Fridge Scaping & DIY Disasters

Welcome back to the Chicks in Construction! In this episode, our hosts dive into an exciting mix of leftover audience questions from their 'junk drawer,' explore the fascinating and wildly impractical trend of 'Fridge Scaping,' and share the do's and don'ts of DIY projects. They also cover when you really need a permit for home renovations and the challenges of living through a renovation. Tune in for heartfelt advice, hilarious anecdotes, and practical tips to navigate your construction and home improvement projects. Don't forget to subscribe, comment, and share your homeowner horror stories!

00:00 Welcome to Chicks in Construction
00:56 Introducing New Mics and Subscriber Appeal
01:48 Hot Topic: Fridge Scaping
08:59 Overflow Questions: Do I Need a Permit?
24:23 Unexpected Renovation Challenges
25:14 Living Room Kitchen Setup
25:29 Crockpot Cooking Amidst Chaos
25:48 The Never-Ending Dust Battle
26:41 Managing Renovation Expectations
28:41 DIY Disasters and False Confidence
29:39 Knowing Your DIY Limits
31:35 The Importance of Professional Help
38:08 Painting Nightmares
43:52 Final Thoughts and Viewer Engagement


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Creators and Guests

Host

Jessica Abreu

As a social media expert, Jessica has a knack for identifying what makes each business unique and translating that into powerful, engaging content that resonates with clients and customers. From crafting tailored strategies and managing accounts to recording on-site content and boosting engagement, Jessica and her team handle it all so their clients can focus on what they do best.

Host

Mikki Paradis

President & CEO at PDI Drywall Inc. Mikki founded her first construction company, PDI Drywall Inc, in 2005 while she was still a student at NC State. After growing PDI into a multimillion dollar company, she has become an accomplished entrepreneur, speaker, and advocate for innovation in business and leadership. With a passion for empowering others, she has built a reputation as a forward-thinking professional dedicated to driving growth and fostering meaningful connections. Known for her dynamic energy and ability to inspire, Mikki is deeply committed to creating positive change in her industry and beyond. Whether through her entrepreneurial ventures or speaking engagements, she consistently challenges the status quo and encourages others to reach their full potential.

What is Chicks in Construction?

You plan your renovation with excitement, trust your contractor, and hope for the best...until things start going sideways. That’s when most homeowners realize they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

From permits that were never pulled to “contractors” who ghost after demo day, the construction world can feel like a maze of hidden costs and shady shortcuts. Too many homeowners end up confused, overwhelmed, and out of a lot of money.

The Chicks in Construction Podcast is here to change that. Hosted by Mikki Paradis, a licensed general contractor with 20+ years of experience, and Jess Aper, a homeowner turned construction content creator, this show breaks down real renovation horror stories and teaches you how to protect your time, money, and home

This isn’t just another DIY podcast or contractor interview show. Mikki and Jess pull back the curtain on what goes wrong in home projects, translating industry talk into plain English and giving you practical steps to avoid common (and costly) mistakes.

After building a multimillion-dollar drywall business and helping countless homeowners recover from construction nightmares, Mikki is on a mission to make sure you go into your next project informed, not blindsided. And Jess brings the perspective of someone who’s been in your shoes and now knows exactly what questions to ask.

Want to renovate smarter and spot red flags before they wreck your project? Hit follow and get ready for real talk, expert advice, and stories that will make you say, “Thank God I listened to this first.”

Submit Your Construction Horror Story: https://chicksinconstruction.com/

20 Chicks in Construction - Junk Drawer
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​[00:00:00]

Jess: Welcome back to the Chicks in construction. Today we're doing something a little different. We're cracking open our

Mikki: junk drawer. Yeah. The drawer where you'll find duct tape, loose screws, and that one tool you didn't even know you owned.

Except

Jess: ours isn't full of tools. It's full of leftover audience questions. The ones too random to fit anywhere else, but way too good to ignore.

Mikki: Some might make you laugh, some might make you think a few, might even make you wonder how we got here.

Jess: But hey, we're all about sharing what we've learned because in construction and life

Mikki: learning, the hard way is overrated.

​

Mikki: hello. And welcome back to another episode of Chicks in Construction. I'm [00:01:00] your host, Mickey Paradise, and this is my co-host Jess April. And we have new mics. I, I'm sure you all are paying in extensive detail mm-hmm. To every part of our background of our setup here.

Now you can see that me and Jess have new mics and we can see each other. We see each other. So we're friends again. We are. It's nice. It's nice to see you again. Nice to see you. Amazing. Amazing. So we have new mics. They probably sound the same, but. They look different. We are enjoying them. And we wanted you to know, we wanted you to be the first to know, and you should probably tell your friends, subscribe to this video because we told you first.

Mm-hmm. So, as a, as a thank you for us telling you first, please subscribe to our channel. We need the subscribers so that we can do things. Okay? It's important. The algo is important. It's important. Subscribe. Yes, we love you. Please. Anyway, so listen, we have a hot topic. We have a hot topic for Chi Chat today and it is called Fridge Scaping.

Mm-hmm. Okay, so here's the story about this. This is how this all came [00:02:00] about, Joe, our studio, God. He was like, Hey, I have an idea for your cha. Fri had, he was like lookups, fridge, scaping. I didn't, because I am very careful about my algorithm. I like it to be mostly cats, birds, turtles, and raccoons. I looked it up.

If I searched it, then it would mess up the algo, but

Jess: Jess. Algo is wild. I, yeah. I don't care about what my algorithm is gonna show me. I'm like, gimme all the, all the junk mine's cur you are you Do I curate my algo? I can tell because the memes that I get sent yes. In the, in the videos, yes. Are all right on target specific.

But specific, I will go down any rabbit hole and then my algorithm will show me this stuff. So now I'm going to be seeing fridge, scaping. Scaping.

Mikki: Okay. Video. So let's tell us what fridge scaping is. Jen, like, walk us

Jess: through it. First of all, I am not fancy enough. Have enough time. We, we are too poor and I like food.

Yeah, like [00:03:00] real food that I can eat and I want that food to be in my refrigerator, ideally. Now, fridge Scaping, they take little bowls and picture frames and books.

Mikki: Yeah, and books.

Jess: Literal books. Literal books. Inside.

Mikki: Inside. They're like the refrigerator. This is happening. People. Why this is happening. Bye.

Hit alarm. Five alarm fire. This is happening. Everybody drop what you're doing and go look. Check out fridge scaping. It's gonna mess your algorithm up. But listen, there's this one guy, I don't, I don't remember his name, but he is British. I think he's got some accent. He's got an accent. You'll know it when you see it.

And he judges so harshly, the fridge scaping. And it is joyful. I am judging the fridge Scaping. Yeah, he, he does this whole, he did this whole one. Where it was about fridger tin, which is where people are fridge scaping their refrigerators. Like Bridger tin. Yeah. So he called it Friton. Very, very cute. Very cutesy tongue.

In cheek. Um, and, [00:04:00] and the reason why? Every, everything came down to because we're poor, we don't have, that's why we don't do this fridge scaping because we're poor. We don't have tiny, uh, picture frames in our side of our

Jess: refrigerators because we're poor. Because we're poor, or because we have better things to do with our time than to tie little ribbons on Little swan.

Figurines and put them in our, I imagine order, pour stuff I cannot imagine into different containers than what they just come in from the store. Like my, my God, today, my orange juice can stay in the gallon jug that it comes in. Yeah. And just sits, that's the thing. Beautifully on the shelf. And what's hysterical about this whole coming up, this.

Topic coming up was because we were talking about how expensive refrigerators can be. Yeah. And I said I would hate to have one with the glass front. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I don't want you to see my shame, the mess of food that's in all these little containers. All stacked. Yeah. Jenga style. Like,

Mikki: like, yeah.

Jenga [00:05:00] or Tetris. There's a little bit of Tetris because we had on a,

Jess: my refrigerator, we have Jenga. We just like pull one thing out and hope that nothing else falls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

Mikki: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, uh, our, our refrigerator's a real point of shame mm-hmm. In the house because one, I don't, nobody in our house cooks well, like Hector will cook from time to time.

Mm-hmm. I don't cook. I hate it. Okay. I hate everything about it. Every step in the process. Understood. Start to finish. Hate it. I don't even, I don't really like eating, to be perfectly honest. Well, you can't eat like hardly anything, so I can, yeah. I'm, I'm gluten-free, dairy free, sugar free, alcohol free. Joy free.

So like, I can't have anything, so I'm just like, whatever. Can I get my, can I get liquid nourishment, please. That would be my ideal situation. Anywho. So our refrigerator is genuinely like sauces and leftover boxes, like to go boxes. You got a lot

Jess: of styrofoam boxes in your refrigerator. Like it's bad.

Mikki: It is bad.

And my husband is like, that is like the one thing where he draw, like he's a can't [00:06:00] take it. I can't take it. Like we live with four dogs. Mm-hmm. It is essentially a barn.

Jess: Yep.

Mikki: Wild. It's wild. In our house, we have a lot of plants and we have a lot of plants. Jungle. It's a jungle barn, it's mm-hmm. Situation.

And where he draws a line is the fridge. And I'm just like, at least he has a line. I, I haven't found mine yet. I haven't found it. I'm just

Jess: like, listen,

Mikki: I got robot vacuums on every floor. Everybody's doing their part. Okay. We have a split level, which means three floors. We had three robot vacuums. I don't spend money on Fridger tin.

I spend it on robot vacuums. There you go. So. But I

Jess: just fridge steak. I mean, just, just look at it and it's just, you look at, it looks beautiful, look at it, it looks gorgeous. I mean, until you realize

Mikki: it's a refrigerator. And I'm like,

Jess: where is the food that these people are eating? Like if

Mikki: you're, they're probably like me.

They just eat liquid nourishment.

Jess: But there was one, one that I saw that was filled with all wine bottles and wine glasses, and I was okay [00:07:00] with that.

Mikki: We were there. We were there for that. We were okay. We were like, that actually makes sense. Yeah. I mean, screw the wine fridge, just turn your whole fridge into the wine fridge.

Mm-hmm. And that's living. That's where we're at. Yeah. So I'm here for that. But yeah, we wanted you to know that fridge scaping is a thing and we don't approve. Watch ourselves, watch yourselves. If you've got that kind of time. I don't know what I need you've done with your life, but maybe could you email me and like tell me like, are, is it trust fund money?

Did you marry well? Do you have like, did you buy Apple stock in the eighties? I need Bitcoin to know, or Bitcoin, like I need to know how it is. Did you have time for fridge scaping? Because here is the thing, is there

Jess: two fridges? Like you have one that holds all extra, extra fridge, the actual food,

Mikki: and one that you just make pretty, we have a lot of follow up questions for the, for the fridge scaping, but mine are mostly How do you find the time?

Because like, [00:08:00] listen, I have no time. Uh, it ain't all getting done in a day my, my to-do list. She long. Mm-hmm. And I get through like five of the things of the 52 things on my to-do list. Like people have to send me emails. Um, I prefer them to not be threatening, but sometimes they aren't, uh, uh, letting me know like, Hey, this, you need to do this today.

Mm-hmm. Today. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, that there is fridge scaping and it is, it's a problem. We need, we need to discuss it. Ad nauseum. We just needed, we needed to let you know. We did. We did and, and be warned. It is ridiculous. But find the guy, the funny British, I think he's British. Looks like he has like a, an Indian background.

I'm not sure what his, but he's a delightful. British accent guy who really judges the fridge, scaping. And it is a delight. We are here for it. It was delightful. Yeah.

Jess: So now we're gonna get into a little bit of a,

Mikki: yeah. So we have some, like [00:09:00] some stuff, some like, um, I would call question would call them overflow.

Things like topic questions that we've gotten mm-hmm. That we've not addressed on the show.

Jess: The first one is, do I really need a permit to do that?

Mikki: Yeah.

Jess: And like, yes. What is it that you need a permit for? Because we say that like, you need to get a permit and you need inspections, but like, when do you actually need it and when is it okay to just like.

Not have one.

Mikki: Okay, so listen, let's talk, real talk here. If you're gonna change out your ceiling fan, you don't need a permit for that. You can do that yourself. You can hire an electrician to do it. Uh, you have options. You could watch a YouTube video, maybe die while doing it. I mean, you definitely wanna turn that breaker off.

Mm-hmm. But, uh, if you're swapping out a light fixture, you don't need a permit [00:10:00] If you're swapping out. Your shower head, you don't need a permit for that. Come on. That's even silly. Like this weekend. Mm-hmm. We swapped out our vanity. My niece is moving here from Florida. Nice

Jess: dress. Yes. Or dirt.

Mikki: Uh, I lured her with my fun.

She's just a little bit excited. I'm so excited you guys don't even understand like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have so much fun. I that I said that very aggressively, but I meant it. She looked very mean. I'm just so excited. Um, so my niece is moving. Which means the downstairs bathroom is now gonna be actually used for other Oh, is that gonna be storage?

Other storage? Yes. It's not gonna be storage. Jess has, Jess has seen it. She understands. We literally used the shower for storage. Now we're gonna have to find a new place to put that special trash. Hopefully we can put it in the dumpster, but fingers crossed, crossed. I won't know until I know, guys. I won't know until I know.

So we swapped out the [00:11:00] vanity, which means we changed the sink, we changed the faucet. We did not move anything. We just swapped. It's like, it's literally just screw this off, screw it back on. In that case, you don't need a permit. Okay. But if you are moving the light fixture mm-hmm. To a different location, you technically, you need a permit.

Now, a lot of people will do that stuff without a permit. Okay. Because their argument is, well, how would anybody know whether there was a light there or not? And here's the thing. Here's the thing. Mm-hmm. If you are not an electrician, if you're an electrician, do you boo like, don't let me stop you from living your best life.

But if you are not an electrician, um, maybe don't play around with electricity. This is just a thought, but hear me out. You [00:12:00] could die if you don't know what you're doing. You could electrocute yourself. Mm-hmm. And you could die. Or you could start a fire. There's like a lot of things that could happen if you tried that on your own.

Um, or if you hired somebody to do it and they didn't do it right. The point. Of a permit is to then get an inspection. So that's the, the whole like permits. You don't, don't just pull one and just let it exist. You pull the permit. Then you have the inspector come look at the permit card, see what it is you're doing, and then the inspector signs off on the work if it's done correctly, okay?

Mm-hmm. But the whole point of pulling a permit is to have it inspected so that you know that the work was done. Right.

Jess: Okay. Um, so we need it for moving light pictures or anything with electricity from one spot to another. So like if I wanted to take, um, the light switch. Where the light switch is and I wanted to move it from one Yeah.

Area to another. Yeah. You would need, no,

Mikki: I'm [00:13:00] telling you, an electrician is gonna be like, lady, you want me to pull a permit to do that? And you're, you're gonna be like, yeah. Mm-hmm. I do. I wanna inspect it. Thank you. Thank you so much. And listen, listen, sorry to tell you this, you might, you're gonna pay a little bit more because it's going to annoy.

The electrician, but it is the way, it is, the truth and the light, my friends, like, it is the way that you protect yourself from crappy electricians, from people that don't know what they're doing from bad plumbers. I mean, if a, if a, like how many of our homeowner horror stories we're like, oh, they installed this wrong, and then the ceiling fell out from underneath because the water was leaking behind the wall.

Yep. If the, if a permit had been pulled. And an inspection happened, that would not happen. An inspector would've caught that. Mm-hmm. And there's like, inspectors carry a little a, a level of liability. So if they pass something and then it fails and it fails, they, that's another [00:14:00] means for you to seek, um, money compensation, so to speak.

Mm-hmm. Or. I'm not exactly sure. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. No, because architects and inspectors can be sued, um, which is kind of crappy for them. 'cause I'm like, what if somebody changed it afterwards? I don't know. Right. But so permits are for the purpose mm-hmm. Of inspections. And really, here's, here's my thought.

Anything that you don't know how to look at it and be like, yep, that's done right. You wanna pull a permit and you wanna have it inspected. Mm-hmm. Because. While it's great to be trusting, we don't really wanna give that level of trust to people that are doing things that could possibly cause our houses to flood or burn down while we're sleeping.

Worst case scenario, um, you know what I'm saying? Yep. So like, pull a permit, get it inspected. If you don't know how to look at it and be like, yep, that's right. That's when you know you need a permit. So [00:15:00] it can be inspected. So you can have that inspect inspector come out and give you that added. And there's a bunch of other reasons why you need permits.

Like you can't sell if you do certain things, you can't sell, you can't sell sell, including that space if you didn't pull a permit for it. There's a lot, a lot more other than just making sure it's done right. But that's the most important reason. So it's

Jess: for electrical. Plumbing, if you're moving anything, any plumbing, pipes and, and stuff.

Plumbing.

Mikki: Yep.

Jess: Um, you are adding on if you're building a deck,

Mikki: okay? If you're building a deck, you need a permit. It's in North Carolina. It could be different in other places. I really hope it's not. But if you're building a deck, you need a permit. If you're, uh, doing anything to a structural wall, you need a permit.

If you are swapping, you're out a window. But it's a bigger window. Okay. Like you're making the, the, the, the opening opening bigger. Oh, okay. Yeah. If you're making it bigger, you need a permit. Permit because you're changing the structure of the building.

Jess: [00:16:00] Mm-hmm.

Mikki: Um, if you are reciting your house. In certain counties, you actually need a permit for that.

Oh wow. Yeah. You need an inspect inspection for that because they wanna make sure that like the house wrap is on and that all the things are in place. Um, different municipalities have different like requirements, like I think Ashley Seltzer from Wallaby Windows was telling us how in certain counties.

Within North Carolina, they will refuse to do an inspection on new windows. Mm-hmm. Because they just don't have the manpower. But then in other counties, they insist on doing inspection inspections on the new windows. So it can really change like where you are for not even just state to state, but county to county.

Jess: Is there somewhere that we can go to as a homeowner to look up what permits. Can be pulled for our home, like before we start doing a project like a yes list somewhere.

Mikki: So [00:17:00] you should have, if you go to your, the county that you live in, to their inspection, they should have a website for their, like their permit department.

Okay. So every, every town, every municipality has a permit department. And honestly, if you can't find the answer on the website, 'cause some of 'em are like. Was this built in the eighties? Um, when was the last time this was updated? You can just call and be like, Hey. I'm a homeowner. I will tell you they're not nice to general contractors.

They're like, if you don't know honey, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. And I'm like, that's fair. But if you're a homeowner mm-hmm. You can call the municipality, the permitting department and say, Hey, this is what I'm doing. Do I need permits? And they're more than happy to help you figure out what you need a permit for.

And that's the really, the best way to find out. Just, just because like, it's so different from place to place, right? If you're replacing your windows, call 'em up. Be like, Hey, do I need a permit for this? If you're, you know, doing a refresh in your [00:18:00] kitchen and you're moving a light, hey, do I need a permit for this?

Um, that is really the best way Yeah. To find out. And that

Jess: it'll save you. It'll be a pain in the beginning. Yeah. But it's going to save you so many headaches at the end, if anything does go awry when something is, yeah. You know, opened up and moved because know, 'cause my

Mikki: God today mm-hmm. That's how we get your homeowner horror stories.

Yeah. Which please send, go to our website, chicks and construction.com and send us your homeowner horror stories. All the stories I'm working it in, all the stories, we're working it in, working it.

Jess: Um, so yes. So now when a renovation is happening, how. How often do people live in their house and like, can you really live in your house during a renovation?

I, you give the real answer and I'll tell you what we've done.

Mikki: Yeah. Well, the, the thing is more people than they should stay in their house while they're renovating it and. Um, certain general [00:19:00] contractors will not work with homeowners that are, that insist to stay in the house. 'cause like, honestly, nobody's happy about that.

Like, if you are doing a major renovation where it's not just like, let's say you've got three bathrooms, you're renovating one bathroom, okay? You've got two other bathrooms to choose from. If you're renovating the only bathroom in your house. Please don't. Mm-hmm. Try to stay there and like brush your teeth in your kitchen sink and use the porta-potty to go to the bathroom outside.

Please don't do that. Yeah. Because it's gonna make you miserable. Mm-hmm. And then the whole renovation experience is miserable. So like, the most successful renovation stories I have heard were when they moved out, they, they, it was a pain in the rump of pump pump, don't get me wrong, but they weren't. So incredibly inconvenienced to like, like that's one of the mm-hmm.

Reoccurring themes in the home in our horror stories is we were without a kitchen for six months. We [00:20:00] Right. The one from Rhode Island where they were showering in their basement. Right. Um, like don't basically outta hose. Yeah. From a, like literally in, in the cold in their No, no. Like, that's pneumonia guys.

We're not doing pneumonia. We're not doing pneumonia for H Home renovations. Go stay at an Airbnb, like work that into the cost of your renovation is staying somewhere that is not your house especially. It's like it, whether you stay really aligns with the level of disruption. Mm-hmm. So if you are like, as we have discussed, I don't cook.

So if I were to re remodel my kitchen, it would not set me back. I don't do anything in there except for I. Sit there and eat the food that I go get from somewhere else, from a place that is made. I'm not using that stove, that refrigerator. Refrigerator is holding old sauces as we've discussed and to go food.

There you go. So I would [00:21:00] be fine without my kitchen. You just need the microwave. I The microwave. I'm not eat barely. I'll plug my air fryer in in my bathroom. Oh, there you go. You know what I'm saying? Like I can work around that. But if it were my bathroom and we only had one bathroom. Oh hey. Oh no. Mm-hmm.

I'm not staying there for that.

Jess: Absolutely not. Nope. And if you have pets too, oh God, you definitely don't want to be staying in the house. Or if you are going to stay in the house and you have pets, it's probably better to have the pets at someone's house or to board them or something, because they're just gonna be in the way.

Or getting dust. I have everywhere.

Mikki: Literally I have been giving some thought to renovating the house. Mm-hmm. Because like, it's stupid. The neighborhood I live in is stupid. Like it's, it used to be a normal, normal people neighborhood, and now it's, it's a McMansion, it's McMansion neighborhood, my god, today.

Um, so like we, the clamp, its up in there with our special trash and we literally, I literally have a TransAm that's just under a [00:22:00] carport. It's a problem. Beyond that, the house is not big enough. Now, it probably would be big enough if we did not collect dogs as well as special trash. But we have optimist Prime, who I should have named Megatron, who's 222 pounds.

'cause he is on a diet. We're we're trending down folks. Callie, who thinks she's a mastiff, who's a pocket Billy? Otis, who thinks he's a mastiff, who's a terrier, and Frankie, who knows, he's not a Mastiff, he's a pit bull. We found him on the side of the road. That's a lot of dogs. That's a lot of dogs. We need more space in our house.

So I've been considering like being doing a big Reno, but here's my thing. Nobody and their right mind is gonna rent me a house with a 222 pound English mastiff that does not like people. So I'm literally like. I guess I'll have to wait him out. [00:23:00] Oh. Which sounds terrible. I know, but like nobody that's, you have to do.

No. Yeah. That renovation ain't happening. And I mean, four dogs is a lot because I'm not gonna live through it and the dogs are gonna literally lose their mind, literally lose their, they lose their minds when Jess comes over. Can you imagine like people actually working in our house, the stress level would be so high.

So Liz. Build it into the budget. Now listen, I'm just be straight up here. If you can't build that into the budget, if it's like, if that's the difference between doing the kitchen and not doing the kitchen, then just understand that you're gonna be really inconvenienced. Mm-hmm. That's what we did. Yeah.

You're like,

Jess: so funny story. Same. Yeah. So when, uh, Cora, who's now 10 was a baby, we decided that we wanted to open up our. Um, dining room and kitchen. Yeah. This was our house in Massachusetts. It was a little tiny. Scam [00:24:00] Braille. So every room, you know, had walls. Yeah. And doors and all these things. And the house had many doors, very many doors, and it wasn't very big, so we wanted to open up the space.

Also, there was like no light in the kitchen. It had one little window and it was very dark, and I didn't like it. Yeah. Gloomy, gloomy. So it was a load-bearing wall. Of course, of course. Because it's the only wall in the house that went this way. Right. That's

Mikki: how you know it's gonna

Jess: cost you money as the only wall.

And I was like, oh, that's, that's gonna be a problem. Um, but with having one salary, yeah, yeah. Two kids. Yeah. That's a lot. And um, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't working 'cause she was little and, uh. We were like, oh, we'll just stay here. Because the guy was like, oh, it'll take like three weeks. Sure. Lies. Lies. So

Mikki: you're like, we had to move seven months later.

Jess: Yeah, it wasn't quite seven months. So luckily we had, I call it the beer fridge. It was in our basement noise. Um, so that had to be [00:25:00] emptied of the beer so that all of our food could go down there. So road.

Mikki: We can't, we can't do fridge scaping in a beer fridge. No, we can't. That doesn't look good on the gram.

Mm-hmm.

Jess: My God. Nobody's gonna watch that. TikTok. So my refrigerator ended up in my living room so that they could put the hardwood floor from the dining room into the um, kitchen. Yeah. And then my stove ended up in my other living room. Oh my God. The only thing that stayed on the wall was the microwave.

Okay. What was great is that, um, crockpots, so I You made it work. I made it work on top of the stove. That wouldn't, that didn't work. I had an extension cord that went to the wall to plug in my crockpot and I cooked, and the crockpot and everything had the plastic. Oh God. The, the dust. I traumatic. I mean, it's like cleaning up.

If you have a real Christmas tree, you know the pine needles. Yeah. You sweep 'em all up. Yeah. That's a good analogy. And then [00:26:00] six months later you go around and you're like, hi. Where did the, where did these pine needles come from? Yeah, it's the same with the desk. You would open up. I would open up drawers, but the kids close.

Dust

Mikki: and I'd be like, oh my God. That's why I call it magical fairy dust. 'cause I'm like, listen. She goes where she wants. If she wants, you can't tell her no. She does what she wants up in here.

Jess: So it is very tough to live in. Yes, novation, I do not recommend it. No. If I could do it again, I would've just.

Gone to live with my parents.

Mikki: Oh gosh. But sooner choose death. Right. I'll just not do that renovation. 0%. 0%. No. Not doing that.

Jess: But yeah, it's, it's not easy. So

Mikki: it's, yeah. It's one of those things where it's like, um, it's, you can do it. Yeah. But you have to understand that you are bringing this on yourself and you cannot get mad at the contractor mm-hmm.

For making dust, because that is literally what we do. Mm-hmm. That's our job. And if you're living through it. Like the whole point is you move out. We come in, we make it fabulous. We have it cleaned [00:27:00] before you come back home. You come home and it's like, magical. My, I love everything about this. That's the experience you wanna have.

Mm-hmm. You don't wanna have the experience of, you know, brushing your teeth and feel it feeling more gritty than usual because there was drywall dust on your toothbrush. You know, like, you don't want that. No. Um, but again, if you can't afford to move out, like just mm-hmm. Just know what you're getting into, manage those expectations.

Jess: Mm-hmm. If you, that's really important and if you are finding somewhere to stay. Um, overestimate the amount of time that you're going to be need Yes. To be out of your house, because they might tell you four weeks or six weeks, but all it takes is one thing to be delayed. Yep. One thing, one thing. One cabinet.

Yeah. One back splash. One, one piece of time. Weather. Too many rainstorms or something and like it's gonna get pushed. So like you don't want something that's gonna be like, no, you have to be out on this date that you said you wanna either. I plan for like two [00:28:00] weeks more and I'm like. You know, work it out that maybe you get a refund for the last week or something.

Or

Mikki: just, or just make sure, like whoever you're negotiating with, like they're aware that you might need to extend. And so like what I would do is I would say, Hey, listen, we think we only need it for this long before you book. Somebody else in the, in the next week? Mm-hmm. Or like the week after we say we're moving out, can you talk with us first so we can check with our contractor?

Like that might be the way to go. Right? So you don't have to like pay for extra time, but you have an understanding with whoever you're renting from that like. Before anything

Jess: happens. Yeah, check with me. Just wanna make sure that we're not homeless for a week or that you have to go back in the home. Um, what's also fun, and I love when people ask this, is like, can I just DIY it?

YouTube will, I mean, you, YouTube will tell me I can do all these, these projects will

Mikki: give you false confidence, falses sense of confidence that you've ever had. And I [00:29:00] can speak this, what we've talked about. Mm-hmm. We've discussed this. I only watch the YouTube. Listen, I am a doctor. I am a, I am a hoof trimmer.

That's, that's a fun one to watch. Hoof trimming. Weird. It's weird, but I'm into it. Um,

Jess: now YouTube's gonna show you fridge scaping, just because we've said it so many times and your phone is listening to you. You

Mikki: better not. I like my algorithm the way it is Phone. I'm trying to think of like, how to say this delicately, which is not my, no, it's not my strong suit. You just come, I don't come at it delicate.

Um. There are certain people that I'm like, yes, you can absolutely DIY that because you are brilliant. Mm-hmm. And you understand, like my husband Hector, I don't know how he knows what he knows. He just does things. Mm-hmm. Like the other day, he built a trash box. We have to [00:30:00] like remove the drywall from like four story apartment complexes.

And so we normally build them outta wood and they get thrown out at the end of the job and he's like, you know what? I don't wanna keep. You know, wasting this. I wanna build my own trash box. Okay, homeboy. 'cause the tr we could buy a trash box for like five grand. Mm-hmm. Oh. He's like, are you kidding me?

Nope. Absolutely not. 0%. He's like, do you know much trash? I need that for my, you know, my special trash. You know how much special trash I could buy with $5,000? Absolutely. So much unacceptable. So homeboy goes to the steel yard, gets the steel that he needs, and builds this box right hand to the Lord. Welds it.

It is Wow. A professional trash box. You cannot tell the difference between this trash box and a 5,000 thousand no trash box, except for the fact that he painted it wild colors. And I'm, I was just, I was like, rolled it. They were like the, our logo colors, but, but like, he just went crazy with it. He was like, I was like, babe, [00:31:00] silver is not, uh, in our color wheel.

And he is like it is now, surprise. He painted one side of it like, like, like silver. Not gray, silver. Um, so it's fine though. It's, it's like reflects the sun. Mm. So that man, I'm like, yes, he can. DIY it. He has a level of experience of knowledge. He knows a, a lot about tools. Mm-hmm. He knows a lot about electricity.

About plumbing. Mm-hmm. Like if you've got experience. You

Jess: know who you are. Yeah. You know who you are. Now, if you're like my husband, you don't touch things, don't do it. You do not. Because don't do it. We always make it cost more. Yeah. 'cause they have to go in and fix and fix it. Yes. What he thought he could do, thanks to a YouTube channel or my, my favorite is when he doesn't even try to YouTube it.

He's just like, I got it.

Mikki: I got it. I'm a man.

Jess: It's about dear man, he has finally. [00:32:00] Is understood that like, well he, well probably 'cause you've threatened to kill him so many times. I mean, or I've told him, you're just gonna die doing that. Like you're, I we don't have enough In your life insurance policy, like if you kill yourself by touching a screwdriver to the electrical box.

Yep. Like is Yeah. Do I still get a payout or is that like a moron clause somewhere in there for like, I wonder they might think that I was, I don't know. Anyway, suicide. He tried to end it all with this with a screwdriver. The screwdriver just shoved it in a light switch? Yes. Well, even just recently, we had this power surge that knocked out the motor in our garage door.

Opener. Oh, so. Um, tell me he did not do No, listen. So like my neighbor comes over and she's like, oh no, it's the gf, the GFI Yeah, thing. Gotta reset. It must you have to reset it. So we tried it and she's like, oh, maybe it fried it. He's like, oh, I can replace [00:33:00] that. And he could, he replaced the little GFI and got a new one and it worked.

And, um. Yeah, the garage door still didn't Yeah. Didn't do anything. So it would like kind of move and then kind of come back. He was like, and so he got up on a ladder and is like looking at the garage door opener and I'm like, babe, babe, I love you, but get off that ladder. Please don't touch anything.

Please just take a picture of it and send it to somebody. Yeah. Who will come and fix it. Yeah, please, for the love. And, um, three weeks later he did, three weeks

Mikki: later, like, so we couldn't access the

Jess: garage. Nope. Uh, well part of it is we went up north to, to visit some family and friends. Oh yeah. This was like summer.

Yeah. Camp a and um. When we left, I was like, well, the garage door, you can just open it manually. Oh. So we did YouTube how to not do that. And you just stick a screwdriver in one of the [00:34:00] holes so that when you go to open it Oh, that makes sense. The screwdriver gets

Mikki: stuck. Stuck. Yeah. And so you

Jess: can't open it.

So, so

Mikki: there are things you can YouTube safely?

Jess: Yes. Um, we had to MacGyver the garage door, but yeah, he, he eventually called somebody, which was great.

Mikki: Yeah. Garage door. I like, listen, I get, I get it. I am, I am a DI yer myself. Uh, I have fixed my washer and dryer, replaced parts, diagnosed, bought the part, replaced the part.

Mm-hmm. But like guys, I'm, I'm in construction. I've been in, in construction for 20 years. Like is a large appliance repair a part of construction? No, it's not, but. Do I feel like, listen, I can swap a part out 'cause I under, I have a screw gun. Yeah, I do. Mm-hmm. I feel like I'm, but wasn't I risking, you know, that, that mm-hmm.

It was, it was a risky, it was a risky move. Did I feel comfortable doing? Yeah. Did after I did it, did I feel like I [00:35:00] walked around like everybody who worshiped me because I know how to. Fix parts in my washing machine. I also that Yes. Hundred. You add it to your resume? 100%. I think you should. Oh, uh uh.

That's my, my new thing is anytime I do things, something, once it's had it, you're an expert. Now I'm adding it to LinkedIn. Arborist. I gotta add it. Took a tree down in my yard, arborist added it. Fix my washer and dryer. Small. Um, small appliance repair. Yeah. Small

Jess: electronics repair. Added to LinkedIn. Got it?

Mm-hmm. Check now if my washer makes a funny noise. I'm immediately on Facebook, my washer's making a funny noise. Who has somebody that can come repair it?

Mikki: Yeah. And it's like, because I didn't mm-hmm. Checked her LinkedIn. It's on, it's listed on her. I'm gonna call you from now on. Anything makes a weird noise in my making.

You recognize the sound? It's going chug. Hold on. Lemme go to go to YouTube. Hold on. I can diagnose it on the tube. Uh, yeah, so the [00:36:00] DIY stuff, like something that I recommend. If you're trying to like save money is you could DIY your back splash in your kitchen. Now it may not go well, but that is a very low, it's a low hanging fruit risk.

Mm-hmm. You're not gonna. You're, you're, that wall is already waterproofed, it's already sealed. Like you're not gonna mess anything up. You're not gonna have a water intrusion situation because you add a tile, like mm-hmm. There's, there, you need to consider the risk of whatever it is you're doing and it how badly it can go if you mess it up.

So like, adding a, it could just look bad. Mm-hmm. But that can always, you know, at the end of the day, you can take, you can tear it out and have somebody come in, fix it. Or it could turn out really well. I've, I had a friend who, that was one of the things she wanted to add. A backsplash hector went over, kind of showed her and her husband how to use the tile saw.

Mm-hmm. And they were on their [00:37:00] way. I mean, it took 'em like three weekends to get a very small kitchen done, but whatever they were di they were feeling themselves, they were DIYing, it, it was very low risk. Mm-hmm. Um. I have DIYs some stuff that I, I probably shouldn't have. Mm-hmm. Uh, just like way, way too much confidence.

Um, and I've really gotten to the point now where I'm like, just call the electrician. Do it. Yeah. Like, just, I'm call somebody. I'm not. I, I don't even wanna hold the thing. I don't wanna go like this for more than this long. This is too long. We've already passed the amount of time that we done. I wanna hold my hand up in the air.

Mm-hmm. So, ugh,

Jess: uh, starts going numb at firm. Its, oh, it don't

Mikki: work out. What am I supposed to do with my life? So I just called, we, there's somebody for everything. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah. And some things

Jess: are just time consuming. Like I. I know how to paint. Yes. Oh, I was going to townhouse. The townhouse. Yeah. That was a great lesson and, um, because I didn't wanna pay somebody the [00:38:00] amount of money that they wanted, and I ended up paying somebody the amount of money that they wanted because it was going to take forever.

Forever. Yeah. Like you just don't, painting a wall is one thing. Painting an entire townhouse.

Mikki: My God, today,

Jess: oh my God. When you said that you

Mikki: guys were going to do it yourself, I was like, alright.

Jess: And it, because you don't realize that all the closets have all these little walls and there's trim in all of them everywhere.

And the everywhere ceiling. It's just no. So like, you have to think about how much time is this going to take and then is it worth your time or should you just pay the somebody who already knows how to do it really well and can do it much faster than you like?

Mikki: Yeah,

Jess: yeah.

Mikki: Yeah. That's, and that's a paint paint.

Mm-hmm. This is, this is a true story. So this lady, it's years ago when I did residential work, she. She paid me a substantial amount of money. She lived, lived out in the middle of nowhere and she was building her dream house. Um, and she paid me a [00:39:00] substantial amount of money to do her drywall. Nice. Because we do, you know, we do good work, so it ain't cheap.

You know what I'm saying? So then she decides she's gonna paint the house herself. 'cause she's like, gotta save money. 'cause apparently she paid me too much money for the drywall.

Jess: Oh.

Mikki: She paints the house without the lights on. What? Yeah. Yeah. It was a, it was a real move. So I get a call and she's very upset about the quality of the drywall.

She's like, now that the lights are on, the drywall looks really bad. And I was like, excuse me, the drywall looks bad right out there real quick. And what it was, was she didn't have the lights on, and as she's rolling, she put too much paint on a roller. The roller left these marks of extra paint. Here's the thing about that guys.

You know the only way to fix that? More paint? No, no. Drywall, mud. So you can't, once that paint has dried and it is [00:40:00] like thicker than all the other paint, you have to scrape it off and fill that gap in with drywall, mud, oh god. So her entire house, walls and ceilings. She had done this to her entire house. I literally was so upset that I was like, I won't even give you a price.

Like, no, imagine, imagine how could you paint with the lights turned off? And you know, to be honest, I was, I was much younger. I had a little bit more spice. I'm still spicy, but I was, was like JI how you could have more spice habanero of. Ghost Pepper. Yeah, I was ghost pepper spicy. Now I'm just like jalapeno spicy.

But I was mad. I was like, I couldn't believe like the disrespect to my work product. And so I was like, no, I won't give you a price. You will live with these terrible lines all over your walls. Call it a design choice. Um, but it literally would've cost thousands of dollars to To fix it. To fix it. [00:41:00] So don't.

Listen, paint with the lights on people. Please, for the love of God. If you're gonna do that, paint with the lights on. Um. Babe, you would think like

Jess: common sense that goes without saying, but you would be surprised. Mm-hmm. You would be surprised. I mean, I'm not surprised every day. I, every day, every day, every day, every day is a new adventure.

It's like, well, okay, what stupid thing are we gonna do today? Fridge, scaping,

Mikki: bridge, scaping. That's what I'm gonna do today. That's what we're doing. That's what some people are doing. Yeah. So, yeah, that DIY piece is, is really, um. You have to know your strengths. Know your strengths, and then also accept your failures.

Mm-hmm. When it's gone wrong. And when, like, like, like for instance, our, our, our studio, God, Joe, Joe has this room and back here that he's turning into. A thing. A thing. It's very, it's a very [00:42:00] complicated studio thing. It looks awesome though, to make, it does look really awesome to make it look like, um, like the room goes on forever, it's rounded.

And so he was like gonna do it himself. And he was like three months in to I'm gonna do it myself. And I walked in and I was like, Hey, do you need help with that? Yeah. Hand it. This is important. You need to understand that it goes like this. Uh, and I was like, do you, do you need help with that? Because it's gonna need, he was gonna need drywall.

And, uh, he was like, actually, yes. So we came in, in, I think it was three days, and they hung it, finished it, sanded it, and then Joe painted it. So he, he, he's cable, so things he knows his stripes paint he's okay with. Um, but yeah, know your strengths. Mm-hmm. Drywall is. Not very many people's strengths. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Do we to try it? I tell people it's like Tiger Woods playing golf. You see somebody do drywall and you're like. I could do [00:43:00] that. And then you try it and it goes really bad. It's like, I watch Tiger Woods play golf, and I'm like, I could hit that ball that hard.

Jess: And then I swing and I miss. Yeah. And then somebody goes swing in and I miss, and they go, keep your eye on the ball.

And you're like, what do you think I'm doing? Like, where, where did you

Mikki: think my eyes were looking? Clearly not the ball, Mickey. 'cause you missed it. And I'm like, maybe I'm blind. I don't know. Anyway, so it was really about knowing restraints and, and, and then accepting when. Okay. I took on more than I can handle.

Mm-hmm. And now it's time to call somebody and I'm probably gonna have to pay more than I would've initially because I've made a mess. Mm-hmm. And now somebody's gonna have to, to fix it. So as long as you're comfortable with those terms, you know? Yeah. Dealer's choice. Choose like life is a choose your own adventure game.

So you can choose. Just try it. Choose wisely. See what happens. Choose wisely. You know, we're not liable if you electrocute yourself, so don't come for me. There's, that list is already [00:44:00] too long.

Jess: So it's a joke. And, uh, if you have done a DOI project and it turned into a homeowner horror story, be sure to, uh, let us know about it.

Yeah. At chicks and construction.com. Do it, share

Mikki: it. We won't share your name. Never. You won't. Jess won't do. It won't, even if you're, won't do it. Even, like, even if you put in the name Jess, or in, in the, in the, in the message. Put my name and she will not do it. She, your privacy is her biggest priority.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So people will be crazy out here. They'd be suing for anything. They be, they be, they be out here sending them cease and desist letters like hotcakes, hotcakes making. So we aren. I am not going to put you in that position. We're not gonna put you in that position, my friends. So go to our website, send us your homeowner horror stories.

Also, please like and subscribe to this channel. We would love it. Mm-hmm. We would love for you to ask a question if we say something and you're like, huh, I dunno about that. I have a question about that. [00:45:00] We'll answer. You put it in the comments below, we'll answer you. Um, you know? Mm-hmm. And if we don't know the answer, listen, I know experts.

That's the whole point of the podcast. Yeah. We'll, of experts for you. Experts let us help you. But subscribe because like if you asking questions and you haven't subscribed, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about the quality of the end. I'm just kidding. We're gonna answer your question regardless, but it would be great if you would subscribe 'cause it really is

Jess: apparently very important.

Yes. And then follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram at Chicks Construction podcast. Yeah. And then on TikTok. Yeah, it's. At chicks in construction.

Mikki: Yeah, we're, uh, we're, we're on the talk now, guys. Uh, I don't think we've actually, but we posted, we posted one. I have posted a few videos on the talk. She is on it.

That's literally her job. So that literally my job, so that's great. Uh, I am in this because my job is construction. I'm going to a job site after this. This really threw off our, uh. Studio God, because it really threw off the lighting.

Jess: Mickey doesn't [00:46:00] have jaundice. She's okay. Yeah, I don't have

Mikki: jaundice.

It's the, the light is throwing because this is high vis, I have to wear this to work site and my work boots, look, uh, I've resold these bad boys four times. Um, so yes, I'm going to a job site. That's why I'm dressed like this. I don't know how we got on this topic, but here we are, like and subscribe. All the socials.

Comment down below all the things guys. We love you, and we'll see you on the next one. Bye bye.