What’s Your Home Saying to Potential Buyers?

Posted on August 2, 2010August 6, 2019

“Dunsville Set: Hickory Grove c. 1893” by Virginia Hill is licensed under CC BY 2.0

There’s a house down the road from me that’s for sale (the one in the photo is not it!). Has been for a long time now. We walk past it 2 or 3 times a week on our way to a baseball field where we play epic games that usually end in gloating (on the winner’s side) and crying (on the loser’s).

Anyway, we do that 2 or 3 times a week and every time I walk past that house–whether I’m on the way to the field with 2 happy boys, or on the way home with one really happy boy and one really sad one–I take a look. And every time I look at it, I think the same thought: “that house sure has a lot of potential.”

And it does. It’s a big stone house–looks like something out of a fairy tale. It’s got a lot of character. It’s near the baseball field (so we could go have our battles EVERY night–hooray!). It looks to be a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath home. (Which is enticing because my home is currently a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home. And with 5 kids, a wife and myself . . . well, that’s easily 2 bathrooms too few).

So every time I walk past the house, I stop and think about the potential. But every time I stop . . . I start back up and continue on my way home, pushing any thought of buying that house out of my mind.

Oh, it’s not the price. In fact, the price started at the top of our price range (still within it, but at the very top) and it’s dropped $30,000 or $40,000 in price since the beginning of the year. No, it’s not the price. We could afford it if we wanted it. And it’s not really the location. It’s right down the road from our other home and it’s right next to our major evening entertainment–the ball field. It’s definitely not the size of the home: all that extra space and the extra bath and a half would be almost perceived as a gift from heaven.

No. It’s none of those things that keep us away. None of those things that get our legs moving again after we’ve stopped to “window shop.”

No, what gets us moving again is what’s probably kept everybody else moving as well: the house gives a bad first impression.

I’ve never seen much of the inside–not up close anyway–but I’ve got a feeling I know what I’m going to find. See, the outside of a home is a window to the interior. A poorly maintained exterior is a warning many home buyers heed.

We walk up to this house and look at the beautiful aspects: the stone walls, the 4 bedrooms . . . the 2.5 baths. But despite all that, I can’t get past the poorly maintained front door. The overgrown landscaping. The rotting and flaking fences. The windows that are filthy. The blinds that hang crooked and bent.

The one room you can see from the driveway shows that either there was water damage or the family before had a dog. A vicious, baseboard-attacking dog who took out his puppyhood rage on the floor trim of that poor little room.

All in all, despite the nice aspects of the house, the obviously visible negative stuff just turns me off. I’m afraid that something that looks that bad on the outside is only going to be worse inside. And so, every night that we stop . . . we look for a few minutes and continue walking, shaking our heads . . . unable to muster up the interest to call the number on the sign.

Now, I know this house is owned by the bank (or something). It’s empty and has been for a while–so I understand some of the reason for the dilapidated, unkempt look of the exterior. I understand that whoever currently owns it doesn’t want to spend the money or time to keep up on the exterior work. They probably figure it’s too expensive.

However, I can’t help but think that when we started looking, the house was about $179,000. If I’m not mistaken, the current price is either $149,000 or $139,000. It’s dropped anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 in price and still hasn’t moved.

I’ve written about first impressions here on this blog before. First impressions can make all the difference in the world when it comes to relationships and new jobs. They also play a huge role when it comes to selling a house. Create a great first impression with your home . . . and chances are, even in a down economy, you won’t be sitting on it for too long. Let the importance of that first impression slip down on your list of “things to do” and you’re going to have a situation like the folks who own that house I walk by a couple times a week: you’re going to be lowering your price as you try to make people see past the obvious faults.

When you get to that point: trying to make people see past the faults and focus on the price, you’ve lost your bargaining ground. You want people to want the house because they HAVE to have it–they see themselves living there and can’t picture themselves living somewhere else. When that happens, price becomes a secondary determiner. It’s still important, but it’s not the first thing we check.

When we see a house that shows well, the first thing we do is get out of our car and look around. We imagine our kids playing on the yard. We see ourselves snowblowing the driveway in the winter. We picture cookouts on the grill and all the other fun things that go with life. After that, we cautiously and nervously approach the little info box, hoping against hope that the house is within our range.

On the other hand, when people see the house I walk past every other night, I’d put money on the fact that the only thing they see or imagine is exactly what I imagine: a lot of work. They then probably do what we do and walk straight up to the info box and look at the price.

The big difference between the two scenarios is what happens at the info box: in the first case, we’re looking at the price, hoping it’s within our range. Our heart’s beating a little harder . . . were nervous, excited, hopeful. In the second scenario, none of that’s happening. We’re simply looking to see if the price is low enough to justify any thought whatsoever into purchasing the home.

In the first scenario, if the price is even within $20,000 of your range, chances are you call the realtor–you want to look into it, to dig, to discover if there’s some way you could swing it. You love the house, you want it. Or at least you want to look into it further. In the second scenario . . . if the price isn’t low enough to generate a little interest, you’re walking. You probably stuff that little info slip back into the box with a laugh, or you bring it home and throw it out.

In the first case, the house sells itself–price is of secondary (though still important) consideration. In the second situation, the price is everything: if it’s not low, low, low . . . the first impression of the house doesn’t leave a potential buyer with enough interest to warrant any further consideration.

So all that to say: if you’re trying to sell your home . . . don’t make that mistake. First impressions matter. In the next few posts, we’ll flesh this idea out and I’ll throw out a number of easy, low-cost fixes you can accomplish in a weekend that will help you make sure your house gets people stopping and talking.

Ending Decorating-Induced Depression One Can at a Time!

Posted on July 23, 2010August 6, 2019

About a year ago, I was working at our Lakewood Blvd. location and a couple came in with a bag full of samples: hardwood flooring, kitchen cupboards, countertops, carpet scraps, paint chips–everything. They dumped them on the counter and then the lady explained–in a very depressed way–that they had just remodelled their kitchen.

They’d put in all the materials they were showing me samples of. And they hated it–hated all of it. The floors looked terrible against the walls and the kitchen backsplash looked pink. That made the cabinets look green and on and on and on. She was really down–I could sense that immediately–and then I learned why: they had spent nearly $10,000 on the remodel and they hated it. They hated it so much that they were right then looking for new tile and considering new floors. They were thinking about tearing out what was new and starting over. From scratch. Seriously.

It was depressing. Painful. Emotionally draining. I can only imagine what was going through their heads. See, if I buy a videogame that stinks, I spend 3 weeks bemoaning the fact. Ask my wife. I drop $50 and don’t get the edge of my seat, laugh-til-I-drool experience I was expecting from that game, and I mope dejectedly around the house until I buy something else that I hate. Then I focus on that….

Anyway, I do that over $50. Let me drop $10,000 and hate the result and you’re going to have to institutionalize me.

That’s what these folks were dealing with: depression and frustration. They were looking at new materials, more time spent with their house ripped apart, more debt, more work, more inconvenience . . . all just to accomplish what they thought they were accomplishing in their first go-round. Depressing.

But I said this was an amazing story–not a depressing one. And it is. See, I handed these poor people off to one of our decorators at RepcoLite and after about 1/2 hour of talking, we made up a quart of a new paint color for their kitchen walls. The next day they were back for a couple gallons of that color–and they were excited.

See, the problem with their whole project wasn’t that they chose the wrong tile and the wrong floors and the wrong cabinets. The problem–believe it or not–was that they chose the wrong paint color. The color on the walls made everything else seem disjointed. When a new color was put down–a color that complimented all the different materials–the whole room changed.

The couple came back a week or so later and to tell us the good news. Rather than having wasted $10,000 and all that time, all they needed to do was change the wall color.

Now, I bring that up for a number of reasons. First off, I write all that to let you know just how much difference the right color can make on a wall or a room or a home. It’s difficult to imagine, but it’s true: a new color in the same old living room, filled with the same old furniture and carpet, can make the room seem completely new. It really can–if a new paint color can make floors, cabinets and backsplashes that seem to be terrible together look great and coordinated, then think what it could do in your home.

The second reason I bring that story up is this: things are never as bad as they seem. When you’re home project doesn’t turn out looking as great as you thought, don’t panic. Don’t let yourself immediately spiral into depression. Take a step back. Take a deep breath. And then consult some experts. Chances are, everything will turn out fine in the end.

Taking the Confusion out of the Painting Equation

Posted on July 21, 2010August 6, 2019

For the last couple posts, I’ve been recounting sad and potentially awkward moments that served to illustrate my broader “paint point.” See, by telling you all about my pie making fiasco or my scooter-building screw up, I tried to convey the importance of following a recipe or a set of instructions.

When you follow the steps for any given project, things go smoothly. When you branch out on your own and think for yourself and build or bake on the fly . . . well, it’s not uncommon to have experiences like those I wrote about.

Well, this idea–following a specific order or set of instructions–doesn’t only apply to scooters and pies. It also can help you make sure that any decorating project you tackle goes smoothly and turns out well.

Believe it or not, there’s a definite order in which you should make your home decorating selections. Working outside of that order . . . or jumbling that order up . . . often leads to complications and frustration and confusion. To keep your project on track, follow this order:

FURNITURE: Start with the furniture that will go in your newly remodeled room. If the furniture is not changing, move on to the next step. But if you’re thinking about purchasing new . . . here’s the place to start. Don’t start with a trip to the paint store–start at the furniture stores. And the reason is simple: nothing more directly relates to the comfort of a room than the furniture we put in there. When it comes to selecting furniture, you want to have the world “wide-open” in front of you. You don’t want to be limited to a handful of color options because you’ve already painted your walls. You want absolute freedom to pick whatever couch or chair or bed or table suits your fancy–no decorating limits at all.

FLOORING: After furniture, it’s time for you to pick out flooring. Again, you don’t want to be limited by paint colors when it comes to your flooring selections, so choose them early in the project. This may not seem important, but it is. We see it all the time at RepcoLite: folks find paint colors they like and then look at carpet. They find a style of carpet they love, but then find themselves utterly depressed and frustrated when they learn that carpet doesn’t come in a color that works with the colors they’ve painstakingly selected. Avoid this mistake by starting with carpet very early in the process.

WINDOW TREATMENTS: Now, this doesn’t apply to every room or every remodel project, but when it comes into play, be sure to select these items before moving on to your paint.

BATHROOM & KITCHEN FIXTURES: If you’re working in your bathroom or kitchen, this is the point–after floors and window treatments (and furniture if applicable)–where you would nail down your faucet and fixture selections. By this point, you’ll have some idea where your project is heading and you should have very little trouble selecting the right items. In fact, it’s very interesting. Start with this step (as I’ve done) in a bathroom remodel and you’re only heading for heartache. You walk into the store, look at hundreds of options of faucets and you pick one based on what you think looks cool. Later, as the room starts to take shape, more often than not, you find that while your faucet may look cool . . . it no longer fits with the decorating scheme you’ve got going. However, if you approach this selection at this stage in the process . . . after your floor and window treatments . . . chances are you’ll be able to instantly eliminate 1/2 of the faucets. You won’t want the bronze ones. Or maybe, with your decorating scheme, you’ll realize that the chrome-look is definitely not going to work. Whatever you decide, the bottom line is that choosing this item at this stage in the process will simplify your selection process.

LIGHTING: This step could easily be lumped in with the above step.

ARTWORK & WALL HANGINGS: Now’s the time when you start to flesh out your decorating. You’ve found furniture, flooring, window treatments, fixtures (lights, faucets, etc.) and now’s the time you start putting some color and fun on your walls. Pick items that will look good with all your other selections–pick items that will develop your theme or the feel you want the room to have. Pick these items and limit them only by the items you’ve already selected.

PAINT: Believe it or not . . . NOW’S finally the time you head to the paint store. See, paint should be your last selection in the entire process. And the reason is very simple and very straightforward: paint is changeable. When you find a couch you like, you’ll probably have 10 (at most) potential fabric options. Same with everything else on our list. The only thing that is completely fluid when it comes to decorating is your paint. At RepcoLite, we can match your paint to whatever colors you need. We can pull a fleck of color out of your throw pillow. We can pull colors out of your artwork. We can match a twist of fabric in your carpet. Paint is completely adjustable and, as such, should be the last thing you select.

Following that flow of events when it comes to any decorating project is going to simplify your project immensely. The days of frustration and confusion will slip away and you’ll find yourself actually enjoying the journey–not just anticipating the destination.

Off on the Blueberry Pie Tangent

Posted on July 20, 2010August 6, 2019

“Birthday Party Duck-Duck-Goose July 24, 2012 6” by Steven Depolo is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In the last post, I wrote about an experience I had with a toy that required some assembly. I told you how I started well but then, eventually, got ahead of myself and started thinking on my own. I discarded the instructions and put things together as I understood they would have to be put together. This worked fine until I got to a point where I couldn’t continue. The parts I had wouldn’t fit where they were supposed to.

After some frustration, I picked up the instructions and discovered I should never have attached this or that part to this or that post until the very end.

I had stepped out of order–and I screwed everything up.

Another example of this . . . as I was reminded yesterday . . . was a great little event my wife and I experienced shortly after we were married. See, we were in love (and still are) . . . like all newlyweds . . . and we decided that nothing would be more romantic on a Saturday afternoon in the summer than baking a pie together. Yeah. A Pie.

Well, that sounded like fun and so we headed in to the kitchen and compiled the ingredients. My wife read from the cookbook and I did all the little tasks as she reeled them off. Everything went well until she read–(and I’m screwing this up because I don’t remember the exact recipe . . . so for you bakers out there . . . this is not meant to be taken as an accurate and literal recipe!)–she read, “Add 1/2 cup of sugar.”

I looked at her. She looked at me and winked. I liked that . . . and so I measured out the sugar and dumped it into our mixing bowl with all the other things I’d amassed so far. I looked back at her and winked. She turned back to the book.

Clearing her throat she continued: “Add 1/2 cup sugar . . . to a separate mixture of 1/2 cup flour and 4 eggs.”

I looked at her. She looked at me and winked. I looked at the bowl of other ingredients and the sugar I’d just dumped in and looked back at her. “Babe, you said to add the sugar and now you say to add it to a separate mixture of flour and eggs?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I already dumped it in there,” I said, gesturing with my powdery fingers toward the big mixing bowl.

She followed my finger and looked and then said, “Hmmmm. Why don’t you try to take it out.”

She looked at me and winked. I bit my tongue. Yeah. Sure. Let me just wave my magic fairy wand and I’ll take out the sugar.

I looked at the bowl and was getting ready to say something rude when I remembered that we were in love and that we were newlyweds. So I pushed my frustration aside and started scooping. After about 3 or 4 minutes, I’d removed most of the sugar and had it dumped nicely and stirred thoroughly through a mixture of 1/2 cup flour and 4 eggs. Just like she said to do.

Now, we were cooking. Stirring that mixture, I felt all my frustrations fade away. I mean really, was it worth starting a big fight just because she read the instructions in such a way as to lead me into error? It was just a pie, right? We were in love, right? Right.

When I had the mixture stirred thoroughly, I looked at her and winked. She turned back to the book and skimmed over the instructions, trying to find her spot. She mumbled to herself for a few seconds, until she found where she’d left off. She smiled and read, “Add 1/2 cup sugar . . . to a separate mixture of 1/2 cup flour and 4 eggs . . . being sure to separate the yolks from the whites . . . before mixing.” She trailed off at the end and stared at the cookbook for a few seconds, re-reading. When she looked up, she didn’t wink.

I winked. Or, I guess you’d more accurately call it a twitch. I twitched. A whole bunch of times. And then the veins started pulsing on my forehead.

We both looked down at the mixture of everything . . . yolks and whites . . . on the counter and then we both looked back at each other. We were in love, right? Of course. But still . . . .

And so I said, in my most loving voice (but of course, sarcasm snuck in), “Babe. Let’s try something new. Let’s read a whole sentence. From the big Capital letter all the way to the little period at the end . . . let’s read that whole thing before you tell me to do something. Would that work?”

Well, as all husbands know, that didn’t work. Before I knew what had happened, she was sitting on the front porch rocking violently in the rocking chair and I was standing in the kitchen all by myself, covered with flour and sugar and looking at a pile of fresh blueberries and a bunch of other ingredients I didn’t understand.

In the end, I produced a pie. I’m not sure how good it was, but I do know that it took me forever to finish it. That’s not the point, though. The point I want to convey is that things work best when you follow the intended order. We were trying to bake our pie out of order. We were doing things that we should have waited to do. We were skipping steps that should have been accomplished before moving on. And in the end, it was a confusing, head-scratching mess.
Just like my experience with the Scooter from yesterday’s post. Stepping out of order created mass confusion and problems. It cost me extra money. It cost me extra time. It made me bleed on my carpet.

And all of this ties directly to home decorating. See, when folks overhaul a room in their home (or, remember when people used to build new houses?). When folks overhaul a major part of their house and start over with new carpet, new wall colors, new furniture . . . new everything . . . it can be a complicated and confusing job.

I meet these people at RepcoLite all the time. They stand at the color racks and try to figure out what in the world they should pick for their colors. They look at over 3,000 options and before long, their brain starts to smoke.

They grab colors they like–blues and greens and tans and greys–and then they head off to the carpet store (or, if they’re at our Lakewood RepcoLite, they just turn around and browse the samples)–and they try to find a carpet they like that matches their colors. But many times they can’t–not exactly–so they decide to put that part of the decision off until later and they head to the furniture store. There they look for couches they like and try to match one to their paint colors. And again, 9 times out of 10, they can’t do it.

Before long, they end up back at the paint store, looking for new colors. And this time, they’re even more frustrated and confused than before.

They’re starting to hate the process. They’re starting to dream about colors and they’re starting to call those dreams, “nightmares.” They’re arguing with their family, their tempers are short, and they’re, in a phrase, “sick of it all”–the whole remodel, the redecorating, the repainting–all of it.

But there’s good news! The reason they’re so sick of it–the reason you’re so sick of it if you’re in that same boat–is because you’re most likely working out of sequence. Is it possible you’re working your way through the home decorating recipe out of order. Are you doing what I did when my wife and I baked the pie? Or what I did when I tried to build the scooter? Are you doing things first that should be saved for last, you’re doing things last that should have been done earlier? Well, if you are, no doubt the whole thing is confusing, frustrating, mind-boggling.

But there’s good news as I said. There’s a recipe you can follow. It will help you discover order and clarity in your decorating process and it will make everything you do, every step you take, easier and less painful . . . and most likely, even fun.

Tomorrow, I promise, we’ll cover those steps.

Some Assembly Required

Posted on July 19, 2010August 6, 2019

Every Christmas or birthday our kids get one or two toys that have those dreaded words on the box: Some Assembly Required. I know all parents out there reading this know the pain those simple words cause. Oh, the box usually tries to calm us down and trick us by telling us not to worry, that the assembly is easy. Or that it only takes 5 minutes, but we know the truth. See, we know how WE WORK.

Let me explain by using a brief example. We bought my daughter a scooter a few weeks ago. We brought it home and opened up the box and many small plastic and metal pieces fell out. Naturally, I groaned. (See, even though the box rattled when I shook it and even though it said “Some Assembly Required” I was still hoping that the “assembly required” meant I had to put stickers on and that the rattling sounds were just a whole bunch of those little packets of silica gel that come with new shoes.)

When I saw that the rattling parts were really washers and nuts and screws; and when I realized that “Some Assembly Required” meant I had to build the entire scooter from scratch . . . well, I wasn’t terribly happy. I was tired. I wanted to rest. I’d just been at Target with 5 small children. I NEEDED quiet and rest. But I knew I was not to have either of these things. Because Tessa was standing there, looking at me with big brown eyes (that always have fire smoldering just beneath the surface) and a quivering lip. And so, against every inclination in my body, I decided to trudge through the task and build the scooter.

The first step was easy: Amassing my tools. It took only 5 minutes and I was seated on the floor of the living room with screw drivers, a hammer, and a couple different pliers. I felt ready. I knew I could do this.

I organized all the parts into separate piles and reached for the instructions. I then flipped past the poorly worded introduction telling me how I was sure to be happy with this “Super-Happiness Scooter Toy” until I found the actual instructions. Again, these were poorly worded (they always are) and after trying to interpret what was meant by vague and cryptic commands like “find Part A and combine Circumlocutor Nut B with all force to Part C, being always sure to turn counter-clockwise Part A until clicking sound is heard”, I decided to quit reading and go straight to the pictures.

And this worked out pretty well. But then, before long, two things happened. And I’m betting these things happen to you as well. See, first, I got ahead of myself. I started to see what was happening. All the confusing instructions and piles of bolts and circumlocutor nuts started to make sense and I saw where this was going. In fact, I even said that out loud. I looked up at my wife with a smile–a smirk–my Indiana Jones smirk–and I said, “I see where this is going.”

Yeah. And that’s when I threw the instructions aside. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I saw how “this” was supposed to connect to “that”. Everything made sense. And I breezed through, putting things together rapidly.

But then the second thing happened. I arrived at a point where what I just put together couldn’t possibly be connected to the part to which it needed to be connected. There was just no way. It was physically impossible. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say it was metaphysically impossible. There was a fundamental flaw in the design plan. This scooter was never meant to roll. Somewhere, somebody in the vast “Super-Happiness” toy factory screwed up. I was convinced of it. There was no other explanation.

But then, after about 20 minutes of fussing–twenty minutes of trying to make the wheel fit where it obviously was supposed to fit–I picked up the instructions. After flipping through them for a few minutes . . . I realized the problem. On page 5, on the bottom, there was a large picture with a huge circle around it and the words: “WARNING!!! Do NOT connect Part C.A. to Post B.D. and turn until you hear clicking sound. This MUST be done AFTER Wheel One is connected to Scooter Body. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to have made this mistake, please call our Super-Happiness Technicians at 1-800 . . . .”

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I looked down at Part C.A. and saw that it was indeed connected to Post B.D. And I distinctly remembered turning it until I heard the clicking sound.

I turned back to the instructions and started looking for a solution. But there was none. The only thing I could do–according to them–was to call their Super-Happiness technicians.

Well, that’s not how we do things in America. We don’t ask for help. We don’t ask questions. We don’t stop for directions at gas stations when we’re lost. We DO. And so I started DOING with all my energy all over that Part C.A. and Part B.D. Oh, I started DOING with a vengeance.

And eventually . . . nearly 2 hours and 3 trips to the hardware store later . . . the “Super-Happiness Scooter Toy” was rolling up and down the driveway propelled by a happy little girl.

As I picked up all the torn papers and sponged my blood out of the carpet, I reflected on the fiasco that took nearly 4 hours of “easy, no-problem, assembly”.

In this deep soul-searching, I realized that all of my problems came about because I stepped out on my own. I stepped away from the boring instruction book. There was a plan . . . a guide . . . a series of steps that should be taken in sequence to make this thing work. And I stepped outside of it. I was doing step 7 before I completed step 4. I completed step 3 when I was supposed to wait to complete it until the very end of the project. I screwed up the order and, in the end, it cost me: extra time, extra money, extra trips to the store and constant needling from Tessa as she asked exactly 107 times “Is my scooter done now?”

Well, believe it or not, there’s a paint related tie-in to all of this. We don’t have an instruction book on the steps to follow when you’re choosing colors for a decorating project in your home . . . but there are steps you should take. And there is an order that these steps should be completed in. In fact, completing these steps out of order (as I did with the scooter) is one of the main causes of decorating frustration in existence.

Next time, we’ll dig into them. Today was just to lay the groundwork.

The Future is in Your Bathroom . . . Now!

Posted on July 16, 2010August 6, 2019

There are times when I think I’ve seen everything. I don’t know why I allow myself to think that. Because whenever I do–whenever that thought crosses my mind–whenever I’m tempted to think that I’ve seen everything . . . I find something like this.

And not only have I never seen something like this–I’ve never even dreamed or imagined something like this. I mean really . . . who does? What kind of person dreams up the notion that a super idea would be a toilet paper holder/iPod dock and music system with waterproof speakers? Who thinks these things up?

I mean really . . . apart from the general “grossness” . . . isn’t there also a lack of aesthetics? And apart from those things . . . who looks at that thing and thinks it’s going to be extremely functional? Can’t you just imagine the deep bass tones and crystal clear sounds that will pump through those (I’m sure) high tech waterproof speakers? And think about the iPod dock part of it. It’s supposed to charge your iPod . . . but using what? I don’t think it’s probably hardwired into the wall. It probably runs off batteries. So you’re using regular double A batteries to charge your iPod. How do you think that’s going to work?

Yeah, I only have to look at it to pretty much guarantee you it’s not going to be a good iPod dock. It won’t be a very good sound system. It’s an ugly, over-complicated and soon to be gross (just look at all those buttons that will soon be coated with gunk) toilet paper holder.

It has three purposes: hold toilet paper, recharge iPods and play music. And, undoubtedly, it will do all three. But how well? Wouldn’t you be better off to just buy a regular toilet paper holder? One that is only designed to hold . . . you know . . . toilet paper? Wouldn’t that make more sense? Then, go ahead and buy another gadget to dock your iPod and play your music. Why try to combine all those things into one? When you do, you end up with a product that WILL do all the things promised–it just won’t do any of them well.

And that kind of reminds me of that new Primer and Paint all combined in one product. Oh, the analogy isn’t perfect–paint and primer in one product DOES work well on certain situations. But really, for many projects, using a primer that’s also a paint can be just as dumb as buying this toilet paper holder.

When you’re painting bare wood . . . inside or outside . . . skipping the primer step is as dumb as buying this toilet paper holder. When you’re painting over unknown stains that are on your walls–water spots, smoke stains, crayon, ink or marker stains . . . .painting over those stains without priming is as dumb as buying that toilet paper holder. Painting over tough-to-stick-to surfaces like plastics and laminates without using a primer is . . . .well, you get it.

There are certain times when the primer/paint all in one product (which is really just a high-quality latex paint) is fine. But there are other times when skipping that primer step is going to fill your home improvement life with misery. Knowing the difference between the two is the tough part. And that’s why we’re here.

Just stop out at RepcoLite and tell us what you’re doing. We’ll help you figure out what you should use, how you should do it and whether or not you should go with the black, white or chrome model of that toilet paper holder thingy.