December 12, 2025 • 42 mins
In our second-ever episode, The Handyma’ams surprise, delight, and sometimes scare us with their tales from the field. Will they self-sabotage with food poisoning at a questionable lunch location or buck up with “stick-to-it-ive-ness” and keep going despite their setbacks?
Join us this week and find out why Arly nearly walked off the job, Samantha was left sobbing over a piece of trim, and Emily entered in the 7th circle of hell while removing wallpaper.
The Handiest of ma’ams also debate the merit and mediocrity of paint sheens in this week’s game “Rate-a-data-doo” with Arly. Find out the paint sheen rated “11,000” out of 5 stars by Emily and which ones Samantha gives a sideways thumb… the equivalent of 3 out of 5 stars, in case you’re curious.
They also clarify which paints are made out of water, which ones are definitely not made out of spaghetti but could be, and which ones they recommend using in your home.
Whether this is your second week joining us or your first, thank you for being here as The Handyma’ams use their hard-earned and field-tested expertise to entertain, educate, and help you to feel less alone while you’re “doing it yourself”.
Links & Resources Mentioned
- Community: Join the How to Handyma’am Facebook Group to ask questions and post your project pics!
Products We Love: Find the tools mentioned in this episode at our storefront:
Connect with Us!
Credits
- Host -Samantha Pearl
- Host- Arly Streed
- Host - Emily Pearl Reist
- Editing and Music by Thomas Streed
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello friends. Hi, welcome to How to Handyman,
the podcast where Samantha thinks that a thumbs up is five.
In this episode we talk about Emily needing new glasses, we
talk about my no good, terrible,very bad day, and we talk about
Sheen and the types of paint that you should pick for your
(00:21):
house. Yeah, so stick around.
I'm Emily. I'm Samantha.
And I'm Marley. And this is how to handy, ma'am.
This episode is dedicated to my sister-in-law Jana, who any day
now should be having my very ownniece, and she is a great person
and she's going to be a wonderful mother.
(00:48):
All right, I heard that you saw a monkey today.
Oh no. Yes, tell the story about the
monkey. This should be a lesson,
everyone, that you should go seeyour doctor more often.
And it made me schedule an eye visit because as you see, I wear
(01:08):
glasses. But apparently they're not good
enough. You know how Ross has a monkey
that sits on his shoulder? And friends, there was this
creature in a car that I was behind that looked exactly like
a monkey. Like, I kid you not.
I was so convinced. I was like, Dang, that's pretty
cool. That person has a monkey in
their car. And I had like, the monkey
coloring. I like, saw like sunlight
(01:30):
through its hair. And I was like, that's so weird.
And then I pulled up next to them.
Friends. It was not a monkey.
It was a stuffed. Animal and a child's hand who
kept going like I am going to get my eyes checked.
I made an appointment but also it it truly looked like a
monkey. Oh my gosh, the reason for this
(01:56):
behavior is because Arlie has had one of the worst weeks in
her entire time working here. It's actually pretty relevant.
I feel like you should tell the listeners about it because they
will all have that moment when they want to just light a match
and turn around leave their. House and hope the insurance
takes. Care of it if you are thinking
(02:16):
about doing home renovations, make sure that you have a good
insurance policy, not just because you might wreck things
because you might actually want to light your house on fire.
A good insurance policy or a stable personality?
Yes. One of the two.
You're going to give me one of the two or both?
This week was, well, actually the first few days were actually
(02:37):
really good. I came in and I saved the day on
Monday, I saved the day on Tuesday and Wednesday was just
like a normal day for the most part.
And then yesterday, my goodness,we had to install a handrail on
somebody's concrete porch, something that we've done before
(02:57):
and I've used this brand of railing before.
It's like the railing putting ittogether is a little bit more
complicated than like you can get these Amazon ones that
basically are already assembled and you just put them on the
stairs. This like wrapped around the
side of the of the porch and then the handrail went down the
stairs. Well, we're drilling into
(03:19):
concrete and. Which is normally with the right
tools. With the right tools.
Not really a big deal. You got a hammer drill, You got
a masonry bit I had. A hammer drill.
We had two big batteries and a bunch of small batteries.
We might have even had three bigbatteries and.
A brand new set of masonry bits.Yeah, we had new masonry bits.
We had all of the things that weneeded and one thing after the
(03:44):
next, we could not get these stupid concrete anchors into
just I can't, I can't even I'm so frustrated.
I'm thinking about it. I all day today I've been
pretending that yesterday didn'thappen.
I was like yesterday did not exist.
Nothing happened so last. Night Arlie and I talked through
(04:04):
it and I was like, well, tell me, tell me how it went.
And so as she's telling me, I'm like, well, it could be this and
then I'm like or this or this. And then at the end, I was like,
I think all five of those thingsare true.
It was. Awful, wrong masonry bit, bad
anchors, like low performing anchors, then new masonry bit,
(04:29):
but wrong kind. And then you had to drill
through. This was a concrete porch that
had a lot of like aggregate, which basically like rocks in
it. So you were drilling through the
rocks and then I'm certain you hit rebar.
Also. It's like all five, you hit all
five of the things that make a job like that hard and.
Then the batteries started dyingat the end of the day too.
(04:51):
They were like freaking cold. Not well.
Also, it's not supposed to take 5 hours to put in like to drill
holes. So we brought, you know, we had
like 6 or 7 batteries thinking that would be more than enough.
No, no, they were not enough because we were running the
drill constantly, trying to get it through whatever was in the
porch. It was so frustrating.
(05:14):
My question is, if you get through concrete and you hit
rebar, could you use a metal drill?
Bit yeah, that's what we talked about.
Had they known that that's what was happening?
Because you can kind of tell because you start instead of
getting like whitish Gray dust coming out of the hole that you
drill, you'll start to get brownor.
(05:34):
Or no. Or red if it's like, 'cause
usually rebar's a little bit rusty.
So if you start, if you drill inand it's like works fine and
then it won't go anymore, but you're getting a different color
dust coming out of the hole. That's a good indication that
you've hit some other kind of material.
And you did drill through rocks.You can drill through a rock
with a masonry bit. They're made for things like
that. But you cannot drill through
(05:56):
metal with a masonry bit. It just.
Doesn't work because it's more dull at the end, like a metal
blade. Yeah, but like a misery bit part
of it is hitting it, hitting it,hitting it, hitting it and kind
of breaking it up and then. Drilling it out.
Break it. Yeah, that's a good thing.
Yeah. But a a metal bit, is it like
it's, it's just sharp and it's adrill bit.
(06:17):
So, yeah, that was a good lessonlearned yesterday.
You don't expect like all the things that can go wrong to go
wrong on the same job. But occasionally it happens.
And I will say the difference between a good contractor and a
bad contractor sometimes is justthe stick to itiveness because
good contractors don't get it right the first time all the
(06:37):
time either. Like we have plenty of
struggles, but the whole point is problem solving and sticking
with it. And I had to chuckle because
when we first started in the business, our customers would
and while still talk to us a lotabout how they've been ghosted
before by contractors, how they just wouldn't even they've
stopped responding to their textmessages and everything and.
Some contractors even just leavetheir tools.
Yeah, they just walk away and they were.
(07:00):
And the customers are like just so frustrated by that.
And me, I'm like, I cannot believe people do that.
But now that we've been in business for 5 1/2 years, I
gotta say we wouldn't do it because.
Sometimes you're tempted. Sometimes I I sometimes I
understand them. Like OK, this is not the right
thing to do, but I can understand the mentality where a
(07:22):
contractor's just like Nope, I got to get a different line of
work and just leave. They just jump, yeah.
The problem is when it's your house and you're doing the work
yourself. Like you can't really move, so
you got to stick with it. And that's one of the things
we've learned over the last 5 1/2 years.
And one of the things we're verycareful to teach our new hires
as they're coming in is approachit.
(07:43):
Approach the job with the idea that it's not if you're going to
have a problem, you are going tohave a problem.
We are professional problem solvers.
That's our job. You just don't know what problem
it's going to be until you get there.
It's a surprise and if. You have a problem.
It's not like you did something wrong.
You're not doing a good job. It's just like, this is how it
(08:04):
works. Like we you take things apart
and you find the problems that were already there and then you
just have to figure out a new plan.
And that happens with like everysingle job all the time.
It's insane. It really does, Yeah.
And it's very relevant, even though we're in construction,
that whole idea of that happening, that happens no
matter where DIVDIY is happening, whether it's
(08:24):
happening in the home, it's happening in a construction
business, it's happening with your father-in-law who comes
over to help or your sister-in-law that comes to help
you do a project. It happens to everybody.
Yeah, I've never in my life felta, more incompetent and B, like
I really wanted to just quit my job and go home.
I love my job. I love it.
(08:46):
I love my job. I love the people I work with.
But I say that to the listeners out there.
I was just winking at them and I'm.
Like. But yesterday I was like, can I
just be sick? Do people get sick in the middle
of the winter? Oh no, I threw up.
(09:10):
Or you just go to your go to place that always makes you sick
when you eat there, that's whereyou go for lunch.
You're like nature will take care.
Take care of this problem. There was one bright point in
the day. It was lunchtime and we had just
gotten the first couple of anchors in.
After we had gotten the right anchors, the right that's like
(09:31):
everything started to work out. Got the first couple in things
are going amazing. Our Panera shows up it and I was
like I. Think we're sponsored by Panera
but. The door Dash guy came up and I
was like you are my Angel and I said that to him.
Was he a little creeped out? No.
(09:51):
He was, he looked kind of flattered.
He was like, I got here as fast as I could and I was like, you
just saved my life, my sanity, everything inside of me.
And then Arlie, in this golden moment of accomplishment, Arlie
sent me a video which. I heard that video.
Now we're like, happy and smiling and then like 40 minutes
later she's like, I hate everything, Yeah.
(10:12):
Things were good for about 35 minutes.
Wait, please play the audio, I think it'd be funny.
We did it and our Panera got delivered.
Our sanity has been saved. We're going nowhere.
That's how it is sometimes. That's how it is.
What's the worst day you can remember, like in the last five
(10:35):
years? Being in the field.
I can remember your worst. Oh my gosh, I will never forget
that. Is it the transition strip?
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that.
You tell that story. I'll tell it from my
perspective, which was horrifiedand worried.
We had I don't know what gave usthe gall to take on an entire
(10:55):
House of flooring. We had never done a big project
like that. We had never done flooring.
Little project and we were like how?
Hard can it be? I think I lost a fingernail
during this project. Like full loss of fingernail.
Sorry and. We.
Hit ourselves with hammers many times because when you're
(11:17):
installing flooring and for audio people out, I'll describe
it, but you kneel on the flooring and then you have a
block and a hammer and you're like tippy tapping it in towards
you, towards you. And sometimes if the floor isn't
quite perfect or you just like, meet it because you're tired,
yeah, you just hit really hard. And it's just.
(11:38):
You just miss and hit yourself. And I think I had already hit
the finger that this, oh, you did I hit it.
Second time, yeah. And that was the nail.
I gave up the ghost, yeah, but that was the fingernail.
So we were at the very end of this.
We were at the very end of this.Project Literally.
Literally we were doing transition ships.
(11:59):
But it was in front of a slider,so it was like.
Big one, expensive. 6 foot 8 foot long and with vinyl
flooring you don't necessarily want to use a lead 1 you can,
but so we were just trying to find the store didn't have this
because they'd gotten the flooring on sale so there were
no transition strips. So everything we got didn't
match except we found like. Two of them, just two, just two
(12:21):
on clearance. Yeah, randomly.
And Samantha puts the first one in and she puts it in with a
nail gun and it shatters and she's like.
Oh crap. Seriously.
And I'm like, that's OK, I have another one.
I'm holding it together because we're like 6 days overdue on
this job. So we're not doing all the other
paid work that was keeping us afloat at that point.
(12:43):
So we're like so overdue. And I'm like, we're going to
finish this today. And I'm like, that's OK.
We have a second one. And then I just hear after that
one got broken and I walked in and I was like, what do you
need? Do you need something?
Are you OK? Are you going to be OK?
Are you going to be OK? And she's like.
(13:05):
Just tell me what you need. I'm going to the store right
now, Walked. In and I was like I love you mom
help. He was bringing us lunch because
we were like couldn't even leavebecause we had so much and I
was. Like I will.
I will go to Menards, I'll go toHome Depot, I'll go to Love
Anywhere. Everyone is problem solving and
Jim just walks in with lunch andthen he's like what is going on?
(13:27):
I just like, OK, you emotional support human.
I was like. Tears running.
Down. No sobbing.
I was sitting on the floor. This was an empty house with no
customer. In it I was going to be.
Sitting right next to that broken transition strip, just
bawling. That room was cursed because
that's one of the first times I ever removed wallpaper.
(13:47):
I just like steaming it. I'm doing everything right.
I pull it. Just a chunk of drywall.
We actually have that before andafter on our website.
Yeah, the wall is just chunks ofdrywall.
Like I, I was like, oh, la, la, la, it's coming off.
And then I like it was extra heavy as I was pulling it off
and I was like the weirdest. Part of the wall.
(14:07):
And then I was like, I kept looking back and forth.
I was like, oh shit. We have to do an episode for
removing wallpaper. We do because they're like the
seven. Circles.
There's this. Seven circles of wallpaper hell.
Yeah, some wallpaper it's just and it comes right off the wall
(14:28):
and some wallpaper you basicallyhave to be virtue it off the
wall. Oh my gosh, that's so true.
So I'm excited because of all the things we do that we like,
we'll do something for a while and we'll enjoy it, and then
we'll be like, I hate this now. I don't ever want to do it
again. And then we have to just not do
(14:48):
it for a month and we're like, yeah, we'll do it again.
But one of the things that we usually like to do is painting.
And that's actually the most common thing that homeowners do
in their own houses is paint. Now all y'all out there, you're
definitely giving it a good try,but a few of you are painting
your ceilings and your baseboards and your carpet and
(15:08):
your outlet covers. Yeah, and or your outlets or?
The salsa behind your counter. No.
So we're going to talk about we need to talk about like just
some basic tips for how to make your house look like a
professional painted it. And we're going to do that after
the pee break, after the pee break.
(15:29):
So Arlie's back from the bathroom and is ready to teach.
So back to you, Arlie. For listeners, I'm up and
Downing my eyebrows. Yes, that doesn't really
translate. Your.
Audio up and down in the eyebrows, OK.
I'm upping and Downing my eyelids.
(15:49):
We should make a sound effect doit again.
I feel like it should be like. Let's talk about.
Paint, yes. So let's talk about Pink baby.
Let's talk about Sheen. All day.
(16:10):
All right, we're talking about Sheen.
First up is Sheen. What is?
Sheen, Sheen, right, Shaheeni yes, so, yes, so.
I should know that I'm really bad at spelling, it's true.
She's so smart. It is such a bad speller.
HEEN Sheen. What does it have?
(16:33):
Every kind she intelligent. Shen Sheen do I win the spelling
bee? Yes, you do.
Yes, you got it. OK, listeners, just turn this
off. They're like bye.
I'm just. Kidding.
OK, keep it going. Keep it going.
Sheen is basically the shininessof your paint, so that ranges
from no shine to extra shiny, which are not the scientific
(16:56):
terms. We will go through those.
There's six common terms, 6 common Sheens, and we'll go
through these. There's a bunch of like random,
random paint cans will have likerandom ones like Pearl, yeah,
Pearl or like low luster or mid luster, whatever.
And I mean like that's just brand specific.
(17:17):
But you can usually ask like theperson at your paint store, you
can Google it or ask like the person at you know, whatever box
store you're at to help you figure out what like common
Sheen it's closest to. Sometimes they have little
charts. Yeah, sometimes they have charts
because like. Pearl is really close to like
Satin. Yeah, I think that's between.
(17:39):
Satin and Sami and Sheen has both an aesthetic impact and a
functional impact, right? You're going to talk about that?
So we're going to do a little game for these, just a small
game for the listeners, and we're either going to call it
bitch, rate that shit. What?
(18:00):
Or rated A do are you? A.
Stroke. Let's censor the first one.
We'll call. It.
I have no idea what. I don't know what's happening
here. I literally spelt it out.
(18:22):
Rate earlier, rate it. Oh.
Rate it. Rate.
Yes, RATE, rate it. None of what you said you were
having, you were having a strokealso sound.
Like Scooby-doo? For a wedding, maybe.
Marshall, we're going. To get anything.
(18:45):
Done. OK, OK.
OK. So the first one that you guys
are going to rate is flat paint.This is the first Sheen do we
love. Flat paint for listeners.
I'm putting a thumbs. We're doing 1 to 5 S rate it 0
-5 but OK. Are we rating on aesthetics or
function overall? Overall function 0 Aesthetics 5
(19:10):
for. Approximately 2 weeks.
It's a 5. OK, so flat basically has the
least amount of reflection or definition.
So if you paint your wall with it, all of the little, you know,
imperfections or whatever won't like have any kind of
reflection. So if you're looking at the wall
from like the side or like far away, it won't have you won't be
(19:35):
able to see any of the imperfections.
So it's great. Absolutely.
For imperfect walls, it's the absolute best paint, and they
pretty much exclusively use thatin new construction.
They also do it seems. Counterintuitive.
But yeah, in ceilings it's I would say that it's five out of
five for ceilings because you don't touch it, you don't touch
(19:55):
your ceilings. So it's perfect it you know, it
doesn't matter like how texturedyour ceilings are, how perfect
or imperfect it's perfect because like you're never really
looking at the ceiling that muchanyway.
And then with the no luster, it just is perfect.
Then the next one is matte. Rate it. 1 it's very similar.
(20:20):
It is the first one. I would give it the same rating
like I'm the one who's always like.
Depends. I just went one up from 0.
It's slightly less bad for functional.
Reasons very slightly. Yes, it is it to the naked eye,
I would say it looks about the same to me, especially if it's
(20:42):
white, like yeah, you know, it'sreally hard to tell, but and if
you're doing it on a ceiling, it's there's no way you're going
to know the difference. I don't think it is a little bit
easier to wash though. So it has like a little bit more
durability and it scuffs a little bit less than a flat
paint, but they're very, very similar.
(21:03):
I would say that those are two like for a beginner, I would say
that they're basically. They're going to mostly look the
same and perform the same, yeah.OK, then we have these big
kahunas right here. Eggshell.
I give it a sideways thumb. This is one out of five.
Sorry. That is.
Not an option. What if I had a?
(21:25):
3 written here. Then.
Sure. I agree a three, three.
OK, agree on three. I think I would maybe say 3 or
4. For me this is one of the most
common. It has the same kind of low
luster as like the flat and the map, but it has much more
(21:48):
durability. It's more washable, especially
depending on the paint that you get.
You can wash it off, which makesit really great for walls.
But it still isn't like super durable.
And I feel like it's it's a great beginner paint, to be
honest. It's very easy to apply.
Yeah, yeah, I'd say. Second only to the next one
(22:10):
you're going to talk about. Satin 11,000 out of five.
Oh yeah, I give a thumbs up. Oh.
My gosh. Which translates into A5.
Can you tell Samantha and I don't like following rules?
No way. OK, also I'm winning so.
Satin is kind of, it's almost, if you look at a wall and it has
(22:37):
like kind of a reflection on it,but not really.
It's probably satin. You couldn't compare it to like
a Pearlish kind of luster. It's very similar.
It kind of has like AI don't know like a reflectiveness to
it, but it's not shiny. It's similar to the velvet that
is behind us. For all your listeners, just.
(22:57):
Just a little bit. Think of velvet like it has a
little bit of light reflection. But not a.
It's not really shiny. Yeah, But these egg shell and
satin are the most common that you're going to find on your
walls. And if you are in like a really
busy house and you have like kids or dogs or whatever, I
would definitely go with a satinbecause it's more durable.
(23:20):
Usually it's more readily available.
Eggshell I feel like isn't always in stock.
Yeah, at certain places you can almost always get satin.
You can almost always get satin,Yeah.
And it paints on really well. It's really nice.
It's got like a pretty even consistency.
Flat paint I feel like usually is a little bit thicker.
(23:41):
You need to mix it a lot more, yeah.
Yeah, So I I think that satin isprobably the best beginner
friendly. And it's the last paint going up
the scale that you can use before your walls might.
Slightly look. Like a gas station bathroom.
Yes, yeah, if your walls are absolutely horrendous and you're
not able to do like any wall repair, it's just not worth it
(24:03):
to you. Like definitely go with
something a very low luster, butI would say like the amount of
wall damage and the amount of wall damage your walls might get
are the two things that depend on what.
When you're done, I want to quizyou on like, certain home
situations. Yeah, but the just I don't think
we clarified it for flat and matte paint it like if you get
(24:27):
dirt on it, it doesn't really clean off.
Of the paint, no, it doesn't clean off very well, which is
why I say like low durability. Yeah, because if you scuff or if
you like get like I don't know if your dog.
Rubs up against it like our dog used to do.
Yeah, if. You spill something on it like
you know. Spill your coffee with salsa or
(24:50):
coffee. Or something it's it's like more
porous almost even though like it's a finished paint, it's like
almost more porous and it like absorbs.
Into the paint or something? Yeah.
Become part of it. And you can't just wash it off,
Yeah. I know why it's.
More porous. OK, tell us please.
So with paint, it's just a bunchof rocks, basically minerals
crushed up and suspended in a liquid.
(25:13):
The more crushed it is, the higher Sheen you get.
That's why flat paint is cheaper, because it goes through
less processing. It's kind of like with booze,
like a vodka distilled 12 times is more expensive than a vodka
distilled one time, which you probably don't want to drink.
It might make you go blind, but was just.
Like alcohol? With paint, it's very similar.
(25:35):
So like I did all my wedding decorations and matte paint
because at Menards it was only $20 a gallon.
So it like you would kind of payfor what you get.
Makes sense. It's more laborious to make the
other stuff, so it's more expensive.
Yeah. All right.
OK. So our last two da da, da is
semi gloss. I give.
(25:55):
Semi gloss a thumbs up for what?It's meant to be used.
Yeah, I give it what's A5? I want to use my thumbs.
OK, next I really. Like thumbs up and thumbs down I
guess. I love the look of satin on
trim, like I actually prefer it over semi gloss so I'm going to
give semi gloss A4 because it does look good.
And I like this is where we're different.
(26:17):
Like I like, I like shiny trim. Me too, I'm gonna give semi
gloss a three. I don't like painting with semi
gloss and I don't love its finish.
I. Have it in my bathroom I think
like. It's just, yeah, it's almost
like it wants to be high gloss, but it ain't.
So it almost looks to me like itjust didn't dry right or
(26:37):
something. Yeah, and a lot of the semi
gloss don't always have the sameself leveling properties as the
high gloss ones, so they don't have the hardest to roll on as.
Well. I feel like.
And it would show pretty much all of the imperfections.
Yeah, it has. You can see brush strokes if you
aren't careful, roller marks. You'll be able to see like any
(26:59):
bumps or stuff in your wall, bigimperfections like that.
So I would keep. We normally have semi gloss for
cabinets, sometimes satin for cabinets and furniture too.
But mostly cabinets, furniture, sometimes floors, places that
(27:19):
you have like a lot of high wearand tear.
Stereos question of function. Yeah, because it's a lot more
durable than. The first four when we first
started we thought you should put scammy gloss in kitchen and
bathroom. We did.
We learned that it's. Easiest.
We thought it was easiest to clean, which is why my and.
Most as pervious to water to moisture, which is true, but
(27:42):
your your bathroom's not supposed to have wet walls, so.
Yeah, it's not supposed to take it out.
That in the future episodes. Yeah, yeah.
But I mean I have semi gloss in my kitchen and it cleans, but it
cleans. I also have a golden retriever
who puts the dirt on my walls and I have satin in the rest of
my house and it cleans just fine.
Yeah. So satin's a high performer.
(28:03):
It is. It's a.
Technology, I think it because it used to be semi gloss, was
the one that was the easiest cleaned.
But the technology has come quite a ways, yeah.
The last one is. The last one.
Gloss. Gloss or also known as.
High gloss gloss. Gloss is on trend right now.
(28:24):
People are doing whole rooms of it.
Really. That would be so shiny.
I think they do like a deep green and then it's like kind of
like bougie but they spray it on.
OK, sorry, that was a random bowel.
TikTok, I would find that appealing.
I don't think I would. Unless it would be like a glass
(28:46):
room or something. Unless the walls were hello
brain where there would work like.
Unless they were. Wainscoting or judges paneling
or a board and batten. Something like that.
Then for me because I like shinytrim then I think any kind of
woodwork shiny would look nice. I'm just thinking of like floor
(29:07):
to ceiling with only baseboards and the whole wall shiny.
No, this one was like a lot of trim layered and then it had a
chandelier in it, so it like bounced off.
But that's kind of nice. See that being like a Moody on
purpose. I think it was like they had
like a bar room and they're thisis above my tax bracket.
But I don't know. I love high glass trim.
(29:29):
There's a brand from Sherwin-Williams that I'm in
love with. I love it too.
It's called. Is it the same one?
It's. Same at the same time ready. 123
emerald urethane. Oh, emerald urethane, there's
an. Emerald urethane.
And then an emerald urethane, which one is a water based and
one is an oil based and their applications are very similar
(29:53):
and and. That paint is so.
Good. It's so good.
And Emerald common is that? I.
Think it does. I think it might.
I think it does, yeah. But it's it's so beautiful.
It has like self leveling properties which you put it in
like like you put it on kind of thick, almost like you leave
(30:15):
like yeah, it's not like you're dragging your brush.
Like dragging a brush across your trim and you have very deep
brush marks but then that self leveling.
Yeah, it takes like a little bitlonger to dry.
So it like settles out and then you get like this perfect.
So like even if you have like kind of not the best brush or
you know you're leaving a lot ofbrush Marks and it's not super
(30:39):
even looking by the end when it's really dry, it looks really
good. Yeah.
I don't know if you're going to talk about this probably in the
future, but I will say one thingthat makes that not true what
you just said is if your house is at 85°.
Oh yeah, yes, that is true. And that applies to all the
paints you use. If it the temperature, pay
attention to the temperature on the can.
They're different for different paints.
It's. They're right.
(31:00):
If it's, whatever's on the can. If it's.
Too, If it's too cold, it never really cures.
And if it's too hot, it dries sofast it doesn't have time to
level, so you end up with all kinds of marks on it.
Yeah, ask me how I know. We love Sherwin-Williams.
Sherwin-Williams isn't like, youknow, everywhere, but we are in
love with Sherwin-Williams, I think.
(31:21):
They're pretty ubiquitous throughout the United States.
Well, if you have a Sherwin-Williams, use them.
I mean, we have. Plastic 8 in Lansing.
We love duration. They have different like names
of paints. So duration is one of their kind
of like general use paints whichwe love their duration in their
(31:43):
cashmere for walls standard. Residential.
Yeah, pretty much anything duration has like Sheens that
you can use and basically from top to bottom.
If you're doing something a little bit more special, you
know, we would say if you have the the finances to do it, do
(32:06):
like an emerald on your trim because it's so beautiful, super
durable, more expensive. It is very durable because it
gets really hard. And so it's just like we talked.
About this last episode, Sometimes more expensive doesn't
mean better. Like some things you buy cheap
instead of the higher, the higher end one.
But for paint, I can't say it's universally true, but for the
(32:27):
most part, when you're paying more for paint, it's because
you're getting more. Yeah.
And I will say the one the biggest marketing lie ever told
by anybody is 1 coat coverage. It's a lie.
It's a lie. So don't pay extra for a gallon
of one coat coverage thinking you can buy half as much paint,
because it's just not true. No, and this is a random aside,
(32:48):
but we've found the standard room takes about a gallon and a
half. Yeah, paint.
So maybe just by? Walls.
Only, Yep, Yeah, yeah. OK, So we're gonna talk about
the difference between water based and oil based paints real
quick. Basically water based is based
in water, water water. Yeah, 2O yes, spaghetti.
So now I'm imagine opening a canand having like spaghetti.
(33:10):
Chunks in there. That's when you leave it open
too long and it gets like when you're stirring it.
I'm like, no. Have these rust on it.
Yuck, I can almost smell that paint now that you.
Said I know sometimes an estimate that people be like I
have paint from when we last. Painted and it's from.
Literally the 90s and I'm like, and then they'll open it and
(33:32):
it's just, it'll open it and it's like crusty rusty on the.
Top and then it gets in. It does.
You can't take the lid off of that and.
I'm like. Crusty's in the paint.
Yeah, we can absolutely use thisto get the color formula very
tactfully, say like, yes, 'causethey're like, you can just
strain the rest out of it. No.
All right, so not spaghetti. It's made of water.
(33:54):
It's made of water as it's base 'cause it's water based based.
It's not just water. If you're foreshadowing
effective if your paint can sayslatex or acrylic, it's water
based almost all the time. Which is basically plastic and
water together. Yeah, which doesn't seem like a
great combination, but you know what?
(34:15):
It is cool, basically. So it's the most common because
it's easy to use. You can wash it off with water
and soap helps a little bit. And it takes as little as 30
minutes to dry. Yeah.
And then it has lots of kind of like capabilities for
(34:39):
contraction and expansion. It like if you leave acrylic
paint on something like, I don'tknow, your tray, paint tray or
something like that. And there's kind of enough of it
there. If you come back in three days,
you can like peel it off and it kind of stretches.
Love it peeling. Paint so much, it's literally my
favorite part of the job. That stretchy like elasticity is
(35:01):
how it is on your wall and so it'll take a lot of like
settling or yeah yeah it'll it'll take a lot before it'll
crack or break or anything like that.
Oil based on the other hand, dries slow and it dries hard,
which means that it's really super durable, but it takes
(35:26):
longer to dry. It takes like, let's see, 6 to 8
hours before it's dried to the touch and then.
And it's not like then put furniture on it.
No, doesn't it take like oh I forgot they take the same?
Yeah. So water based and oil based
actually take two to three weeksto cure completely.
(35:46):
So the difference between dryingto touch and curing is drying is
when the water has evaporated out of it or any any compound in
it that can evaporate has evaporated out of it.
And then curing is like a chemical reaction that happens
with like the resin inside of the paint that happens gradually
over time. And those they take about the
(36:08):
same amount. The recoat time for water based
paint is like, I don't know, couple hours, right?
I think it's like 4 hours. And then oil base is 24.
Yeah. So from just a user perspective,
it's a lot harder to use oil based paints.
(36:29):
Sometimes there are certain situations where it just makes
more sense. And that's fine.
You know, if you're not going tomove into a house for a long
time and you can, you know, do that and you want to make your
trim oil based and take that extra time, then that's totally
fine. But if you're using the room, if
you want to put it back together, if you want to do it
(36:49):
in a weekend, using oil based just isn't feasible.
Plus oil. Is so strong, the EOC's on that,
which are volatile compounds, organic compounds, Yeah,
volatile organic compounds, they're very high.
They're super high. We painted my tile backsplash
with oil paint when we didn't live in the house and I just
(37:12):
left it for a week. It was so so.
I have to be really careful whenyou're painting with any kind of
oil based product because like I'm someone who has tolerance
for like chemically smells. It doesn't like it doesn't
bother me to smell chemicals. Like I like the smell of
Sharpies, but do people? Not like.
The smell of Sharpies, I think normal people.
I love the smell of sharpie. But then when you you'll use it
(37:34):
for a while and this goes for stains too, and you don't
realize what's happening. And then later you're like, I
don't feel well. Something heals off.
Like you have to be really careful to wear like the
appropriate like chemical blocking masks because otherwise
it we won't notice right away. Some people can't handle the
smell from the beginning, but otherwise you won't notice right
away. And then it just makes you feel
ill later. Yeah, you can taste it.
(37:56):
You can't. Yes, like here is sinuses
definitely. Like I would say a whole
different beast. You need like mineral spirits or
some kind of paint thinner to get it off of your.
Yeah, if you get it on your stuff, it doesn't just wash off
like latex. And it's just harder to use and
like we've used the Emerald urethane before, which is an oil
(38:20):
based product and you know, we figured it out, it's fine.
And we we loved what we did withit, but it isn't as easy as just
simply using a water based. You have to have a very specific
reason, yeah, to pick an oil based product.
Plus there used to just be waterbased and oil placed and now
there's kind of like in between some.
(38:42):
So like if you need an oil basedapplication but you don't have
the time to wait, I would just do some research on it because
like my cabinet paint is a acrylic base, but it's oil
enamel enriched. So somehow they got them to mix
together and it's super durable.Like my dogs have a counter
(39:04):
surfer and sore claws have gone down the kind of stuff a lot and
I can just clean it off and it'sgood to go.
So yeah. Speaking of enamel enamel,
actually it used to refer to thefact that it was oil based.
And so it at one point in time all enamel paints were oil
(39:25):
based. But now it kind of is for it's
used more as like a Sheen type definition.
Are you, like, it means like hardness, Yeah, yeah.
Like durability and hardness like I see a lot of.
Like furniture, paint, Say, likeenamel.
Yeah, but it's water based. So enamel no longer means like
it's oil or water based. It just means that it has that
(39:49):
type of finish, that durability.So if you're looking at
something and it says like waterbased enamel or acrylic enamel
or something, it's. You have to look at the can and
see whether it's oil or water based, but a great.
Place to start for a beginner iswater based.
Yeah, great, great place. I would not dive right into oil
(40:09):
painting, no. So I know you're going to teach
us some other things next week. What's on the agenda for next
week's teaching? Next week we're talking about
some painting equipment things that you need.
We're talking about our least favorite, which is brushes.
We're going to brush around and find out.
If you're asking yourself the question, does the quality of
the equipment matter, Yes, that's the short answer.
(40:32):
But join us next week to get thelong answer.
And Emily, how can they find us if they're interested in what
we're doing? So there are two ways to support
us on social media because we have two accounts.
So if you want to be your own handy ma'am, you can follow us
at How to Handy Ma'am. And if you want to see how we're
other people's handyman or if you're in the Lansing Greater
(40:55):
Capital area, you can find us atMy Handyman.
And yeah, that's pretty much where you can find us on most
social media. And if we don't have the social
media, I sorry. Yeah.
And if we haven't said this before, this podcast has a
purpose and it's purpose is to eventually raise enough money to
incubate in person programming, which we're very excited about.
(41:18):
So we look forward to talking with you more about that.
But and. We'll we'll post content about
what we care, why we care and where we got here.
But just a short of it, just because I'm excited to share is
I really did have a little bit of experience in this.
She was growing up DIY. But neither of us did it.
(41:38):
I didn't grow up doing DIY's, Samantha's my mom and like we
usually. DIY do.
Yeah, you did. Yeah.
Interesting, on my way to say that.
But so we learned this five years ago and we'll share more
in an episode of like how we came to this.
But I'm an artist by trade. Samantha's been in HR and
(42:01):
corporate stuff for years and years.
And we untraditionally found ourway into the field.
And I think that is something all women can do.
Or we want to teach you enough so you can have good contractor
relationships and know when the wool is being pulled over your
eyes or you can do stuff in yourown home.
So. So we're going to pull back the
(42:22):
curtain and show you how to get into all of.
This yes. And please support us because we
are making good things happen inthe world and we need your help.
Yes. And thanks for listening.
We love you.
Hello friends. Hi, welcome to How to Handyman,
the podcast where Samantha thinks that a thumbs up is five.
In this episode we talk about Emily needing new glasses, we
talk about my no good, terrible,very bad day, and we talk about
Sheen and the types of paint that you should pick for your
(00:21):
house. Yeah, so stick around.
I'm Emily. I'm Samantha.
And I'm Marley. And this is how to handy, ma'am.
This episode is dedicated to my sister-in-law Jana, who any day
now should be having my very ownniece, and she is a great person
and she's going to be a wonderful mother.
(00:48):
All right, I heard that you saw a monkey today.
Oh no. Yes, tell the story about the
monkey. This should be a lesson,
everyone, that you should go seeyour doctor more often.
And it made me schedule an eye visit because as you see, I wear
(01:08):
glasses. But apparently they're not good
enough. You know how Ross has a monkey
that sits on his shoulder? And friends, there was this
creature in a car that I was behind that looked exactly like
a monkey. Like, I kid you not.
I was so convinced. I was like, Dang, that's pretty
cool. That person has a monkey in
their car. And I had like, the monkey
coloring. I like, saw like sunlight
(01:30):
through its hair. And I was like, that's so weird.
And then I pulled up next to them.
Friends. It was not a monkey.
It was a stuffed. Animal and a child's hand who
kept going like I am going to get my eyes checked.
I made an appointment but also it it truly looked like a
monkey. Oh my gosh, the reason for this
(01:56):
behavior is because Arlie has had one of the worst weeks in
her entire time working here. It's actually pretty relevant.
I feel like you should tell the listeners about it because they
will all have that moment when they want to just light a match
and turn around leave their. House and hope the insurance
takes. Care of it if you are thinking
(02:16):
about doing home renovations, make sure that you have a good
insurance policy, not just because you might wreck things
because you might actually want to light your house on fire.
A good insurance policy or a stable personality?
Yes. One of the two.
You're going to give me one of the two or both?
This week was, well, actually the first few days were actually
(02:37):
really good. I came in and I saved the day on
Monday, I saved the day on Tuesday and Wednesday was just
like a normal day for the most part.
And then yesterday, my goodness,we had to install a handrail on
somebody's concrete porch, something that we've done before
(02:57):
and I've used this brand of railing before.
It's like the railing putting ittogether is a little bit more
complicated than like you can get these Amazon ones that
basically are already assembled and you just put them on the
stairs. This like wrapped around the
side of the of the porch and then the handrail went down the
stairs. Well, we're drilling into
(03:19):
concrete and. Which is normally with the right
tools. With the right tools.
Not really a big deal. You got a hammer drill, You got
a masonry bit I had. A hammer drill.
We had two big batteries and a bunch of small batteries.
We might have even had three bigbatteries and.
A brand new set of masonry bits.Yeah, we had new masonry bits.
We had all of the things that weneeded and one thing after the
(03:44):
next, we could not get these stupid concrete anchors into
just I can't, I can't even I'm so frustrated.
I'm thinking about it. I all day today I've been
pretending that yesterday didn'thappen.
I was like yesterday did not exist.
Nothing happened so last. Night Arlie and I talked through
(04:04):
it and I was like, well, tell me, tell me how it went.
And so as she's telling me, I'm like, well, it could be this and
then I'm like or this or this. And then at the end, I was like,
I think all five of those thingsare true.
It was. Awful, wrong masonry bit, bad
anchors, like low performing anchors, then new masonry bit,
(04:29):
but wrong kind. And then you had to drill
through. This was a concrete porch that
had a lot of like aggregate, which basically like rocks in
it. So you were drilling through the
rocks and then I'm certain you hit rebar.
Also. It's like all five, you hit all
five of the things that make a job like that hard and.
Then the batteries started dyingat the end of the day too.
(04:51):
They were like freaking cold. Not well.
Also, it's not supposed to take 5 hours to put in like to drill
holes. So we brought, you know, we had
like 6 or 7 batteries thinking that would be more than enough.
No, no, they were not enough because we were running the
drill constantly, trying to get it through whatever was in the
porch. It was so frustrating.
(05:14):
My question is, if you get through concrete and you hit
rebar, could you use a metal drill?
Bit yeah, that's what we talked about.
Had they known that that's what was happening?
Because you can kind of tell because you start instead of
getting like whitish Gray dust coming out of the hole that you
drill, you'll start to get brownor.
(05:34):
Or no. Or red if it's like, 'cause
usually rebar's a little bit rusty.
So if you start, if you drill inand it's like works fine and
then it won't go anymore, but you're getting a different color
dust coming out of the hole. That's a good indication that
you've hit some other kind of material.
And you did drill through rocks.You can drill through a rock
with a masonry bit. They're made for things like
that. But you cannot drill through
(05:56):
metal with a masonry bit. It just.
Doesn't work because it's more dull at the end, like a metal
blade. Yeah, but like a misery bit part
of it is hitting it, hitting it,hitting it, hitting it and kind
of breaking it up and then. Drilling it out.
Break it. Yeah, that's a good thing.
Yeah. But a a metal bit, is it like
it's, it's just sharp and it's adrill bit.
(06:17):
So, yeah, that was a good lessonlearned yesterday.
You don't expect like all the things that can go wrong to go
wrong on the same job. But occasionally it happens.
And I will say the difference between a good contractor and a
bad contractor sometimes is justthe stick to itiveness because
good contractors don't get it right the first time all the
(06:37):
time either. Like we have plenty of
struggles, but the whole point is problem solving and sticking
with it. And I had to chuckle because
when we first started in the business, our customers would
and while still talk to us a lotabout how they've been ghosted
before by contractors, how they just wouldn't even they've
stopped responding to their textmessages and everything and.
Some contractors even just leavetheir tools.
Yeah, they just walk away and they were.
(07:00):
And the customers are like just so frustrated by that.
And me, I'm like, I cannot believe people do that.
But now that we've been in business for 5 1/2 years, I
gotta say we wouldn't do it because.
Sometimes you're tempted. Sometimes I I sometimes I
understand them. Like OK, this is not the right
thing to do, but I can understand the mentality where a
(07:22):
contractor's just like Nope, I got to get a different line of
work and just leave. They just jump, yeah.
The problem is when it's your house and you're doing the work
yourself. Like you can't really move, so
you got to stick with it. And that's one of the things
we've learned over the last 5 1/2 years.
And one of the things we're verycareful to teach our new hires
as they're coming in is approachit.
(07:43):
Approach the job with the idea that it's not if you're going to
have a problem, you are going tohave a problem.
We are professional problem solvers.
That's our job. You just don't know what problem
it's going to be until you get there.
It's a surprise and if. You have a problem.
It's not like you did something wrong.
You're not doing a good job. It's just like, this is how it
(08:04):
works. Like we you take things apart
and you find the problems that were already there and then you
just have to figure out a new plan.
And that happens with like everysingle job all the time.
It's insane. It really does, Yeah.
And it's very relevant, even though we're in construction,
that whole idea of that happening, that happens no
matter where DIVDIY is happening, whether it's
(08:24):
happening in the home, it's happening in a construction
business, it's happening with your father-in-law who comes
over to help or your sister-in-law that comes to help
you do a project. It happens to everybody.
Yeah, I've never in my life felta, more incompetent and B, like
I really wanted to just quit my job and go home.
I love my job. I love it.
(08:46):
I love my job. I love the people I work with.
But I say that to the listeners out there.
I was just winking at them and I'm.
Like. But yesterday I was like, can I
just be sick? Do people get sick in the middle
of the winter? Oh no, I threw up.
(09:10):
Or you just go to your go to place that always makes you sick
when you eat there, that's whereyou go for lunch.
You're like nature will take care.
Take care of this problem. There was one bright point in
the day. It was lunchtime and we had just
gotten the first couple of anchors in.
After we had gotten the right anchors, the right that's like
(09:31):
everything started to work out. Got the first couple in things
are going amazing. Our Panera shows up it and I was
like I. Think we're sponsored by Panera
but. The door Dash guy came up and I
was like you are my Angel and I said that to him.
Was he a little creeped out? No.
(09:51):
He was, he looked kind of flattered.
He was like, I got here as fast as I could and I was like, you
just saved my life, my sanity, everything inside of me.
And then Arlie, in this golden moment of accomplishment, Arlie
sent me a video which. I heard that video.
Now we're like, happy and smiling and then like 40 minutes
later she's like, I hate everything, Yeah.
(10:12):
Things were good for about 35 minutes.
Wait, please play the audio, I think it'd be funny.
We did it and our Panera got delivered.
Our sanity has been saved. We're going nowhere.
That's how it is sometimes. That's how it is.
What's the worst day you can remember, like in the last five
(10:35):
years? Being in the field.
I can remember your worst. Oh my gosh, I will never forget
that. Is it the transition strip?
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that.
You tell that story. I'll tell it from my
perspective, which was horrifiedand worried.
We had I don't know what gave usthe gall to take on an entire
(10:55):
House of flooring. We had never done a big project
like that. We had never done flooring.
Little project and we were like how?
Hard can it be? I think I lost a fingernail
during this project. Like full loss of fingernail.
Sorry and. We.
Hit ourselves with hammers many times because when you're
(11:17):
installing flooring and for audio people out, I'll describe
it, but you kneel on the flooring and then you have a
block and a hammer and you're like tippy tapping it in towards
you, towards you. And sometimes if the floor isn't
quite perfect or you just like, meet it because you're tired,
yeah, you just hit really hard. And it's just.
(11:38):
You just miss and hit yourself. And I think I had already hit
the finger that this, oh, you did I hit it.
Second time, yeah. And that was the nail.
I gave up the ghost, yeah, but that was the fingernail.
So we were at the very end of this.
We were at the very end of this.Project Literally.
Literally we were doing transition ships.
(11:59):
But it was in front of a slider,so it was like.
Big one, expensive. 6 foot 8 foot long and with vinyl
flooring you don't necessarily want to use a lead 1 you can,
but so we were just trying to find the store didn't have this
because they'd gotten the flooring on sale so there were
no transition strips. So everything we got didn't
match except we found like. Two of them, just two, just two
(12:21):
on clearance. Yeah, randomly.
And Samantha puts the first one in and she puts it in with a
nail gun and it shatters and she's like.
Oh crap. Seriously.
And I'm like, that's OK, I have another one.
I'm holding it together because we're like 6 days overdue on
this job. So we're not doing all the other
paid work that was keeping us afloat at that point.
(12:43):
So we're like so overdue. And I'm like, we're going to
finish this today. And I'm like, that's OK.
We have a second one. And then I just hear after that
one got broken and I walked in and I was like, what do you
need? Do you need something?
Are you OK? Are you going to be OK?
Are you going to be OK? And she's like.
(13:05):
Just tell me what you need. I'm going to the store right
now, Walked. In and I was like I love you mom
help. He was bringing us lunch because
we were like couldn't even leavebecause we had so much and I
was. Like I will.
I will go to Menards, I'll go toHome Depot, I'll go to Love
Anywhere. Everyone is problem solving and
Jim just walks in with lunch andthen he's like what is going on?
(13:27):
I just like, OK, you emotional support human.
I was like. Tears running.
Down. No sobbing.
I was sitting on the floor. This was an empty house with no
customer. In it I was going to be.
Sitting right next to that broken transition strip, just
bawling. That room was cursed because
that's one of the first times I ever removed wallpaper.
(13:47):
I just like steaming it. I'm doing everything right.
I pull it. Just a chunk of drywall.
We actually have that before andafter on our website.
Yeah, the wall is just chunks ofdrywall.
Like I, I was like, oh, la, la, la, it's coming off.
And then I like it was extra heavy as I was pulling it off
and I was like the weirdest. Part of the wall.
(14:07):
And then I was like, I kept looking back and forth.
I was like, oh shit. We have to do an episode for
removing wallpaper. We do because they're like the
seven. Circles.
There's this. Seven circles of wallpaper hell.
Yeah, some wallpaper it's just and it comes right off the wall
(14:28):
and some wallpaper you basicallyhave to be virtue it off the
wall. Oh my gosh, that's so true.
So I'm excited because of all the things we do that we like,
we'll do something for a while and we'll enjoy it, and then
we'll be like, I hate this now. I don't ever want to do it
again. And then we have to just not do
(14:48):
it for a month and we're like, yeah, we'll do it again.
But one of the things that we usually like to do is painting.
And that's actually the most common thing that homeowners do
in their own houses is paint. Now all y'all out there, you're
definitely giving it a good try,but a few of you are painting
your ceilings and your baseboards and your carpet and
(15:08):
your outlet covers. Yeah, and or your outlets or?
The salsa behind your counter. No.
So we're going to talk about we need to talk about like just
some basic tips for how to make your house look like a
professional painted it. And we're going to do that after
the pee break, after the pee break.
(15:29):
So Arlie's back from the bathroom and is ready to teach.
So back to you, Arlie. For listeners, I'm up and
Downing my eyebrows. Yes, that doesn't really
translate. Your.
Audio up and down in the eyebrows, OK.
I'm upping and Downing my eyelids.
(15:49):
We should make a sound effect doit again.
I feel like it should be like. Let's talk about.
Paint, yes. So let's talk about Pink baby.
Let's talk about Sheen. All day.
(16:10):
All right, we're talking about Sheen.
First up is Sheen. What is?
Sheen, Sheen, right, Shaheeni yes, so, yes, so.
I should know that I'm really bad at spelling, it's true.
She's so smart. It is such a bad speller.
HEEN Sheen. What does it have?
(16:33):
Every kind she intelligent. Shen Sheen do I win the spelling
bee? Yes, you do.
Yes, you got it. OK, listeners, just turn this
off. They're like bye.
I'm just. Kidding.
OK, keep it going. Keep it going.
Sheen is basically the shininessof your paint, so that ranges
from no shine to extra shiny, which are not the scientific
(16:56):
terms. We will go through those.
There's six common terms, 6 common Sheens, and we'll go
through these. There's a bunch of like random,
random paint cans will have likerandom ones like Pearl, yeah,
Pearl or like low luster or mid luster, whatever.
And I mean like that's just brand specific.
(17:17):
But you can usually ask like theperson at your paint store, you
can Google it or ask like the person at you know, whatever box
store you're at to help you figure out what like common
Sheen it's closest to. Sometimes they have little
charts. Yeah, sometimes they have charts
because like. Pearl is really close to like
Satin. Yeah, I think that's between.
(17:39):
Satin and Sami and Sheen has both an aesthetic impact and a
functional impact, right? You're going to talk about that?
So we're going to do a little game for these, just a small
game for the listeners, and we're either going to call it
bitch, rate that shit. What?
(18:00):
Or rated A do are you? A.
Stroke. Let's censor the first one.
We'll call. It.
I have no idea what. I don't know what's happening
here. I literally spelt it out.
(18:22):
Rate earlier, rate it. Oh.
Rate it. Rate.
Yes, RATE, rate it. None of what you said you were
having, you were having a strokealso sound.
Like Scooby-doo? For a wedding, maybe.
Marshall, we're going. To get anything.
(18:45):
Done. OK, OK.
OK. So the first one that you guys
are going to rate is flat paint.This is the first Sheen do we
love. Flat paint for listeners.
I'm putting a thumbs. We're doing 1 to 5 S rate it 0
-5 but OK. Are we rating on aesthetics or
function overall? Overall function 0 Aesthetics 5
(19:10):
for. Approximately 2 weeks.
It's a 5. OK, so flat basically has the
least amount of reflection or definition.
So if you paint your wall with it, all of the little, you know,
imperfections or whatever won't like have any kind of
reflection. So if you're looking at the wall
from like the side or like far away, it won't have you won't be
(19:35):
able to see any of the imperfections.
So it's great. Absolutely.
For imperfect walls, it's the absolute best paint, and they
pretty much exclusively use thatin new construction.
They also do it seems. Counterintuitive.
But yeah, in ceilings it's I would say that it's five out of
five for ceilings because you don't touch it, you don't touch
(19:55):
your ceilings. So it's perfect it you know, it
doesn't matter like how texturedyour ceilings are, how perfect
or imperfect it's perfect because like you're never really
looking at the ceiling that muchanyway.
And then with the no luster, it just is perfect.
Then the next one is matte. Rate it. 1 it's very similar.
(20:20):
It is the first one. I would give it the same rating
like I'm the one who's always like.
Depends. I just went one up from 0.
It's slightly less bad for functional.
Reasons very slightly. Yes, it is it to the naked eye,
I would say it looks about the same to me, especially if it's
(20:42):
white, like yeah, you know, it'sreally hard to tell, but and if
you're doing it on a ceiling, it's there's no way you're going
to know the difference. I don't think it is a little bit
easier to wash though. So it has like a little bit more
durability and it scuffs a little bit less than a flat
paint, but they're very, very similar.
(21:03):
I would say that those are two like for a beginner, I would say
that they're basically. They're going to mostly look the
same and perform the same, yeah.OK, then we have these big
kahunas right here. Eggshell.
I give it a sideways thumb. This is one out of five.
Sorry. That is.
Not an option. What if I had a?
(21:25):
3 written here. Then.
Sure. I agree a three, three.
OK, agree on three. I think I would maybe say 3 or
4. For me this is one of the most
common. It has the same kind of low
luster as like the flat and the map, but it has much more
(21:48):
durability. It's more washable, especially
depending on the paint that you get.
You can wash it off, which makesit really great for walls.
But it still isn't like super durable.
And I feel like it's it's a great beginner paint, to be
honest. It's very easy to apply.
Yeah, yeah, I'd say. Second only to the next one
(22:10):
you're going to talk about. Satin 11,000 out of five.
Oh yeah, I give a thumbs up. Oh.
My gosh. Which translates into A5.
Can you tell Samantha and I don't like following rules?
No way. OK, also I'm winning so.
Satin is kind of, it's almost, if you look at a wall and it has
(22:37):
like kind of a reflection on it,but not really.
It's probably satin. You couldn't compare it to like
a Pearlish kind of luster. It's very similar.
It kind of has like AI don't know like a reflectiveness to
it, but it's not shiny. It's similar to the velvet that
is behind us. For all your listeners, just.
(22:57):
Just a little bit. Think of velvet like it has a
little bit of light reflection. But not a.
It's not really shiny. Yeah, But these egg shell and
satin are the most common that you're going to find on your
walls. And if you are in like a really
busy house and you have like kids or dogs or whatever, I
would definitely go with a satinbecause it's more durable.
(23:20):
Usually it's more readily available.
Eggshell I feel like isn't always in stock.
Yeah, at certain places you can almost always get satin.
You can almost always get satin,Yeah.
And it paints on really well. It's really nice.
It's got like a pretty even consistency.
Flat paint I feel like usually is a little bit thicker.
(23:41):
You need to mix it a lot more, yeah.
Yeah, So I I think that satin isprobably the best beginner
friendly. And it's the last paint going up
the scale that you can use before your walls might.
Slightly look. Like a gas station bathroom.
Yes, yeah, if your walls are absolutely horrendous and you're
not able to do like any wall repair, it's just not worth it
(24:03):
to you. Like definitely go with
something a very low luster, butI would say like the amount of
wall damage and the amount of wall damage your walls might get
are the two things that depend on what.
When you're done, I want to quizyou on like, certain home
situations. Yeah, but the just I don't think
we clarified it for flat and matte paint it like if you get
(24:27):
dirt on it, it doesn't really clean off.
Of the paint, no, it doesn't clean off very well, which is
why I say like low durability. Yeah, because if you scuff or if
you like get like I don't know if your dog.
Rubs up against it like our dog used to do.
Yeah, if. You spill something on it like
you know. Spill your coffee with salsa or
(24:50):
coffee. Or something it's it's like more
porous almost even though like it's a finished paint, it's like
almost more porous and it like absorbs.
Into the paint or something? Yeah.
Become part of it. And you can't just wash it off,
Yeah. I know why it's.
More porous. OK, tell us please.
So with paint, it's just a bunchof rocks, basically minerals
crushed up and suspended in a liquid.
(25:13):
The more crushed it is, the higher Sheen you get.
That's why flat paint is cheaper, because it goes through
less processing. It's kind of like with booze,
like a vodka distilled 12 times is more expensive than a vodka
distilled one time, which you probably don't want to drink.
It might make you go blind, but was just.
Like alcohol? With paint, it's very similar.
(25:35):
So like I did all my wedding decorations and matte paint
because at Menards it was only $20 a gallon.
So it like you would kind of payfor what you get.
Makes sense. It's more laborious to make the
other stuff, so it's more expensive.
Yeah. All right.
OK. So our last two da da, da is
semi gloss. I give.
(25:55):
Semi gloss a thumbs up for what?It's meant to be used.
Yeah, I give it what's A5? I want to use my thumbs.
OK, next I really. Like thumbs up and thumbs down I
guess. I love the look of satin on
trim, like I actually prefer it over semi gloss so I'm going to
give semi gloss A4 because it does look good.
And I like this is where we're different.
(26:17):
Like I like, I like shiny trim. Me too, I'm gonna give semi
gloss a three. I don't like painting with semi
gloss and I don't love its finish.
I. Have it in my bathroom I think
like. It's just, yeah, it's almost
like it wants to be high gloss, but it ain't.
So it almost looks to me like itjust didn't dry right or
(26:37):
something. Yeah, and a lot of the semi
gloss don't always have the sameself leveling properties as the
high gloss ones, so they don't have the hardest to roll on as.
Well. I feel like.
And it would show pretty much all of the imperfections.
Yeah, it has. You can see brush strokes if you
aren't careful, roller marks. You'll be able to see like any
(26:59):
bumps or stuff in your wall, bigimperfections like that.
So I would keep. We normally have semi gloss for
cabinets, sometimes satin for cabinets and furniture too.
But mostly cabinets, furniture, sometimes floors, places that
(27:19):
you have like a lot of high wearand tear.
Stereos question of function. Yeah, because it's a lot more
durable than. The first four when we first
started we thought you should put scammy gloss in kitchen and
bathroom. We did.
We learned that it's. Easiest.
We thought it was easiest to clean, which is why my and.
Most as pervious to water to moisture, which is true, but
(27:42):
your your bathroom's not supposed to have wet walls, so.
Yeah, it's not supposed to take it out.
That in the future episodes. Yeah, yeah.
But I mean I have semi gloss in my kitchen and it cleans, but it
cleans. I also have a golden retriever
who puts the dirt on my walls and I have satin in the rest of
my house and it cleans just fine.
Yeah. So satin's a high performer.
(28:03):
It is. It's a.
Technology, I think it because it used to be semi gloss, was
the one that was the easiest cleaned.
But the technology has come quite a ways, yeah.
The last one is. The last one.
Gloss. Gloss or also known as.
High gloss gloss. Gloss is on trend right now.
(28:24):
People are doing whole rooms of it.
Really. That would be so shiny.
I think they do like a deep green and then it's like kind of
like bougie but they spray it on.
OK, sorry, that was a random bowel.
TikTok, I would find that appealing.
I don't think I would. Unless it would be like a glass
(28:46):
room or something. Unless the walls were hello
brain where there would work like.
Unless they were. Wainscoting or judges paneling
or a board and batten. Something like that.
Then for me because I like shinytrim then I think any kind of
woodwork shiny would look nice. I'm just thinking of like floor
(29:07):
to ceiling with only baseboards and the whole wall shiny.
No, this one was like a lot of trim layered and then it had a
chandelier in it, so it like bounced off.
But that's kind of nice. See that being like a Moody on
purpose. I think it was like they had
like a bar room and they're thisis above my tax bracket.
But I don't know. I love high glass trim.
(29:29):
There's a brand from Sherwin-Williams that I'm in
love with. I love it too.
It's called. Is it the same one?
It's. Same at the same time ready. 123
emerald urethane. Oh, emerald urethane, there's
an. Emerald urethane.
And then an emerald urethane, which one is a water based and
one is an oil based and their applications are very similar
(29:53):
and and. That paint is so.
Good. It's so good.
And Emerald common is that? I.
Think it does. I think it might.
I think it does, yeah. But it's it's so beautiful.
It has like self leveling properties which you put it in
like like you put it on kind of thick, almost like you leave
(30:15):
like yeah, it's not like you're dragging your brush.
Like dragging a brush across your trim and you have very deep
brush marks but then that self leveling.
Yeah, it takes like a little bitlonger to dry.
So it like settles out and then you get like this perfect.
So like even if you have like kind of not the best brush or
you know you're leaving a lot ofbrush Marks and it's not super
(30:39):
even looking by the end when it's really dry, it looks really
good. Yeah.
I don't know if you're going to talk about this probably in the
future, but I will say one thingthat makes that not true what
you just said is if your house is at 85°.
Oh yeah, yes, that is true. And that applies to all the
paints you use. If it the temperature, pay
attention to the temperature on the can.
They're different for different paints.
It's. They're right.
(31:00):
If it's, whatever's on the can. If it's.
Too, If it's too cold, it never really cures.
And if it's too hot, it dries sofast it doesn't have time to
level, so you end up with all kinds of marks on it.
Yeah, ask me how I know. We love Sherwin-Williams.
Sherwin-Williams isn't like, youknow, everywhere, but we are in
love with Sherwin-Williams, I think.
(31:21):
They're pretty ubiquitous throughout the United States.
Well, if you have a Sherwin-Williams, use them.
I mean, we have. Plastic 8 in Lansing.
We love duration. They have different like names
of paints. So duration is one of their kind
of like general use paints whichwe love their duration in their
(31:43):
cashmere for walls standard. Residential.
Yeah, pretty much anything duration has like Sheens that
you can use and basically from top to bottom.
If you're doing something a little bit more special, you
know, we would say if you have the the finances to do it, do
(32:06):
like an emerald on your trim because it's so beautiful, super
durable, more expensive. It is very durable because it
gets really hard. And so it's just like we talked.
About this last episode, Sometimes more expensive doesn't
mean better. Like some things you buy cheap
instead of the higher, the higher end one.
But for paint, I can't say it's universally true, but for the
(32:27):
most part, when you're paying more for paint, it's because
you're getting more. Yeah.
And I will say the one the biggest marketing lie ever told
by anybody is 1 coat coverage. It's a lie.
It's a lie. So don't pay extra for a gallon
of one coat coverage thinking you can buy half as much paint,
because it's just not true. No, and this is a random aside,
(32:48):
but we've found the standard room takes about a gallon and a
half. Yeah, paint.
So maybe just by? Walls.
Only, Yep, Yeah, yeah. OK, So we're gonna talk about
the difference between water based and oil based paints real
quick. Basically water based is based
in water, water water. Yeah, 2O yes, spaghetti.
So now I'm imagine opening a canand having like spaghetti.
(33:10):
Chunks in there. That's when you leave it open
too long and it gets like when you're stirring it.
I'm like, no. Have these rust on it.
Yuck, I can almost smell that paint now that you.
Said I know sometimes an estimate that people be like I
have paint from when we last. Painted and it's from.
Literally the 90s and I'm like, and then they'll open it and
(33:32):
it's just, it'll open it and it's like crusty rusty on the.
Top and then it gets in. It does.
You can't take the lid off of that and.
I'm like. Crusty's in the paint.
Yeah, we can absolutely use thisto get the color formula very
tactfully, say like, yes, 'causethey're like, you can just
strain the rest out of it. No.
All right, so not spaghetti. It's made of water.
(33:54):
It's made of water as it's base 'cause it's water based based.
It's not just water. If you're foreshadowing
effective if your paint can sayslatex or acrylic, it's water
based almost all the time. Which is basically plastic and
water together. Yeah, which doesn't seem like a
great combination, but you know what?
(34:15):
It is cool, basically. So it's the most common because
it's easy to use. You can wash it off with water
and soap helps a little bit. And it takes as little as 30
minutes to dry. Yeah.
And then it has lots of kind of like capabilities for
(34:39):
contraction and expansion. It like if you leave acrylic
paint on something like, I don'tknow, your tray, paint tray or
something like that. And there's kind of enough of it
there. If you come back in three days,
you can like peel it off and it kind of stretches.
Love it peeling. Paint so much, it's literally my
favorite part of the job. That stretchy like elasticity is
(35:01):
how it is on your wall and so it'll take a lot of like
settling or yeah yeah it'll it'll take a lot before it'll
crack or break or anything like that.
Oil based on the other hand, dries slow and it dries hard,
which means that it's really super durable, but it takes
(35:26):
longer to dry. It takes like, let's see, 6 to 8
hours before it's dried to the touch and then.
And it's not like then put furniture on it.
No, doesn't it take like oh I forgot they take the same?
Yeah. So water based and oil based
actually take two to three weeksto cure completely.
(35:46):
So the difference between dryingto touch and curing is drying is
when the water has evaporated out of it or any any compound in
it that can evaporate has evaporated out of it.
And then curing is like a chemical reaction that happens
with like the resin inside of the paint that happens gradually
over time. And those they take about the
(36:08):
same amount. The recoat time for water based
paint is like, I don't know, couple hours, right?
I think it's like 4 hours. And then oil base is 24.
Yeah. So from just a user perspective,
it's a lot harder to use oil based paints.
(36:29):
Sometimes there are certain situations where it just makes
more sense. And that's fine.
You know, if you're not going tomove into a house for a long
time and you can, you know, do that and you want to make your
trim oil based and take that extra time, then that's totally
fine. But if you're using the room, if
you want to put it back together, if you want to do it
(36:49):
in a weekend, using oil based just isn't feasible.
Plus oil. Is so strong, the EOC's on that,
which are volatile compounds, organic compounds, Yeah,
volatile organic compounds, they're very high.
They're super high. We painted my tile backsplash
with oil paint when we didn't live in the house and I just
(37:12):
left it for a week. It was so so.
I have to be really careful whenyou're painting with any kind of
oil based product because like I'm someone who has tolerance
for like chemically smells. It doesn't like it doesn't
bother me to smell chemicals. Like I like the smell of
Sharpies, but do people? Not like.
The smell of Sharpies, I think normal people.
I love the smell of sharpie. But then when you you'll use it
(37:34):
for a while and this goes for stains too, and you don't
realize what's happening. And then later you're like, I
don't feel well. Something heals off.
Like you have to be really careful to wear like the
appropriate like chemical blocking masks because otherwise
it we won't notice right away. Some people can't handle the
smell from the beginning, but otherwise you won't notice right
away. And then it just makes you feel
ill later. Yeah, you can taste it.
(37:56):
You can't. Yes, like here is sinuses
definitely. Like I would say a whole
different beast. You need like mineral spirits or
some kind of paint thinner to get it off of your.
Yeah, if you get it on your stuff, it doesn't just wash off
like latex. And it's just harder to use and
like we've used the Emerald urethane before, which is an oil
(38:20):
based product and you know, we figured it out, it's fine.
And we we loved what we did withit, but it isn't as easy as just
simply using a water based. You have to have a very specific
reason, yeah, to pick an oil based product.
Plus there used to just be waterbased and oil placed and now
there's kind of like in between some.
(38:42):
So like if you need an oil basedapplication but you don't have
the time to wait, I would just do some research on it because
like my cabinet paint is a acrylic base, but it's oil
enamel enriched. So somehow they got them to mix
together and it's super durable.Like my dogs have a counter
(39:04):
surfer and sore claws have gone down the kind of stuff a lot and
I can just clean it off and it'sgood to go.
So yeah. Speaking of enamel enamel,
actually it used to refer to thefact that it was oil based.
And so it at one point in time all enamel paints were oil
(39:25):
based. But now it kind of is for it's
used more as like a Sheen type definition.
Are you, like, it means like hardness, Yeah, yeah.
Like durability and hardness like I see a lot of.
Like furniture, paint, Say, likeenamel.
Yeah, but it's water based. So enamel no longer means like
it's oil or water based. It just means that it has that
(39:49):
type of finish, that durability.So if you're looking at
something and it says like waterbased enamel or acrylic enamel
or something, it's. You have to look at the can and
see whether it's oil or water based, but a great.
Place to start for a beginner iswater based.
Yeah, great, great place. I would not dive right into oil
(40:09):
painting, no. So I know you're going to teach
us some other things next week. What's on the agenda for next
week's teaching? Next week we're talking about
some painting equipment things that you need.
We're talking about our least favorite, which is brushes.
We're going to brush around and find out.
If you're asking yourself the question, does the quality of
the equipment matter, Yes, that's the short answer.
(40:32):
But join us next week to get thelong answer.
And Emily, how can they find us if they're interested in what
we're doing? So there are two ways to support
us on social media because we have two accounts.
So if you want to be your own handy ma'am, you can follow us
at How to Handy Ma'am. And if you want to see how we're
other people's handyman or if you're in the Lansing Greater
(40:55):
Capital area, you can find us atMy Handyman.
And yeah, that's pretty much where you can find us on most
social media. And if we don't have the social
media, I sorry. Yeah.
And if we haven't said this before, this podcast has a
purpose and it's purpose is to eventually raise enough money to
incubate in person programming, which we're very excited about.
(41:18):
So we look forward to talking with you more about that.
But and. We'll we'll post content about
what we care, why we care and where we got here.
But just a short of it, just because I'm excited to share is
I really did have a little bit of experience in this.
She was growing up DIY. But neither of us did it.
(41:38):
I didn't grow up doing DIY's, Samantha's my mom and like we
usually. DIY do.
Yeah, you did. Yeah.
Interesting, on my way to say that.
But so we learned this five years ago and we'll share more
in an episode of like how we came to this.
But I'm an artist by trade. Samantha's been in HR and
(42:01):
corporate stuff for years and years.
And we untraditionally found ourway into the field.
And I think that is something all women can do.
Or we want to teach you enough so you can have good contractor
relationships and know when the wool is being pulled over your
eyes or you can do stuff in yourown home.
So. So we're going to pull back the
(42:22):
curtain and show you how to get into all of.
This yes. And please support us because we
are making good things happen inthe world and we need your help.
Yes. And thanks for listening.
We love you.
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