Guru Nick and Lynn Show 8-24-25

Episode Transcript

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

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

Speaker 1 (00:04):
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.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Talk eleven thirty Devils and good morning Wisconsin. 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.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
I have.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
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 Knowlinn joined the company what it has
been three months at 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

(00:56):
to discuss a little bit about expectations, mostly with selecting
your product. And I think that this all kind of
culminates from probably I 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

(01:21):
market that it just flooded the markets. And I'm talking
countertops everything, countertops, the cabinet handles, and you know, I
guess it's 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

(01:43):
floor and decre have walked into a carpet store or
a cabinet shop, you know yourselves that most of these
warehouses can't even 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.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Right, I mean, yeah, they do.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah. And so I remember one of my clients when
we went to Florinda corn I tell the story a lot,
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.

(02:25):
He was a younger guy in the front of the store,
and he started shaking and he said, I, I 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

(02:46):
the remodeling Remodeler of the Year awards. But it's just
seeing that and now even dealing with current clients. 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

(03:07):
do you think a fair time frame is now for selections?

Speaker 3 (03:09):
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 to strip
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. But I think too many cooks

(03:53):
in the kitchen is what happens sometimes, and that really
makes it difficult.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, 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

(04:18):
selections and then at the end you have all your
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 faucit. Yeah,
two hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
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 as important,

(04:53):
but some, I mean everyone is important, but some it's
more critical from keeping it in check. But yeah, I
mean if you're waiting two weeks, especially now with some
of the terriff 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.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
That we do. 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

(05:46):
smell the product. But it's very strategic in the showrooms now.
I remember when we got a new product in our showroom,
we just put it in. We didn't have special Today
you have halogen lighting. If you walk into some of
the showroom, you're going to se halogen lighting and a
girl 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,

(06:07):
it's usually under halogen light because it really makes everything sparkle.
It brings 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

(06:30):
this because I think most of us know the terms,
like the 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's six hundred dollars or four hundred
dollars faucet allowance for your vanity. You end up with
a twelve hundred dollars sink faus And I think part
of the thing is is you act kind of as
a guardrail. You explain to them because that same faucet

(06:51):
that's in 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 Florin to course, 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,

(07:14):
it's set 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 3 (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 a

(07:46):
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, like

(08:06):
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, you

(08:27):
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
offset sinc on a vanity which was amazing looking. It
was not in the middle like it would it would.

(08:48):
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
your y or if you have 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 in
with selections. It's not just the product cost the look

(09:12):
of it, it's also the labor costs that go in
with what is the scope of what how it's being
put in right?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
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 that in line,

(09:40):
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 to push

(10:01):
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 are directing

(10:23):
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 doing a vanity,

(10:45):
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 into 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, what are you

(11:10):
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 firewood. Yeah yeah, for the well composite. Yeah not

(11:34):
if it's composite, 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

(11:56):
because the showrooms are out there. Their margins are best
on the higher end products, 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

(12:16):
these messages on News Talk eleven thirty WISN Just Talk
eleven thirty WSN 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.

(12:37):
We'd love to come out and talk to you about
a new rec room, a new basement, exterior, edition At Curzoner,
we pretty much do it all. Kursner is the only
company in Wisconsin to win a Better Business per 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 Onkursner,

(13:00):
I think, the more impressed you'll be with our reputation,
and that's going to lead us right into the show
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

(13:22):
father is ninety two years old and he's still at
the office every single day. And many times that's good,
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

(13:45):
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
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

(14:08):
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,
and you know you're going to 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

(14:29):
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 for Mica and
maybe 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

(14:50):
countertop variations there are. I bet you there's three thousand,
right at least at least how many times you used
to have subway tile, used to have square tiles, and
now have rectangular.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
You 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 (15:11):
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 shooter system where you

(15:33):
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. If

(15:54):
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

(16:17):
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 3 (16:30):
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,

(16:54):
whether it's someone you know plumbing or or if it's
us just carpentry. Some of the finesse of some of
this 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 Pinterests as well, but you kind
of feel like you're the bad guy because you have

(17:15):
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 (17:27):
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

(17:49):
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,

(18:11):
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,

(18:36):
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

(18:58):
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

(19:19):
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 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,

(19:39):
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. Right color, it's

(20:00):
the right vibe, The shapes aren't fighting each other.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
And that's where they had someone do that, someone skilled.
And again not that homeowners can't do a great job
some 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

(20:26):
something 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 that 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 back to what are kind of our show

(20:48):
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 it's going
to be? We you know, we don't We don't know.
We can guess, I mean we you can listen to
the analyst, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
It's so fast and and you know it's we were
we were talking yesterday about you know, a lot of
these companies are I'm not just talking remodeling company, 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 people buying infrastructure and doing a lot

(21:30):
of things. And I've always I don't want to go
on a negative nancy here, but you know, we got
this rush a 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 you could. We've had people say no,

(21:50):
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 whites are in 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
throne guy, always have been. I might be living in
the past, whatever, but it's my money and I want

(22:10):
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 to I've seen you

(22:31):
do it, even if it's a if it's something that
like mid century modern. We started getting more and more
mid century moderns. I've seen you on different websites looking
at what mid century modern really is and 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

(22:52):
of selections. Then 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

(23:13):
you is 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,

(23:35):
and I 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 3 (23:48):
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

(24:10):
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, 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. And

(24:32):
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. I mean, again, when

(24:53):
you think about it.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Sorry, you spent it all on the lamp, right.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
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 (25:12):
And I think it's wise not to just throw people
out to the wolves and say, okay, get your selections
done by this date. 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 Restellar a plus better business bureau. We've not
only been in Narry forever, we volunteer our services to Narry,

(25:36):
So check us out. You can find us on the
web at Kursonerinc. 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
cursoner in. We're on LinkedIn, so you can check us
out there. Give us a call at two six two

(25:57):
five six seven twenty five hundred if you have any
questions or any projects 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 Kerzner and the Construction
Guru show on news Talk eleven thirty to b isn