Anjali: We're taking on these projects ourselves. So I've noticed a lot of times that the higher end items make it a little easier to install. Or even something like a grout that's premixed rather than mixing it yourself, you can spend a little bit more and have that done. Those type of shortcuts do help us in the long run, the time saver and just make it a little bit easier.
Mike: Welcome back to Retail-oriented retail fans. I'm your host, Mike Fowler. I am the VP of retail strategy here at the Sales Factory, and we're really lucky because today on this episode, we're joined by not one but two special guests, Anjali and Janae. Thank you so much for joining us. Anjali and Janae are first time home buyers. They're engaging in some DIY projects on their houses right now. We're going to hear a lot about that. It's an interesting time because for the first time in the history of our country, millennials are now outpacing any other generation in homeownership, so we want to hear from them what they're interested in, how their retail shopping experience is going, how their DIY projects are going, et cetera. So it's going to be an interesting episode. Guys, thank you so much for joining us.
Janae: Of course. Thank you for having us.
Mike: Anjali. To start us off, kind of tell us a little bit about your current situation. First time house, what projects are you going after? Just kind of give us a little bit of your background here on this.
Anjali: Sure. So we bought our house about seven years ago, and since then we've done smaller projects, retiling the bathroom floor, replacing hardwood in the main living spaces. Right now we're renovating the kitchen all on our own with a little bit of help. But yes, it's a big project that we planned for about a year or two now.
Mike: Wow. Yep. That's a big undertaking. It is. All right. We're going to ask some more questions about that Janae. So tell us a little bit about your project. Tell us about your house. What are you undertaking today?
Janae: Yeah, sure. So we bought our house about two years ago now, pushing on three years. We've done small projects here and there. The biggest project that we have undertaken, which we're still doing a little bit, is painting our entire house, which was really nice. When we moved to the apartment, we had some time between our lease and buying that we were able to paint without furniture in the house, which was really nice, very convenient. So that was just a big undertaking in itself. But right now we're kind of working on some of the other big areas. It's like our basement. We would love to refresh our ceiling, so that's definitely coming up in the near future.
Mike: A lot of first time home buyers, millennial, younger buyers, they're now buying older homes. So we're seeing this as a trend across home purchases where they're buying older houses that have got some fixer upper or projects. When you purchased your home, did you feel like there is a huge list of projects that you wanted to tackle, or did it kind of start small and start to escalate and grow as you got into your home and started to uncover like, oh, these are all the things that I wanted to do. Anjali, have you experienced any of that?
Anjali: No,
Janae: Absolutely.
Anjali: In the beginning it was the small things such as, let's paint this wall or touch up this area. The bathroom tiles came in first and then slowly, slowly started adding that list grew longer and longer. It came to installing new ceiling fans and lighting, and now we're at the kitchen phase. So it kind of grew and evolved. Also, trends too. We were looking at what was going on now, trying to update the older features of the house and make it more in style, I guess.
Mike: Yeah, that's interesting. As you are there, trends are changing. Projects that you're wanting to tackle are changing and it evolves and it tends to grow. Right. I know for me it's always been it's never done type of thing. It's always something. There's always something to work on.
Anjali: Oh, for sure. And also, it depends on your lifestyle too. When we first purchased the house, our children were younger, and so certain projects weren't so important, but now that they're older, other projects we put in, such as we had a bonus room, which was carpeted. We don't need the carpet anymore. We took it out and put hardwood floors in since the kids were a little bit bigger, seeing crayon stains or marker stains wasn't a concern anymore. So we evolve. Our lifestyle changes, so the house changes with us
Mike: And work from home has kind of evolved during that timeframe as well. So when you're purchasing your home and kind of thinking about projects, was a space in the house to work from part of that consideration? Janae? Did you guys think through that?
Janae: Not at the time. So I was completely in office at the time. Two years ago. I definitely didn't think I was going to transform my bonus room into an office space, but I do enjoy it. I do love it. Now it's kind of my own personal office myself. My husband has his own room. We do not have kids right now, so we are kind of taking advantage of the space, kind of having our own personal spaces currently with the bonus rooms, and of course with our dogs, they have their own space too. So it's been kind of nice just to see how our house has evolved to our liking because as far as previous owners, they did have kids. So that was the biggest move for our biggest project with painting with all of our rooms being different colors of green and purple and pink and things like that. So we definitely just had to switch it over to our lifestyle.
Mike: It's interesting, and now we're all spending more time in our homes it seems like with work from home. So making it our own is really important. What we were spending so much time there, whereas we used to spend all of our time in the office and be at home in the evenings and stuff. So that's kind of motivated a lot of projects, I think for a lot of folks. When you were kind of thinking about purchasing your home to step back, what was motivating the purchase?
Janae: Probably the biggest thing that we had taken into consideration was the space. So we are big dog owners. We love our big dogs, but of course they do obviously up a lot of space. So being in a two bedroom apartment, it doesn't allow much space for them to run around. Even of course, being outside, they don't have their own personal space. So that was a huge drive for us to want to have our own home, obviously our own yard and things for them to enjoy as well, but also just looking for investments. So we, just based on what you had said previously, we were looking to purchase an older home that we could invest in so that hopefully years down the road that it would be a really great return on our investment of time and profit that we put into the house. So I would definitely say those are the two biggest drives for our home purchase two years ago.
Mike: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Anjali, any other factors that you guys were thinking about as you were thinking through?
Anjali: Other than kids growing up and needing more space, the big push was the low interest rate at the time our mortgage ended. We remember those long time ago. But yeah, the interest rate was made it so that our mortgage was cheaper than renting. So It was a no-brainer.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's changed in the past couple of years, but really interesting motivating factors. So you guys get into your homes, you start kind of getting settled in and start working on projects. What kind of the big things that you guys wanted to tick off first and then Angel, you talked about kitchen and stuff now, but what are the things that you're thinking about now and next in terms of home projects and DIY projects? Janae, you want to start us off on that one?
Janae: Sure. So like I said, we still have some progression with the whole painting and finishing up everything. I feel like we feel pretty good as far as the upstairs go. We've done some kitchen renovations, not necessarily as much. I'm sure you'll talk more about it as well. But as far as appliance goes, just kind of getting everything updated since everything was really out of date when we first moved in, but definitely tackling our basement. So it would be considered a finished basement, but we have completely replaced all the flooring. We wanted to do new carpets because of course we've seen that it was really outdated. I believe that they had also had dogs too, so you could tell it was just time to replace it. So we did that, and then what we're going to do next is sheet rock, the basement, because right now it's just fully brick. So really just kind of turning that into a really fun area for entertainment and things like that will definitely be a big project that we'll take on sometime soon.
Mike: That's a pretty big project. Are you guys going to be taking on all of that project or some of it? How are you guys thinking about how you're going to tackle the basement?
Janae: I believe that watching enough YouTube videos, I think we can kind of take on, but it just depends on as we really start to plan that project out just to see if we do need to contract any help out. But primarily we will start that project by ourselves.
Mike: Okay. That's cool. I want to come back to that YouTube comment. Interesting. In terms of how people are learning about projects these days. Anjali, what about you? What projects were first on the list? What have you tackled and what's next coming down the pipe and mention the kitchen too. That's a big one for a lot of folks.
Anjali: Sure, sure. So when we did first purchase, the house kitchen was actually at the top of my list, but that wasn't something that we could tackle, especially with the young kids. It was not something we could do. We know we wanted to do it ourselves. So we did start with smaller projects such as retiling, the bathroom floor, and then the hardwood floors and things like that. The ceiling fans. So the kitchen's going on currently as we speak, but the next project after that will be taking out the carpet that we have all upstairs and on the stairs too, and refinishing our stairs and make it look much nicer with hardwood floors and things like that. After that, I would love to see more done to the backyard too. So we want to focus on the outside of the house.
Mike: We always kind of think about projects that are happening in the home, but there's a ton of projects that are happening around the home, tons of landscaping things and patios and fire pits and all that kind of thing to make the outside fun and a great place to be as well. So pulling out carpet, refinishing, hardwoods, are you guys trying to tackle that yourselves? Because that's a big project too.
Anjali: I think at this point we can create our own YouTube channel with everything that we've done, but yes, we will be doing it ourselves as well.
Mike: Wow. So these families are tackling some pretty big projects, guys, if you're talking about refinishing a basement, pulling out carpet, refinishing, hardwood floors, doing kitchens and stuff like that. Y'all are taking on some big things.
Anjali: I probably need to call you up whenever I know to our floor collaborating and
Mike: Sharing some ideas here. Talk a little bit about how are you learning about these projects? How are you making decisions about what comes next and where do you purchase all those kinds of things. So how are you learning about them first? Are you getting inspiration from friends and family online? What's kind of driving these projects? Anjali, you want to talk a little bit about that?
Anjali: Sure. For us, it's about our needs. What do we need right now? Obviously the kitchen was something we needed earlier on, but now we're at that point that we have that confidence to do it. The inspiration came from walking into the stores and seeing what's out there, a little bit of research online, also visiting newer homes to see what's trending. That also helped a lot. My style is more of timeless. I want something that's going to look good for the next 15, 20 years and not just in the now. So that's kind of how we've been learning. Now, the actual process of it, we watched a lot of YouTube videos, and the best was being able to talk to professionals, which isn't as easy as it sounds, talking to people in the stores or even designers. If we meet a kitchen designer that we're able to talk to them about, Hey, what do you think? How do you do this? What's easier to use? Those type of questions come up as through our journey.
Mike: When you are talking to designers or contractors or pros, do you ever engage with 'em online, like social media type thing? Or is it all like, Hey, happen to be standing next to this person at a cookout or in the store or whatever and kind chat with them and pick their brain that way? Or is it both?
Anjali: Not so much online, mostly face-to-face. If certain stores have services where you can talk to a professional or you can set up a design consult, that's where I like to get a lot of my information. Right now what's happening is I'm picking a backsplash and I'm talking to a designer and I like to feel the backsplash look at it, how do I clean it, how do I install it, those type of things. Actually being able to face-to-face, talk to someone is more valuable for me. That's how I learn.
Mike: And you're doing that in the store with some of their design services and stuff?
Anjali: Yes.
Mike: That's impactful. So as you're thinking about investing in what's happening at the store level, these designers and the efforts that retailers have made to put design services at the fingertips of all of their DIYers, it's paying off because you guys are actually using it. That's really interesting to hear. We always want to understand what are all the initiatives that retailers are doing and putting out there, and are they working? Is it paying off in sales and learning and consideration at the store level? So that's cool stuff to hear. Janae, how about you in terms of inspiration and where the needs and the drivers are coming for some of these projects?
Janae: So I would probably have to second just some of the things that Anjali talked about as far as some of the trends being more timeless than it is just right now, just personally for my family, it sounds like for yours as well, that just seems like a waste of money. So we want our investments to really pay off in the long run so that we're not constantly changing something every single year. So that would kind of just be a waste of time and money. As far as inspiration goes, I feel like when we first started our projects about two years ago when we first had our home, social media was big. I mean, TikTok, when Covid came about was huge. So there was a TikTok for every single DIY project, something small or big. Again, YouTube. I mean, there's a YouTube video for honestly every single thing. So at that point, we can definitely teach ourselves just by watching all the videos and things on social media. So those have been really great resources for us just to learn new things, but also from our neighbors. So in our neighborhood, we do have some older homes. Of course, like I said, we did purchase an older home, but we have a lot of younger families, so they're doing a lot of outside work and inside work. So it's been nice just to be able to talk to people that have similar home styles to us so that it really gives us a good idea on what projects are realistic for our homes. One of our very future big, big projects is to change the siding on our house. So our neighbor in front of us just did it. I love the style that they did. So we've been talking with them a little bit about their project, so hopefully in the future maybe that can be something for us too.
Mike: That's cool. See an inspiration directly across the street or next door. Thats always a good one. I have a question for you on that. So you mentioned social media and seeing all this stuff, and there's a TikTok for every project. Do y'all's algorithms now feed you home projects, or is it other passion things? Because speak personally and say my wife, she fusses at me when I change the algorithm from home decor and design stuff and Architectural Digest, which is what she wants the YouTube channel to give us to bicycle stuff, which is what I want the YouTube channel to go, and she's like, you are messing up the algorithm. It's not showing me all my home decor things anymore. So y'all give you what you're looking for. Is it all from project the most?
Janae: I think home in general between cooking is just a really big passion for me. But again, that just goes into kitchen projects and then other home projects. But yes, I will fuss at my husband if he starts to look at different dog videos and all of his other interests, I'm like, I need my home video. So I completely understand your wife's frustrations.
Mike: Well, the kitchen projects that just sparks another project on you. It's like, I want to cook, but I'm going to need it to look like this in the background while I'm cooking. Exactly. Talk us through how you guys are making decisions in terms of purchases for these home projects. You kind of get inspiration. You're probably learning and asking people to figure out, is this something I can do myself or do I need to hire somebody? And then you're thinking, okay, what are the materials that I need to complete this project? So how are you guys approaching the purchase process for these projects? Anjali, do you want to kind of start us off on that?
Anjali: Oh, Sure.
Mike: And just talk us through your decision tree a little bit.
Anjali: Oh, absolutely. Back to the backsplash, one of the stores that we were looking at, the tile, talking to the designer, they also offered those clinics, the how-to clinics, and that was amazing. It really gave us the confidence that we can do this. They showed us what to purchase, how much we're going to need. They asked us our square footage of what the area of the project, and that confidence boost just helped a lot. Like, okay, we can have this, we can do this. And also we had a name to someone who is a professional, so if we had any questions, he was even kind enough to give us his business card that we can even call him mid project.
Mike: Wow, that's cool.
Anjali: So that was very helpful and gave us that confidence that yes, we can do this also to give ourselves enough time. This might not be a weekend project. It might take several more days. So just to be realistic with that, that helped give us enough time to work on the project, not feel rushed.
Mike: So when you went through that project, did you kind of make all of the purchases with this one retailer because everything was soup to nuts all right there for you in terms of learning, purchasing, and then assistance and customer support if it's needed?
Anjali: Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of like a one-stop shop. Why shop around at this point? We got everything we need. We just want to get our project going. So at that point, they made it so easy. They gave us a checklist, these are the things that you're going to need and how much you're going to need it, and we just went from there. So we didn't look at cost.
Mike: If you are a merchant at a retailer and you're listening to this right now, you may be thinking, okay, there is value in helping to educate our consumers and helping them walk through these projects, provide 'em with the checklist. Here's all the things that you're going to need because that stuff is turning into sales for you guys. You made all your purchases at that one retailer, so that's good information. Janae, how about you in terms of how are you approaching once you've decided you're going to do a project, how are you approaching, let's take the painting for example, where you're getting your colors and your paints and samples and brushes and all this stuff that you need to do. Because painting a whole house is a big project that takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. So how are you deciding where you're going to get all your stuff to do that?
Janae: So I feel like when we first started our projects, because a couple of years ago when we first bought the house, definitely approached a lot of projects through a trial and error lens. I think that me and my husband are just those kind of go-getter spirits. Let's just go ahead and get it done. There's pros and cons to everything. So sure, there's lots of mistakes that we probably made when we first started, but I definitely feel like our approach with projects now is definitely taking a lot more time for preparation as far as going through different supplies, different brands, what are they going to offer us if we use this? Is it more cost effective? Is it going to be, can we reuse our paintbrushes instead? If you constantly are painting, you think that maybe let's just buy the disposable ones. But if you're doing a whole house, that obviously is very costly.
Janae: So maybe just investing in some of those higher end products that you can actually reuse is actually better off if you're going to do such a large project as painting an entire house. So I have definitely tapped into lots of more professional resources when I do go into the store just talking with them just to see their lens of expertise on different paint brands or how I should approach this or how many gallons, I would say that was probably me, my husband, and i's biggest thing when we first were of course purchasing the paint is just underestimating how much paint we were going to need to use for our entire house. So definitely we've learned from that. But definitely the professional resources at the stores have helped a lot as well.
Mike: That's cool. So when you're thinking about, you mentioned especially with brushes being able to reuse and so maybe purchasing a little nicer brush rather than the disposable or the cheapest option out there. When you were thinking about paint, how did you make a decision between, I know there's a lot of different tiers of paint between good, better, best, extra, best, extra, extra, extra best. They've made paint very complicated these days. How did you make a decision on what was going to work best for you guys, and is it the same for every room or did you make different decisions based on different rooms and different needs?
Janae: Again, just kind of based on what I was talking about with the brushes, the two biggest factors is just cost and longevity. So as far as all the random paint brands in the world, we wanted something that was going to be cost effective doing the entire house, but at the same time, we probably are not going to switch up the paint anytime soon. We wanted it to be a timeless color that we didn't have to constantly update. So as far as just primers go, we definitely seen that maybe it didn't have to be the most expensive, right, because all it's just going to be that first coat of paint, but we needed a lot of primer with all the rooms being pink and green and yellow and whatever the case is. So that was obviously a necessity at that point, that primer, I know some people can get away with just the one coat of whatever color that they're looking for, but with those harsh colors, not necessarily. But as far as our finished coat goes, we wanted it to be a little bit more of a higher quality just because we wanted it to last a little bit longer. So they might have cost a few more dollars here and there, but I believe in the long run it'll technically pay off.
Mike: Yeah. What were the things that were helpful to you guys in making decisions about what you were going to purchase that wasn't an associate or wasn't a person that was directing to you? Was it packaging? Was it a commercial that you saw? Was it a YouTube? What were the things that kind of factored into your decision?
Anjali: I would have to say display in the store was super helpful. Having photos on the packaging about how the product will look once installed, I'm just thinking of one recess lights that we installed. They had a how-to instruction. Another one I really like is a QR code, which directed me to videos on how to install, and the videos were quick and easy. It wasn't no fluff, things like that. But I would have to say reviews too. So once we would look at it, I was able to look up reviews right there and the store and see, okay, what do other people say about this? Is it easy to install? How does it work? And things like that. That was helpful in making decisions on which brand to use, which type to use.
Mike: Did you ever find a product that you were interested in and thinking you were going to go for, look up reviews and then change your mind?
Anjali: Yes.
Mike: Tell me a little bit about that.
Anjali: Absolutely. One was faucets that we were replacing a faucet and I'm in the store, I'm looking at it, it looks great, display looks great, and I wasn't ready to make a purchase just yet, but I took pictures of what I liked, two or three of them, and then when I had more time, maybe the next day I did look up reviews and that deterred me from making the decision of buying that particular brand. So chose a different brand based on reviews,
Mike: They matter, right?
Mike: It's our current 2023, almost 2024 word of mouth is those reviews because we're not always talking to our neighbor every day or our family members, and so we're leaning on other people to get our advice on is this a good decision or not. Chia. Talk us through a little bit about what's helped you make your purchase decisions both online and in the store, other than the people that you've talked to. Obviously you've talked to paint desk people you've talked to, probably desk and professionals as well. What are the other things that are helping to influence your decision, whether it's packaging or videos or social or talking to a friend? What are the things outside of the store and the store associates that are helping you make a decision on a product?
Janae: I would say displays in packaging is really important. Of course. I feel like we all navigate the world. Of course with our eyes, if it's eye catching, we're definitely going to lean towards it, but reviews are huge for me, so I promise you I'll never buy a product if it doesn't have a review.
Mike: Wow, okay.
Janae: I think I have just had way too many bad experiences with something that may even have one or two reviews. Right. Reviews are so powerful. I feel like they should be to everybody. I've definitely convinced my husband that he needs to look at reviews when he orders things too, but that has been the biggest influence on a lot of my purchases, especially weighty ones as far as different tools for projects or just in general for anything in our home at this point. But reviews are just the biggest motivator of our purchase at all.
Mike: Yeah. So how are you making a decision or are you making a conscious decision on when do you look at reviews? Do you look at 'em on everything or is there a threshold or a comfort level of a project or a brand that kind of triggers, I'm going to look at some reviews on this. Have you thought about that at all?
Janae: I'd say it would probably be the cost. So I might not look at a review for something that might be five to $50. Again, it just depends on the product, but I would say probably in that range, probably if I'm spending more than $50 on something that is either like a tool or something that I really need specifically for a project, I'm going to want to look at the reviews for it so I'm not wasting my time and money for this specific tool, for the specific project that I may never have to use again.
Mike: Okay. Are there ever times when you're familiar with a brand and you've used them before you had a good experience and you don't look at reviews because you trust the brand?
Janae: Sure, definitely.
Mike: Okay.
Janae: So if I already have the experience of using either the brand or similar type products with maybe even the same brand or just products in general, I probably won't look at a review.
Mike: So experience and trust can kind of factor into that as well, whether or not you're going to review it and research it more and kind of dig down deep. This is an interesting one, and this will peel back some layers of the DIY onion on maybe not the best experiences. If you had it to do all over again, purchasing your home, doing a project, would you do anything different and kind of talk us through that? Janae, you want to talk us through that one first?
Janae: Yeah, probably plenty. I would. As far as having the home, I love it. I love being able to just to have a space that I call my own to do the projects and things like that. But like I said earlier, definitely just taking a little bit more time to prepare some of those big projects just to kind of count out all the costs, definitely the time, the effort that goes into the projects so you're not getting burnout. Doing the projects too soon or too fast would probably be the biggest things that I would want to revisit if I had to do it all over again.
Mike: I'm going to put you on the spot, and I'm going to ask you, was there one project that you look back and you're like, I would either not do that or I want to do it a different way?
Janae: I will say, so trial and error. So me and my husband started, we wanted to do a little rock patio outside of our porch area. We wanted have a nice area for our grill and some other furniture outdoors, so we didn't use the best weeded barrier area. So I'm sure you could guess what happened since we didn't do that. Of course, weeds were to grow over it, so that was a huge hassle for us to fix the issue, to redo it, dig up the rocks and things like that. So if we had to do that over again, I would have invested in obviously very durable and probably much more costly weeded barrier for that project.
Mike: Yeah, that's a trial and error learning experience. That's not fun.
Janae: Definitely.
Mike: That's not fun at all. What about you? Were there any projects or anything that you look back on and you're like, I would do that different, or I want to do that one over?
Anjali: Yes. We had installed those custom cabinets in the closets, I guess they're called closet organizers, and we thought, yeah, this should be a piece of cake, and started nailing things in only to realize, oh, they're not on the studs, and we had to take things down. Gosh, we had to open up the drywall and it was a mess. A weekend project turned into two weeks, and so when we had started that project, we didn't do enough research at that time that, and that happened to be the master closet too that we did. So it was the largest one. Oh gosh. But since then, from everything that we did learn, we were able to tackle all of the other three other closets, and those were done in no time because we learned from our mistakes. But that's one that I would redo for sure. It
Mike: Sounds like you both could have a YouTube channel for doing all these projects. You guys would be stars on that, I'm sure. Have you guys found that when you're approaching a project, the trial and error and the bad experiences have given you guys a little bit of a process for how you approach research and everything? Has that changed over time or is it different by different projects?
Janae: Yeah, I guess so. It just depends. Like I said, I mean, cost is a huge thing, I guess, for any project, but I would say that we probably don't go with always the cheapest option, right? I mean, you buying your first home, you think that everything is great in glory. The packaging might be great, so you can't always just look at it from the outside. You need to do a little bit more research about the product or the tools that you're going to use, see how long they're going to last, and things like that. So it has definitely taught us to just take some more time to do our research for the specific things that we're purchasing for the project course.
Mike: Yeah.
Janae: Yeah.
Anjali: I just wanted to add to that. One of the things that I learned is that we're taking on these projects ourselves. So it's okay to, instead of buying the most affordable tools or material, we can go a little bit more higher end because yes, we're doing it ourselves. And I've noticed a lot of times that the higher end items make it a little easier to install. Or even something like a grout that's premixed rather than mixing it yourself, we can spend a little bit more and have that done. Those type of shortcuts do help us in the long run, the time saver and just make it a little bit easier.
Mike: Yeah. Sometimes easier. Makes it the outcome a little bit better too, so you're not fussing with grout or whatever, and then you've got different mixture anyways. Yeah, that's a whole thing. This has been a great conversation, but I never let any guest go or two guests go without some hot seat questions. So I just want you guys to fire back the first thing that pops into your head. Right? And since there's two of you, you got to both respond and no cheating. So don't think about it too much if you can help it. Do you ever miss apartment life and would you ever go back
Anjali: Never.
Mike: Not even like, no. Okay.
Mike: Answered at the same time.
Janae: Need space, I need my space. My dogs need to run around. They're way, way better when they have all their energy out because they can run around in the yard and they have their own space and all the maintenance issues that come with a home and taking that on yourself. I couldn't, I would never change it.
Anjali: Yes,
Mike: Never change it.
Anjali: I agree.
Mike: All right. That's good. That's going to motivate more people to do it. If money were no object, what would be the project that you would want to tackle? What's the next renovation that you guys would want to do?
Anjali: You want to go first?
Janae: Sure. So like I mentioned earlier, with our neighbors changing the outside of their home, we have a very similar style. So right now we have the, I believe it's called our vinyl cedar shake on the outside. So it's like half brick in that. So in awe, I love a brick house. I'd love for it to be all brick, but I'm not sure if behind the siding it gives to that, but I would love to switch it over to, I think it's like the brick and mortar siding instead. It looks a little bit more modern, it looks a little bit more updated. So I would love to do that sometime soon.
Mike: Okay, cool. Like the neighbors you're doing?
Janae: Yeah,
Anjali: I think it's good. If money was no object, then I would build a new house, tear it down and start over.
Mike: That's a big DIY project,
Anjali: Right? That I will not be doing ourselves and we'll contract that out. But yes.
Mike: Okay, cool. Same place. Just start over.
Anjali: Exactly.
Mike: Wow. All right, cool. One trend that you'll be happy to see the back of that you don't want to see anymore, that you want to go away. What's the trend that you just don't like?
Anjali: The all white, everything. That color is beautiful. So I don't know. I don't get the whole all white, everything.
Mike: I get it. I get it.
Janae: I have to say popcorn ceilings. I know that it's in many homes, and I know that there's a lot of obviously newer homes that are not having that for obvious reasons, but we have one more room. Oh no. And it'll be done away with at some point, but I just can't stand it, it’s just not the look.
Mike: Well, you're doing it. You're making that trend Go away. Good. One room at a time. That's awesome. And I understand both of those because we've got some popcorn ceilings, got rid of those, and then my wife is on the same page, the all white and black modern boxes, she just isn't into it. She's like, that's going to go out of style. I just want timeless like you guys. Right? Because it's a better investment last longer. Well, thank you guys so much for joining. This was an absolute pleasure of a conversation.
Janae: Thank you for having us. Thanks.
Mike: So there you have it, a great conversation with some first time home buyers and really heavy DIYers about how they're making purchase decisions in the store and online, how they're utilizing in-store services that retailers are providing some great information for both manufacturers as well as retailers to learn about how DIYers are interacting with products and how they're making decisions in the store. We love to understand stuff like that because it's all about the retail world. If there is anything that you guys would like to hear about in the retail channel, please reach out to us. My email is mike.Fowler@salesfactory.com. Leave a little comment in the comments below this video, and don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button, the little bell icon so that you always know when there's a new retail oriented podcast out there for you. And when you're thinking about the retail channel, don't forget it's always about selling in and selling group.