To Splurge Or Not To Splurge

0:00Hello, everyone. Welcome to Dear Alice. Today, we are going to answer your question. so in depth that we need to do an entire podcast on it. And that is to splurge or not to splurge, which is so juicy. Juicy topic. Because I feel like what we value is all different from each other. And obviously from maybe a client you're taking through this process, or maybe, maybe you're trying to do this process with a partner who feels the opposite than you do, which is usually like what I run into in my household and I know so many others. And so this is a really hard thing to answer, but we're going to give you our answers on what we would splurge on and kind of collectively agree on some of these things as we've taken clients through remodels.

0:45Yeah. I mean, this applies also to the build, but we particularly were like, this really applies if you're just taking on special projects in your home and need to do an emergency remodel on a bathroom. Fair. Right? Fair, fair. Yeah. We've all experienced this. Yes, exactly. And I think with our projects, you know, we have different scales of projects and some of them are a little more fancy. Some of them are not. But really, I think it really hit hard when we saw this question come in. We're like, this is like how we would like, I don't know, discern our money and say like, this is worth spurging on.

1:18This is maybe something to hold. So anyway, I'm excited. It's going to be a good one. It is going to be a good one. Yeah, this question reminds me of a quote that you said, is that we have designer taste on a designer budget. So this is our, I was trying to figure that out. You're amongst friends, everyone. Yes, you definitely are. Well, really quick, I wanted to say there is still time to get a gift from Alice Lane if you want this holiday season. The postman gives us a date every year and he's saying December he, she. We don't know what they are. they're telling us December 16th is the cutoff from when they can guarantee delivery for all gifts in time for Christmas so if you celebrate Christmas and that's important to you December 16th so you still have time so make sure and check out alicelanehome.com we've got some really great gift guides for you there that are live and happy shopping yes so today's question came in from Lauren Zhao and she wrote in and said such a great series just found this quick question when it comes to the remodel of the house are there suggestions of what to splurge on and when to save depending upon the room thank you for the question lauren let's jump in okay like i said i'm like this is gonna be it's gonna get personal y 'all so first up countertops slabs splurge or not to splurge i'm a splurge on this you just don't want to have to replace your countertops again.

2:44We've seen it when people do not splurge. I'm particularly thinking about this in our main living areas, your kitchens, right? Maybe your primary bath. Primary bath. Exactly. I would say you don't have to splurge in your secondary baths or kid baths. Generally people want to go for it in a powder bath or maybe your powder bath is petite and you're just going to do a pedestal sink that's made out of porcelain and then you don't have slabs in there. But when you are using material in the kitchen where everybody's coming together or in that primary bath. Those are the places like realtors are really looking at.

3:20This is going to bring up the value of your home and give it a more sophisticated look. So I think this is a really important place, especially in those primary spaces, to go for it. It just reminded me, you know, back in the day, these are solid granite countertops. These are solid granite countertops. The phrase is changing. these are real marble countertops these real court site these i don't know these takeaways and people are being more educated and so again i think especially for resale like that's definitely something to like be quick into like you should 100 do real marble countertops you should do the court site because like it's the look everyone is so we're getting so much information so many beautiful images on all of our algorithms that like we know what's not real we know when it's fake.

4:07And that's a quick dead giveaway. You know how when you're getting your picture taken or a family photo taken and somebody in the image has dead eyes? Oh yeah. Every time. This is the dead eyes in the home. If you have the quartz countertops, you know what I mean? You just, you walk in and it's just like, like all the air goes out of the helium balloon and there's something is dead in the room. There's nothing living about it. These veins are manufactured and they're repeated and there's just no debtor giveaway and and the coloring isn't quite natural either and it just kind of looks like printed cellulite yeah a little bit it's not good and then and then you start questioning everything about the whole house you question its integrity you question what this thing is all about you're stomping on the floor i'm like is this gonna fall through yeah like is this real you're pulling on the knobs and you're like this isn't even a quality cabinet like it just absolutely kills the whole vibe of the house yeah absolutely agree yes and nothing is solid anymore there's no solid granite there's no solid cabinetry yeah and you just you got to find the back door and get out of that house but if it's real you assume that everything is solid yes you know that is real brass on that hardware exactly maybe you saved on that one who knows but yeah you can you can assume everything great about this house and the people who made the decisions before you if you're buying a remodel so this is why we want to just really choose something with great integrity yep on the slabs and good taste and we you know what there's ways to get a deal so tell them your tips on how to get a good deal on a countertop you've done this you had two emergency remodels betcha okay i think um not every slab manufacturer has like a remnant yard or like a boneyard but between like the fabricators that's usually where the slabs like go and they're the ones manufacturing it and so they're the ones that have like the remnants and so i think a really hot tip is to when you have your fabricator to say hey do you have anything that's hanging out especially if you're doing like a powder room or a smaller secondary bath like that's a great time to like take advantage of the remnant in the boneyard okay and you'll get real live like beautiful stones typically because that's someone that a selection that someone else also made of a beautiful life stone or like your kitchen or spaces where you need a lot more square footage of like natural slab.

6:29I've gone to our people in their slab yards and said, okay, I'm on a budget. Show me, show me what's possible in this amount for a square foot, this allowance that the builder gave me to stay on budget. Okay. I like those. I like them. Okay. Now show me something that no one else, show me something that the owner wants to move. Like, is there anything that's red or pink or green or something that like not everyone's going to understand but I I want to know what that is because I want to know the stuff that nobody's getting because that's something that I could probably do something with because I'm creative and we're we want the mystery we all love designer yeah designer things and so therefore I think that we I don't know I give me a challenge yeah yo so sure but you'll get usually a lower square footage price when you go after it that way yeah what did you get for your primary bathroom from the boneyard i was gonna bring that up um it's like a jade quartzite and i didn't i didn't even think i knew that i wanted like a colored stone and so i went in there and when i saw it was just like it just like stopped me in my tracks i remember sending you a picture and i'm like i think i found her yeah i think i found i'm gonna bring her home and yeah and i will tell you every time someone sees that bathroom they're just like what on earth is your countertop made up but that is the first thing that they cue into and it's the first thing that i see when i go into a kitchen and if it's boring, again, it's a want-want.

7:48You kind of bypass it and you don't really start to stare at the details. But when you can look at a beautiful live countertop that was horried from the earth, you assume that everything else around it is equally fascinating and done equally well. So I think it's honestly one of the biggest splurges that will take you through the rest of your remodel. Totally agree. And I think championing the weird stuff is a really good idea, especially today make people stop yeah and like build your whole your whole room around that let that be the the fine art in the room or the part of the party starter you know yeah go for it yeah splurge on your slabs i agree and couldn't i mean i you gave me those same exact that same exact device when we were building our home and that was if i could tell anybody one or two things from that that's what i would say go slab shopping go to the fabricator and see if you could i found all of the countertops for our primary suite.

8:44And it was just fall off from a previous job from our fabricator. And it was leathered Taj Mahal quartzite. Amazing. So it was awesome. I will say too, creatives, all of y 'all, everyone here is creative. So when you're putting together your home remodel, even if your fabricator has several remnants of the same batch or whatever, who doesn't like a creative seam? You cue Kelly Wurstler wearing it the proper. You know, like you could do something with it. So I'm saying that you could even get really creative with all those remnants. Totally. So maybe have like an island that's. Yeah. Yeah. You can do something different on your island depending on your finish.

9:22But anyway, be inspired by the slab. Go slab shopping first because that is somewhere you're going to want to splurge. Amen. Let's talk flooring next. Let's do it. This is, I feel like this is a dicey one maybe between us because we all have different opinions. I'm going to say that. I'm going to say coach. I mean, you started it when you said quality flooring. You didn't just say flooring. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say splurge because this is running under everything. That's a good point. And oftentimes when we go into people's remodels, they're not sure if they want to replace the floor or not.

9:54Because when you unearth the floor, anything standing on that foundation has to be taken up. So you're really opening a can with this. But I generally think the home is going to look brand new if you're going to do new flooring. Now, I don't know what the existing floors are. You might have something really charming. Underneath the linoleum, you'll find hardwood floors. This happened to Suzanne Hall in an attic, right? Matchstick wood floors. So I do think getting curious about what's under there, if this is a remodel that you're taking on, that's interesting. But I just really think and believe in the floor because so much of it's foundational and sits on top of it.

10:30If you have something that's offensive, then fixing it would be really, really great. I I'm an engineered wood fan so I'm gonna I'm gonna say that I like I like that it is laminated together so you're gonna get less movement from it you're you still are just wood expands it contracts it's the way it is so you're gonna get less movement from it the moisture barrier that like they've come out with in the last 10-ish years is so much better than it used to be it's actually in one now where it's an adhesive down to your subfloor and a moisture barrier all in one which i think is great and you can get engineered hardwood floors that have a thick enough i think it's three millimeters the minimum that you need to in order to be able to re-sand that and refinish it at some point in time i so i love all of that i mean to me that's it's it's a cheaper option than sand and finish if i if money wasn't a thing sand and finish all day long for sure but I like the option of engineered flooring for those reasons okay yeah engineered flooring you have I've sanded finish at my house I also built 11 years ago though and engineered flooring wasn't quite where it was today you can get a really really beautiful product there's some really high-end makers we use a lot of engineered floors on our projects majority of them yeah that is somewhere you can save a little bit per square foot yeah still it still would yeah you know it's not like we're doing like an lvt or a lam or anything like that and so in that case of like splurge lvt versus an engineered wood floor and sand and finish for sure splurge yeah all day long and then now it's just between the two lvt for me is not an option no i just i i i would do hear that everyone sue say that again jess lvt is not an option at all for me i would do what sue hall did in her house which sue bought a 1970s ranch style home had never been remodeled since it was built in 1971 so suzanne bought this house in 2020 uh do the math 50 years later you pulled out all of the rigmarole got rid of the wood floors and you just painted your subfloor white and it feels like a museum and it's beautiful and whenever you're ready to you'll put flooring in exactly I would rather live like you are than live with a LVT.

12:52Men. 25. Yeah. I've had them both. And yeah, I'm not a fan of a laminate vinyl product at all. Just really quick for my mom. Will you tell her what an LVT is? So it's just, it's basically, it's a plastic hardwood floor, vinyl. Yeah. Floor that they just put on a thin little MDF. It's a sticker. Yeah. Yeah. And then. And it's pretending to be what? Wood. Yeah. Yeah. So it's loud. It's cold. Do you guys remember what they used to make alarm clocks out of in the old days? Yes. It said simulated walnut grain. There was a sticker that said that. Or the wood paneling in your basement on the walls in the 70s.

13:34They're making hardwood floors like that. They're not wood. They're not made out of wood. They are plastic. It's clickety clacky. Yeah. And when you walk in, it sounds like a gymnasium all the time. and it never sounds like home. It's never soft. It's hollow. It never looks like wood. It's a liar. And the repeat in it is like every other board. So it's like when you see, yeah, you got that same knot everywhere. And generally, if you're walking into a new starter home community or something, they're always employing the LVT. It is so popular today. It's probably driven the price up. And we're just saying like, just don't do it.

14:15Don't even do it. just keep whatever you have in your old floor. Do not go down the road of replacing what you've got with plastic. So if that is your save, splurge. Yeah. Splurge on that. I don't care what your spec builder says. That's going to be X amount over. Go ahead and pause. Yeah. So you just want the subfloor. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Paint that subfloor. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, besides, so you have lots of flooring options, right? Besides hardwood, which generally is going to take up, I would say, let's just call it 80 % of the home, right? You're going to use stone in your entry generally unless you're a super casual person.

14:50We love to always start an entrance with some sort of stone motif and then we'll use stone in bathrooms, floors to make those wet rated or waterproof. Same thing with entry because you can come in with wet boots. There might be a cause for a formal dining where you might use stone. I'm not sure, but mostly you're dealing with hardwood. When we are dealing with stone, are you going to splurge on stone floors or are you going to use porcelain tiles? What are you going to do, Sue? You know how I feel about... Tell the people. Y 'all know how I feel about tile that looks like wood. Gross. Gross. Okay.

15:24No, I'm going to do real stone. I think this is, again, this is like when it comes to like real life now, we're like terrible at the splurge, not splurge game. We're splurging. Okay. So, but for tile, it's the same thing. I mean, you're going to like get weird repeats too if you're going to do like a printed portion or something. At that point, just do like a colored ceramic or something like that, you know, but that's like more in like a kid's bath for your entry and for those spaces where you want to have like, if it's going to be real stone versus a fake stone, do real stone and just get it in like the cuts that it comes in.

15:59if it's offered in 12 by 12 you're going to get that 12 by 12 and you're going to cut it in like a really simple with only straight cuts pattern that like you're going to get a really cool pattern and usually they're not huge areas but like having the real stone is everything it's again it's a dead giveaway it's usually especially like thinking entry right now like house of kennedy and things that's the first thing you feel that's the first thing you step on likely when you're hitting the entry and so again it's like it's that first impression is real stone so yep all day long if the budget doesn't allow you to do that everywhere then your mud halls that could be a place where you don't use real stone maybe kids baths if not i don't know there's there's obviously we're just saying that entryway crown jewel moment that powder bath primary bath those are the spaces that for sure we would say use real stone we would say use it everywhere because you'll you'll love the look of it everywhere you'll get used to seeing it and then your eyes will be let down on some of those secondary spaces but we get that not everything can be a splurge.

16:57So maybe those laundry rooms, maybe those mud halls, you give way to the budget and come in lower on that. But is there a way when you go tile shopping to get a good deal on a real stone? What are the words that you say to Angie when you walk in the door? Angie's my girl. You say I'm looking for like a live marble for, you know, the primary bath. What one can I get? I want to do a large format because it's a big space. So which ones do you have in like 12 by 24? Kind And I understand like that's when I'm talking large format, like you're talking 12 by 24 is usually like a really safe one to start with when you're talking about marbles.

17:31And so I would start I would start with that or just say, what is the one that has the most amount of sizes for the best cost? Or you can even just start with like, I want live stone. What one is like going to be my best deal so I don't have to go porcelain? So I mean, just like all those keywords, just. Yeah. Yeah. Just become friends. Be nice to people and they'll help you out. I'll say that for sure. Say their name. If you call people by name, that goes a long way. It's true. And I was going to say, at a lot of these places, at Dalataya, at Contempo, just like these main, even Tile Bar, they'll have these like different, I think one of them's called like Keystones.

18:08And it's like where you can do like kind of the London mosaics, where they have it in several different sizes and different patterns. And you can even show them like, I want this pattern. And they have really inexpensive, like colored porcelain tiles that they'll be like, yes, we can do that. And like, here's your color options. Anyway, then you get like this like really charming look for a lot less than a live stone. So I would rather do that. If I couldn't afford like natural stone tile, you know, in like all my kids, my laundry, my mud room, I would totally do like a little London mosaic situation, but do it on, you know, a budget, you know, and use keystones.

18:44We do that all the time. If you look at our like Manchester house, we did that in a lot of the different like kids' bathrooms that you'll see on there. So anyway, it's a great, great tip when you're just trying to make sure that your penny can be stretched as far as possible. Suze, have you ever given a gift that felt more like an experience rather than a product? At the end of the day, all I want, if showered, the kids are in bed, I'm going to go to my sofa and I'm going to grab my bubble cuddle blanket because that's all I want at the end of a good or a bad day. You just want to wrap yourself up in a blanket and no one does it better than Cozy Earth.

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19:54Okay, let's move on. Let's talk about millwork trim and walls. Oh, me. Yeah. This is one where I will say you don't have to do millwork trim or walls. I mean, you might have to do the trim if you pull up the flooring. You might have to reset and do the base molds, right? Yeah. But you don't absolutely have to get the wall paneling and you don't have to do the big crown molds and all of that. That you can wait. You know, you could live in your house for years and then eventually add the icing on the cake. So it depends on what you're trying to accomplish in this remodel. Let's just say that you're trying to accomplish the whole main level, that you're buying a home and you're like, we've got to update.

20:35You know, like, Suze, you kind of took this on when you guys purchased your home in 2020. like we've got to just update some things ASAP right and so you made some general moves throughout the home ripped out flooring you know was number one and got that painted white you painted everything so you didn't have to do any millwork trim or walls and you didn't I mean walls you painted but you didn't do anything right no you haven't yet no and I think and I think I will eventually but like it's again I kept my focus on things that I like could have like wanted to spend the money on at that point I'm just like you know what that's and I know the game of give a mouse a cookie you know once you start somewhere you touch everything it's not just you know your baseboards but it's your window casing it's your seals it's it touches every thresholds everything and so I was just like okay that is a move that like I'm going to do it when I can do the whole thing right because I'm like, I could have gone and like, maybe you could afford to do like a flat stock that's taller than your current baseboard, but that's so lame.

21:40I'd rather just like wait until I could get a profile that is interesting that I want. And so I would, I would hold honestly on like doing a lot of my work. If you are, you're like, I'm going to do my new baseboards, but we're not going to do paneling. I've, you know, you've always loved paneling. You want to do it in your dining room and these key spaces. That's always something that you can add on while you're just trying to like hit that first layer, get an interesting baseboard. Like when you're just like doing it all, just find an inch and it doesn't need to be like super complicated, but make sure it has something than just completely flat.

22:10Make sure I'd rather have it tall. Majority of it's, you know, it can be like simple and flat, but then it has like an interesting detail at the top. That's interesting. Cause then we can build off of that when you want to add paneling later, later. Exactly. So, and it doesn't have to be ridiculously expensive, but just don't make it, don't just like call it in and just like go flat stock because that's what your guy's really good at like it's really boring don't do it like flat stock is not a thing anymore no it's not yeah it's not craftsman i'm sorry yeah that went away with like the the crafts um what was the was that is that the style that they did with the all like shaker yeah shaker i feel like the early aughts the early 2000s everybody was doing shaker everything and flat stock just got out of bounds That's flat stock.

22:56Tell my mom what flat stock is. It doesn't have any detail to it. So it literally is just like a small bull nose on either side. And to be honest, the reason that it was popular is because it's easy to do and they can just knock it out. And it's like that should never be the reason that something becomes popular. It's just a board with no profiles. Yes. Slammed up on the wall. They call it a baseboard. They do it around the windows. They everything. Casings for doors. Yeah. Nothing had a profile or a detail to it. And then same thing with the kitchen cabinet door styles. was just the frame, the shaker around the edge.

23:29So it's actually quite a hard ledge just for dust to sit and collect on. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not that interesting, you know, when you look back. Totally. Like those homes built at that time, they need details added to it. And maybe you purchased a home at that point, and you can add an additional profile on top of the flat stock to give yourself a more interesting molding. Because generally moldings are— That's a good way to save, actually. I like that. There are a couple different pieces put together in the crowns and whatnot. So this is all very personal, you guys. We all find value in different things.

24:01So we're just saying on some things in a remodel, we all live within budgets. On some things to save might mean just roll over and play dead. Don't even touch it because like Sue said, you give a mouse a cookie and pretty soon you've got a finished worker going and you keep having more ideas. Oh, could you just add a little? And it's so fun. It is the finish work is the icing on the cake. And you can spend a great majority of your budget just detailing in all these things and then not be able to afford a sofa to sit on. So this is just like, if you have a decent sized budget, then get into it.

24:36We're all about it. We love the finish work. We're doing this on our clients' homes. We're just in recording this podcast, we're like, let's just talk about how we're solving the problems in our own home because we have real life budgets where we have to figure out what to save on. And Suze has recently been going through this and you're like, I'm not even touching finish work. You've been in this house for five years. Don't stare at it. Don't look at it. You're an art collector anyway. So you're like, I feel like you have like more like interesting things to put on your walls. My focus is at eye level.

25:04No one's looking down there. Also, let me say this, the moldings and the framework are your finish work in your house. And I would dare say like the custom framing that you do it's the price of finish work you know and I couldn't absolutely yeah but you your house reads like a museum you know it's just fantastic art and there's so much detail you actually don't want to give up any more space to crown molds and base molds you have so much art yeah yeah so again I like what you said it's what you value what do you value what do you want to make room for and focus on that and then kind of work backwards from there yeah so I love that okay okay great Let's move into lighting.

25:42Oh, Jesse. Well, you guys tell me how you feel about lighting. Okay. You want to go first? I mean, yeah. Let's just call it this. Let's just talk decorative fixtures. Okay. Decorative fixtures. We do this all day long. We see all the most beautiful lights. So it's really hard to go to a cheaper light. I will say that. There's a difference in scale. There's a difference in materiality. Design. And so this is something that I will splurge on. if you do not have the budget there again I think you and I agree on this that like if I had to put money towards my lighting or real countertops like real slab court court site countertops whatever I'm gonna put my money first into something that's gonna be fixed to the house 100 it's gonna go like into that and then I will get to the lighting when I can so like for my house I was just like a bulb is better a hanging bulb is better than what they had up get that ish off my ceiling take it away and then I've just like slowly been replacing light by light by light as I can afford it but I have jage quartzite countertops in my bathroom yeah you do that's cool yeah and then like it's just again it's just like Christmas every time I get to put a new great light up so anyway lightings I'm a splurge on but give yourself grace as far as it's timing I'll say though you rolled over and played dead on lighting for years oh yeah girl yeah and you just have you just have bulbs like you have one bulb hanging in your stairwell it actually looks really cool i know i'm like but you've got great art and great rugs and it feels very intentional and gallery like and you can just kind of look the way look away on it and then you've been able to splurge on other things people i'm totally doing that on purpose i installed that bulb yeah exactly exactly now i on the other hand did a new build in about 2015 and i went for it on my lighting and i remember my brother walking in to see my house for the first time it was like we've just gotten approval to move in no furniture had come yet and he was like oh I want to do I want to see it on your final walkthrough and he was like whoa Jess the lighting in this house is so beautiful I feel like you don't even need furniture like if your house feels done like it felt it gave the house so much personality and soul and I never thought about it that way you know how sometimes like you almost have to receive a compliment to see it and I just was like oh that's that's so kind and I really like today still I was like we were looking at you know we've manufactured some new designs new lights and as I look at what I chose I'm like I still really love what I have in my house and I brought in a lot of soft shapes because all of the walls are square or pitch there's a lot of straight lines with ceilings and so this really brings a lot of softness and sculpture into a room and it was one of the things that I splurged on for my house was like just doing beautiful fixtures and it just made the room even though my furniture was a little sparse and not quite all the way dialed in it really gave me like a focal point in each room and it just it almost gave the room a grander purpose that I had this beautiful north star and so lighting was really grounding for me but again like we all find value in different things and this was a new build and so I had to have lighting you know like I had to make these choices I just can't say enough what lighting does for a project yeah it's art it is art you know just like I value like you value art yeah originals again and if you think about the lighting is art like there's artistry in every single one of these topics yeah in countertops in all those things so it's what you value yeah you know from the get-go and then we we're all collecting the other things yes as we can and I do think that like much like you because you're doing a remodel and I kind of think is this podcast is a remodel what are I'm what am I splurging on what am I saving on it's almost like you're just going to accomplish like on these two emergency bath remodels you did you just bought the lighting for those bathrooms you didn't need to buy lighting for the entire house discipline you were like let me just check the boxes on where i need to and then when i go on and do a kitchen remodel at that point i'll buy the kitchen lighting at that point and maybe that's a good way for you to think about splurging and saving is just get it for the rooms that you're actually working on so you can complete that room yep such a good takeaway yeah anybody any yourself give yourself a stopping point you have to because you can bleed out so easy on on a remodel and making updates and it's so addicting like when you say give a mouse a cookie like you really it's like you get momentum as you're going and you want to touch it all because you're learning a lot and you're learning a lot about yourself right oh i know where i could use this and you're in the tile show oh i'll use that in my in my other thing and you're grabbing the samples and you're in the motion of doing it it's so easy to keep going.

30:22Your algorithm keeps feeding it to you. It's hard to put a tourniquet on that thing. It really is. It's got to clot that weed. Budgets always, I mean, they tend to always just go crazy. If you're doing a remodel or a new build, I think in both situations, in a remodel, you're going to, you know, take off some drywall and you're going to find something that you have to fix. So that's going to eat into your budget. So yeah, I would say just creating those stopping points like first I did that when remodeling my home in in Orem and I was like okay we're just going to do this area this I can manage right now yeah and even then stuff went like you know outside of my budget but I had to kind of just like pivot as I needed to but yeah I think that was probably the best thing for my budget is just confine like where I was going to do it and set those parameters first so smart and then when you do do the lighting just get the best thing you can for your budget because there's a lot of really really bad lighting that will just kill your game totally yeah so I dare say when you do finally get to that work on that one bathroom just splurge on that light agreed yeah amen um tile and paint splurge on tile and paint I know this I just recently did I painted the exterior of my house it had been a decade I had real cedar shakes that needed to be painted my front door needed to be painted and my painter actually just barely repainted living room as well both painters I had to be using somebody different from the exterior than the interior they both said you splurge on paint you get the best paint you can you get um I know that there's a special Ben Moore paint that he used on my front door that's like extra coated and great for exteriors and it has these special qualities to it and you actually use the name brand if you're going to use an off-brand one you don't know how it's going to cover you don't know how many coats you're going to use.

32:12It's going to be a lot more labor. It's never going to look as good. If you use the right stuff, you can usually get it in in just a few coats. And it looks so much better. I didn't know that. I didn't know that because generally we'll specify a paint and then we're not telling them, make sure and use the name brand. It's the painter's job to know what type of stuff he likes to work in. But because we're talking about the splurge versus save, paint is one of those things that you can do yourself. This is something that you You can figure out how to do. You can watch a YouTube video. This can be an area where you don't have to splurge because you can maybe do the labor for free.

32:47But what you don't want is to get a low quality paint because now all of a sudden you're the painter and you're trying to save. You make sure and invest in the right quality paint. Yeah, coverage is, I mean, not a lie. When a paint is more expensive and it's like, oh, like, you know, double the coverage. That means even if you don't want to, if you're doing yourself, you don't want to spend as much time. You'll have to do one less coat. Yeah, exactly. The other thing is if you take a Benjamin Moore color and you take it into Home Depot or Lowe's or any big box stores and you say, can you color match this?

33:18They're going to tell you yes. Here's what I learned the hard way is that I had a painter come to do it. I hate painting. That's something I'll never do myself. That's just my personal opinion on it. I didn't know that about you, Borg. I don't like it. Hired a guy to do it. I was like, this is a Sherwin-Williams color. Gave it to him. He went in. to Home Depot got all the paint it was bare it was the bare base so bare paint their base is rooted in blue so when they took my off-white color and put it in that base no longer off-white like it was like icy blue and they painted and there was a hard just stop like on a corner and you could see like this was warm and this was like it felt like an igloo it was and I had to have a conversation with a guy I was like man the reason I specified Sharon Williams because that's where I wanted you to buy that paint yeah it was a whole thing and I had to have some hard conversations and I had to pay a little bit more because it was half my fault you know so don't don't cheap out on that it never works out like it bear paint and Home Depot Lowe's all the big box stores no dice on color matching name brand matters yes name brand matters don't necessarily splurge on that the way to splurge on that like Jess said it's just do the labor yourself um we have tile on here um you have we have a note um splurge on special tile for niche areas or backsplash accents what are your thoughts on that Suze yeah I just think tile and this is one of those things I mentioned it before when I was talking about the flooring like getting the keystones and the London mosaics is that this is a part that can become so charming in a house like the tile the way in which you like do your patterns and you lay it like that is just such a key giveaway to someone that like really cares about space and cares about what's supposed to happen in this space if you do pay attention and do so even if you find like a less expensive tile say you save a little bit there put it up in a creative way you know which might you spend a little bit more on the actual installation but it gives so much back to the room and it almost feels historic or artistic or no no it just has like all the speaking points to the fashion house that we're all trying to create in our own lives so I will say I'm like I'm a splurge on the tile and or the tile fabrication doing that in a creative way love so yeah that's great okay let's move on to furniture and decor oh shoot our favorite part dressing the house okay we have this one down as a splurge I mean there are ways to save obviously I just think it's really important to spend the money on your large pieces of upholstery where you're going to sit now I'm sure you can find lots of charming ways to thrift or get you know estate sales or use old pieces in some of your side tables and lamps and whatnot but I am a big fan of getting something that is really built today on a sofa, a really great sofa, you want to be comfortable.

36:21You want to sit and stay for a while. It's going to make you feel like you're home. You want it to last too. I mean, the fill of it, like fills are not created equal. Fabrics are not created equal, unfortunately. So yeah, I think that's a splurge. And recovering an old sofa costs the same as buying a brand new sofa. If not more. If not more. If this episode is all about splurge versus save, then you might as well just get a brand new piece with brand new springs and foams and feathers and, you know, a wood frame that's not distressed. I don't know. I'm, I'm all about getting the new upholstered piece.

36:55It doesn't have any sense trapped in it. Yeah. That's always nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you have a favorite chair, that's of course coming with you. You're always going to have that, but I really feel like you want to get comfortable and it's fun to have a new house and have a new bed or a new sofa or something like that. So I'm, I'm big on investing in the sit. I agree. Yeah. I totally agree with that. For me, what I did was I invested in the sit and then I was like, you know what, we will just collect the accessories and the stuff. Yeah. As we go. Cause we were moving into a bigger home than we were moving from.

37:28So, you know, we were expanding a little bit. So yeah, that was my philosophy then. And I'm glad we did because our style, you know, is ever evolving and like I'm glad we just didn't try to just do everything at once and it's been a marathon but I'm glad we did it that way it was that's I think a little bit of a way to save too it's just don't you don't have to do everything right this second just build it over time and it feels more curated and um yeah so I totally agree with that invest in this it it's like the light bulb again if you if I were to put something that was cheaper there you forget that it's there you know versus just like waiting until you find the right thing so when you moved into your home you bought a brand new sofa and you got a new bed yep yeah like just the big big pieces and then just like you're saying like you're just it's all about the outfit you're just going to be like layering as you go and just so everybody knows even like an alid when we're doing full homes everybody's on a budget everybody has like a number like that they're capped at that's their ceiling and so you have to play the high low game you know even like within the furniture we're always going to show people a high and a lower you know just so that they can say value be like I like this.