 and it is outdated. But is it worn out? No. It is still serving its purpose.
It would be great if this thing wore out and you had to replace it.
It is hard to wear out just about every surface you are going to find in a kitchen. Laminate countertops do get outdated. Those old ones are ugly and outdated in their design.
For a while, painting them was popular. You might also paint your cabinets or put on a stick-on backsplash. That was a trend and maybe still is. It looks like tile, but it is basically a sticker.
All of that is buying time. It might buy three, five, or six years.
Homeowners come in, and if they have not owned the house before, or they are unsuspecting, it takes a little while to realize what they really have.
A kitchen is a big-ticket item. I do not blame anybody for playing it off. If you are selling, it is probably good business to put it off on the next person so they have to do it at some point.
Host:
I am still hung up on painted countertops. Was there a special paint they would use?
Mike:
Yes, but it did not last.
It is like all those overcoatings we see on decks. For a while, people were trying to buy more time with their decks. You could buy this kind of expensive product that almost looked rubberized or like asphalt material over the top of the deck.
In theory, it could have made sense. But it starts peeling up and going bad pretty quickly.
Again, maybe you bought yourself some time. Maybe it was worth it from that standpoint.
I have not seen a painted countertop where I thought, “This was really a great idea.” I do not know how bad it looked before they did it, so maybe it bought them some time.
Host:
Are we still seeing that flip-to-rip situation? Houses that were flipped are now having all that stuff ripped out. Are there still flippers out there? Are you still contending with poor-quality work from time to time?
Mike:
Yes.
Anytime things are kind of upside down, and houses are worth a lot of money right now, there are still distressed houses or sheriff’s sale type houses.
I have a friend who buys those houses, and he does this. He is my friend, but I say to him honestly, “If you are going to do something, please do not just hide problems because it is unethical.”
I talk about young homeowners who have not owned houses before. If one of my kids bought a house and thought it was in pretty good shape, then quickly found out there were problems — maybe the kitchen and bath both need to be redone — those are big-ticket items.
Generally, when you buy a house, you do not have an extra $50,000 laying around for renovations.
I will be happy someday if the flipping part goes away. I really do not like it.
I would rather have people who know and love the house, and are going to stay in it, do the work because they make better decisions, use better materials, and that is the trend we are going to talk about: putting better stuff in houses.
Host:
As we talk this week about what homeowners care most about when it comes to renovation, quality ties in nicely with the fact that we are staying in houses longer.
If you are going to be selling soon, you probably have a different perspective than if you are going to be living in the house for a while.
We will talk with Mike about all of that and much more this morning.
If you have not been to the website yet, head to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show 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 Edge Construction Company dot com.
This week, we are talking with Mike Twohig about why homeowners renovate and what they care most about.
If you have not been to the website recently, head over there right now. EdgeConstructionCompany.com is a great resource to learn more about Edge Construction.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Just before the break, Mike, we talked about quality. That is probably the overarching connection to what homeowners care about most when renovating.
If this is their forever home, or as close to a forever home as they can foresee, quality is huge, isn’t it?
Mike:
Yes.
I will give you a couple of stats.
When we had the big housing boom, it started around 2004 and began ending around 2006. By 2008, we know what happened, but for housing, it started a little before that.
The average time spent in a house back then was something like five or six years. It was really short. If you know you are buying a house and hoping for your move-up house in five years, you are probably not going to do right by that house.
Some people did, but the trend was, “I do not want to overdo it because we are going to sell it.”
It is not hard to sell houses right now either, if you are trying to sell your house.
But the trend now, even in new houses, is toward natural products: stone countertops and real wood floors. We are doing more of those now than we have ever done.
There are good products out there. We still do vinyl plank floors, and some of those are really great floors. We are doing more tile now. That is a manufactured product, but it has natural elements and does not come from oil.
The trend seems to be that homeowners want natural things, good-quality products, and products that are going to last.
Energy efficiency is always there, but it is now almost a given. Homeowners expect certain things. They expect that you are going to go over and above in certain areas.
I think this is the healthiest thing in the world for houses. When homeowners want better-quality products, we also want to work with those products. They are more fun to work with, you can do cooler things with them, and they last longer.
The emphasis becomes as much on design as it does on the quality of the product.
Host:
It seems as though manufacturers have really responded to that desire for quality.
It is one thing for a homeowner to say, “I want high-quality products.” It is another thing for those products to actually be available.
When you talk about countertops, those manufacturers have really upped their game, not only in durability, but in options and overall quality.
Mike:
Would this trend toward better stuff have happened if there were not so many good options out there?
When you are talking about countertops, you are probably talking about quartz.
For us, we started carrying quartz about a dozen years ago. The manufacturing is largely the same. If you have a 12-year-old quartz countertop, it is in no danger of falling apart. It will be here long after we are all gone.
The quality is great. Quartz is a very hard stone, harder than granite. The advantage is that when they grind it up, bind it together, and make your countertop, the designs have gotten better.
It has great quality. You never have to treat it, though I hate saying that because it makes it sound like granite countertops are a bunch of work. They are not. It is very easy to maintain a granite countertop.
But with quartz, you do not have to treat it. They take care of that at the factory.
It is a hard stone, and it does not have the natural striations that granite can have. Some natural stone can look like it overlaps itself inside the stone. That can be a weak spot. We have never really had a problem with that, but if you want that perfect product, quartz is it.
The designs are amazing. We have several hundred quartz options in our showroom, from marble looks to pretty much any stone from around the world that can be replicated in quartz.
It is an amazing product.
Host:
You mentioned real wood floors, which I know is very exciting for you personally. There are so many benefits to good old-fashioned wood floors, and I know you are installing a ton of them.
Let’s talk about that movement toward real wood instead of something that just has a picture of wood on it.
Mike:
If you said 100 years ago that you were putting in a wood floor, we would all know what that meant. They cut down an actual tree. It was probably maple or oak.
Those were great products. It was three-quarters of an inch thick, and the top three-eighths or so is refinishable, so you can keep sanding it.
We are still sanding 100-year-old-plus wood floors that have a ton of life left in them. They could easily go another 100 years.
To me, if you care about green, it is the greenest product ever invented. That tree gets cut down once, milled, and nailed into your house. Generations later, it is still getting a lot of loving use.
The products we use to finish floors have also come a long way. We use Bona products for our top coats. They are water-soluble, very durable, and great for the product.
It has also become popular to stain those wood floors, which was tougher in the past. To stain a maple floor 100 years ago, it might look blotchy because we did not have the right products in place. Now we can do that really well.
We have some interesting products now too. We will sand maple or oak floors that have that orangey color. It is actually a stain called fruitwood from the 1980s that will not go away yet.
There are stains that can get the red out. You can take a floor that had an orangey stain, and we can stain it with an overlay that makes it look almost like a white oak floor. It is very popular and successful.
There are lots of options now that we never had before.
We refinish those floors in-house because generally we are color matching to something. Sometimes we have to do a new nailed-down wood floor in a kitchen, while the rest of the house has an old floor that is in pretty good shape.
Those old oil-based top coats would yellow a little bit with time, so we can actually match up with that look. We have done that several times. It is more particular work when you are matching colors, but we are able to do that at Edge.
Host:
Is that where the term feathering comes in?
Mike:
Yes.
Host:
As we talk about real wood floors, I know that is something you personally love. You must always feel good putting those floors in.
For all the reasons you mentioned, they also just look better. There are some really good vinyl plank floors, but at the end of the day, nobody is going to be confused that it is a real wood floor.
When you have a real wood floor, it shows that you take pride in that space and that job.
Mike:
We built a very nice house in the country last summer, and we did an LVP floor. It was a young family, but it was a really upgraded LVP floor.
You can buy the thin ones that snap together, but this product was thicker. The whole product was about five-eighths of an inch thick and had a cork underlayment built into it. When snapped together, it felt really solid.
The homeowner had pets, kids, and all kinds of wild animals running around, so I think they chose that floor over a wood floor not because of cost. It might have been a little more than real wood. They chose it because of their situation.
I saw them about six months later, and they said, “I wish we would have put in a real wood floor.”
Then I saw them last week, and they said, “We are so glad, after watching our kids drag all their stuff around this floor.”
So there are times when LVP makes sense. We have put vinyl plank floors in every level of house. We have done Parade homes that were a couple million dollars for other builders using a really good-quality vinyl plank floor.
It is not a bad thing. To me, though, I like the natural products. I am a carpenter. What carpenter does not want to put a wood floor in?
Host:
Does some of the bad experience with vinyl plank come from people’s first introduction being big-box clearance? They buy cartons for pennies, decide to install it themselves because it seems simple, and a year later they wonder what they did.
Mike:
The problem with the lower-end stuff is not that you cannot install it and never have a problem. It probably has a lot to do with how your house is situated.
Where we have had issues, or where builders we work with have had issues with floating vinyl plank floors, is with cheaper product in areas where sun comes in through a patio door.
You get a big expanse of floor that heats up at certain times of the day. It expands out, maybe more than a quarter inch, maybe even a half inch. When the sun goes down, it contracts again.
Sometimes the locking part of that floating floor cannot take all that stress. Over time, it shows weakness.
On the upper end, those products are better, but you can still have problems.
We have changed our technique a little in the last year. We had a nice remodel where the homeowner wanted vinyl plank flooring through the whole house, and we actually glued it down. We troweled glue, and even though it was a floating floor, by gluing it down, I think we really stabilized it.
You do not get the noise of walking through it and hearing it crack or make noise. That was a concern for that homeowner, so that is why we did it.
There are ways to do this better, and we are still learning.
But yes, the trend is definitely toward natural materials.
Host:
When we talk about what homeowners care about when renovating, I do a show with real estate folks, and one thing I notice in listings is that if the house has real wood floors, it is a big deal.
It is always mentioned early: nice neighborhood, real wood floors.
Mike:
We do not want to do the whole show on wood floors, but builders often put in vinyl plank floors not because they are cheaper. Sometimes the cost is very comparable. It is that they are a faster install.
Builders want to get things done quickly. In my mind, if I can spend a couple more days on the install and have a product that will last maybe a couple hundred years, it is worth looking at.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Check them out. It is a great website to peruse if you have been looking at remodeling projects or have ideas for rooms you may want to work on.
Call Edge Construction at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great website and resource to learn more about Edge Construction. They have a great portfolio right on the website, plus links to Houzz, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram.
Again, that is all available at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Mike, we could do several shows on real wood floors. I do not think we have actually done an entire show on real wood floors, but maybe we will do that in the new year.
Mike:
What if it is not as exciting for everybody else?
Host:
You have sold me on it completely. I have a feeling that passion will be infectious, like bath fans.
Mike:
I get teased a lot for talking about bath fans, but a good quality fan matters.
Host:
If you want to hear about that, go back and listen to some of the bathroom podcasts, and Mike will tell you.
While we are talking about flooring, do we see carpet at all these days? I love hard surfaces, but I also love carpet in certain spaces. I know that kind of fell out. Do you still see carpet, or is it case by case?
Mike:
I am on your team. I just think carpet is more comfortable.
If I want to roll around on the floor with grandkids, at least there is a pad down there. I will not get scuffed up.
We have a power struggle at my house. My wife loves wood floors and rugs, and I say, “What is the difference? You have a floor with a rug or you have carpet.”
I think there is comfort there.
For a long time, the trend has been toward hard-surface floors, and I think it is more than just style. Kids like carpet because they are on the floor a lot. But everybody I know has pets, and that has had a big influence on the move away from carpet.
Sometimes people have a bad taste in their mouth from carpet because of builder-grade products. I am going to pick on builders a little bit.
We all know what builder grade means. When someone is building or spec’ing a house, carpet is not typically where people upgrade, so they may put in a low-end carpet. Lower-end carpets do not last well. They can look rough after a couple of years on stairs, wear spots, and the pathways you use a lot.
So sometimes it is the product.
Like anything, if you have a great-quality product, it performs better. People do put in high-quality carpet, and there are some fantastic options out there. We see them once in a while, but carpet sometimes gets the short stick.
Host:
We are talking with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction. The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
As we talk about what drives renovation, for a lot of folks, expanding families are part of it. Then, as kids go away to college and start their own lives, that changes things too.
The old joke in my generation was that when your bedroom becomes the craft room, that means things have changed.
There is a lot of movement now toward flex space. Rather than just converting a bedroom into a craft room, people want the best of both worlds.
That is something a lot of folks really like.
Mike:
There are things out there that can help.
I am trying to think of what 1960s TV show had Murphy beds, where you pull the bed down out of the wall.
Host:
Was there one in Blues Brothers? Dan Aykroyd?
Mike:
Maybe.
We have at least one coming up. In fact, it has gotten so normal that homeowners will sometimes install these after the fact.
Most of the time now, for us, something like that can be bought as a kit online. It is sometimes like IKEA-type stuff.
We have also had homeowners provide us the hardware, and then we built the bed form that comes down.
You mentioned flex space. When I was a kid, people had dens. I do not know what they were really for. It was almost like another living room.
Now those rooms have to be an office. They may have to be a guest room if someone is coming to stay.
We have a room coming up that is going to be like a library. It will have built-in bookshelves, which Mike is going to build. I like that customization because you can put in really nice bookshelves and still have the room do those other things.
Even in basements, where we used to have media rooms or movie rooms, those spaces have to do more now. Maybe it also has to be a craft room in its downtime.
Host:
We are going to change completely in the next segment.
A couple of weeks ago, when you mentioned Murphy beds, we briefly touched on hidden doors and hidden entryways. We just had a quick blurb and then never got back to it.
So I am going to ask you about that next.
In the meantime, head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show 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 why homeowners renovate and what they care most about.
I am going to talk about me as a homeowner and what I care most about: I want to hear about hidden doors.
A couple of weeks ago, you briefly mentioned that you are seeing more of these, and Edge Construction is doing some projects where there is a hidden door or hidden entryway.
I just think that would be so cool. It seems very James Bond. I like the concept.
You are getting more requests for these, aren’t you?
Mike:
We are.
In the past, I have done some of those. The coolest one was quite a few years ago. Someone had a very good reason to have a walk-in safe in their basement, which I never got to see the inside of, by the way.
In front of it was an office, and in the back part of that office were built-in shelves. You could pull a book, and there was a system that opened the door.
There is a system out there you can buy for this. Weirdly, it is from a company named Murphy. I do not know what came first, the Murphy company or the Murphy door, but maybe that is why we call them Murphy doors.
That company makes full units. I do not want to pick on a manufacturer, but for what they charge, to me, it should be better.
We have put them in, and I am not saying it is not a good product. But when I have a chance, I would rather build a bookshelf because I know we can make it out of better stuff.
The one we are building is going to be a six-foot-wide opening. I am not even sure the homeowner knows what will be in that room. It might be workout equipment, or maybe just an easy chair.
You would not believe what is readily available. You can do a thumbprint, keypad, fob, hidden button, or something that blends in so you cannot see it unless you know it is there.
Host:
That is the coolest. Very James Bond.
Maybe it is because I have kids, but it just seems fun.
Would you give them the secret?
Probably, yes.
Mine would likely just be a recliner.
Would you give your wife the secret?
Oh yeah, whether I wanted to or not.
We have talked about a lot of these topics in previous shows. If you have not had a chance, check out some of the earlier podcasts too. There is so much fun information.
We have done in-depth conversations about different types of countertops, real wood floors, and other topics we touched on this week.
Head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com or the radio station’s website and listen back to the podcast.
The telephone number for Edge Construction is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.