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Welcome to Let’s Build with Armada, the podcast where Washington homeowners learn how to remodel with clarity, strategy, and confidence—on a schedule that follows real projects, not a rigid calendar.
I’m Charlie Carter from Armada Design & Build. After years of working across the greater Seattle area, I’ve learned that successful remodeling isn’t about luck. It’s about planning, transparent conversations, and understanding how every decision—from windows to insurance to material selections—affects long-term value.
In each episode, I sit down with experts to answer the questions homeowners genuinely care about:
- Why your PNW windows cry every winter
- Financing options that actually make sense in 2026
- How to not get burned by a cheap insurance quote
- What adds value in Seattle… and what just burns cash
- How to plan a DADU without turning your backyard into a 2-year construction zone
Whether you’re preparing for a kitchen or bathroom remodel, planning a full-home upgrade, or exploring a backyard DADU for equity or rental income, this podcast gives you the clarity you need to move forward confidently.
Listen here, watch more real projects on our YouTube channel, and visit us when you’re ready to build with confidence.
And don’t forget to follow the show—so you never miss an episode that could save you time, money, and stress.
Visit the Armada Design Center in Bellevue when you’re ready to start planning your own home transformation!
📍 15600 NE 8th St. Suite O2, Bellevue, WA 98008
📞 425-587-8286
🌐 https://armadabuild.com/?utm_source=transistor
Hello. Welcome back. I'm Charlie with Armada Design and Build here in Belleview, Washington. Another episode of our podcast, Let's Build with Armada. And um we have a guest today that I have been chasing, a little behind the scenes here for you that I've been chasing since we did our first round of podcast taping. And that's been six or eight months and we've had three or four tapings that we've done since then. So, a little behind the scenes for you. And finally, I have gotten Mr. Jim Reynolds to join us today. Jim, thank you. You're welcome. Glad glad to be here. I appreciate you coming in for chasing me down. Yeah, it's been a while, but we got him. And Jim is the founder of Reynolds Landscaping, um, based up in Woodenville. And you guys are, and we're going to talk more about this, but just overview at the moment. You guys are are more of a landscape design and installation type company. We're going to break that down. You guys don't just mow the lawn type of deal. That's how we got started. But yeah, so designing construction at this point. Okay. So now give me a little bit of that background. Jim's story. I've known you for 20 plus years. We met in 2004 or five, I would think, when I first came to Seattle. And you're native, right? Or at least to the area. Born and raised in Seattle. Yeah. Born and raised few. Okay. So now tell me, how did you wind up at Reynolds Landscaping? Give me that story. So when I was a kid, I' I'd mow lawns for the neighbors. You know, I was always a hard hard worker, hustler. Went to college, finished college, got a job in retail and learned fairly quickly, I enjoyed sales. I enjoyed people, but I didn't like working inside, right? And so, like a lot of people, I thought, hey, you know what? If I got a pickup truck and started mowing lawns for people, this could be a real business. I had no clue that there was this thing called the green industry. Just jumped in and got started. Uh, and when was that? That was 1987. 1987. Okay. Post college. Post college. Post a bit of a little retail stent. Yep. Okay. And then into mowing lawns. into mowing lawns and and uh you know I learned horiculture. I studied under uh some good teachers at Edmonds College. Just kind of did that because I thought I better learn a little bit more about that side of the business. That sounds good. Um when you do maintenance, you learn a lot about shrubs, plants, trees. We cut a lot of trees down. Small trees, shrubs, uh various. You learn about vegetation, you learn plant names. So that became the basis for then design build only which was really probably mid to late 90s we decided to only become a landscape construction company. Okay. So 10 yearsish or so through the beginning evolution sort of the first phase of Reynolds landscaping was that and then that evolved after about 10 years or so. Then it was all landscape construction after that. After that since the say late 90s, right? So now that's been pushing going on 30 years. Yes sir. that you've been sort of focused on what you do now. Yep. Okay. And so, how's that gone? How's that been? I mean, we've been talking, you know, all the time for those years, basically. I mean, not exactly since the beginning, but pretty close. No, it's been great, Charlie. We we uh it's everyday's new, every day is different. Uh the seasonality of the business is fairly predictable. Typically, by the end of the year, we're we're slowing down a little bit. Then January we take off and then every month is a little bit busier until June, July and then people are on vacation. We hit our status quo. Then we get busy again in the fall and it goes go hard until the end of the year. It's very predictable business cycle. Uh you know with some nuances along the way for sure. Been doing the the landscape design and installation design build is your correct right. Okay. since the late '9s. And so before we dive into that a little bit, let's give people kind of that bigger picture overview of the green industry as you kind of referred to it a minute ago there. So you've got at one end, what would you say sort of maintenance side like? Yeah. So a lot of a lot of landscapers start out we we call them uh chuck in a truck. Just somebody gets a pickup truck, they start mowing lawns, they learn how to prune, and they kind of grow with the industry. So, uh, there's that's kind of the beginning point on up to being a a fairly premier landscape architecture firm where you charge thousands of dollars just to show up and do a design. So, our company's kind of somewhere in between. Okay. Um, and u yeah, that's that's there's quite a few [clears throat] layers maintenance and then you've got the design and then that of course can get, you know, crazy to waterfalls and which you've done and plenty of that type of stuff. I've seen it. You should see their website. Go check it out. It's really good. Some amazing stuff that they've done. You can It's a rabbit hole. You get on their website and start looking at the photos of the completed jobs now that 30 years. How many jobs would you say you've done like over the 35 plus years? Oh, counting large and small job. Thousands. Thousands. Thousands. And most of them are on the website. I think it's just uh quite a few. So, it's there's some great stuff to to see there. So, I would spend a little time there if you're thinking about doing something sort of making a a real change to your property and your yard and want to make it something really cool. It's a good place to start for some inspiration there. So, you've got the I paid him to say that, didn't I? Extra extra bit there. So, that's kind of the that overview. You got the maintenance side. Then you got the the design and build and install and changing the way your yard or property looks, right? You can change beds and grass and retaining walls and water features and patios and things like that. So, that's kind of where I wanted to go is what are those trends now that you've seen I'm sure over your career like it's changed like what was hot and popular as it's evolved to where are we now? What are the the current things that you're doing most of is like have you seen you have enough background to kind of see that? So, what's the cool stuff now or everybody's asking for? Uh, people want a practical design. They want to be able to get to their recycle bins, place to put the recycle bins in the garbage. They want a pathway around the side of the house so they can get to the backyard. Good connectivity. Um, everybody seems to need a bigger patio, a bigger deck, uh, nicer plantings, privacy screening, the list goes on and on and on. It really does. Yeah. Has it has there been some like you know for me in my world it's things that like I could just you know simply describe it as like for a while every kitchen was white all white and then still all white so no they're changing colors now but it's but so then and then you see that evolution no we're doing different colors and now we're back to stains or we're doing lamin you know so is there been something like that that there was a oh big slurge and no now we're not doing that we're more focused on the timeless stuff I know for me because I like to spend time in the yard and keep it nice. Is is that bed maintenance and the plantings and things like that. Is that evolved? Are people looking for simpler stuff, lower maintenance or just sort of dealer's choice? Well, there are a lot there there are many many new hybrid plants out there. C call them cultivars or cult cultivated varieties. So, kind of working from the outside back to the beginning. The outside would be the the finish work, right? the planting, the mulch, the the nice new seated lawn or sod lawn. Um planting trends have changed. Uh you know, years ago, somebody started the perennial of the year type of program. So certain perennials get presented. Uh there are certain perennials, for example, that that have, you know, color at different times. There might be like hukura. There's probably 30 40 50 I don't know how many varieties from from plum pudding to uh I can't remember all the names. There's just tons of them out there. Uh echynatia used to be we had maybe five to 10 varieties. There's there's I've lost count of how many varieties there are now. So that's the planting piece. Um on the beginning side though, we have to start with what what does a customer want. So, we have to start with uh you know, like I said, quite often they want a bigger patio. They want more usable space. They want good drainage. Uh they want a more playable surface for their kids. Uh on the other end, if people are um going to stay in their homes, they want to go they might want to go lower maintenance, just more lawn, artificial turf. Artificial turf is actually getting to be very popular now. Okay. We're going to talk about that and lawn. I've got a personal question along that line, so we'll get to that in a little. We've had this discussion about your own house before. Yep. Yep. So we can we can talk about that. So the patio bit now I know you guys are doing the patios and we've worked together in a number of projects where we've done the covered patio. We built the roof structure and some of that kind of thing and then you guys come in and do the rest. You'll do the retaining walls or the beds or the you know patios or pathways and things like that where we integrate together or the fire pit and you know the trampoline thing. We've done that in the ground and, you know, kind of build those. It never ends, does it? Yeah. No, it just keeps going and going. So, these outdoor living rooms, I think those are pretty prominent and popular around here. I think we're still doing a good number of those um that we're because it's just the weather here, that outdoor covered space. It should just be a automatic building code requirement here in Seattle. Yeah, I don't disagree. It's just, you know, it's just the place to get outside, be out of the house, but you can't use it so much of the year, raining and all that that, you know, put a roof on it. Yeah. Right. And then I I sort of you people talk about, oh, we want to do a a covered outdoor space, right? And then I'll ask like my first question, so is it the most basic covered outdoor space, which is two post and a roof, right? Or go from there. Like, you know, that's your starting point and then where do you want to go? Kitchen, fireplace, fire pit, right? you know, lighting, music, TVs, water features, you know, just on and on and on, right? And so, very big range on that. Yeah. And just like with your landscaping. So, people call you, right? They've they've looked at your website, I'm sure they have you come out and then sort of what is your process? How do you help people think it through? Right. I think because I think that what you guys do and what you specialize in is maybe more expensive than a lot of people think it is, right? That there there's a lot of cost and there's a lot of these plants aren't cheap, this dirt's not cheap. Um, you know, you have the labor side, you have fuel and equipment, right? And so there's a lot of cost built into just reworking somebody's yard kind of a thing. There's a lot of there's a lot that goes into that. How does how do you help them get a handle on that? Or when they call you, do they know that they're thinking about a $250,000 project? Is is that is there often this big shock factor when people describe what they want? You're like, "Oh, that's two or $300,000 and they're thinking, "Oh my gosh, I thought that was going to be 20 grand." Yeah, I there's a huge price range from 20 grand to 200,000 on up. It just depends on what you want to do. As I tell people, a lot of what we do does not show. So, if we build a wall and it's facing the other way and they're not going to see the front, it's holding back the soil, right? But most people aren't going to show up over at their home for a party and see that that was done, right? Uh, if the soil is well amended, the grass is healthy. They're going to see we'd see the healthy grass, but we're not going to see the good soil that went under and tearing out of the old soil, the dump fees for the sod. So there's a lot a lot of logistics and cost involved with getting from something superficial that just looks good to something that's actually built. Right. Right. And we don't have building codes like they do with with construction. There are Well, there are codes, but it's not it's not as particular like somebody can tear out their yard and put a new yard in within a week or two and and and there's not it's not like building an outdoor structure where you have to get permits for it, right? You can just do the maintenance. Yeah. Yeah. or the landscape the change things like a reasonable point right um so then what about lighting I know we are really talking about lighting and focused on lighting on the interior of the home and even architectural for the exterior of the home but what about the landscape lighting because I think it looks great I think they can be done so well and can just change the way the whole thing looks is that do you do a lot of that is that every now and then or sort of what's that like are Are people coming to you with lighting? Are you sort of introducing them to what can be done and showing them like, "Oh, wow. I didn't know I needed that, but I really want that." How does that sort of Yeah. So, let's talk lighting. Uh solar lighting. U people bring that up. What about the solar lights? Most so the best way to have a solar lighting system is have solar panels on your house that actually light your lights through 120 volt electricity, right? Um, solar lighting is will will give you kind of some temporary light, but it's not quite the same. In general, like I have to ask myself and ask my clients, why why do why light the property? And quite often people will think we're lighting the property so we can see where we're going at night. There's really a lot more to that. Uh, when you're sitting inside, it's kind of a rainy, dreary night and it's December, it's nice to actually see the garden. Um, and it, you know, it adds security and a lot of ambience. also allows you to enjoy your investment more, right? So, so just being the black hole beyond the sliding glass door that you see that lighting out there and like, oh, there's more to it. Yes. I I tell the people of the first year in our home, we did not have lighting, but we had blinds downstairs and once we put the lighting, we left the blinds open most time because it wasn't creepy and black outside anymore. So, that's very Yeah. So, you can see what's out there. Yeah. So, lighting is a big thing. I know that we're doing a lot more of that um and and you know integrating that more LED obviously lighting controls with the sun when it comes on when it goes off and all that kind of thing. Yeah, with LED lighting um at first it seemed different. It's really not that much different at all. Um I did a project where we changed 55 watt LEDs to five or 55 watt uh standard bulbs to 5 watt LEDs. They looked different for a few days, but really there was not a huge appreciable difference. Right. Okay. So, what makes and not that you've worked everywhere in the world to be able to necessarily draw a comparison, but I know you participate in some landscape owner business groups. And so, you talk to people in places other than the Pacific Northwest, but so what makes the Pacific Northwest landscaping uniquely challenging compared to like other regions Chicago? Yeah. the desert, this the you know, East Coast, the Midwest, like what what's the real challenge here? So, um yeah, and I I was in a consulting group for a period of time and and and uh the the people in the group from the Midwest couldn't really understand Seattle, right? They couldn't understand all the variables. They thought it rained all the time. Indeed, it does not rain all the time. We get a drought from about May till October every year. Uh so, what makes it different, I think, or challenging, I think, is just really diverse terrain. uh you might have a hillside where it's lomy soil, you could have a whole hillside in the same property that was, you know, a granite rock underneath it. Um so soil amending is very important. Uh in terms of wall products, so many different wall products like in other parts of the country, they don't have boulders like we do here, right? So we can use a lot of natural stone. Um microclimates, uh right, I definitely want to talk about that one. Yeah, microclimates are very interesting. So, uh, you can be I can be on one property and there's a shady tree area, five degrees cooler, different type of plants, maybe a more dense forest, be more, you know, good for like natural landscape, uh, natural northwest landscape plants. And then literally like 100 feet to the right or to the left, backwards, forward, same property. Uh, it's hot, like full sun. We need a lot more compost in the soil for the plants. And so it's uh we do find a lot of micro climates, varying soil, varying terrain can be all on one property in one place. Yeah. So not even from neighborhood to neighborhood like literally [clears throat] on the same property that shady space to the sunny space. Right. And you have to do things differently over there than over here because the same stuff won't grow or thrive in both spaces. Exactly. Or some things won't. Right. Okay. So microclimate. [clears throat] Now then drainage. Right. So drainage, we have so much rain here in the winter. You know, doesn't rain all the time. And those who live here know this. It's really a wet season and a dry season is more the way to think of it that we can go like you said May, June, 80, 90, 100 days with very little rain to almost none. And then in the fall we start raining and we get rain for, you know, another 80, 90, 100 days pretty consistently. So, I can see that that's a massive challenge in your industry for you guys to have things that will live through those different time periods on an annual basis. You bet. Right. Like, okay, well, it's going to die in the dry season. It's going to thrive in the like, but you know, I'm not going to get to the wet season if it dies. Right. Yeah. Right. You know, it needs So, how do how does that work? Do you have to irrigate or No. Yeah. Yeah. So drainage is really interesting because uh there there are many facets to drainage. For example, sun versus shade. It may be that you've lived in a home 15 years. The neighbors trees have gotten taller. They completely shade. Like Leland Cypresses grow super fast. So now the side of your house is really shady. It used to be dry. Now it's muddy. The lawn won't grow there. So really the drainage problem there is not necessar. It's more of a sun versus shade problem. Okay. Soils issues. If if it's a black lomy soil off the edge of a patio, it might just get squishy in the winter. Uh then it turns to hard clay in the summer. Um another I've had clients that had dog problems, right? They had two big dogs kind of shady. We put it in a new yard and they just trash the lawn. That and sometimes it rains for like you said, it rains for a long period of time. So there's rainfall, soil conditions, sun versus shade, uh clay versus sandy soil, and then there's actual drainage hardware. So commonly clients will say, "Hey, it's wet here. I need a French drain." And it might be the fact that it's too flat and water just sits there. So we need to amend the soil. Uh if we can get it to slope away from the house, that's a big factor, too. So So there's a lot to drainage, and every site's different. And there might be three or four items or places on one site that we have to address in different ways. Like maybe a French train in one spot to pick up groundwater, right? Catch basins in another spot to pick up surface water and then just grading so the water runs away from the house to manage it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's good soil amending helps a lot, right? And by soil amending you mean that you're changing the the recipe of the soil essentially, right? Is that what you mean there? Yep. Okay. And I know you have some stuff that we've talked about on projects and things where there's a mix of of sand and like regular I don't know dirt, right? It's like you're mixing it or compost or something to get a blend for certain applications. Like you're saying, "Oh, I need to use a 6040 here." Correct. Or a 7030 over there, the other ratio. Kind of depending on the application. And that's what you mean like you scrape it off, come back with your I know you've got some custom mix stuff that you've sort of developed over the years and then you apply those in those right places, then seed over it and from the top you can't really tell the difference but underneath there's different. You can tell the difference in the middle of middle of winter when your dog's outside and it's not a mud hole anymore. Right. Right. Okay. So, yeah. That the grass survives the winter. Yeah. So, integration's important important too. You mentioned scraping the ground. We try to get down, you know, a certain amount of old vegetation or soil off or we work with [clears throat] what's there or relocate it. Ideally, you're not removing soil from the site. You're relocating it if you can if there's enough room. Um, but tilling the right kind of soil into that lower layer and then having the soil by itself makes for really good drainage. Okay. Yeah, it helps a ton, right? And then the survivability and and whatnot. So, like I guess we can talk about this now. So, we did some stuff at my place and in the backyard finally got through that and a couple years ago and and leveled it. It was rough and seated it and I've got the two dogs and I think the soil is good in terms of the amendment and sort of the constitution of it. But what I'm finding is I have two big dogs, both females, right? And they are when they pee Yeah. that just it just that's a dog problem. It just kills the grass. It just like it's like someone dumped gasoline on the ground. It just it just dies. It just brown. And then I rake it. I treat it. I put more seed back in it. I mean, I'm constantly doing that. So now I've decided because it's so nice back there that I'm retraining them to pee in the bark chips or trying to. Is it working? It's coming around, you know, like so. But I but they these and I and I've read that it's female dogs are the worst way more so than male, right? Just what they go in one spot. Well, no, they go all over and you can see, but there's more of the, you know, here is a higher density of them, but they'll just, you know, be a spot like this and it's just dead. It's just dead. And that, I understand, is the nitrogen apparently in their urine. Yeah. Is what do But male dogs don't have that same issue that I Not as much. No, the other thing is it depends on the time of the year. If it's 80° outside, your dog pees on the lawn, it's a lot more likely to fry the lawn than it is during the winter time. Right. And I don't notice it as much during the winter. I think one of the things is my online internet researchers said, "Oh, after they pee, just take some water and dilute it down." Right. Right. And who follows their dog around all day long and washes and pee, right? Yeah. No one. Right. But the but in the winter and the fall, we get the benefit of that it's raining so frequently that mother nature sort of does that for us. It washes out on its own. Right. Yeah. Sort of. So it's I'm noticing a lot more prevalent now this time of year when I'm trying to get the lawn nice and I got all these brown spots. So best way to fix that is just receat it a couple times a year. And that's what I do. I just constantly am overseeding and cleaning it out and you know redoing it. So that's the and just get them not to pee on it. Yeah. Right. Or give up and go synthetic. That's another option. Yeah. So people are going with synthetic turf. Uh it's actually very popular. Right. Um so about synthetic turf, the good news is you don't have to mow it. Um it, you know, you can wash it down. Uh there are a lot of I mean environmentally there's definitely a ton of benefits to it. Uh we put a lot of crushed rock underneath so it can help with drainage. Um the downside is just the initial cost is higher and even the even the specific to dog turfs, you still have to wash it once in a while otherwise it starts to stink in your yard. So there's no perfect answer to that, right? We've been talking about that. I just my wife talking to my wife, she's like, "Oh." And her immediate reaction was, "Oh, it's going to smell." Right? If I'm like, "Maybe we just like we just if we can't keep the grass, we'll just put it." It is something to think about because if it smells uh and you have to irrigate it or water it down to make it not smell, then you're kind of defeating the purpose of, you know, being eco-friendly, making it low maintenance. Yeah. And making it low maintenance. Right. So, you're out there constantly. Now, I'm, you know, getting rid of the smell kind of thing. Um, the other thing about How much does it cost? Yeah. What's that rough? So, I mean a small maybe like the size of this room here would be $6 to $8,000. Okay. Yeah. Because you have to dig out, you know, 68 inches of soil, put in the crushed rock, lay the leveling material, put down the turf, and then put the material on top of the turf, the the the crumb, not crumb rubber, but the specific sand for for artificial right now. This is the similar same process if you've been if you're watching in the Pacific Northwest here in the greater Seattle area that very many of our our our athletic fields, the high school football fields and soccer fields and softball and baseball fields that those have gone to turf. Yeah. That they can't maintain the grass that it just it just doesn't survive the all the action and the wet probably because of soil issues and so they've gone turf. Is what you do in a yard, a residential application, is that prep similar to what you see underneath at a, you know, the high school football stadium or soccer? It should. It should be. Yeah. Yeah, it should be. And there are a lot of the turf vendors will sell to anybody that wants to buy it, right? And they'll they'll guarantee the turf, but the installation they can't guarantee. So, that that's what I would always caution anybody on is make sure that there's plenty of base material. I I like to see at least six inches of crushed material under the turf and that way it'll drain properly. It'll sit properly. It won't buckle. Right. Now, how does that play? Because we we were just doing a podcast. We do a bunch of these in a day kind of thing or a couple of days and then we push them out. So, we just got done not long ago. I had a septic guy in. Yeah. And so, how does that turf because of the drain field, right? And the implications of that and not affecting drain field. Can you do the turf over a drain field? Boy, that's a loaded question. I don't know if I want to answer that one, Charlie. I mean, I will ask. Is it a maybe? Yeah, it's a maybe. Um, I would not put the thing about a drain field, it has to be able to bleed breathe. I'm very very familiar with drain fields. Um, and they have to be able to breathe. And so, if you put crushed rock over the top, it it destroys the breathability. Okay. Now, if you're putting turf in someone's backyard and maybe part of the turf kind of edges over one of the drain fill lines just on, you know, a little bit, but it can still breathe, um, probably not as big a deal, right? So, but you can't sock the whole thing in or you shouldn't. No, no. I've seen that done once with a client put a sport cord over his drain field and it was ruined within six months. The drain field shot. The drain field was shot. Speaking of drain fields, and it was because the court installer didn't really wasn't really aware of that. Okay. They just So that that made I was just gonna and I'm going to talk about sport courts as well, the permeable hardcaping stuff. So that that you guys do those. Yes. Right. The sport courts. And I know those were huge a few years ago. Are you doing as many of those now or Yeah. I mean they've kind of morphed a little bit. So um sometimes landscapers will just build a larger driveway area. Uh they'll build a oversized paper patio, put a three-point line and put a really nice hoop on it. Um but yeah, the original sport court company, sport court, you know, type company, those are those are alive and well and doing doing well. Okay. Yeah. So those are basketball court, tennis court, pickle ball court, you know, all that kind you can like multi-purpose spaces. Yeah. Tennis courts aren't as common because they take up a lot a lot of room and there's a there's a very high initial cost to build a full tennis court. Tennis court size space. Yeah. If you're going that big a lot of yard. Yeah. Yeah. And and a lot of yards as as you know are not flat. And so it's not just the court, it's the bulldozing, the grading, the shaping, the drainage, the wall to try and support. And then if it's a full-size tennis court, you need margin around that so people don't just fall off the wall. Yeah. you need some extra some over overdig as it were. But in general, um I just call them athletic courts, right? Um sport court is actually a brand and so just call them athletic courts so we're not impeding on on the brand name. All right. But an athletic court that Yeah. I mean, uh athletic courts can be anything from a you know 600 square foot area with just a cheap basketball hoop on up to full pickle ball court. Now, pickle ball courts are getting very popular, right? Yeah. Very popular pickle ball. And they're not as big as a tennis court, so you don't need the same square. You know, around a thousand square feet and and most of them uh will will end up with like a basketball hoop and a three-point line. Sure. Yeah. So, it's multi-use. Multi-use. Okay. So, the pickle ball court, Jim can help you with that. Um and you mentioned not most around here are flat, which is a trueism as there were. There are very few. They might look flat till you really start digging in those. So then that brings me to retaining walls. Yes. Right. And that we do lots of them in all kinds of varieties from short to tall. And so talk about the hidden cost of a retaining wall. Like what? You see that wall and you don't think, "Oh, that's not that big a deal. I can go to Home Depot and buy those blocks and stack those up and boom, retaining wall." But that's not necessarily Yeah. Yeah. and and uh sometimes when clients do things themselves, it's it's quite remarkable, right? Um and and quite often it's not, which is why they they hire a professional. So, um yeah, I mean, retaining walls vary from from really nice, you know, handset natural flat stones that are mortared on up to just what I call a Home Depot style block. And there's every price from beginning to end. Um stone masonry is another option. Uh sometimes a simple seat wall like a fire pit wall, you know, 8 to 12,000 for something simple, right? Uh those are always custom made. So I mean you can pour them, you can do the big boulders here. We have a lot of where we where they'll they call them, if you're not from around here, they're these large this is basalt, right? These basult granite boulders. Granite boulders. And and they they call it a oneman rock or a twoman rock or a threeman rock kind of thing, right? And the bigger they get that how many people it takes to manipulate them or Volkswageniz rock if we get one. Yeah. And then they stack these things up. It's pretty impressive to see that these variegated weirdly shaped naturally shaped for the most part boulders. These guys will come and stack them up and make a retaining wall that can be six or eight feet high and you know step up there and down here so you can cut that hill and then have a flat space over here or a flat space up above. Yeah, it depends on how vertical you need to go. So, if you want to stay real vertical, a lot of times a port concrete wall, right, will work. Um, combinations are nice if you could do a combination of port concrete boulders. Uh, we've done some where we use boulders, wall block, and core tin steel with boulders kind of around the edge. Um, you know, every job site's different, right? Um, and every job site's custom. Sure. One of the questions is, are you going to see the wall? Right. Right. If you're not going to see the wall, then it'd be nice to invest money in in things that you get to see and use, right? Yeah. If it's just really a functional wall that, like you say, it's over there and I'm not really seeing the wall because I need it to lift up so I can have a flat space, right? And I just see it disappear. So, I don't necessarily care what that looks like. Exactly. So, I don't have to spend money on the aesthetic of that wall. Yeah. But just on the functionality of it. Now, one thing that at least in my head, not being an expert, is that one of the more complicated components of these walls and what can drive the cost is the drainage stuff going on behind the wall. Yeah, it's it's part of the all you got all that water in there and then where is it going as it comes to the wall or needs to go under the wall or through the wall that there's a lot that's happening there that people don't I don't think a lot see or recognize correct is that is that is my mind set right on that is that a big part your mind is set right on that yeah and and sometimes the drainage can get pretty elaborate um the the goal is to keep pressure off that wall so it doesn't move so uh Uh it if it's a natural stone wall, quite often we'll see we'll just put like giant chunky quarry spalls behind it and then a 4 inch pipe with a drain. Um sometimes if it's like just a few feet high and the soil is really sandy already um and there's not much surface area going towards that wall, then we don't need we don't need to worry about drainage. You don't need to overthink the drainage issue like that. ood big area. Yeah. Soil like a wetlands that's all cottonwoods and then a steep slope and then a wall and a shady backyard in a house. It's a given that we're going to do more drainage than if it's a relatively level site already with really good sandy low. Okay. And then what about irrigation for, you know, like I've now I've spent all this money. I've got this great lawn. I've got these beds. I've got my plants. I've got my lighting. got my fire pit, all that stuff. Now, how do I maintain that? Right. And is irrigation like almost an automatic with a lot of that that you're doing? More so than it used to be. Okay. Um, you know, our summers are long and dry. People are busy. They don't want to stand there with a garden hose and have to hand water. So, irrigation systems that are automated are definitely recommended. We like it because it protects the investment the client makes. Sure. Uh, then we don't have as much with plant replacement. Um, and a lot of the new systems now, most of them have updated controllers that that interp they're online, so they know what the weather's doing. And so, like the one at my house, it'll it'll actually shut off if it rains. It knows it rains most of the time. Sometimes it'll say, "We think it rained and we're going to shut your system down." I'll have to go on my phone and say, "No, it indeed. It didn't rain here." Yeah. Yes. It's been 80 degrees. Where did you get your weather data from? But it's it's actually a good tool in toolbox for water conservation. Okay. So you're not overdoing. Yeah. And then Yeah. So I mean has it gotten so sophisticated that like you could put moisture monitoring in the soil that would report back to the system? You can. Yeah. You're probably seeing that more like on a commercial application like golf courses. Um maybe maybe large corporate campuses that have the funds for that, right? The average homeowner just wants a sprinkler system. Okay. They haven't gone that far. Yeah. They don't usually start asking about sun zones versus shade zones. Drip irrigation is popular though. Drip irrigation around the shrub beds. Uh drip irrigation for planters and that type of thing. The whole goal is to protect your investment uh to get your plants to grow quicker and healthier and create more canopy. Um and then also convenience. Yeah. That you don't have to out there dragging the hose around and doing the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So irrigation happening regularly after you do the they're typically a part of these major in many cases. Yeah. Yeah. What what percentage of your more complex bigger involved projects would you say have irrigation? Probably 80%. 80%. Okay. Yeah. I want to speak to something else too with irrigation. Clients will frequently say I want lowmaintenance native plants. And in their mind they're thinking I'm not going to have to water. I won't have to do anything. Uh, unfortunately that's not true. There's still a long drought. So, what I tell people is if the plant gets through the first year and it's established and it's drought tolerant, what that means is during the late summer when it's really hot, it's not it's not going to die, but it's going to look like crap. So, things like blackeyed susanss, echanatius, a lot of perennials, if it gets really dry late summer and they're not watering, they'll just kind of shrivel up. And, you know, if you start watering watering them, they might come back. They might not come back, but they'll always come back next year unless it's just completely neglected, right? We have Meadowrass is another great example. Meadow grass. Yeah, we'll seed a whole meadow with me grass and originally it'll be pretty little daisies and other things and then more than two years it it looks a little bit weedy. Okay. So, it'll take over. Um, it can and I think that's just, you know, where we live in the climate we live with the weather that we have. Um, somebody's going to win. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, the native grasses and weeds that are nearby are going to blow in and they're going to they're going to change what was planted. [music]
Right now, one question shifting here a little bit is is in our area, we have what we refer to as kind of the east side, right? Which is not the Seattle area. That's the the main suburb corridor of And then we've got Seattle and and that's on the other side of Lake Washington. Look up on a map and you see Lake Wa the city of Seattle is pinned between the the the bay the sound and Lake Washington which is like 20 miles long and Seattle's on this skinny bit and then you got this huge lake with an island in it and then a couple of bridges across it and then you got the east side which is more the suburb area of the Seattle. Now, do you do much work in Seattle since you're out in Woodfield? We do. We don't do quite as much work in Seattle as we used to, right? Um just because we don't want to charge clients to sit in traffic. Um but um yeah, I mean the we work for people. So, as I tell my clients, when you're picking a landscaper, it should just be a good match, right? And if you get along with, you know, the prospective landscaper well and you feel like you're listened to, figure out a way to make it work from there, right? So you will go into Seattle and I will Yeah. Okay. So you do some work there. And then what's different for you? Because East Side we still have over here we have, you know, some small kind of standardsiz lots. Then we get into some much bigger lots, but in Seattle they're typically considerably smaller. And then how does that how does that change your stuff when you're dealing with someone with a smallish sort of standard Seattle lot versus the acre you know kind of space over in Redmond or what is how's your mindset different or what do you just I mean obviously you can't fit as much but what's different for you guys? Yeah. Well, we found that uh yards are like cars, right? So, you can have a small car or big car. You can have a small yard that's expensive or inexpensive. Same thing with the large yard. Okay. Good analogy. Um typically where we are on the east side, maybe we're out in I'm just, you know, Woodenville, Redmond, East Woodenville, Redmond, larger properties. Um access is typically better. Sure. Than on in the city where you've got a three-foot fence and it's all handwork. So typically on a smaller lot, you're going to your materials cost will be lower because you don't have this giant yard consuming all this top soil. You're not putting 400 yards of top soil, but your labor is going to be higher because you've got to navigate. You know, traffic needs to be navigated. Um, and then another factor is just like walking around on the site. So if you're on a big site, you can get to that backyard, you can get to the front yard. There's there's more ways to get around. Sometimes when we're in city, we've got three to four feet on the side of the house. Yeah. You can't you almost get a machine in the back going back and forth and it's all hand work, right? And you almost can't get a machine in some of these backyards. Yeah. I mean, we've heard it said egg eggs are cheaper in the country and there is some truth to that, right? So, yeah. Okay. So, just a little just that sort of difference. So, you can do smaller city stuff and make it very nice and very cool and people can have a pretty substantial investment. Just like you said, I can have a small expensive car. I can have a small inexpensive car. I can have a big inexpensive car or a big expensive car. Yeah. So, that's same for the yard. I can have a small lot with a substantial investment in my landscaping or not. Exactly. And sometimes we're uh you know, a landscape might just be removing the lawn and redoing the lawn and putting in new plants, right? Or it could be a very expensive natural stone patio. So there's there's a lot of variety just in one what person in what one individual might might spend what they're looking for. Yeah. What they're looking and then also their level of investment comfort. Yeah. And the trends are all towards smaller lots. So anytime you see uh the urban growth boundary move and they're going to put new homes in, it's they're very small lots typically, right? All these tiny homes and ADUs and EADUs and Yep. I mean I'm sure that's affecting you guys. We haven't talked about that actually, but how are you seeing that change or trend affect your business? Are you doing more of that? Oh, I have built a DADU in my backyard. Now I need to build a pathway to get there and lighting and all that. Is that is that like that's really a building? We love that. It's job security because somebody comes in and tears the whole landscape up that we put in four years ago to put an ADU for their mother-in-law or something to that effect. Now they got to put it all back together. Got to put it all back together. Yeah. other I mean I'm I'm kind of joking about that part of it, you know, in terms of commerce, but uh yeah, that's uh that's definitely affecting construction. Okay. So So you're dealing with that. Your company's getting called to like sort that out. Yeah, correct. I mean, you know, you did the same thing at my house. We put the the DADU in the back and that kind of then triggered all the other stuff. Yep. So yeah. All right. So that you're seeing that sort of a little bit of a new segment of business, you know, like for us, building the DADU, ADU is a new segment that's growing for us and and then now that, you know, gets down to you guys like, hey, the yard's tore up. We got this whole thing. Now you guys need to come put it all back together. So that's correct. That's very cool. Um, is there a difference? like it's just like this gardening you know a couple years ago we went to Europe and you know I had never been and we went to Paris and we went to Versailles and then you know we went to England and and looking at these 17th and 18th century formal gardens you know like everything's in patterns and grids and ponds and things like that is that and then that's just not a thing that's much done anymore is that a cost thing a style thing a choice thing we don't have a thousand acres you know for Versailles Yeah, I think natural. Yeah, I think certainly different there's diff different time periods that happen, right? So, there was a time where people wanted boxwood hedges and rose gardens. Uh now people, especially in Seattle, they like a little more natural look. So, it's not uncommon, you know, in a front yard for us to tear out all the lawn and just put in some some decorative natural stone, maybe big boulders, outcropping a path, and then plant it up with drought tolerant perennials. Right? So, that's a common trend. Um getting away from that more formalized or segmented like the boxwood that you know follow the path or follow the sidewalk and Yeah. making it more just natural looking and not hard edges. Exactly. Right. You're taking the edges and the straight lines out is one of the the the general feel is that you want to be able to flow right into the garden that you don't have to step over the boxwood hedge to get onto your own front lawn. Right. So Okay. Okay. Which is still I mean you still see a lot of hedges on new new landscapes. They have like the hedge along the sidewalk. Mhm. So, it's not uncommon. Um, it just we've seen like a shift in in style, what people are asking for. Right. Now, what about along that line in terms of do you accommodate or have people like that, you know, I grew up down south uh in in in the southeast the United States and and everyone it was very rural and and if you weren't a farmer, you had property and then everybody had a garden, you know, a real produce garden. They were growing corn. They were growing vegetables and they were canning and they were you know that was hold over stuff from that's a that's a big trend now. Are people gardening more and trying to grow their own they are produce and food. How is that affecting your business? Are you helping with that? Are you I mean they got to grow their stuff, but are you making the area and the drainage and the soil is like how does that Yeah, it varies from uh you know some inexpensive containers that the client picks up that we put on a crushed rock area that we prepared to you know a nice hogwire and cedar fence that has uh you know like metal and and and raw cedar garden containers in it um and drip irrigation. So there's a big variance on what people invest in that, right? The thing that we try to do is is talk to the client about, okay, how much work do you want to make for yourself, right? Because it's really, you know, we it's really easy to look out and go, hey, I want this. I really like that picture. I want all this, you know, all the produce. It's a lot of work to get it. So sometimes, uh, if people are really busy, kids are in supports, they both work a lot, both husband and wife work if they're a couple. Um, we might I might ask them, well, how much time do you want to dedicate to this? Right. And it turns out they just want a couple little square boxes to start out with. But uh yeah, it's uh it's a lot of it's a lot of fun for people. It's amazing when they dedicate themselves to actually having a garden at home. It's it's pretty amazing what you can produce. Yeah, we do we do a very gratifying decent little chunk of home gardening ourselves. And you know, I just coming from the south that you know, I like peppers and it's hard to grow a pepper here because it's not quite hot enough. It's a little bit hard to grow a tomato outside unless you're starting it. I'm not, you know, I don't have a greenhouse and don't do starters and all that kind of thing. I disagree on the tomatoes. Tomatoes. You think you can grow the tomatoes? All right. We'll have talk about that offline. Your yard is kind of shady though. Talk about that offline. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, we do. And that, you know, lettucees and cucumbers and, you know, pumpkins. We, you know, grow a couple of pumpkins a year, but we do a decent little bit of that gardening. And we're actually trying for the first time this year. We planted corn, couple of corn plants. Why not? So, we're gonna see what happens. You know, no idea how that's gonna turn out. If nothing else, you can cut them down and use them for decoration in the fall. Yeah. I mean, I might get a corn this big. I have no idea. You know, I might not get any. So, we'll see how that turns out. To this day, in my opinion, are quite inexpensive. Like, they just a bag, a little thing of seeds is four or five bucks at the most. Oh, yeah. You can. And even the starters, you know, I like to buy the ones that's already going. You know, the corn the corn plant when he put it in was a foot and a half tall. My wife put a couple of those in. So that's I would see that being just with people wanting to know where their food's coming from and being clean and not treated and overly processed with the chemicals and stuff that they really know what they're eating, you know, and when you I don't know I don't know if we're going to get back to canning. Yeah. You know, as much, right? That comes back to how you know how much work do you really want to do, right? That's a tremendous amount of work. The other thing too is it's pretty rare that a garden will produce enough to sustain a family like like in you know if you go back 100 years that you had to sustain your family but in today's economy you really have to grow a lot and spend a lot of time storing the food. So Right. And then you need the space to store it. Yeah. You know so that's a whole thing and what houses cost. You know you can freeze produce freeze. Uh my wife and I probably get 30 to 40 quarts of blueberries every year from our plants. We freeze those and keep them all winter into the spring. Uh tomatoes for for like soup base. Um those are two plants that you could grow and grow and grow here in the Northwest, right? Yeah. So that so the gardening thing coming around, you can do it. You can be you can grow your own stuff. Lettuce, you know, some of that lettuce grows small and work your way up. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We we did and got a little bigger and now we're fighting where else to go, you know, to get a little bit bigger, taking out some decorative plants and expanding the garden space a little bit. We're talking about that for next summer. That'll be next summer. And then we're going to Yeah, we're going to get it a little bit Charlie's yard up and get a little bit bigger. Yeah. Um Okay. So, we're winding down here. Um, what have we not talked about, sir, that you would say is an important part that you wanted to leave people with something to think about from a landscaping standpoint for their house, their home, you know, that you would say make, you know, do this or don't do that or be aware of this or what's the thing we didn't talk about that you want to get out there to everyone watching? Um, I think so, let's back up a little bit. When you hire a plumber, um, let's just assume that that plumber's licensed. They're certified. You've got PEX pipe, copper pipe, PVC pipe, poly pipe, and probably some other pipes. I don't know about cast iron, but the variables aren't quite as many as when you hire a landscaper. Um, when you hire a landscaper, it could be somebody just where you just have them cut out some sod and you buy garden boxes and say, "Put those here." uh or it could be a complete design build project where we literally bulldoze everything and start from scratch. Right? So there's when you hear the word landscaper, you think of landscaping, I mentioned landscape industry, it's it's there's a lot of variance there from something very simple that your gardener could probably do on up to something that's very complex that's going to require architecture, design, maybe engineering and permits depending on the complexity of the project. Right. Yeah. if you're if you're getting into retaining walls or any sort of overhead structure, right? Drainage, any of that, you know, stuff can can get into that. And you guys, I've seen plenty of them where you have landscape architect on staff. They come out, they will you guys will do a drawing and you know, like they're really cool. They're colored and like here's this planet's this big and that's what this looks like and here's how this is going to look and they're very cool and fun and you guys will do that, but that's not a free thing. That's not a free thing though. That takes some real work. Most landscapers are going to charge between, you know, 2,000 and 8,000 for a design depending on what's in it. So, how big, how, you know, how big this big or I'm doing an acre and a half. Yeah. And the actual structural detail, like is it a full planting plan? Uh, is it one page? Is it five pages? That type of thing. Yeah. I mean, I've seen these with some of the projects we've done where they'll be multi-pages and it'll be on here. We've got 137 of this kind of plant. you know, we've got, you know, 92 of these. And then you go around, you can see them all located in the the whole space. And then just list after list after list. And just so you know, even though the design is really firm, we'll change it a little bit when we get started. Oh, for sure. There. Unless it's commercial work where one tree goes every 30 feet in that median that's 5t wide and four blocks long. Typically in residential work, a good landscape artist will will take the plan, the spirit of the plan, they'll and they'll kind of work it into what works best with the site, with the space. Yeah. Yeah. And sight lines and where you see it from and like, oh, you look you stand over here and look that way more times than not. So, let's make what it looks like over there most appealing from this direction. It's like interior decorating, but it's outside. Yeah. So even though you come with a plan or it's like staging a home, you you we basically work with what we have and and make it work for the client, for the site, right? And then you've got all the other weird constraints like how much sun I have and how long is the day, where is the sun, and that's actually really important. So up here in the Northwest, uh we go from in the winter on December 21st, 8 hours of sunlight and 20 minutes. Yeah. Right now, end of June going into July, it's the opposite. We have a good 16 hours of daylight, right? Uh what astounds people, my customers particular particularly is when I ask them, you know, what where's the sun go during during the summer, during the winter, and sometimes people don't they say, "Well, I think it comes up here and goes down here." It may do that on March 21st, which is spring sol the equinox and fall equinox. But in the winter, it's going to be way at the southsoutheast and come up, go over the top of the sky, and it's going to go down in the southwest. In the summer, it's the exact opposite. Y so these are all factors with where you're going to sit, where you going to play, how much sun is going to be on the front, the back, the side. Um, another thing that comes up is just tree removal. Like sometimes we have to take trees out to accommodate the landscaping. So which trees do we select? Which trees do we limb up? So a lot to think about. It goes goes way beyond just digging a hole and putting a plant. Very much so. Very much so. So I wish it was that simple. Yeah, I it would be great. And it's the same thing like I wish a kitchen would be simple. I wish that addition would be simple, but unfortunately with the complexity of the world and rules and regulations and things we have to do to comply with it, that complication factor and sort of detail factor just ramps up and ramps up and ramps up and all that ultimately winds up in higher costs for the homeowner because there's more that has to go into it. more things have to be done to deliver that end thing whatever it might be that all the stuff behind it there's just a lot of time and effort and professionals that have to be there to do it with expertise absolutely you know which your landscape architect people are not inexpensive to have on staff absolutely yeah you know that like I got a couple of them sitting around those guys cost a lot of money they do you know so yeah that's why it's three four five eight n $10,000 to come up with these cool plans because they're going to dedicate a week on that or two weeks coming up with that. Yeah. The thing about design too, in most cases, you're going to get that money back versus because it's a great communic I tell clients design number one is a communication tool. Right. Right. Once you have the communication, then we can get into what type of plants and all the little details in the contract. Right. helping people make sure and that's one of the things I think about the drawing phase for us is like making sure that what they think it's going to look like when it's done right is what you've planned and what you've budgeted for like to make sure that their expectation is clear like when this is done this is what it's going to look like right now it know you like kitchens don't grow and don't get bigger and you know they don't change the countertop's going to stay the same right but in your landscaping like you're putting all these little plants in that are spaced way out and they're like, "Oh, that looks naked and bare." Like, give it a minute, right? It's going to fill in. Yeah. Right. So, you have to anticipate that, too. Right. Well, I've learned a lot over the years by tearing out landscapes. Like, bushes just get things get bigger than we thought they were going to. Right. Very commonly, you've got the house and then all these shrubs in front of the house. You can't even see the house. So, we might start over in that regard. Like, plan all the big things out towards the street and that way you get the privacy from it, right?
There's so [music] much we could spend. Like we didn't talk about water features. We didn't spend much time on the retaining wall stuff. Like the water feature I think is right super interesting to me. And for the sound if you're doing a water feature, it's great for wildlife, but it's really nice to have that sound in the background. It's not like you sit there and stare at this thing all day long. You might if you have a lot of time, but most people it's just that background sound. Open the windows comes in the house. Yeah. We have a super flat lot. It's not very big. And um you talk about the dogs, right? And so I've actually got this cheesy little like fiberglass rock thing that's about this big that I bought. It's like a four tier thing with a little pump in the bottom and it just pumps the water off and it just and in the summertime that's the dog drinking fountain pretty much. They drink out of it all the time, but it sits right outside the sliding glass door which we have open 80 90% of the time this time of year and you can hear it. And you can't see it. You can't even see, but it's right there. We'll My wife will be on the phone. when we've got the kitchen window open and somebody will say, "Hey, do you leave your water running?" You said, "No, it's my my water feature in the backyard." Yeah. 85 gallon pump, a minute pump. It kind of cuts back on the noise. I did want to say real briefly, uh, do we have a minute to talk about about outdoor rooms? Yeah, please. Outdoor room is kind of a buzz phrase. What does it really mean? It I mean, in a nutshell, it means a room outside. Like I don't can't put it anymore. Yeah, I refer to it as covered outdoor space. Covered outdoor space is kind of the direction that people go. Um, we have found that that can be anything from a patio that we build that a client buys like a $5,000 per from Costco and puts it on the patio on up to, you know, two, three, four, $500,000, like an outdoor lodge, if you will. So, there's a lot of variance. Typically, when we get into larger lodge type projects, uh, in most cases, our clients are working with a general contractor at that point. Yep. Just cuz it, you know, one thing about being in any industry is you want to know when you get beyond your pay grade and that can get kind of blurry with landscapers sometimes and general contractors. There is a spot where the two kind of meet and the landscaper might be good at all the site work, the patio side, the stone work, but the a general contractor uh might be a better choice to build that covered area because there's a lot of permits and engineering involved, right? And that's exactly how we like to do it is that we'll come up with the structure, the plan, the the patio, sometimes like the roof of that, the skylights, the lighting, the kitchen, if it's a fireplace, you know, that's integrated, we'll do all that. But then as as soon as it starts to get outside of that, that's when I say you got to call Jim. Right. Right. And then we start working together with them. like we stop here and then you guys are coming to that and then you know it's like okay well we're gonna provide power here for you to pick up to go run the water feature or all the lighting out in the beds or whatever kind of thing and like tell us where you need it and then we'll get it there and you guys take it you know the good news Charlie though is rarely rarely have had a have have we had a client do all this work and regret it like they they just they're super happy right yeah that oh and they also say there's a lot more to this than I thought like they they think we're just going to go up and show up and build something. Like you buy nice furniture and it gets delivered and they put it in your living room. They don't realize that you spend a week. We could spend a week to week and a half just preparing the site to build a patio and a wall and yeah structures. It's that's a unique thing that that our industry is one of the very few that the client sees how the sausage is made. Yeah. Right. Because nobody sees how their car is built. Nobody sees how that airplane's made or your clothes are made or your food is grown and prepped and gotten to you at the store. You just see the end product. Yeah. Right. But for us, when we're remodeling, building, and doing new or whatever, and they come over, you're working in their yard where they live, they're there every day. Right. Right. And so they're seeing how the sausage is made. And that's good and bad, you know, that people can see, oh, there's a lot more to this than I thought. Right. So then they can start to see like, "Oh, I see why it cost this much. These guys have been here for a week and a half and you know, all the stuff they're doing now is you're not even going to see it when it's done." Very true. Like I said early on when we were talking, people don't see our customers don't see most what we do. If you have guests over, they they just see the nice lawn. They don't realize what what it took to get to that, you know, the leveling, the grading, the shaping, the thousands of dollars, the soil content, the amending, the drainage, all of that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I I sell I tell people that I use that analogous to that in for us is when I go to their house and it's a home that's 20 or 30 or 40 years old and we start talking about a project and one of the first things is I go out and I look at the electrical panel box, right? And it's 45 years old, it's original and I'm like, "Okay, well, this is going to have to be upgraded, right?" And I promise you that when the day your project is finished and your friends come over for that first party, you're not bringing them out here in the garage and opening this panel and go look $7,000, you know, of this electrical panel, which is there might be some people there might be some do, but most don't, right? That's just infrastructure stuff. They like the pretty stuff, you know. Yeah. They like that just makes it work, but no one's going to like that. That was a big deal, right? That was a big chunk of what we had to do here, but it makes all this pretty stuff out here work. So, that's the same kind of thing. So, I appreciate that. If I could go back in time, I wish I had a full video of every job we ever did. Like a time-lapse video. That'd be cool. That would be cool. That we do not have, unfortunately. That would be That would be really cool to have. Yeah. Well, with AI today, you might be able to show a before and after picture and get AI to fill it in for you. You know, we probably would. I I think we're kind of going that direction. Yeah. I think you could get it to build one for you like here's what it looks like. Here's what it started with. Make this a that would be that'll be our next meeting. That's a whole another discussion is how how artificial intelligence is affecting the landscape industry and construction in general. Let's do it. I love it. Thank you, Jim. I really appreciate it. Appreciate you having Thank you, sir. Thank you, Josh. Well done, you guys. We really appreciate you spending the time with us and and we hope you learned something. We hope you you found it beneficial that you take away from this. Um, Reynolds Landscaping, all their contact information will be in the link below down in the description. Um, like, subscribe, share, uh, rate and review, give us a call. If you want to talk about doing a project, an outdoor room, if your straight landscaping needs something that you want to do, the cool thing, give Jim a call and his team and and they can take care of you. Come on into the showroom. He's got a great space up in Woodville. talk to him and uh just I appreciate you guys being here and look forward to the next one. But until then, see you later and have a good summer. Thank you, Charlie. All right. All right