Guru HK Decorating 5-4-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you need wisdom and advice.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Seek out a guru when.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
You need wisdom and advice about remodeling and design. Lock
on and listen right now to Nick the Construction Guru.
Here is award winning remodeling expert Nick Kerzner's.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Talk eleven thirty w I s N. Good morning, Wisconsin,
Nick the Construction Guru. I have new meet in the office.
New meats from up You remember cool hand Luke and
they would they would, how many new meats for a
cold drink? So we have a new meet today and
it is Henry from HK Decorating and Painting Professionals LLC. Henry,
we met at the show, The Narry Show, Yes, and

(00:46):
we talked a little bit about services, and I was
impressed with with your knowledge on paint product as far
as echoes, because we talked about several different products. And
you are doing a lot of remodeling work, work with
contractors and on your own. Tell us a little bit
about HK Decorating and how you guys came to.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Be Okay, well, I guess we started. My dad opened
up the business in nineteen seventy six. He was mostly
an interior residential painter, remodeled a lot of homes and
worked with like three home builders when they build new houses.

(01:27):
That was pretty much his bread and butter. He passed
away in the nineties, and then I took over from
there and diversified a little bit into a little bit
of everything, a little bit of commercial, a little bit
of residential repaints like exterior houses, and then still kept
up with doing high end residential with contractors like Horwath

(01:49):
and Lakeside and you know companies like.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Some of the big guys. So some of the biggest
some of the big guys now are you guys doing
wallpaper and stuff like that as well?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
I do do do all paper for some uh some
commercial projects. Other than that, I try to stay away
from that. A lot of people. It's just really hard
to find a wallpaper hanger. And it's kind of a
dying art, isn't it. It is a dying art.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, And I know that. Strangely enough, Linn, my wife,
who works with the decorating side and the selection side
of our remodeling projects, kind of threw me for a
loop the other day and said, you know something, wallpaper's
coming back. So she's seeing more and more of it
and I know that's a challenge because you and I

(02:33):
talked a little bit about it that at the show
of finding a wall. It's kind of like plasters, you know,
they just don't know they all died, right.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
I mean, it is coming back a little bit, but
you know, it's it's tough. It's tough to find a
good one, just just like a painter, it's tough to
find a good painter, and it's tough to find a
good wallpaper hanger as well.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, you know, I'm gonna dove tail off from you
because you know, with our projects, many times when we
present a budget, people will look for ways to trim
that and that's that's kind of a normal, normal part
of our business. And strangely enough, the first thing that
people always say is, well, what if I paint at myself?

(03:12):
And you know my answer is, you know, anybody can paint,
but almost nobody can paint well and right. So you know,
you take a really nice project and if you have
you know, one color walls and one color ceiling, you
got to cut that all in. That's what really separates
the men from the boys, right, I mean, is the
cuts and.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
The right well, I mean, it's one of those things
where if you're going to hire a remodeling company, why
would you want to have the finished product like what
everybody sees when they walk in. I mean, you know,
you know, a good general contractor they'll they'll they'll have
the custom cabinets and and the right wood and the
right spots, you know, and everything, you know, designed the

(03:50):
way it's supposed to be. But if you're gonna you know,
if you're gonna have paint that doesn't look good or
skips or you know, I mean, it's an endless amount
of things that could go wrong, and you know, where
you don't stand in between or you know, would work
is rough all kinds of things. Cut lines, you know,

(04:11):
there are crooked you name it. You know, a professional
painter is not going to have that, or a good
professional painter isn't going to have that.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
It's hard to find. It's hard to find good painters,
There's no two ways about it. I think that, you know,
too many people think that it's It's kind of like
if you have a night really nice car. You know,
you have a really nice maybe Corvette that's been done,
and then in my day, most many of the listeners
aren't going to know who this is. But you remember
Earl Shib, No, Earl Shib was his model was paint

(04:40):
any car for nineteen ninety five. I'm not kidding you.
When I was a boy, he'd have these signs out.
For twenty bucks, you could get your car painted. What
they didn't tell you is when they painted the car,
they painted the entire car, windshield, chrome, everything, so you
really had to kind of tape it off yourself. But
that's kind of akin to trying to paint your own
remodeling project and getting everything because that's it's the paint

(05:04):
that really presents the project, don't you think? Well?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, I mean well, I mean you as a general contractor,
I mean you go through probably a painter once in
a while and it say, well I don't like him,
out like him. And that's a professional painter. I mean
that's someone that does it fifty weeks out of the year,
fifty two weeks out of the year. Imagine someone that
does it two weeks a year or a week every
other every five years. You know, there's gonna be a

(05:26):
I don't see how it gets done, you know, or
why you'd want to do it yourself, especially with you know,
the amount of money that costs for a general contractor
and for all the trade you know, to get all
the trades in there and get their professional projects done,
why you'd want to cut on the finished product.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
And and you know the homeowners that do do their
own painting when we do a project, some are very good.
I'm not saying they can't do it, but there's a big,
a really big array of not only color but finishes
that you can do. And I think professional painter is
going to present you with the proper finish, at least

(06:04):
in his opinion or her opinion of what the best
finish is going to be. I mean, you have you
have satins, you have some the old day's fifties, everybody
was semi gloss because it was easier, or gloss, right
gloss or semi gloss because it was easy to wipe off. Yeah,
it kind of made sense. But you go into these
kitchens where it's a shiny finish on there, it's not

(06:27):
It's not very attractive. And a good painter is going
to tell you the difference between satin and engshell and
all of that, correct. I mean, that's one of the
things that you guys consult with isn't it exactly?

Speaker 2 (06:36):
It's not just the like like ceilings being flat. The
reason they're flat is because the you know, satin or
a semi gloss ceiling is going to show every imperfection
from the drywall and wisconsonant with the way you know,
the ground shifts and we get cracks and things like that.
That just gets magnified fied like a hundred times. And

(06:58):
it's not just that. But then with the painter, there's
you know, the different types if you're going to roll,
you know, you got a mole hair roller for a
finer finish and then it goes up to three eight
and a half.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
That's so so you know, that's another thing. You bring
that up. And I'm just assuming a mohair roller is
going to be expensive, right, more expensive than I don't know, polyester,
isn't it?

Speaker 2 (07:21):
So?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
How important? And I think I know the answer this,
but I'm going to ask you because I think some
of the listeners go in and they decide that they're
going to paint, and they look at the paint brush
and and one one's you know, six bucks. God, don't
use a chip brush, right, we've seen that, hey hell foam? Yeah,
but and then you'll see another one that's I've seen

(07:42):
paint brushes in in uh Sherwin Williams and Home and
Lindsay that are forty five to fifty bucks. What what's
the difference there?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Well, I mean, I guess you know, quality obviously, but
I mean, you know, if you take care of your brush,
you know, then you might as well go with the
you know, the twenty five thirty forty brush. But you know,
if you're just gonna use it once or twice, your
regular pro contractor series, you know, for fifteen is probably
just fine. But I mean any cheaper than fifteen, I

(08:12):
don't know if I'd really go with anything. It just
you know, but you know, brush has to do with,
you know, how how you're able to cut those lines,
you know, to make them, make them nice and you
know straight, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
It's a it's a good clean line. And I think
that I guess where I was going with this, Henry,
is when you decide you're going to do your own
paint work, and you're doing it to try and keep
budget within certain constraints, you can't really go with the
cheapest materials and compare that to what you're going to

(08:45):
get from a professional. I mean, you're going to know
when to spray, you're going to know when to roll,
you're going to know when to brush, and I don't
want to that that's more information that we can cover
on this show. But those are the decisions that a
professional makes for the out and that's why when you
look at a really good paint job, it looks really good, right,
it's people say, well, the walls weren't good. You guys

(09:07):
can hide a lot with doing it properly, you know,
im perfections as you just said.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right, I mean, you know, with high inner professional, I
mean you know, it's about you know, getting the right
product in the you know, the right way, and and
trying to make the projects as efficient as possible from
our standpoint, you know, so that you know, we've got
different steps for different things, and we've done almost every

(09:32):
painting project in a home that you could possibly imagine,
so we understand, you know, how to make this certain
part of the project the most efficient, so that we
can make the price as efficient as possible for the
customer as well.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
That way, it's kind of a win win, not that
it takes you know, twenty hours to do a three
hour project.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
We've all seen that happen, haven't we, Right?

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, residential, you know, you know your regular regular homeowner
is going to take two, three times longer a lot
of times. How important is preparation everything?

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Let's talk about that? So what what is what goes
into I understand, Well, let's talk about if if you
have new dry wall and that's being married to old
drywall in a remodeling project. What are some of the
tips that that you that you would say, here's how
we're gonna blend that. What? What is what? I don't
mean to put you on the spot here, but these
are these These are questions that that haunt me sometimes

(10:28):
because there is a different There is a different preparation
for blending, isn't there.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
There there is? I mean, I I have a couple
of guys that they're they do most of my high
end residential work, and they they blend in a lot
of texture and a lot of times, you know, they go,
you know, straight to the corner. You know, if the
corner is fairly close, they'll try to go to the
corner and they'll try to do most of that wall
sometimes to blend it in. I guess you know it

(10:55):
depends on the situation, you know, just like everything else different. Yeah,
every every situation is a little bit different. And you know,
is it sand textures, a knockdown, is it orange peel?
You know, is it some sort of plaster? I mean,
you know everything. There's so many scenarios and so many
different steps based on you know, so many you know, texture.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yeah, I get I get it. And we're going to
take a short break. But when we come back, what
I'd like to talk to you about is is kind
of when you look at a job, what do you
look for? In other words, this is this is these
are the things that I'm going to look at to
base my time on. Okay, So we'll talk a little
bit about that. And I think that's going to put
some things into perspective when you're thinking about trying to

(11:37):
do this yourself, and why maybe that's not such a
great idea. Okay, tell us just give us the information.
If somebody is looking for some paint work to be done,
who do they call, how do they do this? What
do they do?

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Okay, you give me a call. My name is Henry
Crock It's HK Decorating and Paying Professionals. My phone number
is two six two eight nine four six two four
five and we're out of New Berlin, Wisconsin and I
have a shop in West Allis Okay.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Awesome, Thanks Henry. We will return after these messages on
news Talk eleven thirty WISN US Talk eleven thirty WISN
returning from break Nick the construction gru Listen. If you're
thinking about project I always say you should get a
few opinions. Make one of those ours. We'd love to
come out and talk to you about a kitchen, a

(12:24):
bathroom or rec room. In addition, you can find us
on the web at kursonerink dot com. That's k e
r z N e r i NC dot com. Or
you can give us a call at two six two
five six seven twenty five hundred. Kurzner is the only
company in Wisconsin to when the Better Business Bureau torture
work for ethics and integrity three times three times. Actually
we've done it three and a half times. We took

(12:44):
a runner up last year. But check us out on
the web at cursonerink dot com. And if you are
I know many of you because I've been I've been
told this, sit and listen to the show and have
your laptop or your iPad there. Check out Hkdecorating dot com.
You can see some great pictures of what Henry and
his crew has done, both with three models and new construction. Henry,

(13:06):
it's a nice website.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
You all before and after pictures on their project you've done.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Eh, So you know we're getting back into it again. Yeah,
that's cool. So you know, I'm starting to post more
pictures of previous jobs.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
That's a full time job in and of itself, isn't it.
It is very time consuming. Yeah, and you know, so
you know, we moved into a shop in December, so
we're growing a little bit, just expanding, getting a little getting.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
The office space out of the house. That's a big deal,
you know.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
So are you guys real busy right now?

Speaker 2 (13:40):
We're we're starting to we do all the work, and
we do commercially. We do a vast majority I want
to say one hundred percent. We'll probably do at least
ninety percent of all the Kroger work in Wisconsin. So
that starts in February and that really kicks us off
right into the summer. So we're busy doing that and
we're starting to ramp up for exterior painting, and you know,

(14:04):
the normal.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Exterior. I was thinking all about interior until you just
brought that up. Of course, because we have spring coming,
people are starting to walk around look at their yards
and looking at the paint coming off right or they
or it's time to change color, and.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
They all want estimates and they all want to get
you know, get try to you know, lined up before
you know, everybody's booked up all summer and you're now.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
How is your backlog? Are you guys booked up or
you got can you still sneak a couple in?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh no, we're We're probably booked until probably May, okay,
probably the end of May early June.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Is that both the interior and exterior. Yes, yeah, okay, okay.
So if you're thinking about and I think people know
this with painting, siding and landscaping, the earlier you get in,
the sooner it's going to get done. One of the
things I always advise the listeners is this, you know,
don't wait until you're ready, because when you're ready, then

(14:57):
you're going to get the bid. And then all of
a sudden you say, okay, I'm gonna go with these guys,
and now you're waiting two months in summer's over and
you haven't been able to enjoy that. Now's the time
to start getting numbers, right, I mean.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yep, expect, you know, expect. Yeah, now is the time
to get numbers. You know. I have one xterior crew,
one interior crew for residential. You know, so like one
job can be a week and a half, you know.
Sometimes sometimes you get a job job done a couple
of days. Sometimes you get a bigger house, you know,
into your exterior. You're like, an interior job can take
two three weeks, right right, you know, so it can

(15:30):
fill up fast.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
And one of one of the things that I've learned
with a number of different trades is that companies that
do a lot of commercial are used to meeting deadlines
and used to a certain level of quality because commercial
really demands that. I mean, if you're gonna do a
hospital or you're going to do a retail, they demand
that it's done on time and at the quality. So

(15:53):
that's that's a skill set that not all painters have.
I mean, I know that there's an I'm not picking
on anybody in it, but a lot of people hire
college kids and high school kids to work in the summer. Okay,
And I'm sure there's some that do a good job.
I'm just not going to feel real confident if I'm
going to have the extra or my home done. I
want to know that it's somebody that does it for

(16:14):
a living all the time, that's working on commercial jobs,
because again, you're held to a different standard on commercial
you really are, because they know what they're looking at, right.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
True, right, I mean you know, I mean painters are
very vast as well. You know, like we were saying
about why you hire a professional painter or you know,
a good professional painter as compared to doing it yourself.
There's differences between a good residential xterior painter and a
good residential interior pass I mean just as something as
simple as that, you know, when you do it multiple

(16:46):
weeks out of the year. The reason that you would
hire a good painter, you know, good like say a
company like us, is because we have very excuse me,
we have very efficient ways of doing things to make
the time.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
It's like it's value, its right, yeah, it's experience.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
The value of our hour has many years of experience
that okay, well, you know you can do it this
way or that way. Okay, Well, don't do it this
way because it takes you know, a minute or two longer,
and it doesn't do as good as a job. Or
there are certain other circumstances where it might take an
extra minute or two, and the reason you take the
extra minute two is because it does make the end

(17:27):
product look better.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
You know, you and I had a discussion, and I
don't remember. I think I think it's when you did.
You came through the realtor show, didn't you. I don't
were you there working? Yes, okay, so you came over
with your dog and that's and that was great because
you brought it a service dog in which is cool.
But you said we were talking about colocking. And I
know a lot about calocking as far as you know,

(17:50):
our business goes. But I've never really heard a painter
talk about you know, in this case, I want to
use this type of clocking. In this case, I want
to use this type you know, the lion's share of
the painters that I've seen working typically use latex panters
cock on the inside and they'll use OSI or something
on the outside. But you tell, and I'm not trying

(18:11):
to get into specifics but I think what it was was,
you know, when you're doing an exterior job and a
person says, you know, this corner always cracks. Part of
the reason why that might be happening is because maybe
there's a break in the trees there and that's the
corner that gets the sun, or maybe there's a downspout
there that splashes water. You were very specific about talking

(18:31):
about the proper ceilings and the proper paints to use
in those areas with me, which I thought was fascinating.
And there's no school for you guys to go and
learn this. You learn this because you've done it for
so long and your second generation business, right, so when
you look at that, it's same with me. I'm a
second generation business. So a lot of the things that
I learned that were standard came from my father teaching me.

(18:54):
But then it's the school of hard knocks from there.
Because we don't get to go to college and learn
how to paint or learn how to do remodeling. It's
a completely acquired skill set from experience, and I think
paintings the same thing. So that really impressed me when
you were talking about how you want to use this
specific ceiling in this specific case because of expansion and contraction.
That's what comes with time, right, yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
And you know your you know, learning from your dad
is probably the best teacher that you know, that you
could ever ask for because.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
He's allowed to hit you.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, back in the day, back in the day. Yeah, yeah,
I think I think I still have a little twitch
once in a while. Yeah, yeah, but no, yeah, it's
but you know, I mean, you know they're going to
be more you know, like like the kid teaching teaching
your son how to fish. You know, there's a little
different patients level, even though sometimes they do get on

(19:45):
your your your patients quite a bit. But I mean
there's a patients level that you have with your own child.
And if there's.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
A level of accountability, there's a level of there's a
certain expectation with second and third generation. I talked to
Scott Cline's third generation. There's a certain level of accountability
that your father or or or your grandfather demands from you. No,
I know, this is faster, that's not how you do it.
You do it this way and.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
You drill it gets drilled in your ass, right, yeah, yeah,
you just understand what's the most efficient way to get
something done. And you know when you when you when
you're a second or third generation, there is only one
speed full go right, yeah, yeah, yep, the second you
wake up to the second you go to bed, it's
full go.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Absolutely well. I talked to you. You were you were
working all night and uh, you're going to be blowing
it again today all day right going yeah. Yeah. It's
a work ethic that comes from from from second and
third generation businesses that I think. I'm trying to figure
out how to phrase this. I'm not at a loss
for words, but you know, I just don't see the

(20:50):
same work ethic in new businesses with young people. There's just,
you know, there's a certain expectation this is how long
I'm gonna work, and this is how long I'm going
to take off, and probably for mental health because you
and I we go insane sometimes I get it. But
I think from a homeowner's perspective, they don't want excuses
why this isn't working. They don't want excuses why we're

(21:12):
going to be late. They want to know their job
is going to be done on time, on budget, and
correctly done. And that's an expectation I don't think is unrealistic.
I think you should have those expectations. I think where
the mistakes are made as contractors say, oh yeah, we'll
be done by then, and they don't really think about
the level of work when you've been in this business
a long time. I'm going to tell my clients. They said, well,

(21:32):
the other guy said, get our kitchen done in sixty days.
I said, to go with him. I'm telling you the truth.
Because when all your cabinets are in the dumpster and
he says, I'm not going to be done on time,
what do you say. You can't yell at him. He's
in your house working, right. I mean, it is what
it is. But I think as far as our types
of companies goes, my father always taught me to be
honest with customers, even if it costs you the job, right,

(21:54):
because it's going to come back to backfire later. It's
going to be your reputation. The expectation for you and
me when we're working for a customer is that the
job is going to be done right. Everybody has that expectation,
no matter if it's the cheapest or the most expensive,
that's their expectation, right, It's going to be done right,
it's the journey on getting there that they judge you on.

(22:15):
And if you're way over, if you're way over time,
if things are falling apart with with with stuff you
finished last week and you're on the second week there
and it's already coming apart, that's what makes a reputation
go down the tube. And I think that's what you know.
I'm sorry to get on a rant here, but that's
kind of what are our generational businesses what we've learned.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, some of these like
corporate style business models as far as painters go.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, enfranchise are franchise, you know.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
I mean they're more you know, like I said, they're
not second third generation paint companies. They're not you know,
they're just not. And you know they're pretty much you know,
working off a laptop. Not that we don't, but you know,
everything's percentages and you've got to hit these percent or
you did something wrong right with me, absolutely, you know.
I mean, yeah, I love to hit a certain percentage,

(23:07):
but I mean that's not that that's not even close
to the goal intended. If I, like, say, if I'm
averaging a certain dollar per hour and I don't if
I miss it by five bucks an hour, big deal.
You know, I'm okay with that. I got you know,
I'm still not going to lose money on the job.
I'm just not going to make a certain type of

(23:28):
quota that you know that a certain company needs to have.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Well, let's face it, you're not gonna you're not going
to trim the quality of the job to make your numbers.
That's what generational businesses. That exactly, That's that's exactly. My
father always had all these weird little sayings. Just take
care of the work and the money will take care
of itself. You know, no work, no eat, all of
those kinds of little things. But yeah, Henry work. We're
kind of up against the clock. There's so much to
talk about here, you know. I had Adam Cocheran from

(23:54):
Wat's up talking about solar last week, and I was
fascinated by him, and we kind of ran out of
time talking about painting. Although it seems pretty simple, the
more you get into it, the more in depth you
can get into it. So let's talk about some more
of this on a on a future show. But give
out your information again. If you're looking for a paint
you said about May you can get into jobs.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, we're we're probably both booked about four weeks out maybe, yeah,
four or five weeks out. But you know, there's obviously
a lot of the summer left and yeah the construction season.
Construction season pretty much goes to what Thanksgiving?

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Oh, yes something? Yeah, so so, so give out your
info okay, but anyway, Yeah, I give HK Decorating and
Painting Professional as a call.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
We're out in New Berlin and the West, Allie, and
my cell phone number is two six to two eight
nine four six two four five. Give your website a
HK Decorating ww dot Hkdecorating dot com.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, it's a great website. Lots of good pictures.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Us on Instagram, Facebook.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Oh, LinkedIn awesome social media as well. Henry, thanks for
coming in a good introductory show here. I enjoyed talking
with you. So we'll talk again next week on Newstock
eleven thirty WISN