Guru Nick and Lynn Show 6-8-25

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Seek out a guru when 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, Talk eleven thirty. I said, good morning, Wisconsin.

(00:24):
It's Nick the construction Guru here, bright and lively, smart
enough now to bring in my own coffee, because the
coffee here at wisn sucks. I have. I have my
lovely wife with me today and we're going to talk
a little bit about design. We've been working in the
field now for some time. I think, as many of
you Knowlin joined the company, what has it been three months?

(00:47):
About three months ago, and she's starting to get acclimated
to the climate out there with dealing with remodeling projects.
And today I kind of wanted to discuss a little
bit about expectations, mostly with selecting your product. And I
think that this all kind of culminates from probably I

(01:07):
would say, about three to five years ago. I really
and maybe it was just an epiphany, or maybe it
was just I was behind the eight ball, but I
saw so many new products coming onto the market that
it just flooded the markets. And I'm talking countertops, everything,
countertops to cabinet handles, and you know, I guess it's

(01:29):
probably been a year and a half that it's become
increasingly difficult to help people pick selections because they get overwhelmed.
I mean, any of you that have walked into a
big box store, have walked into a floor and decre
have walked into a carpet store or a cabinet shop,
you know yourselves that most of these warehouses can't even

(01:49):
contain half of the products that they carry. It's just crazy.
And I think you kind of woke up to that
a little bit, Linden, you know, with all these products
coming out and all that stuff, and how people they
actually become paralyzed, right, I mean they do. Yeah. And
so I remember one of my clients when we went
to Florinda cor And I tell this story a lot,

(02:10):
but we looked at so much and I kind of
had a plan figured out for him, and this was
before you joined the company. We came ended up with
a beautiful bathroom with the selections, but he literally became
paralyzed in the store. He literally his joints locked up.
He was a younger guy in the front of the store,
and he started shaking and he said, I, I I

(02:31):
don't know, I don't know what to pick. I don't
know what to do. And I finally just left him
in the store for a while, and lo and behold,
he came back and picked out went along with the
things I picked out, and great. Ending to the story
turned out great. It's probably going to be an award winner,
winner in the remodeling Remodeler of the Year awards. But
it's just seeing that and now even dealing with current clients.

(02:57):
I think the selection process probably used to take maybe
a week or two, and now we're finding I mean,
what's your longest running You still have some running the
way they're trying to pick things. What do you think?
What do you think a fair time frame is now
for selections?

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, ideally I would like to be within a couple
of weeks, but I think a lot of people they do,
they go back and forth, and I think part of
the problem is there is a lot of choices, and
I can try to get a vision what they want,
you know, based on what they think they know. But
then sometimes then they'll talk to their family members or friends,

(03:30):
and that can kind of get really hairy because they
then start rethinking what they're thinking. And you know, honestly,
I always say, it's really what you want, unless you're
doing it to just sell a house or just flip it.
But if it's something you're living in, do what you like,
whether it's the style or if it's in you know, trend.

(03:51):
But I think too many cooks in the kitchen is
what happens sometimes, and that really makes it difficulty.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
And you know, to your point, you know, I love
dealing with with a lot of the showrooms. You know,
we used to have our own showroom and that just
became absolutely impossible to manage because and as you're realizing
now with the two week thing, if you take more
than thirty days, let's say you make a couple of
selections and then at the end you have all your

(04:20):
selections within thirty days, many of the selections that you
picked in the beginning aren't even available anymore. And we've
seen one. In one case, we saw a vaus It. Yeah,
two hundred.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Dollars, No, it's actually more like five hundred dollars. Yeah,
I mean it's a high end. It was a high
end faucet sync faucet to start with, and it was
the brush Gold but yeah, it went up almost five
hundred dollars and I shopped it because I'm that's one
of my jobs is we just don't go to one
store for selections and because we are running mindful of
the budget of the customers. Some, you know, it's not

(04:52):
as important, but some, I mean everyone is important, but
some it's more critical from keeping it in check. But yeah, yeah,
I mean if you're waiting two weeks, especially now with
some of the tariff issues, you know a lot of stuff,
as you know, it comes from out of the country
and yeah, China. Yeah, well yeah, so that was where

(05:16):
we're seeing some of this being impacted. So the sooner
people can get selections done, not that we want to
rush them, but there is kind of some urgency to
that we do.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
You know, the truth is we do want to rush
them because what happens is it's a stressful you know.
We talked about this the other day in where you know,
you walk into say a plumbing there's some really nice
plumbing showrooms here in Wisconsin. We're blessed because I've been
other places and there's nowhere near the availability of selections
where you can actually hold and smell the product. But

(05:49):
it's very strategic in the showrooms now. I remember when
we got a new product in our show and we
just put it in. We didn't have special Today you
have halogen lighting. If you walk into some of the showrooms,
you're going to halogen lighting, and you go, boy, they're
living in the dark ages. No, it's kind of like
jewelry store. Same thing. When you walk in and you
look at diamonds and things like that, it's usually under
halogen light because it really makes everything sparkle. It brings

(06:11):
out the color of the gold and the depth of
the metals and all of that. Well, if you don't
think they're doing it this and these fancy showrooms now,
they're strategically placing expensive items in areas that are staged
so well and lit so well that when you walk
into the and I'm just going to use this because
I think most of us know the term, like the

(06:31):
bargain backroom, and then everything's just kind of stacked up.
You're going, well, I don't really like anything back here,
and that six hundred dollars or four hundred dollars faucet
allowance for your vanity. You end up with a twelve
hundred dollars sink fauce. And I think part of the
thing is is you act kind of as a guardrail.
You explain to them because that same faucet that's in

(06:52):
the back room would be beautiful if it was placed
up front with the others, and you probably wouldn't be
able to tell the difference, but it creates a psychological
division between the good and the cheap. And I look
at Florindo Cors another beautiful store. I love the way
they display things. It's in a warehouse setting, but they
do it so well. But again, you know, it's set

(07:14):
up so that you're going to walk past in the
different lighting and things like that, and the mosaics are
put in special places. It's good marketing. I'm not saying
there's anything wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Well, and to your point, I mean in defense of
these places, they're showing things that are maybe the newer
looks and ideas because they want people to be able
to Some people can't vision things they need to be shown.
It's like when you go to the like Nordstrom, they
have you know, mannequins set up with clothing because people
can't dress themselves. They can't just go and look at

(07:46):
a shirt separate from pants. They have to see it
on something visually. So in defense of these places, it's
a good thing because it gives people, especially people who
are doing it alone that don't have people like us
helping them, they can see things and go, oh, yeah,
that looks good together. But to the to the downside
is that it does steer people to things that you know,

(08:06):
like I always say the tile thing, you know, what's
your tile budget? And they might say five thousand, and
they're looking at costs a tile. Okay, this this pratio
tile that has like a curved pattern is the same
as a square tile, but it's not the same because
the labor is going to be much more expensive to
put in. So when you're not thinking of just material costs,

(08:27):
you have to think of the labor and the actual
tile layer. That's going to increase costs significantly because it
takes more time. But people aren't. They don't think about that,
so you have to kind of remind them. And with
the same with the sinks. I mean, we just were
looking at an offset sinc on a vanity, which was
amazing looking. It was not in the middle like it

(08:47):
would it would. It was on the left side and
kind of on an angle the faucet, and that changed
the whole plumbing underneath because the plumbing lines had to
be moved because normally the plumbing is in line with
the middle of youranity or if you vision a vanity.
So that was a whole nother thing that you know,
people don't think about. So that's again where we go

(09:08):
in with selections. It's not just the product cost the
look of it, it's also the labor costs that go
in with what is the scope of what how it's
being put.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
In right right? Yeah, what's what's the intensity of the
labor because different products require different different labor and sometimes
tiles don't have you know, in the in the collection
that you're looking at, there may not be bold nosed,
so you have to use a metal trim on the
edge and all of those things. You know, you look
at the part and it's maybe thirteen dollars, but you're
not taking any consideration that somebody's got to actually put

(09:40):
that in line, everything up and make sure that it's
it's all proper, because nothing looks worse than crooked lines
and tile and things like that. So it's like I think,
I think what we're trying to say here is it's
good to have a consultant with you. I am. I am,
you know, an old school guy. I want service people
to take care of me. I don't want to have

(10:00):
to push one for English. I don't want to have
to tell them telling me that there's a recording and
all of this. You know, today I called a car dealer.
It took me fifteen minutes to get to a person.
You know, one of the things my father and I
have always agreed on is that we're just it's not
going to work that way at Kurzner. You're going to
get to talk to somebody. And with all the automation
and AI and websites, you know, a lot of remodelers

(10:22):
are directing people go to this website and look at this,
and we do that sometimes too. But the reality of
it is, if one of our clients is having difficulty,
we're going to put you with them. You have relationships
with many of the showrooms in the area. We have,
you know, we we have an ability to find I
think with the granted countertops is one of the best
examples is that we can get you granted. If you're

(10:44):
doing a vanity, there's no reason to buy a whole
slab a grantite. We can find remnants that will fit
your product or your project and give you a product
that you can count on without having all this waste.
You know. And to your point, and I'm rambling because
there's so many things running in my head, is one
of the things you said is the difficulty of installation.
People don't take any consideration. Hey, it's our show, Greg,

(11:10):
what are you doing over there? But anyway, you know,
with decks, we're doing a ton of decks now and
people are saying, well, we'd like to put the boards
on an angle. Well, they don't realize that that's going
to create so much more waste than going straight across.
We know that because we're replacing some deck now and
you look at the part it looks nice. But yeah,
the nice part about doing it is you end up
with a whole lot of fire would yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah for the wells, not if it's composite.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
That's true, but yeah, so I think having somebody with
you when you're out there doing the selections can really
keep you within the guardrails. It's kind of like when
you used to go bowling as a kid and they
put the bumpers up. It's kind of the same thing
because you can get out there and then you're saying, well,
you know, they just didn't give us enough for allowances
or whatever. You need some guidance because the showrooms are

(11:57):
out there. Their margins are best on the higher end
product and they want to know that. So we're going
to take a short break and we'll come back. We're
going to discuss this more. It's kind of a rambling show.
But the cool thing about it is we're talking from
real experience, and I think that if you start to
think about a remodeling project, you'll understand why it can
become overwhelming. We will return after these messages on news

(12:17):
Talk eleven thirty wisn Just Talk eleven thirty W. In
returning from break, Nick the construction Guru, Listen, if you're
thinking about a project, every time I say this, I
say it the same way. We feel like you should
get a few opinions. Make one of those ours. We'd
love to come out and talk to you about a
new rec room, a new basement, exterior addition at Curzoner.

(12:42):
We pretty much do it all. Kurzner is the only
company in Wisconsin to win a Better Business Beer Torture
Award for Ethics and Integrity three times, actually three and
a half. We took runner up the last time we
were in Check us out. The more research you do
on Kursoner, I think, the more you'll be with our reputation,
and that's going to lead us right into the show

(13:04):
here being in business as long as we have. You know,
when I was a younger man, I never thought that
this was the way it was going to be, that
I was going to still be, you know, in mid
sixties still doing this. I thought I'd be retired in
Arizona somewhere. But you know, I love the business. My father.
My father is ninety two years old and he's still
at the office every single day. And many times that's good,

(13:29):
but it's kind of ingrained. And I think that, you know,
most of my industry peers feel the same way about
their businesses. They love working with the people. Sure, we
complain like everybody else does, but the truth is, you
get interaction with people every day if you're doing the
righteous work that you're supposed to be doing you're improving
people's lives. And it's funny because it's been probably three

(13:53):
or four times in the last month that I've run
into previous customers and it's almost like we're buddies. You know,
we have a relationship. And when you think about a
remodeling project, it is a relationship. There's you know, even
a small kitchen or a small bathroom. It's not uncommon
to be there thirty or forty five days business days
working on something. You're going to get to know people

(14:15):
and you know you're gonna have not only the business,
but you're going to have the laughs and the fun
and the creativity and all that kind of stuff, which
kind of leads us into what the show's about today.
We I think, like I said, and probably in the
last five maybe it's been longer. I really feel like
the market's been inundated with thousands and thousands of options
for homeowners. I remember when there was formica and maybe

(14:38):
stone for the really ritzy homes, but that for Micah
was the countertop that everybody put in or laminate. Today,
I think I don't even know how many how many
countertop variations there are. I bet you there's three thousand,
right at least at least how many times you used
to have subway tiles, used to have square tiles, and
now you have rectangular you.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Have uh, well you have four by six sheets of tile.
It looks almost like a picture, which is beautiful. I
mean they're heavy. I don't know how that even the
labor and that.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's a it's it's and and and you know,
you you bring up a great point there too, is
that a lot of these products, you know, a qualified
remodeler is going to have to learn how to install
some of this stuff. Now. I mean, I've been doing
this for a long time. The last one that really
kind of stumped me was the shlooter system where you

(15:31):
should put up all that cement board and now they
have all these different wraps and tapes and things like that,
and it works great, but there is a learning curve, yeah,
you know, and so when homeowners are out and I
think this to the point that we were talking about
before break Linz realized that you know, when you're when
you're out looking at different products, it's not just tile.

(15:52):
If you're not looking at square, rectangular tile, there's going
to be additional costs and additional waste in different shapes
and things like that. So homeowners go out and they
spend a lot of time looking at different pictures and products,
and then they come up with a plan and then
all of a sudden they come back to you and
you go, well, that's going to be another you know,
three or four thousand dollars because of this, this and this.
I mean, that's really frustrating. You know, that's that's going

(16:16):
to frustrate the best of us. So if you don't
have the bumpers on the alley, you know, it can
go astray real quick and become really a fun project
can become very very stressful.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, And I think the other thing that I'm finding
is that you know, if someone tells me this is
their vision, or they show something on Pinterest or you know,
on the web or from someone else, and you find
it and you kind of have to disappoint them by
the fact that, yes, again from the standpoint of materials,
it's in budget. But to make these things happen again, labor,

(16:53):
whether it's someone you know plumbing or or if it's
us just carpentry. Some of the finesse of some of
the stuff you see on Pinterest. It's not stuff that
you just buy and it's already done. A lot of
this is very labor intensive. Beautiful stuff you find, and
I've been looking on Pinterest as well, but you kind
of feel like you're the bad guy because you have

(17:14):
to tell them that you know, hey, we can do this,
but this is a lot different in the scope because
of the labor intensity of what they're trying to create.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
I think another big challenge that we have as remodelers,
which I think is more so than builders. A lot
of the pictures and a lot of the the vignettes,
if you will, are freshly built there. It's new construction.
When you take a nineteen thirties Milwaukee bungalow and decide

(17:48):
that you want to put a particular kitchen in there
in a particular tile, and you're working with, say, plaster
walls rather than drywall walls, and walls aren't straight and
you're trying to put You know, it can all be
done by a good remodeler can do it. But I
don't think people really realize that when they're looking at
that picture sand Pinterest or house or whatever it is,

(18:09):
that two things are in play there. One is it's
likely it's likely a vignette or a new build on
some of that stuff. The other thing is is that
and don't kid yourself, there is a little program out
there called photoshop. One of the things that I was
always leary of when I looked at national competitions was,

(18:34):
you know, if you really looked at the pictures. I
would always look at the tables in like living room
situations or wherever there was a lamp, and there wasn't
and it was floating in the middle of the room.
In other words, it wasn't up against the wall. You
can tell it's been photoshopped because a likelihood is they
photoshopped out the cord running across the table, and if
they photoshopped that, they might have photoshopped this and a

(18:57):
miter and whatever. So I think that people are wise
to really go out and go product by product and
then let us put it together. We can put together
the vision. Like if you really like a particular sink,
like the offset sink you were talking about, and you
want to make that the focal point of the bathroom,
well then let's focus around that. One of the things

(19:17):
that drives me crazy is when you grab a whole
bunch of different selections and you bring them in and
none of them are related to the other in color, shape,
or size. You know, you might have a round tile here,
have a square mile up mirror. You may have, you know,
a tinted shower door, but a clear window those things.
You ever walk into a room where you look and
you go, I don't know what's wrong with this room,

(19:38):
but something right. It just doesn't feel right. Yeah, And
then you walk and I think the big place you
can see this a lot is in high end hotels.
You walk into a room and it just feels right.
There's been a ton of research, a ton of time,
a ton of selection time put together to create that feeling,
and you just feel good in there. It's the right color,

(19:59):
it's the right vio. The shapes aren't fighting each other.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
And that's where they had someone do that, someone skilled.
And again not that homeowners can't do a break job. Yeah,
I mean, but yeah, there is a method to the
madness of decorating. And again I still say, you know,
do whatever you want if it makes you happy, even
if it's not my aesthetic taste, or if it's something

(20:25):
that kind of does look crazy, but you know, who's
to say that's subjective, right, But I think the main
thing is having to set the expectation and not being
disappointed when we're trying to help you stay in budget
and stay on track and be timely. Because again, going

(20:45):
back to what are kind of our show was about,
is with selections and the process and with just supply
chain situations and cost situation changing so rapidly, and who's
to say what in a month is going to be?
We you know, we don't, we don't know. We can guess.
I mean, you can listen to the analyst, but I

(21:06):
don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's changed so fast, and and you know, it's we
were talking yesterday about you know, a lot of these
companies are I'm not just talking remodeling, companies in general
are expanding. It appears as though the economy is a good,
good business environment right now, but there's a lot of

(21:26):
people buying infrastructure and doing a lot of things. And
I've always I don't want to go on a negative
nancy here, but you know, we got this rush thing
going on, we got all this other stuff going on.
All of this could turn on a dime. So I
think it's very important that when you're making a major
decision like a kitchen, a rec room, and you're picking
things out that you have some guidance and you know

(21:47):
you could. We've had people say no, I don't like that,
I don't want that and I and that's fine, but
at least part of selection process in my mind is
knowing what you don't want to like. I'm not I
know that blues and white now, I'm not a blue
white guy. You'll never sell me on blue white. I
don't like it. I'm an earth tone guy, always have been.
I might be living in the past whatever, but it's

(22:08):
my money and I want a certain result as a homeowner.
I don't care. You put the guidelines up. We'll work
within it. I can work within the blue and white.
I know what goes together, but it's not my taste.
And I'm not a trendy one. I know that you
said before, like, if you want to be trendy, that's cool. Yeah,
but just once you communicate that to you, you're going
to go off on that and you're going to start

(22:29):
I've seen you do it, even if it's a if
it's something that like mid century modern. We started getting
more and more mid century monitors I've seen you on
different websites looking at what mid century modern really is
and what it what you know, a lot of people
are kind of saying it is so. And once you
learn that if somebody is a purist in the mid
century modern, it's a whole different set of selections, then

(22:51):
if you're doing it's like a retro mod restaurmat in
a car. Right are you a purist? Or do you
want this? And there's no right or wrong. But once
you communicate that to you, I think that you know,
then it's time to keep it in budget, and then
it's time to take you to the right places where
you can find what you want. And that's where having
a person boots on the ground working with you is

(23:12):
so important. I know a lot of companies don't offer that,
and I think we found we found that there was
a void there because basically what was happening is you
were going on with some tattooed biker guy to look
at your tile and stuff like that. And I think
I'm very good at it, but we needed a woman's
perspective and it's clearly it's clearly working out, and I

(23:34):
think that's that's part of what's missing today. Is that
personal service with people and the time, and you know,
you get frustrated too on some of these where the
time it just rolls on and on and on because
people can't make decisions.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
But well, I think it's it's not even that I
don't understand, and I can appreciate it because they're spending
a lot of money and it is a big decision
that you're going to be sitting with for you know,
maybe the rest of your home ownership there or for
five years if it's a short term plan. But I
think the frustration is that when things go awry because

(24:09):
they pick something and then by the time they pick
everything else and then I'm going to actually purchase those items,
they're either gone or they're escalated in price, and you
have to have that call. Hey, you know, I'm trying
to get all the selections picks so we can start
your project. But this one went up by five hundred dollars.
This one I can't get anymore. And you know, I'll
try to find an alternative, because that's what I do.

(24:30):
And then I can find something or they can't afford
that product, and I have to find something that looks
similar within their allowance and again, the allowance is something
that they pick. I'm not telling their allowance. The allowance
can be whatever they choose to be. But if they
have X amount of dollars, it's got to be divided
amongst the whole project, which mean materials, which means labor.

(24:51):
I mean again, when you think about.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
It, sorry, you spent it all on the lamp, right.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
I mean you can spend it on lighting. I mean
I did this myself in my own home, where I
found out real quickly that the lighting was a lot
different than I expected. So, you know, those are the
things that you got to kind of educate people on.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
And I think it's wise not to just throw people
out to the wolves and say, okay, get your selections
done by this state. There's so many more questions and
we're so out of time, But I just wanted to say,
if you're thinking about a remodeling project, check us out
on the web. Do your research on Kursoner. You're going
to find we're stellar, A plus better business bureau. We've
not only been in Narry forever, we volunteer our services

(25:33):
to Narry. So check us out. You can find us
on the web at Kursoner Inc. Dot com. That's k
E R Z N E R I n C dot com.
Or you can what'd you say? We're on LinkedIn to
now we're on LinkedIn to see this is this is
the new stuff coming up? You can what is it?
Under LinkedIn cursor in. We're on LinkedIn, so you can

(25:53):
check us out there. Give us a call at two
six two five six seven twenty five hundred if you
have any questions or any proper that you're thinking about.
I'm happy to have you here. We're gonna have another
show next week. I forget who's on, but we have
a guest next week, probably from another company we're gonna
be talking about. So tune in next week to Nick
Kurzner and the Construction Guru show on news Talk eleven

(26:15):
thirty to b isn