January 25, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of the Repcolite Home Improvement Show, sponsored by Benjamin Moore, host Dan Hansen shares personal stories and practical advice. He kicks off the show talking about the cold weather challenges with his dogs, Maggie and Fern, particularly Fern's outdoor bathroom behavior. Hansen then dives into an in-depth guide on the importance of sanding primer before painting. The episode continues with a quirky overview of Benjamin Moore's Color of the Year for 2025, Cinnamon Slate, presented as a dating profile. The show then explores the history of caulk and caulking, tracing its origins from ancient shipbuilding to modern home construction, and concludes with a review of a $30 dog-monitoring camera, the Wyze Cam OG, that Dan finds invaluable for keeping an eye on his mischievous dog, Fern.
CHAPTERS00:00 Introduction and Weather Woes00:19 Dog Tales: Maggie and Fern06:22 The Importance of Sanding Primer13:22 Benjamin Moore's Color of the Year 202515:41 Meet Cinnamon Slate19:06The History of Caulking20:01 The Gilgamesh Epic and Early Caulking21:43 Evolution of Caulking Techniques26:57 The Invention of the Caulking Gun30:10 Modern Caulking Materials and Techniques31:35 Repcolite Caulk Sale33:16 Dog Monitoring Camera Review39:07 Conclusion and Sign-Off
CHAPTERS00:00 Introduction and Weather Woes00:19 Dog Tales: Maggie and Fern06:22 The Importance of Sanding Primer13:22 Benjamin Moore's Color of the Year 202515:41 Meet Cinnamon Slate19:06The History of Caulking20:01 The Gilgamesh Epic and Early Caulking21:43 Evolution of Caulking Techniques26:57 The Invention of the Caulking Gun30:10 Modern Caulking Materials and Techniques31:35 Repcolite Caulk Sale33:16 Dog Monitoring Camera Review39:07 Conclusion and Sign-Off
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, good morning. You're listening to the repcoll Light Home
improvement show is sponsored by Benjamin Moore and I hope,
I hope, hope, hope you all survived the intense cold,
the frigid weather that we've experienced at the beginning of
this week. I mean it was brutal. It was brutal
at my house. Anyway. We've got a couple of dogs
(00:21):
and I've spoken about them before on the show. Mainly
I've spoken about Maggie. She's a Golden Retriever and I've
talked about her a ton of times. She's angelic, you know, sweet, obedient,
kind hearted, gennal. You know, Maggie, She's amazing. We also
have Fern. Fern's a black lab. She's getting better. Let's
(00:43):
just leave it at that. She's getting better. She's a
work in progress. Anyway. Fern wants to go outside to
go to the bathroom every ten minutes. That's literally how
she operates almost all the time. Maggie can wait, you know,
tell her it's going to be sometime next week, and
she'll hold it. Won't say a word about it, won't gripe.
(01:05):
We'll just sit there and hold it. Fern. Now, every
ten minutes she wants to go outside. But if we
let her outside, you know, without us being tethered to her,
we'll probably never see her again. She'll just go zip
off into who knows where, and we'll probably get letters
from who knows, you know, the other side of the
country anyway. So we have this war of wills with
(01:26):
Fern every single stinking day, probably thirty different times. You know,
sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But when this cold
weather hit, I figured that we'd probably get a break.
You know, Fern's a lab she has thin fur and
she gets cold really quickly, so we figured she wouldn't
want to go out or be out as long as usual.
(01:48):
Silver linings. Right, we've got this frigid weather. It's like
the Arctic out there. But on the upside, Fern doesn't
want to be out there either. No, she didn't care,
not at all. On top of it all, when she
goes out, she cannot and will not settle in. And
just do you know her business, you know what I'm
talking about, right, so much spinning, and it's early. I
(02:10):
don't want to go into a lot more detailed than that,
but she'll spin and spin and spin in circles almost
almost incessantly, and then she'll abandon the plan. She spun
for five minutes. It's got to be time Fern settle
in do it, and then she'll just all of a sudden, whoop,
She's off in another direction. Then she'll spin over there
(02:31):
for a while. She cannot get this thing figured out.
We actually dug into it trying to figure out what
is going on with her? And you know, why does
she spin four hundred times trying to find the premiere,
prime ideal spot to go to the bathroom? Do you
know why dogs do this? Do you know why? You know,
if you've got a dog, why your dog does that? Well?
(02:52):
Neither do I because the info that I found doesn't
match up with Fern. It doesn't match up with what's
going on. For example, the Internet says it could be
is a survival instincts, you know, survival instincts. Fern is
flattening the ground out, the Internet says, to make sure
that she's safe from predators, right like her ancestors, the wolves.
(03:12):
Did you know, no snakes, no other threats. That's what
the Internet's saying. But I don't buy that, not even
not even for a second. You know, first off, Fern
flattens a circle, you know, with a twenty foot radius
every night, at least three times in that night. I mean,
she does that four times, and the whole yard has
been determined to be safe at that point. And it's
(03:33):
two degrees out there. No snakes, Fern, no snakes, not
at all, not in this weather. Now, I don't think
it's that. It could be that she's spinning to check
for predators. The Internet suggests that, you know, head on
a swivel kind of a thing. It's ridiculous with Fern.
She's not paying attention to anything at all. She's just
(03:54):
looking at her feet or smelling something here and there,
and then she falls over because she's dizzy. It's not survival.
It's not head on a swivel. Another idea is that
she's trying to align I love this one. She's trying
to align herself with the Earth's magnetic field before she
goes to the bathroom. Does that make any sense that
(04:15):
she's got to align herself with the Earth's magnetic field
before she goes I don't know who's right on the
internet these days, but that seems really questionable. You know,
maybe dogs like to go to the bathroom facing north.
Who knows. I don't think that's what's going on with Fern,
because we'll intentionally face her north, you know, just to
get her off on a good start. We tell her, Fern,
(04:35):
you're aligned with the north. And it doesn't help. She spins,
doesn't matter what direction, north by northwest, south by southeast.
It's a mess anyway. There are many reasons why she
may do this, and we'll probably never know. All I
do know is that this last week was really miserable,
sitting out there with her and waiting for the spin
cycle to end. Thankfully, one of the kids takes her
(04:58):
out most of the time, so I really we don't
have that much to crab about. But still I'm crabbing vicariously.
I'm feeling his pain vicariously. It was brutal in the
cold when I went out for us. It never affected
Fern in the least. She was fine, so you can
save your emails. She was fine. She probably is burning
too many calories spinning around to even feel the cold. Anyway.
(05:21):
I hope you weathered the cold, you know, the big cold,
and you're ready for this weekend. And I've got a
ton of stuff on the show that I want to
talk about today, and we'll revisit the whole dog topic
at the end of the show because we bought a
new monitoring camera and I love this thing. I can't
wait to tell you about it, and I guarantee when
(05:43):
I do, you're going to be thinking about all the
different ways that you could use one in your home.
So we're going to get to that at the end
of the show. I'll also be talking about the history
of calk and it really is crazy interesting. It's way
cooler than even I thought. And I'm an expert at this,
and I thought it might be interesting. I had no
idea it was going to be as interesting as it is.
(06:05):
So we're going to get to that. The other thing
that we're going to be covering, what is that. Oh,
I've got an absolutely ridiculous segment planned. I'm not going
to tell you about it. It's coming up after this one,
and it's really, really weird. That's coming up in just
a minute. Right now, though, let's get to the paint point.
(06:26):
And last week I mentioned in the show, if you
paid attention, if you took notes, if you're consulting those
notes right now, I made a promise last week that
I would talk about something in more detail this week.
Last week I talked about how it's important to sand
your primer before you apply your finish paint, and I
told you that that doesn't have to be a terrible,
big process, and i'd explain it for those of you who,
(06:49):
for one reason or another didn't catch last week. Let
me quick explain sanding your primer before you apply the
finish paint is something that you should do. And I
know that's news for a lot of folks out there,
But here's the scoop. When your primer dries, or even honestly,
that first code of finish, when that dries, it's rarely
as smooth as you might think it's going to be.
Even if you apply it carefully, you're likely to end
(07:10):
up with some texture from the roller cover, some lint
from the roller cover, or other small imperfections. We always
end up with little hairs in the wall, stuff like
that little good ease that you pick up as you
apply the paint to the primer or whatever. On top
of that, you know certain primers can raise the fibers
in drywall, So if you're priming bear drywall, certain primers
will do that much worse than other ones, and then
(07:32):
that can make it feel pretty rough. If you're priming
bear wood, primers can also raise the grain in the
wood and give it a rough feel. If you skip
sanding at that stage, these little imperfections are going to
remain in your finished code, and it's going to make
that final surface, that final code look uneven. It's not
going to be as nice as it could. Sanding eliminates that,
(07:53):
and it creates a smooth base that lets your finish paint,
you know, really shine. I guess, for lack of a
better word, it really will look the best it possibly can.
So that's why you should stand that primer, And honestly,
I did hint at it. Your finished paint as well.
A lot of old school painters do a quick standing
on their first coat of finished paint as well, not
(08:13):
of course, not the last coat. That last coat of
finished paint. You leave that one alone. But you put
your primer on, do a light sanding, put your first
coat of finish paint on, do another quick light sanding,
and then you go to that finish you know, that
last final coat, and you leave that one alone. All right. Now,
I talked about all of that last week. But before
you start doing that and jumping in, I wanted to
(08:33):
quickly walk you through the process because it's possibly not
nearly as bad as some of you are maybe thinking,
and conversely, it might be a little bit more intensive
than some of you are hoping. So let's get rid
of all confusion. Here's what the whole thing looks like
and how you can pull it off easily. First off,
you've got to wait for your primer to dry. And
(08:54):
I know that sounds really ridiculous and dumb, completely unnecessary
to say, but I'm saying that for the same reason
that microwaves say, Hey, they have that little sticker that says,
don't use the microwave to dry your dog after a
dog bath, Right, somebody somewhere we don't even want to
think about that. But for the sake of the primer,
(09:15):
I want to say, it's got to be dry, because
somebody somewhere needs to hear that. You know, somebody is
a rusher and they want to rush through the project.
And as dumb as what I just said sounds, it
is a little more nuanced than you may think. A
surface can seem dry to the touch, but it can
still be soft below. You know that initial surface and
sanding too early can cause more problems than you're fixing,
(09:37):
so you've got to make sure that it's dry. Most
primers are going to need at least two to three
hours before they're ready for sanding. If you do want
a quicker option than that, repcoll It's Quicksand Primer is
ready to sand in just thirty minutes. And as a bonus,
it's on sale right now through the rest of the month,
so you still got a week or so before that
sale ends. And it's a good sale. It's like forty
seven percent off. It's an all purpose primer. You can
(10:00):
use it on pretty much any surface inside. It's great
for doors, walls, trim much more. Quicksand Primer on sale
right now. Check that out. Anyway, whatever you're using, whatever
primer you're using, you've got to make sure that it's
dry before you stand it. Second, you want to use
the right sandpaper and the right amount of pressure. We
recommend a two twenty grit sandpaper. It's fine enough to
(10:22):
smooth out the imperfections without removing too much primer. After all,
and this is the good news here. Your goal isn't
to sand the primer off. You're really just trying to
knock down any rough spots and create a smooth surface
so you don't have to go nuts on the wall.
Don't sand until the powder's flying, you know. All that
powder in the air is primer that you actually want
(10:43):
to leave on your surface. For the most part, just
do enough of the quick sanding to knock down the
rough spots. Third, for larger walls or ceilings or bigger areas,
use a sanding pole. Basically, it's a sanding head that
almost looks like the business end of a swiffer, you know,
a swifferlor cleaner kind of looks like that. You put
sandpaper on that, and then you affix it to an
(11:04):
extension pole, and then you can move really fast across
your walls. It's still manual work, you know, it's not
a robot. It's not going to do it for you.
It's still manual work, but it's going to help you
cover a lot of ground really quickly and much more
easily than holding a sanding block or something like that.
That's crazy. Don't do that. Get one of these, you know,
sanding pads or sanding heads. Put it on an extension
(11:27):
pole and you're good to go. If you have no
idea what I'm talking about, you know, complete blank in
your mind right now, just stop out at any repcolite
and ask. They're not expensive. It's not a fancy tool,
but it will come in really handy for larger areas.
So think about that. Fourth, when you're sanding your trim
or detailed surfaces, foam sanding pads are pretty much your
(11:50):
best friend. They're flexible, they're easy to hold, and they're
going to conform to curves and edges, and it's going
to help you maintain or achieve a smooth finish without
cutting through through the primer too much, which you can
do really easily with some stiffer sandpaper. You can cut
right through the primer. On contoured areas, use the sanding pads.
They're great for that. Finally, after sanding, you've got to
(12:12):
wipe down that surface with a damp rag to remove
the dust that you created, allow the surface to dry
completely before you apply your finish paint. And by doing that,
you're ensuring that the finished paint adhere's properly and prevents
you know, you're also preventing any dust from getting trapped
in the paint, all right, So you don't want that.
You don't want to go through all this work and
then still trap a bunch of dust in your finish
(12:33):
and you've achieved nothing at that point. Sanding your primer
might seem like an extra step, but it's a little
touch that delivers really big results. All the good old
school painters do it all the time. If you missed
any of the steps that we talked about, you can
catch the segment again by heading to repco Light dot com.
Just click the little on the radio tab right on
the homepage and check it out. Also, follow us on
(12:54):
Facebook and Instagram and we'll have tips like this and
more weekly, along with links to blow posts and things
like that. All right, let's take a break and when
we come back, I've got a ridiculous segment. I don't
know how it's gonna go. Let's find out together. That's
just next stick around. Welcome back to the Recolite Home
(13:24):
improvement shows sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and let's just jump
into this weird segment. Back in October, Benjamin Moore released
their color of the Year for twenty twenty five, Cinnamon Slate,
and along with Cinnamon Slate, they revealed a collection of
supporting colors their Color Trends twenty twenty five collection. Now,
this year's Color Trends collection is pretty exciting because all
(13:44):
of the colors, you know, just work really well together.
In previous years that wasn't always the case, that's not
what they were working for. But this time, pretty much
anything in that color brochure can be paired with any
other color in the brochure and it just works well together.
It's really smart how they do it this way. You
can use these colors as is right from the booklet
to create beautifully curated, well put together color schemes for
(14:07):
your home, or you can use the collection kind of
as a jumping off point. You know, you can see
how certain tones work well together and then go find
different versions of those colors that will work in your
specific situation. It's a really cool collection, and like I said,
if you haven't already checked out Benjamin Moore's Color Trends
for twenty twenty five, do so look into it. All right,
that's not weird. You know, I said it was going
(14:28):
to get weird, and that's not it. So what do
I mean, how are we going to get weird? Well,
I want to introduce you to the colors from Benjamin
Moore's color Trends over time. I can't do it all
right now, but over time. But I don't want to
do it in a way that I've seen everybody else
do it in a way that we've done it in
the past. You know, here's a purple, you compare it
(14:49):
with this color or that color. You can use it
in a bedroom or whatever. It's good info, but it's
boring info, right, There's a better way. There has to
be a better way. I don't know that I've come
up with it, but i have come up with a
different way. And I've imagined these colors as profiles, you know,
on a dating website. So that's where this is going
(15:11):
to get just a touch weird. It's probably gonna be
weird for you to listen to. It's certainly gonna be
weird for me to say. But I still think it's
kind of clever, and I think it's potentially funny. You know,
it's not a knee slapper. It's not something you'll guffaw over,
but you might smirk. You know, I'm looking for a smirk,
or maybe you know your eye will crinkle just a
(15:32):
little bit in something akin to joy. Anyway, with no
further ado, let's get to and meet one of these
colors from this year's color trends. And of course, since
we've only got time to meet one, we're gonna meet
Cinnamon Slate. Now, Cinnamon Slate, she's a thinker, she's a poet.
She loves quiet, thoughtful nooks and spaces in your home.
(15:53):
But she's not uncomfortable hosting a gala event, you know,
with wine and fancy cheeses and things like that. She
fits into all of that. She's grounded. She's casual and
yet sophisticated and elegant. Whatever the mood or situation requires,
Cinnamon Slate is ready, you know, to deliver now in appearances, Now,
(16:14):
it's not all about appearances, you know, well, I guess
with color, with color, it probably pretty much is all
about appearances. So I guess we're not being shallow at
this point. If Cinnamon Slate was a real person, we
would talk about her personality, right, what she likes to
eat and stuff like that. I guess that's not terribly
important either. This is why I don't run a dating
(16:35):
website anyway. This is about color, So appearances matter here.
Cinnamon Slate is a subtle mix of a muted plum
and a velvety brown. And this, this mix, this wonderful
little amalgamation of color, gives her a personality that's both
moody and elegant. But not moody in a negative way,
you know, not sit in a corner pouting like a
little kid moody. No moody in the sense that she
(16:56):
evokes a sense of you know, introspection, dramas, all of that.
Because of this, Cinnamon Slate is all about creating a
timeless and grounded atmosphere in your home. And as I mentioned,
she's casual, comfortable and comforting and yet sophisticated and elegant
at the same time. Now, when it comes to past times,
Cinnamon Slate loves to spice up an accent wall or
(17:17):
maybe bring a cozy, introspective or dramatic mood to a library,
a dining room, a living area, you know, places like that.
If you want to enjoy Cinnamon Slate's grounded, comfortable side,
you know her sweatshirt and jean side. Pair her with
soft whites and rich browns if you want to explore
her more sophisticated side the gala event side. Pair her
(17:37):
with deep olive greens or something like that in a
nutshell cinnamon slate. She's got this way of balancing warmth
and drama. She's subtle. She can fade into the background
and let other colors are decorby in the spotlight. But
she's never shy, and she's more than happy to be
the color in your space that holds the attention of
every eye. That's cinnamon slate. And if you'd like to
reach out her numbers two one, one, three, dash forty.
(18:00):
There you go. A little bit weird, a little bit silly,
but in another sense, it may give you a vibe
for the color. You know, after all, there's a lot
you can do with cinnamon slay. You know, being able
to pair it with whites, olives, browns, and more gives
you a lot of freedom to create the atmosphere that
you want to create in your space. You know, it's
not your typical wall color, but it's not so out
of the box that it leaves you struggling to find
(18:21):
a way to use it. Honestly, you're gonna be surprised
how easily it works in a space and how it
really does have a personality that almost begins working with
you immediately to create the vibe that you want. Anyway,
that's Cinnamon Slate. Next week we'll meet a couple more
colors from the Color Trend's twenty twenty five collection. All right,
let's take a break, and when we come back, we're
digging into the Gilgamesh epic and ancient poem and we're
(18:43):
gonna find out what in the world it has to
do with Caulking. It's a history lesson with a lot
of interesting twists. That's next. Stick around and we're back.
You're listening to the Rep Go Light Home Improvement Show,
(19:04):
and it's time for a history segment. And we're gonna
do this, going to go back in time and look
at history stuff because I've got it in my notes
that i need to talk about Culk today because we've
got a particular call Accelerator CALLIC from Tower Ceilings Quick
to Cote from all Pro on the East side of
the state. They're the same CULK, just packaged differently depending
on where you are in the state. Anyway, that Culk's
(19:27):
on sale and I've got to talk about it. But
just talking about call and saying it's on sale, and
here's all the things that it does. That's boring. I'm
going to get to all of that stuff. But I
was curious first about, you know, having a conversation about
the history of Caulk, and I started wondering, when did
it come about? You know, when did calking, calt guns,
all of that? You know, when did it start? How
did we get to where we are now? So I thought,
(19:48):
let's look at that, let's dig into it. I did
not anticipate it to be as big a segment as
it turned out to be. There's a lot going on,
a lot more than I expected, and it goes back
way further than and I ever dreamed. So to start,
we're going to go back to around the year twenty
one hundred b C. And we're gonna look briefly at
the Gilgamesh Epic. Have you ever heard of that? I'm
(20:10):
betting most of you probably have not heard of it.
It's an ancient Mesopotamian poem, all right, and you may
not have heard about it before. It may be complete
news to you, but the story that it tells is
probably going to be very familiar. The text contains a story, really,
really similar to the Noah story from the Bible, the
story of the Great Flood. Now, I spent a year
(20:31):
in seminary in Kentucky long time ago, and we studied
this text, and I've always found it fascinating. Now Here
are just a few of the similarities between the story
of the arc and the flood that we've got in
the Bible and the tale of the Gilgamesh Epic. All right,
So the Gilgamesh Epic, it talks about this guy, Gilgamesh,
and he gets this divine warning that a flood's coming. Yo, Gilgamesh,
(20:55):
send them a flood. It's going to destroy everything. So
we get that similarity. It's a warning from above, from
on high that there's a flood coming. He's instructed to
build this huge boat, and then he's instructed to go
gather the animals so he can preserve their lives. Then
the flood calms, it submerges the earth, and after a
period of time, Gilgamesh goes to the top of the boat,
(21:17):
opens a little window and releases birds. Right just like
the Noah's story, All of this is the same. He
releases the birds to find out if the flood waters
have received so a lot of similarities. That's the Gilgamesh
epic written between twenty one hundred and one thousand BC.
Somewhere in there, and in that story, because as endlessly
(21:38):
fascinating as all of this I'm sure is, I need
to pay the bills and I need to get us
around a cal In that story, we encounter a reference
to caulking being used to keep that all important boat
watertight and afloat. Now the passage is as follows, and
it kind of reads like an awards ceremony for the
guy who did the caulking. Here it is quote for
the caulking of the boat to Putsarahmuri. That's the guy's name.
(22:03):
I'm gonna call him mister P because I got his
name right that first time, but I'll probably never be
able to pronounce it right again, So I'm gonna call
him mister P from here on out. And let me
go back to the beginning of this quote for the
caulking of the boat to mister P, the boatman, I
give the palace together with all of its contents. So
think about that. This guy Putsarahmuri. I did it really
(22:25):
well that time he calks the boat the ship. You know,
I'm not sure exactly when the distinction between the two
came about. But our guy, mister P does the caulking,
and I'll explain what that is in a minute. But
not only does he have the satisfaction of doing a
job you know, really well, but he also is given
the palace together with all of its contents. What a
(22:47):
gift though, really, you know, the pessimist in me really
does wonder how exciting this really was. You know, when
was he given this gift? Was he given it before
the flood? You know that's too bad because afterwards won't
wall there it goes? Was he given it during the flood?
You know, as they're floating on the boat. Here you go,
(23:09):
mister And I'm assuming mister P made it into the boat.
Maybe he didn't. Maybe we you know, he was given
the kingdom or the palace and all of that, and
then left behind to enjoy the spoils of his calking.
Who knows. Those are mysteries lost, lost to history, and
they probably don't matter here anyway. In the Gilgamesh epic,
we've got this ancient reference to caulking and it's referenced
(23:31):
as a process right in shipbuilding, and it was meant
to keep the ship water tight. So how do we
get from that, from a step in the shipbuilding process
to what we think of today when we use the
word caulk and we talk about caulking. And how did
all those tubes come to be? I mean, no matter
whose brand of calk you look at, ninety nine percent
of them are all in the same shape container. How
(23:54):
did all of that happen? Well, let's start with the
term caulk. Now, it originally came from the Old North
French word colcare, which means to press down. It's the
origin of the English word colca, which means to stop
up cracks with a filler, or to pack the seams
of a ship with waterproof material. So historically, shipbuilders would
(24:14):
use fibers like cotton and hemp soaked in pine tar,
and then they drive them into the seams between the
wooden planks using a calking mallet and a tool called
a calking iron. Right, the process sealed the joints, preventing
water from getting in and sinking a ship. Now, as
wooden ships gave way to iron and steel ships, the
colcking process shifted from pounding fibers into seams to using
(24:37):
tools that compressed metal edges to create water tight joints.
It's very interesting what has to be done even today
with materials like this. Boilers are made, or at least
were made in a similar manner. Look into that. It's
very interesting to think that the phrase caulking applies to
those materials and those processes as well. Also around this time,
(24:59):
you know, in the early to mid eighteen hundreds or so,
the term culking began to be applied to the process
and the fibrous or tarlet materials used to fill gaps
in wooden structures, you know, in construction now, so by
the late eighteen hundreds, culking is now a concept that's
familiar to the world of construction and home building, not
just you know, relegated to the world of shipbuilding. It's
(25:21):
something that we're starting to use in construction conversation now.
It's interesting the application of these materials in the construction setting,
you know, these tar like substances, the caulks, the putties,
the application of these was all done manually using putty
knives or even bare hands. And I can only imagine
what that process was like. You know, I'm a mess
(25:44):
whenever I call I try. I literally pep talk myself
up before I start, you know, I tell myself to
pay attention to your hands, Dan, pay attention to your hands.
Pay attention, little friend. Keep a damp rag, handy. Don't
wipe the calck on your clothing, Dan, don't wipe it
on the floor. I'll pay attention to your hands. Is
there calck on your hands? Don't touch stuff, don't touch
(26:07):
anything else other than that damp rag. You know, I've
got an entire precc prep routine that I run myself
through every single time. But I'm like a meme, you know,
I'm a living, breathing meme. One half of the image
is me giving myself that pep talk, and the second
panel is me. You know, thirty seconds later, I'm covered
with cock. The walls are covered with cock fingerprints. The
(26:29):
damp rag is so full of cock that it just
smears cock on everything I wipe it with. Right, that's
me with modern advancements. I can only imagine what it
was like back in time. If I had to go
back there to the earliest applications of cock, where you
used a putty knife or your hands to apply it.
Uh yeah, anyway, I'm glad I live in the time
(26:50):
and period that I live in. Anyway, suffice to say
it was messy work back then. And then this breakthrough
invention comes about Theodore Witt wi Tt, a gentleman who
we know very little about. Theodore is walking home from
work one day. Where did he work? We don't know,
at least I don't know. Somebody maybe does, but they're
(27:11):
not talking, so we're just saying he's walking home from work.
Perhaps he was a cacker during the day. Perhaps his hands,
you know, are coded if you need a visual, his
hands are coated with cock and he's trying to peel
it off before he gets home. You know. Maybe he
brushed his hands on his new pants and he knew
that missus Witt was going to let him have it
when she saw him. So maybe he's taking the long
(27:33):
way home. Who knows. But what we do know is
that he's walking home and he passes by a bakery.
Now he probably paused to look in the window, right,
Maybe he shared shared the contractor's love of donuts and
baked goods. Who knows, you know, not that they're bad.
I do enjoy a good donut or a baked good myself.
Maybe mister Witt was the same. Anyway, he stops and
(27:54):
he stares through the window, and as the story goes,
he sees the baker open up this huge vat. I'm
sure it's not a vat, that just sounds gross, a
huge container, a pot full of frosting. Right, He's got
this cake that needs to be frosted, and he's got
this container full of frosting. And mister Witt thinks to himself,
Oh boy, here we go. He's gonna lather that stuff
(28:17):
on with his hands or some kind of putty knife
type thing, and I'm sure this poor baker is gonna
end up as coated and sticky with frosting as I
am with colk. Right, I'm sure something like that goes
through mister Witt's mind. But as he watches this whole thing,
he's dumb struck. As the baker applies all of the
frosting to the cake without mess using a piping bag.
(28:39):
At that point, you know, the clouds parted, a little
beam of sunlight came down. Somebody saying, oh, you know,
much nicer than that, because that would have just scared
mister Witt. But angels saying and inspiration strikes mister Witt,
and he goes home to invent the first caulking gun
in history, and that's eighteen ninety four. His putty tool,
(29:00):
as he termed it, was designed to streamline the process
of applying coc by allowing for efficient and clean application
of putty without direct contact. This marked an incredible advancement
in not just the application but also eventually the packaging
of sealants. Now, as I mentioned earlier, before the cult
gun or the putting tool, whatever you want to call it,
(29:21):
before that was invented, cocks and sealants were applied manually,
you know, by hand or by putting knife, and the
materials were pulled from these bulk containers. That's how everybody worked.
With wits invention, people could now fill that gun directly
from the bulk supplies, which was more efficient and less
messy than other methods, but it still wasn't completely perfect.
(29:42):
So before long, manufacturers started producing pre filled cartridges designed
to fit within the dimensions of the caulking gun. And
this standardized both the tool, you know, the gun itself
and the containers for the sealants that we use the
gun to apply. And this simplified everything simplified the whole
process us and completely revolutionized you know, all of that.
(30:03):
That's why we've got tubes today that are consistent across
the board, you know, That's how it all came about,
very very interesting to me. And then of course, over time,
you know, the materials used for calking have evolved to
meet all kinds of different construction needs. You know, we've
got paintable calls, super stretchy calls, mold and mildew resistant calcs,
(30:23):
gap filling cauls, incredibly moisture resistant calks, and on and
on and on and on. In fact, there are so
many different types of calls out there it can really
seem complicated to figure out which one's right for your project.
And that's where will help. Just swing out to any
REPLI tell us what you're working on, and we'll help
you get the right cock, and we'll walk you through
everything you need to know to get it applied cleanly
(30:44):
and easily and professionally and honestly. Just because I admitted
earlier to making a mess whenever I use calk, that
doesn't mean that we don't know what to do and
how to use it without making that mess. It's really
just a me problem. And it's not that I don't
know what to do. I know what to do. I
just don't do it, you know, because my brain is
(31:05):
like five steps ahead of the rest of my body.
You know, that's the good way to describe it. It
could be, you know, five weeks in the past, you know,
way behind the rest of my body. Either way, it's
not directly connected to my body. And I think things
while my hands and the rest of my body do
different things. So it's a me problem. It's not an
(31:25):
US problem. It's a me problem. And we can help
you at Repcolite get all the info you need to
take that then go home and have great results. All right.
That finally brings me to the cal sale that I
need to talk about briefly before we wrap this one up.
It's going on all month long at Repcolite. We've got
a couple of different premium cocks on sale. Actually it's
the same caulk, just under different names. On the east
(31:48):
side of the state, the culk is all pros Quick
to Coat. On the west side it's Tower Cealans Accelerator,
the exact same culk in both places, just sold under
different names and in different packaging now accel or Quick
to Cote. They're premium culs that work on many different
interior surfaces, and they're big claim to fame has to
do with the speed at which you can paint over them. Now,
(32:09):
most problems that occur when people use culk, or at
least one of the big problems that occurs is that
they paint over it too quickly, you know, before the
culk has dried, and lots of different problems occur when
that happens. Now, with accelerator and quick to coat, you're
not going to have that. It's going to eliminate all
of those concerns. You can spray over those cults immediately
(32:30):
after you've calked them, after you've applied that caulc that's
completely unheard of, no problems, no concerns guaranteed. So if
your contractor looking to save some time in labor, these
cocks are a brilliant answer and at least look into them.
But even for di wires or for contractors who aren't spraying,
they're finish on. With accelerator and quick to Coat, you
can brush over that caulk after just thirty minutes, So
(32:52):
it's still ridiculously fast. Anyway, Those cacks are on sale
at Repcolite for two twenty five a tube all through
the rest of the month. If you've got any caulking
at all to do on your next project, it's worth
checking out. And there you go, the long, drawn out,
surprising history of caulking. How it started as a term
used for making ships watertight and now largely refers to
seiling up the gaps between your trim and your walls. Crazy.
(33:15):
All right, let's take a break. When we come back,
we're talking about a dog camera, a dog monitoring camera.
I guess I should say I love this thing and
I can't wait to tell you about it. And that's all.
Next stick around and we're back. You're listening to the
Repolite Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and I
(33:37):
want to circle back to my dogs. I started the
show talking about my dogs, Fern and Maggie. Maggie's obedient
beyond description. Angelic, I believe, is the word I use
to describe her. And Fern she's a work in progress.
We love her, we do love her dearly, and she's improving,
but she is a little nuts. You know. I talked
(33:59):
about that already. Anyway, we went through a pretty stressful
rite of passage with Fern a few weeks back. I've
got a couple kids in college and when classes let out,
you know, part way through December, they settled in at
home to enjoy a lengthy winter break. And that meant
Fern could also enjoy a winter break. See normally, because
(34:21):
she's a little nuts, she's a little naughty. Fern is
kenneled up during the days while we're at work and
nobody's in the house. We really can't trust her yet.
We haven't been able to to be free around the house.
You know, she's two, she's a free spirit. She's nuts.
I've said all that a month or two ago. I
think I talked about this on the show, but this
should make the case. A month or two ago, she
(34:42):
was left in the house alone for twenty minutes if that,
and in that time she ate fifty dollars worth of
fudge from Macana Island that she got out of a backpack.
Somehow she ate all the fudge wrappers in all, fifty
dollars worth of fudge. That's not cheap, but that's the
least of my worries. We had to bring her to
(35:03):
the er vet and had to pay a boatload of
money to make sure Fern stayed alive because she consumed
so much fudge it potentially could be fatal. Oh my goodness,
thank you Fern, Thank you so much. Christmas was much
smaller this year thanks to Fern. But we told ourselves
we have Fern, but because we want to keep Fern.
(35:25):
She goes in the kennel when there's nobody there, a supervisor,
but she hates it. Of course, she hates it. She
hates it intensely. And after having a solid month home,
you know, a solid month of freedom with the kids,
we were all dread putting her back in that kennel
when we went to work, and yet we were terrified
to leave her out of the kennel. Anyway, all of
(35:46):
that to say, my daughter gave me the answer. She's
getting married in October and her fiance just adopted a
new dog, and with his dog, he bought a monitoring
camera so he could keep an eye on her all
day long. I should have thought of this myself. I
did not. But even when she told me, I wasn't convinced.
I assumed it was going to be crazy expensive and
that it wouldn't work all that well, that it'd be
(36:08):
kind of clunky. I explained some of that, or she
sensed the hesitation, and she jumped right in. She knows
exactly what to tell me. She told me, it's a
thirty dollars camera. Well, instantly, I'm interested because they've got it.
It's working for them. It's thirty bucks. They love it.
And the biggest thing, the big selling point for me,
is the camera that they bought. The model they've got
(36:29):
has a speaker and a microphone built in, so you
can listen to what's happening in the house. If you
need to. You can turn it off, but you can
listen if you want to, and if necessary, you can
sound this little alarm, or you can actively using your
phone talk to the dogs or the burglars or who's
ever there. You can do that all from your phone.
It's brilliant. Now, nobody out there, I am certain nobody
(36:52):
listening to me right now is surprised by any of
this technology. I'm sorry about that. I'm stunned. I'm stunned
that all of that technology, all of abilities, can be
contained in a thirty dollars package. But it can be
I love this thing. I snatched one up. I'm gonna
put links to it in the show notes, links to
the exact model that I bought. But it's the Wise Camog.
(37:12):
The whys is spelled wyse. Why'scamog? Like I said, under
thirty bucks on Amazon. Now here are just a few
quick details of what you get with this camera. Super small,
easy mounting. You can set it up easily anywhere. You
plug it in, install the app on your phone. In
five minutes or so, you've got video that you can
monitor on your phone or your tablet or whatever. Super easy.
(37:34):
If you want to add a camera, just buy one
and it adds easily to your network. The camera itself,
it's a ten adp HD camera with night vision, and
that night vision is crazy good, completely black room, no
lights on at all. If I've got that, I can
still see the dogs like there's daylight. It's night vision.
You know, it's what you would expect it to be.
(37:55):
I just did not anticipate that it would work this well.
It's rated for indoor and outdoor use. You can customize
the alerts you get. You know, right now my phone
will let me know when there's movement so I can
go pull up the camera, and sure enough, one of
the dogs is, you know, scratching yourself or looking out
the window or something like that. And then, as I
had mentioned earlier, using your phone, you can listen to
what's happening in the room, or you can intervene by
(38:17):
hitting the speaker and actually talking. There are a ton
of other benefits that you can get, but you get
the idea. This crazy little thirty dollars camera has completely
given me peace of mind leaving Fern out. You know,
this big rite of passage we were dreading was so
easy because we could monitor and actually intervene. And that's
just using it for dogs. You could use it for
(38:37):
all kinds of other things, as a baby monitor, as
a security camera on your porch. I mean, really, the
possibilities are pretty endless. Just don't use it for nefarious purposes.
That is not the point of talking about this anyway.
If you've got dogs, or any other situation where you
wish you could monitor your home easily and cheaply, you've
got to look into this camera or another one like it.
(38:58):
The one I have again is the Whysekmog, the Wyze Wyskamog.
It's thirty bucks on Amazon. Really worth it. Check it out,
all right. That's all the time we've got that's going
to have to do it. If you want to catch
this one again, you can find it online at Repcolight
dot com. Whatever you do today makes your paints a
part of it. Have a great weekend everybody, and I'll
see you next week. Dan Hansome, thanks for listening.
Well, good morning. You're listening to the repcoll Light Home
improvement show is sponsored by Benjamin Moore and I hope,
I hope, hope, hope you all survived the intense cold,
the frigid weather that we've experienced at the beginning of
this week. I mean it was brutal. It was brutal
at my house. Anyway. We've got a couple of dogs
(00:21):
and I've spoken about them before on the show. Mainly
I've spoken about Maggie. She's a Golden Retriever and I've
talked about her a ton of times. She's angelic, you know, sweet, obedient,
kind hearted, gennal. You know, Maggie, She's amazing. We also
have Fern. Fern's a black lab. She's getting better. Let's
(00:43):
just leave it at that. She's getting better. She's a
work in progress. Anyway. Fern wants to go outside to
go to the bathroom every ten minutes. That's literally how
she operates almost all the time. Maggie can wait, you know,
tell her it's going to be sometime next week, and
she'll hold it. Won't say a word about it, won't gripe.
(01:05):
We'll just sit there and hold it. Fern. Now, every
ten minutes she wants to go outside. But if we
let her outside, you know, without us being tethered to her,
we'll probably never see her again. She'll just go zip
off into who knows where, and we'll probably get letters
from who knows, you know, the other side of the
country anyway. So we have this war of wills with
(01:26):
Fern every single stinking day, probably thirty different times. You know,
sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But when this cold
weather hit, I figured that we'd probably get a break.
You know, Fern's a lab she has thin fur and
she gets cold really quickly, so we figured she wouldn't
want to go out or be out as long as usual.
(01:48):
Silver linings. Right, we've got this frigid weather. It's like
the Arctic out there. But on the upside, Fern doesn't
want to be out there either. No, she didn't care,
not at all. On top of it all, when she
goes out, she cannot and will not settle in. And
just do you know her business, you know what I'm
talking about, right, so much spinning, and it's early. I
(02:10):
don't want to go into a lot more detailed than that,
but she'll spin and spin and spin in circles almost
almost incessantly, and then she'll abandon the plan. She spun
for five minutes. It's got to be time Fern settle
in do it, and then she'll just all of a sudden, whoop,
She's off in another direction. Then she'll spin over there
(02:31):
for a while. She cannot get this thing figured out.
We actually dug into it trying to figure out what
is going on with her? And you know, why does
she spin four hundred times trying to find the premiere,
prime ideal spot to go to the bathroom? Do you
know why dogs do this? Do you know why? You know,
if you've got a dog, why your dog does that? Well?
(02:52):
Neither do I because the info that I found doesn't
match up with Fern. It doesn't match up with what's
going on. For example, the Internet says it could be
is a survival instincts, you know, survival instincts. Fern is
flattening the ground out, the Internet says, to make sure
that she's safe from predators, right like her ancestors, the wolves.
(03:12):
Did you know, no snakes, no other threats. That's what
the Internet's saying. But I don't buy that, not even
not even for a second. You know, first off, Fern
flattens a circle, you know, with a twenty foot radius
every night, at least three times in that night. I mean,
she does that four times, and the whole yard has
been determined to be safe at that point. And it's
(03:33):
two degrees out there. No snakes, Fern, no snakes, not
at all, not in this weather. Now, I don't think
it's that. It could be that she's spinning to check
for predators. The Internet suggests that, you know, head on
a swivel kind of a thing. It's ridiculous with Fern.
She's not paying attention to anything at all. She's just
(03:54):
looking at her feet or smelling something here and there,
and then she falls over because she's dizzy. It's not survival.
It's not head on a swivel. Another idea is that
she's trying to align I love this one. She's trying
to align herself with the Earth's magnetic field before she
goes to the bathroom. Does that make any sense that
(04:15):
she's got to align herself with the Earth's magnetic field
before she goes I don't know who's right on the
internet these days, but that seems really questionable. You know,
maybe dogs like to go to the bathroom facing north.
Who knows. I don't think that's what's going on with Fern,
because we'll intentionally face her north, you know, just to
get her off on a good start. We tell her, Fern,
(04:35):
you're aligned with the north. And it doesn't help. She spins,
doesn't matter what direction, north by northwest, south by southeast.
It's a mess anyway. There are many reasons why she
may do this, and we'll probably never know. All I
do know is that this last week was really miserable,
sitting out there with her and waiting for the spin
cycle to end. Thankfully, one of the kids takes her
(04:58):
out most of the time, so I really we don't
have that much to crab about. But still I'm crabbing vicariously.
I'm feeling his pain vicariously. It was brutal in the
cold when I went out for us. It never affected
Fern in the least. She was fine, so you can
save your emails. She was fine. She probably is burning
too many calories spinning around to even feel the cold. Anyway.
(05:21):
I hope you weathered the cold, you know, the big cold,
and you're ready for this weekend. And I've got a
ton of stuff on the show that I want to
talk about today, and we'll revisit the whole dog topic
at the end of the show because we bought a
new monitoring camera and I love this thing. I can't
wait to tell you about it, and I guarantee when
(05:43):
I do, you're going to be thinking about all the
different ways that you could use one in your home.
So we're going to get to that at the end
of the show. I'll also be talking about the history
of calk and it really is crazy interesting. It's way
cooler than even I thought. And I'm an expert at this,
and I thought it might be interesting. I had no
idea it was going to be as interesting as it is.
(06:05):
So we're going to get to that. The other thing
that we're going to be covering, what is that. Oh,
I've got an absolutely ridiculous segment planned. I'm not going
to tell you about it. It's coming up after this one,
and it's really, really weird. That's coming up in just
a minute. Right now, though, let's get to the paint point.
(06:26):
And last week I mentioned in the show, if you
paid attention, if you took notes, if you're consulting those
notes right now, I made a promise last week that
I would talk about something in more detail this week.
Last week I talked about how it's important to sand
your primer before you apply your finish paint, and I
told you that that doesn't have to be a terrible,
big process, and i'd explain it for those of you who,
(06:49):
for one reason or another didn't catch last week. Let
me quick explain sanding your primer before you apply the
finish paint is something that you should do. And I
know that's news for a lot of folks out there,
But here's the scoop. When your primer dries, or even honestly,
that first code of finish, when that dries, it's rarely
as smooth as you might think it's going to be.
Even if you apply it carefully, you're likely to end
(07:10):
up with some texture from the roller cover, some lint
from the roller cover, or other small imperfections. We always
end up with little hairs in the wall, stuff like
that little good ease that you pick up as you
apply the paint to the primer or whatever. On top
of that, you know certain primers can raise the fibers
in drywall, So if you're priming bear drywall, certain primers
will do that much worse than other ones, and then
(07:32):
that can make it feel pretty rough. If you're priming
bear wood, primers can also raise the grain in the
wood and give it a rough feel. If you skip
sanding at that stage, these little imperfections are going to
remain in your finished code, and it's going to make
that final surface, that final code look uneven. It's not
going to be as nice as it could. Sanding eliminates that,
(07:53):
and it creates a smooth base that lets your finish paint,
you know, really shine. I guess, for lack of a
better word, it really will look the best it possibly can.
So that's why you should stand that primer, And honestly,
I did hint at it. Your finished paint as well.
A lot of old school painters do a quick standing
on their first coat of finished paint as well, not
(08:13):
of course, not the last coat. That last coat of
finished paint. You leave that one alone. But you put
your primer on, do a light sanding, put your first
coat of finish paint on, do another quick light sanding,
and then you go to that finish you know, that
last final coat, and you leave that one alone. All right. Now,
I talked about all of that last week. But before
you start doing that and jumping in, I wanted to
(08:33):
quickly walk you through the process because it's possibly not
nearly as bad as some of you are maybe thinking,
and conversely, it might be a little bit more intensive
than some of you are hoping. So let's get rid
of all confusion. Here's what the whole thing looks like
and how you can pull it off easily. First off,
you've got to wait for your primer to dry. And
(08:54):
I know that sounds really ridiculous and dumb, completely unnecessary
to say, but I'm saying that for the same reason
that microwaves say, Hey, they have that little sticker that says,
don't use the microwave to dry your dog after a
dog bath, Right, somebody somewhere we don't even want to
think about that. But for the sake of the primer,
(09:15):
I want to say, it's got to be dry, because
somebody somewhere needs to hear that. You know, somebody is
a rusher and they want to rush through the project.
And as dumb as what I just said sounds, it
is a little more nuanced than you may think. A
surface can seem dry to the touch, but it can
still be soft below. You know that initial surface and
sanding too early can cause more problems than you're fixing,
(09:37):
so you've got to make sure that it's dry. Most
primers are going to need at least two to three
hours before they're ready for sanding. If you do want
a quicker option than that, repcoll It's Quicksand Primer is
ready to sand in just thirty minutes. And as a bonus,
it's on sale right now through the rest of the month,
so you still got a week or so before that
sale ends. And it's a good sale. It's like forty
seven percent off. It's an all purpose primer. You can
(10:00):
use it on pretty much any surface inside. It's great
for doors, walls, trim much more. Quicksand Primer on sale
right now. Check that out. Anyway, whatever you're using, whatever
primer you're using, you've got to make sure that it's
dry before you stand it. Second, you want to use
the right sandpaper and the right amount of pressure. We
recommend a two twenty grit sandpaper. It's fine enough to
(10:22):
smooth out the imperfections without removing too much primer. After all,
and this is the good news here. Your goal isn't
to sand the primer off. You're really just trying to
knock down any rough spots and create a smooth surface
so you don't have to go nuts on the wall.
Don't sand until the powder's flying, you know. All that
powder in the air is primer that you actually want
(10:43):
to leave on your surface. For the most part, just
do enough of the quick sanding to knock down the
rough spots. Third, for larger walls or ceilings or bigger areas,
use a sanding pole. Basically, it's a sanding head that
almost looks like the business end of a swiffer, you know,
a swifferlor cleaner kind of looks like that. You put
sandpaper on that, and then you affix it to an
(11:04):
extension pole, and then you can move really fast across
your walls. It's still manual work, you know, it's not
a robot. It's not going to do it for you.
It's still manual work, but it's going to help you
cover a lot of ground really quickly and much more
easily than holding a sanding block or something like that.
That's crazy. Don't do that. Get one of these, you know,
sanding pads or sanding heads. Put it on an extension
(11:27):
pole and you're good to go. If you have no
idea what I'm talking about, you know, complete blank in
your mind right now, just stop out at any repcolite
and ask. They're not expensive. It's not a fancy tool,
but it will come in really handy for larger areas.
So think about that. Fourth, when you're sanding your trim
or detailed surfaces, foam sanding pads are pretty much your
(11:50):
best friend. They're flexible, they're easy to hold, and they're
going to conform to curves and edges, and it's going
to help you maintain or achieve a smooth finish without
cutting through through the primer too much, which you can
do really easily with some stiffer sandpaper. You can cut
right through the primer. On contoured areas, use the sanding pads.
They're great for that. Finally, after sanding, you've got to
(12:12):
wipe down that surface with a damp rag to remove
the dust that you created, allow the surface to dry
completely before you apply your finish paint. And by doing that,
you're ensuring that the finished paint adhere's properly and prevents
you know, you're also preventing any dust from getting trapped
in the paint, all right, So you don't want that.
You don't want to go through all this work and
then still trap a bunch of dust in your finish
(12:33):
and you've achieved nothing at that point. Sanding your primer
might seem like an extra step, but it's a little
touch that delivers really big results. All the good old
school painters do it all the time. If you missed
any of the steps that we talked about, you can
catch the segment again by heading to repco Light dot com.
Just click the little on the radio tab right on
the homepage and check it out. Also, follow us on
(12:54):
Facebook and Instagram and we'll have tips like this and
more weekly, along with links to blow posts and things
like that. All right, let's take a break and when
we come back, I've got a ridiculous segment. I don't
know how it's gonna go. Let's find out together. That's
just next stick around. Welcome back to the Recolite Home
(13:24):
improvement shows sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and let's just jump
into this weird segment. Back in October, Benjamin Moore released
their color of the Year for twenty twenty five, Cinnamon Slate,
and along with Cinnamon Slate, they revealed a collection of
supporting colors their Color Trends twenty twenty five collection. Now,
this year's Color Trends collection is pretty exciting because all
(13:44):
of the colors, you know, just work really well together.
In previous years that wasn't always the case, that's not
what they were working for. But this time, pretty much
anything in that color brochure can be paired with any
other color in the brochure and it just works well together.
It's really smart how they do it this way. You
can use these colors as is right from the booklet
to create beautifully curated, well put together color schemes for
(14:07):
your home, or you can use the collection kind of
as a jumping off point. You know, you can see
how certain tones work well together and then go find
different versions of those colors that will work in your
specific situation. It's a really cool collection, and like I said,
if you haven't already checked out Benjamin Moore's Color Trends
for twenty twenty five, do so look into it. All right,
that's not weird. You know, I said it was going
(14:28):
to get weird, and that's not it. So what do
I mean, how are we going to get weird? Well,
I want to introduce you to the colors from Benjamin
Moore's color Trends over time. I can't do it all
right now, but over time. But I don't want to
do it in a way that I've seen everybody else
do it in a way that we've done it in
the past. You know, here's a purple, you compare it
(14:49):
with this color or that color. You can use it
in a bedroom or whatever. It's good info, but it's
boring info, right, There's a better way. There has to
be a better way. I don't know that I've come
up with it, but i have come up with a
different way. And I've imagined these colors as profiles, you know,
on a dating website. So that's where this is going
(15:11):
to get just a touch weird. It's probably gonna be
weird for you to listen to. It's certainly gonna be
weird for me to say. But I still think it's
kind of clever, and I think it's potentially funny. You know,
it's not a knee slapper. It's not something you'll guffaw over,
but you might smirk. You know, I'm looking for a smirk,
or maybe you know your eye will crinkle just a
(15:32):
little bit in something akin to joy. Anyway, with no
further ado, let's get to and meet one of these
colors from this year's color trends. And of course, since
we've only got time to meet one, we're gonna meet
Cinnamon Slate. Now, Cinnamon Slate, she's a thinker, she's a poet.
She loves quiet, thoughtful nooks and spaces in your home.
(15:53):
But she's not uncomfortable hosting a gala event, you know,
with wine and fancy cheeses and things like that. She
fits into all of that. She's grounded. She's casual and
yet sophisticated and elegant. Whatever the mood or situation requires,
Cinnamon Slate is ready, you know, to deliver now in appearances, Now,
(16:14):
it's not all about appearances, you know, well, I guess
with color, with color, it probably pretty much is all
about appearances. So I guess we're not being shallow at
this point. If Cinnamon Slate was a real person, we
would talk about her personality, right, what she likes to
eat and stuff like that. I guess that's not terribly
important either. This is why I don't run a dating
(16:35):
website anyway. This is about color, So appearances matter here.
Cinnamon Slate is a subtle mix of a muted plum
and a velvety brown. And this, this mix, this wonderful
little amalgamation of color, gives her a personality that's both
moody and elegant. But not moody in a negative way,
you know, not sit in a corner pouting like a
little kid moody. No moody in the sense that she
(16:56):
evokes a sense of you know, introspection, dramas, all of that.
Because of this, Cinnamon Slate is all about creating a
timeless and grounded atmosphere in your home. And as I mentioned,
she's casual, comfortable and comforting and yet sophisticated and elegant
at the same time. Now, when it comes to past times,
Cinnamon Slate loves to spice up an accent wall or
(17:17):
maybe bring a cozy, introspective or dramatic mood to a library,
a dining room, a living area, you know, places like that.
If you want to enjoy Cinnamon Slate's grounded, comfortable side,
you know her sweatshirt and jean side. Pair her with
soft whites and rich browns if you want to explore
her more sophisticated side the gala event side. Pair her
(17:37):
with deep olive greens or something like that in a
nutshell cinnamon slate. She's got this way of balancing warmth
and drama. She's subtle. She can fade into the background
and let other colors are decorby in the spotlight. But
she's never shy, and she's more than happy to be
the color in your space that holds the attention of
every eye. That's cinnamon slate. And if you'd like to
reach out her numbers two one, one, three, dash forty.
(18:00):
There you go. A little bit weird, a little bit silly,
but in another sense, it may give you a vibe
for the color. You know, after all, there's a lot
you can do with cinnamon slay. You know, being able
to pair it with whites, olives, browns, and more gives
you a lot of freedom to create the atmosphere that
you want to create in your space. You know, it's
not your typical wall color, but it's not so out
of the box that it leaves you struggling to find
(18:21):
a way to use it. Honestly, you're gonna be surprised
how easily it works in a space and how it
really does have a personality that almost begins working with
you immediately to create the vibe that you want. Anyway,
that's Cinnamon Slate. Next week we'll meet a couple more
colors from the Color Trend's twenty twenty five collection. All right,
let's take a break, and when we come back, we're
digging into the Gilgamesh epic and ancient poem and we're
(18:43):
gonna find out what in the world it has to
do with Caulking. It's a history lesson with a lot
of interesting twists. That's next. Stick around and we're back.
You're listening to the Rep Go Light Home Improvement Show,
(19:04):
and it's time for a history segment. And we're gonna
do this, going to go back in time and look
at history stuff because I've got it in my notes
that i need to talk about Culk today because we've
got a particular call Accelerator CALLIC from Tower Ceilings Quick
to Cote from all Pro on the East side of
the state. They're the same CULK, just packaged differently depending
on where you are in the state. Anyway, that Culk's
(19:27):
on sale and I've got to talk about it. But
just talking about call and saying it's on sale, and
here's all the things that it does. That's boring. I'm
going to get to all of that stuff. But I
was curious first about, you know, having a conversation about
the history of Caulk, and I started wondering, when did
it come about? You know, when did calking, calt guns,
all of that? You know, when did it start? How
did we get to where we are now? So I thought,
(19:48):
let's look at that, let's dig into it. I did
not anticipate it to be as big a segment as
it turned out to be. There's a lot going on,
a lot more than I expected, and it goes back
way further than and I ever dreamed. So to start,
we're going to go back to around the year twenty
one hundred b C. And we're gonna look briefly at
the Gilgamesh Epic. Have you ever heard of that? I'm
(20:10):
betting most of you probably have not heard of it.
It's an ancient Mesopotamian poem, all right, and you may
not have heard about it before. It may be complete
news to you, but the story that it tells is
probably going to be very familiar. The text contains a story, really,
really similar to the Noah story from the Bible, the
story of the Great Flood. Now, I spent a year
(20:31):
in seminary in Kentucky long time ago, and we studied
this text, and I've always found it fascinating. Now Here
are just a few of the similarities between the story
of the arc and the flood that we've got in
the Bible and the tale of the Gilgamesh Epic. All right,
So the Gilgamesh Epic, it talks about this guy, Gilgamesh,
and he gets this divine warning that a flood's coming. Yo, Gilgamesh,
(20:55):
send them a flood. It's going to destroy everything. So
we get that similarity. It's a warning from above, from
on high that there's a flood coming. He's instructed to
build this huge boat, and then he's instructed to go
gather the animals so he can preserve their lives. Then
the flood calms, it submerges the earth, and after a
period of time, Gilgamesh goes to the top of the boat,
(21:17):
opens a little window and releases birds. Right just like
the Noah's story, All of this is the same. He
releases the birds to find out if the flood waters
have received so a lot of similarities. That's the Gilgamesh
epic written between twenty one hundred and one thousand BC.
Somewhere in there, and in that story, because as endlessly
(21:38):
fascinating as all of this I'm sure is, I need
to pay the bills and I need to get us
around a cal In that story, we encounter a reference
to caulking being used to keep that all important boat
watertight and afloat. Now the passage is as follows, and
it kind of reads like an awards ceremony for the
guy who did the caulking. Here it is quote for
the caulking of the boat to Putsarahmuri. That's the guy's name.
(22:03):
I'm gonna call him mister P because I got his
name right that first time, but I'll probably never be
able to pronounce it right again, So I'm gonna call
him mister P from here on out. And let me
go back to the beginning of this quote for the
caulking of the boat to mister P, the boatman, I
give the palace together with all of its contents. So
think about that. This guy Putsarahmuri. I did it really
(22:25):
well that time he calks the boat the ship. You know,
I'm not sure exactly when the distinction between the two
came about. But our guy, mister P does the caulking,
and I'll explain what that is in a minute. But
not only does he have the satisfaction of doing a
job you know, really well, but he also is given
the palace together with all of its contents. What a
(22:47):
gift though, really, you know, the pessimist in me really
does wonder how exciting this really was. You know, when
was he given this gift? Was he given it before
the flood? You know that's too bad because afterwards won't
wall there it goes? Was he given it during the flood?
You know, as they're floating on the boat. Here you go,
(23:09):
mister And I'm assuming mister P made it into the boat.
Maybe he didn't. Maybe we you know, he was given
the kingdom or the palace and all of that, and
then left behind to enjoy the spoils of his calking.
Who knows. Those are mysteries lost, lost to history, and
they probably don't matter here anyway. In the Gilgamesh epic,
we've got this ancient reference to caulking and it's referenced
(23:31):
as a process right in shipbuilding, and it was meant
to keep the ship water tight. So how do we
get from that, from a step in the shipbuilding process
to what we think of today when we use the
word caulk and we talk about caulking. And how did
all those tubes come to be? I mean, no matter
whose brand of calk you look at, ninety nine percent
of them are all in the same shape container. How
(23:54):
did all of that happen? Well, let's start with the
term caulk. Now, it originally came from the Old North
French word colcare, which means to press down. It's the
origin of the English word colca, which means to stop
up cracks with a filler, or to pack the seams
of a ship with waterproof material. So historically, shipbuilders would
(24:14):
use fibers like cotton and hemp soaked in pine tar,
and then they drive them into the seams between the
wooden planks using a calking mallet and a tool called
a calking iron. Right, the process sealed the joints, preventing
water from getting in and sinking a ship. Now, as
wooden ships gave way to iron and steel ships, the
colcking process shifted from pounding fibers into seams to using
(24:37):
tools that compressed metal edges to create water tight joints.
It's very interesting what has to be done even today
with materials like this. Boilers are made, or at least
were made in a similar manner. Look into that. It's
very interesting to think that the phrase caulking applies to
those materials and those processes as well. Also around this time,
(24:59):
you know, in the early to mid eighteen hundreds or so,
the term culking began to be applied to the process
and the fibrous or tarlet materials used to fill gaps
in wooden structures, you know, in construction now, so by
the late eighteen hundreds, culking is now a concept that's
familiar to the world of construction and home building, not
just you know, relegated to the world of shipbuilding. It's
(25:21):
something that we're starting to use in construction conversation now.
It's interesting the application of these materials in the construction setting,
you know, these tar like substances, the caulks, the putties,
the application of these was all done manually using putty
knives or even bare hands. And I can only imagine
what that process was like. You know, I'm a mess
(25:44):
whenever I call I try. I literally pep talk myself
up before I start, you know, I tell myself to
pay attention to your hands, Dan, pay attention to your hands.
Pay attention, little friend. Keep a damp rag, handy. Don't
wipe the calck on your clothing, Dan, don't wipe it
on the floor. I'll pay attention to your hands. Is
there calck on your hands? Don't touch stuff, don't touch
(26:07):
anything else other than that damp rag. You know, I've
got an entire precc prep routine that I run myself
through every single time. But I'm like a meme, you know,
I'm a living, breathing meme. One half of the image
is me giving myself that pep talk, and the second
panel is me. You know, thirty seconds later, I'm covered
with cock. The walls are covered with cock fingerprints. The
(26:29):
damp rag is so full of cock that it just
smears cock on everything I wipe it with. Right, that's
me with modern advancements. I can only imagine what it
was like back in time. If I had to go
back there to the earliest applications of cock, where you
used a putty knife or your hands to apply it.
Uh yeah, anyway, I'm glad I live in the time
(26:50):
and period that I live in. Anyway, suffice to say
it was messy work back then. And then this breakthrough
invention comes about Theodore Witt wi Tt, a gentleman who
we know very little about. Theodore is walking home from
work one day. Where did he work? We don't know,
at least I don't know. Somebody maybe does, but they're
(27:11):
not talking, so we're just saying he's walking home from work.
Perhaps he was a cacker during the day. Perhaps his hands,
you know, are coded if you need a visual, his
hands are coated with cock and he's trying to peel
it off before he gets home. You know. Maybe he
brushed his hands on his new pants and he knew
that missus Witt was going to let him have it
when she saw him. So maybe he's taking the long
(27:33):
way home. Who knows. But what we do know is
that he's walking home and he passes by a bakery.
Now he probably paused to look in the window, right,
Maybe he shared shared the contractor's love of donuts and
baked goods. Who knows, you know, not that they're bad.
I do enjoy a good donut or a baked good myself.
Maybe mister Witt was the same. Anyway, he stops and
(27:54):
he stares through the window, and as the story goes,
he sees the baker open up this huge vat. I'm
sure it's not a vat, that just sounds gross, a
huge container, a pot full of frosting. Right, He's got
this cake that needs to be frosted, and he's got
this container full of frosting. And mister Witt thinks to himself,
Oh boy, here we go. He's gonna lather that stuff
(28:17):
on with his hands or some kind of putty knife
type thing, and I'm sure this poor baker is gonna
end up as coated and sticky with frosting as I
am with colk. Right, I'm sure something like that goes
through mister Witt's mind. But as he watches this whole thing,
he's dumb struck. As the baker applies all of the
frosting to the cake without mess using a piping bag.
(28:39):
At that point, you know, the clouds parted, a little
beam of sunlight came down. Somebody saying, oh, you know,
much nicer than that, because that would have just scared
mister Witt. But angels saying and inspiration strikes mister Witt,
and he goes home to invent the first caulking gun
in history, and that's eighteen ninety four. His putty tool,
(29:00):
as he termed it, was designed to streamline the process
of applying coc by allowing for efficient and clean application
of putty without direct contact. This marked an incredible advancement
in not just the application but also eventually the packaging
of sealants. Now, as I mentioned earlier, before the cult
gun or the putting tool, whatever you want to call it,
(29:21):
before that was invented, cocks and sealants were applied manually,
you know, by hand or by putting knife, and the
materials were pulled from these bulk containers. That's how everybody worked.
With wits invention, people could now fill that gun directly
from the bulk supplies, which was more efficient and less
messy than other methods, but it still wasn't completely perfect.
(29:42):
So before long, manufacturers started producing pre filled cartridges designed
to fit within the dimensions of the caulking gun. And
this standardized both the tool, you know, the gun itself
and the containers for the sealants that we use the
gun to apply. And this simplified everything simplified the whole
process us and completely revolutionized you know, all of that.
(30:03):
That's why we've got tubes today that are consistent across
the board, you know, That's how it all came about,
very very interesting to me. And then of course, over time,
you know, the materials used for calking have evolved to
meet all kinds of different construction needs. You know, we've
got paintable calls, super stretchy calls, mold and mildew resistant calcs,
(30:23):
gap filling cauls, incredibly moisture resistant calks, and on and
on and on and on. In fact, there are so
many different types of calls out there it can really
seem complicated to figure out which one's right for your project.
And that's where will help. Just swing out to any
REPLI tell us what you're working on, and we'll help
you get the right cock, and we'll walk you through
everything you need to know to get it applied cleanly
(30:44):
and easily and professionally and honestly. Just because I admitted
earlier to making a mess whenever I use calk, that
doesn't mean that we don't know what to do and
how to use it without making that mess. It's really
just a me problem. And it's not that I don't
know what to do. I know what to do. I
just don't do it, you know, because my brain is
(31:05):
like five steps ahead of the rest of my body.
You know, that's the good way to describe it. It
could be, you know, five weeks in the past, you know,
way behind the rest of my body. Either way, it's
not directly connected to my body. And I think things
while my hands and the rest of my body do
different things. So it's a me problem. It's not an
(31:25):
US problem. It's a me problem. And we can help
you at Repcolite get all the info you need to
take that then go home and have great results. All right.
That finally brings me to the cal sale that I
need to talk about briefly before we wrap this one up.
It's going on all month long at Repcolite. We've got
a couple of different premium cocks on sale. Actually it's
the same caulk, just under different names. On the east
(31:48):
side of the state, the culk is all pros Quick
to Coat. On the west side it's Tower Cealans Accelerator,
the exact same culk in both places, just sold under
different names and in different packaging now accel or Quick
to Cote. They're premium culs that work on many different
interior surfaces, and they're big claim to fame has to
do with the speed at which you can paint over them. Now,
(32:09):
most problems that occur when people use culk, or at
least one of the big problems that occurs is that
they paint over it too quickly, you know, before the
culk has dried, and lots of different problems occur when
that happens. Now, with accelerator and quick to coat, you're
not going to have that. It's going to eliminate all
of those concerns. You can spray over those cults immediately
(32:30):
after you've calked them, after you've applied that caulc that's
completely unheard of, no problems, no concerns guaranteed. So if
your contractor looking to save some time in labor, these
cocks are a brilliant answer and at least look into them.
But even for di wires or for contractors who aren't spraying,
they're finish on. With accelerator and quick to Coat, you
can brush over that caulk after just thirty minutes, So
(32:52):
it's still ridiculously fast. Anyway, Those cacks are on sale
at Repcolite for two twenty five a tube all through
the rest of the month. If you've got any caulking
at all to do on your next project, it's worth
checking out. And there you go, the long, drawn out,
surprising history of caulking. How it started as a term
used for making ships watertight and now largely refers to
seiling up the gaps between your trim and your walls. Crazy.
(33:15):
All right, let's take a break. When we come back,
we're talking about a dog camera, a dog monitoring camera.
I guess I should say I love this thing and
I can't wait to tell you about it. And that's all.
Next stick around and we're back. You're listening to the
Repolite Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and I
(33:37):
want to circle back to my dogs. I started the
show talking about my dogs, Fern and Maggie. Maggie's obedient
beyond description. Angelic, I believe, is the word I use
to describe her. And Fern she's a work in progress.
We love her, we do love her dearly, and she's improving,
but she is a little nuts. You know. I talked
(33:59):
about that already. Anyway, we went through a pretty stressful
rite of passage with Fern a few weeks back. I've
got a couple kids in college and when classes let out,
you know, part way through December, they settled in at
home to enjoy a lengthy winter break. And that meant
Fern could also enjoy a winter break. See normally, because
(34:21):
she's a little nuts, she's a little naughty. Fern is
kenneled up during the days while we're at work and
nobody's in the house. We really can't trust her yet.
We haven't been able to to be free around the house.
You know, she's two, she's a free spirit. She's nuts.
I've said all that a month or two ago. I
think I talked about this on the show, but this
should make the case. A month or two ago, she
(34:42):
was left in the house alone for twenty minutes if that,
and in that time she ate fifty dollars worth of
fudge from Macana Island that she got out of a backpack.
Somehow she ate all the fudge wrappers in all, fifty
dollars worth of fudge. That's not cheap, but that's the
least of my worries. We had to bring her to
(35:03):
the er vet and had to pay a boatload of
money to make sure Fern stayed alive because she consumed
so much fudge it potentially could be fatal. Oh my goodness,
thank you Fern, Thank you so much. Christmas was much
smaller this year thanks to Fern. But we told ourselves
we have Fern, but because we want to keep Fern.
(35:25):
She goes in the kennel when there's nobody there, a supervisor,
but she hates it. Of course, she hates it. She
hates it intensely. And after having a solid month home,
you know, a solid month of freedom with the kids,
we were all dread putting her back in that kennel
when we went to work, and yet we were terrified
to leave her out of the kennel. Anyway, all of
(35:46):
that to say, my daughter gave me the answer. She's
getting married in October and her fiance just adopted a
new dog, and with his dog, he bought a monitoring
camera so he could keep an eye on her all
day long. I should have thought of this myself. I
did not. But even when she told me, I wasn't convinced.
I assumed it was going to be crazy expensive and
that it wouldn't work all that well, that it'd be
(36:08):
kind of clunky. I explained some of that, or she
sensed the hesitation, and she jumped right in. She knows
exactly what to tell me. She told me, it's a
thirty dollars camera. Well, instantly, I'm interested because they've got it.
It's working for them. It's thirty bucks. They love it.
And the biggest thing, the big selling point for me,
is the camera that they bought. The model they've got
(36:29):
has a speaker and a microphone built in, so you
can listen to what's happening in the house. If you
need to. You can turn it off, but you can
listen if you want to, and if necessary, you can
sound this little alarm, or you can actively using your
phone talk to the dogs or the burglars or who's
ever there. You can do that all from your phone.
It's brilliant. Now, nobody out there, I am certain nobody
(36:52):
listening to me right now is surprised by any of
this technology. I'm sorry about that. I'm stunned. I'm stunned
that all of that technology, all of abilities, can be
contained in a thirty dollars package. But it can be
I love this thing. I snatched one up. I'm gonna
put links to it in the show notes, links to
the exact model that I bought. But it's the Wise Camog.
(37:12):
The whys is spelled wyse. Why'scamog? Like I said, under
thirty bucks on Amazon. Now here are just a few
quick details of what you get with this camera. Super small,
easy mounting. You can set it up easily anywhere. You
plug it in, install the app on your phone. In
five minutes or so, you've got video that you can
monitor on your phone or your tablet or whatever. Super easy.
(37:34):
If you want to add a camera, just buy one
and it adds easily to your network. The camera itself,
it's a ten adp HD camera with night vision, and
that night vision is crazy good, completely black room, no
lights on at all. If I've got that, I can
still see the dogs like there's daylight. It's night vision.
You know, it's what you would expect it to be.
(37:55):
I just did not anticipate that it would work this well.
It's rated for indoor and outdoor use. You can customize
the alerts you get. You know, right now my phone
will let me know when there's movement so I can
go pull up the camera, and sure enough, one of
the dogs is, you know, scratching yourself or looking out
the window or something like that. And then, as I
had mentioned earlier, using your phone, you can listen to
what's happening in the room, or you can intervene by
(38:17):
hitting the speaker and actually talking. There are a ton
of other benefits that you can get, but you get
the idea. This crazy little thirty dollars camera has completely
given me peace of mind leaving Fern out. You know,
this big rite of passage we were dreading was so
easy because we could monitor and actually intervene. And that's
just using it for dogs. You could use it for
(38:37):
all kinds of other things, as a baby monitor, as
a security camera on your porch. I mean, really, the
possibilities are pretty endless. Just don't use it for nefarious purposes.
That is not the point of talking about this anyway.
If you've got dogs, or any other situation where you
wish you could monitor your home easily and cheaply, you've
got to look into this camera or another one like it.
(38:58):
The one I have again is the Whysekmog, the Wyze Wyskamog.
It's thirty bucks on Amazon. Really worth it. Check it out,
all right. That's all the time we've got that's going
to have to do it. If you want to catch
this one again, you can find it online at Repcolight
dot com. Whatever you do today makes your paints a
part of it. Have a great weekend everybody, and I'll
see you next week. Dan Hansome, thanks for listening.
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