ZIP Sheathing, Mold Prevention & Rainscreens: Your Home Questions Answered

Bottom line, zip's a good product.

It turns into a mold sandwich only when the flashing details or the climate design gets ignored.

Ready to turn your house into the home you've always dreamed of without the headaches or huge bills.

You're tuned to around the House, the nation's number one home improvement radio show and PODC with expert advice that's helped millions tackle everything from remodels to repairs.

Hosts Eric G. And John Dudley have got you covered with the best advice and information about your home.

Now let's get this hour started.

Hey guys, I'm Eric G. Welcome to the Round the House show.

We've got a great show for you today.

This one's a little bit different.

We have a Facebook group called around the House Nation.

And this last week I asked you what you're working on and you all delivered.

Fences, hillsides, 50 year old addicts.

Great question about zip sheathing.

A lot of different things.

So we're going to tackle those today.

So these are people that I know out there from the Facebook group and if you are looking for, just look for around the House Nation.

If you're a Facebook person, you can jump on there.

But Ian came in with a great question.

And so this was about zip sheathing.

Now nothing here is sponsored.

These are just questions about the products you see out there.

And here's an interesting thing.

I'm out on the west coast and zip sheathing kind of started out in the east coast, has been working their way out here just probably three or four years ago.

It was pretty hard for me to find and had to order it in a lumber yard.

Not so much now, but that's the way it was.

So it's still growing in popularity out here.

So Ian just came in and said, is zip systems sheathing?

Is it a good idea or a future mold sandwich?

Great point.

So zip sheathing, if you haven't heard about it, is an OSB sheathing that Huber Systems, their zip system is got a water resistive barrier built onto the face.

So when you install it and then you tape it with the zip tape or even their liquid membrane that goes on it.

This is your wrb, your weather resistant barrier and an air barrier.

So there is no mold problem with this stuff.

I actually like it.

I think it's a great product and there's a lot of places that you can use it.

If you watch the videos.

When I was doing the sighting and stuff on my last house probably five years ago, I put it up there.

It was great.

I'm Happy with it.

It worked well.

I did that.

We'll talk about that in a little bit.

But I think it works really good.

Mold comes from water getting in and not getting out.

So if you have two vapor barriers without any kind of air movement through there or an escape plan, that's when you run into mold problems.

So if you have a wall that had an air barrier on it, let's call it, I don't know, plastic on the inside.

Maybe it's a. I don't know, maybe it's just some kind of a plastic sheet they put up with drywall.

And then you put another weather resistant barrier and air membrane on the other side.

Yeah.

If you've got trap moisture in there, water gets behind it.

Easy mold sandwich, something you got to be careful with.

Now, here's the one thing.

When you're talking insulation, you're talking different air barriers.

You're talking letting a house breathe.

There's a lot of building science in this.

And I can promise you this starts to get to be a very boring radio show and podcast that I'm not going to get into so much here.

But we're going to talk about this at more a 30,000 foot level and maybe a 5,000 foot level so you have a better understanding with it.

So you just want to make sure that that moist air isn't getting trapped someplace.

But here's where I get into this.

Huber's evaluation lists the overlay at a minimum of 12 perms, which is the ASTM E96 water method.

Competitors like Dupont point to testing that shows under 1 perm by other methods.

Translation.

Don't count on the sheathing to dry outward quickly.

So here's how you do it right.

You tape the seams exactly to spec on clean dry panels.

With the tape centered, press down hard.

I want you to use the zip system roller.

It actually, if you press down hard enough with it, it actually puts little embosses, little zip letters in it so you can see that you did it correctly.

That's this.

That's the easy answer.

So on top of that, you're going to flash every opening and penetration.

Then you're going to leave a drainage gap or rain screen behind the sighting where it makes sense.

In cold climates, think about exterior insulating, which is zip R sheathing or code complaint outboard insulation.

We're seeing that now.

Many cases across the country where you get your sheathing on, you need to put on, maybe it's rockwool panels.

We'll talk about that later.

So it's one of those things that you're seeing this to keep the sheathing warm and then controlling indoor humidity, which means running those bath fans, running your dehumidifier in the house if you're in a humid area, making sure that you've got the right ventilation, running the kitchen hood, fan, all those things to keep that humidity down.

Now here's the thing.

Installer quality matters more than the brand.

A sloppy tape job or missed window flashing beats any product out there.

Bottom line, zip's a good product.

It turns into a mold sandwich only when the flashing, the details or the climate design gets ignored.

So you gotta build the whole, right?

You gotta build the whole thing as specified.

So let's talk about moisture control and ventilation.

Let's start with bulk water.

The number one thing that rots walls isn't vapor.

It's plain old water.

Getting in the details, we flash windows, doors, deck ledgers, shingle style, upper layer lapping over the lower.

So water always runs out, never in.

Where a roof meets a wall, we want kick out flashing and the zip tape gets rolled down hard on clean and dry panels.

So you got to give it drainage and drying path.

So ventilating a wall doesn't mean just attic vents.

It means a gap behind the siding, which is a rain screen with furring strips or a drainage mat.

So water drains and air carries moisture away.

So when you look at building science, they say about a quarter inch gap works as a capillary break.

And 3,8 inch is the usual coated minimum.

Once you allow for real world tolerances, bigger gaps ventilate better.

Energy Star's indoor air plus guidance recommends at least a 316 inch gap or drainage mat as best practices.

The real mold sandwich is siding nailed tight up against the sheeting with no gap.

In a wet climate, that's where you got a problem.

So here's the other part.

Inside vapor drive in the winter, when it's cold out, warm moist air, indoor pushes towards that cold sheathing zip cuts air leakage and leaking air carries most of the moisture.

So that's a big plus.

Seal the inside too.

So you're gonna seal the outlets, top plates, plumbing wire holes.

In cold climates, exterior insulation like zip R sheathing keeps the sheathing warmer so it stays above that condensation point.

Kind of like that cold glass of adult beverage or lemonade in the summertime.

The right vapor retarder depends on your climate zone.

So there's absolutely no way to give you one rule for the entire country.

So keep the house dry.

A tighter house Holds onto moisture from showers, cooking and well us in the house.

Bath fans and kitchen hoods work to vent that outside.

You want to make sure it's on timers, humidistats.

So that's kind of the thing.

When you're getting into really tight homes though, you're seeing ERVs and HRVs for whole house fresh air.

So there's a lot of building science here.

So this is where you really want to bring in the professionals.

Fix leaks at the details, give it a drying path, keep the sheathing warm, keep the house dry.

So that's the most important stuff we should be looking at here.

So now there's one thing that I do like out there and I think this is important when you're thinking about siting, roofing on the outside of the house.

I like the fortified home program.

This is called Building it Right.

It's a voluntary beyond code standard from the ibhs, which is they've been on the show before.

But the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a nonprofit research group provided and funded by the insurance industry is built to cut damage from hurricanes, high wind and hail whether you're building new or re roofing.

So there are three levels of this.

We're going to talk more about this here in a few minutes.

When we come back, I want to talk more about this.

This is something to really think about.

And where this comes in is what happens if the wind blows some shingles off.

You're gonna have a ton of water damage or is this gonna hold up for you?

We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that.

Kids these days you'll never understand what it's like to play an instrument.

What's up?

This is Sticks it in ya.

And Satchel from Steel Panther and you are listening to.

Around the House with Eric G.

Yeah,.

We love Eric G. And you should too.

1987.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining us today.

If you want to find out more about us, head over to our website aroundthe house online.com and speaking of social media, that's what we're this kind of show came from today.

So I was met talking last weekend here and we were talking to the people out there on around the House Nation, our Facebook closed group we've had for a number of years and we've been putting a little more effort into that and had a lot of questions pop up.

So we are answering those today.

So we could get back and get people the information they're looking for and help maybe with some questions for you guys as well.

So I was just talking about zip sheeting, which was a question that came in from Ian.

And what I'm talking about here is the fortified roof program out there that the insurance Institute for business and home safety has.

And I think this is probably one of the smarter things.

If you're adding a roof, you're doing some siding, maybe some windows, garage door.

Take a look at this.

This could actually save you money on your insurance and give you some peace of mind on your home.

So they have three levels of the fortified roof system out there.

So you start out with fortified roof and then they go to silver and then to gold.

So you got all three and you got to hit one before the next.

So the roof is the big one.

Stronger roof edges with wider drip edge.

Fully adhered starter strip, ring shank nails in a tighter pattern sealed roof deck.

The IBHS says ring shack nails nearly double the roof strength against wind.

Silver adds things like garage doors, gable and bracing, chimney tie downs, anchored porches and carports.

Plus windows, doors and soffits in hurricane areas.

Gold goes for a continuous load path, roof to wall, foundation connections that are engineered.

But here's the thing.

Hurricane, high winds, hail where you live depends on whether you want to follow the hurricane standard or the high wind standard.

The hurricane version adds opening protection, impact rated windows and doors, reinforced soffits and stronger wall sheathing.

And there's a optional hail supplement you can add to either using impact rated roof covers for shingles.

That means good or excellent IBH ABH IBHS hail rating.

Built for hail up to 2 inches.

So here's the tie in that kind of relates back to Ian Zip question.

The sealed roof deck.

If the wind peels off your shingles, water ports to the gaps in the deck, then it gets down, wets the insulation, the drywall and you got a hot mess.

IBHS says sealing the seams can cut that water intrusion up to 95%.

So that's pretty cool.

So that's all of a sudden where it goes.

And if you're living it, you could be living in a desert area that gets high winds.

I remember when I was living in the, it had to be the late 80s, early 90s.

I was still in the eastern Washington area, Tri Cities.

I was in there and I had a roommate.

We had a windstorm come through, winter windstorm which happens there.

We had 80, 90 mile an hour winds.

I watched the roof come Completely off my apartment complex.

I was on the second floor.

Took it right off, down to the rafters.

Blew all the insulation out.

And then I watched.

I'm on the second floor.

I watched the drywall crack diagonally.

So sheer.

This building was close to coming down.

Pulled the metal siding off.

Heck of a mess.

That wasn't a hurricane.

That was just a big wind event.

So this is interesting.

And so when you look at some of these things, if you get these certifications, they can help you on your homeowner's insurance.

So that's a big one.

So the standard itself isn't tied to one state, not really into building code, but you need to find an evaluator or a fortified trained roofer@fortifiedhome.org Check with your state and your insurance company about programs, discounts.

If you're gonna re re roof in any way, this could work really well.

So next up here, we're gonna be talking about another Eric G. So we're gonna say GJ here just for old times.

So he wants to put in Rockwool but still have his even roof fence.

The attic is unconditioned, so how does he avoid a mold factory?

So here's the good news.

First, a vented, unconditioned attic with insulation on the ceiling floor.

Totally proven setup.

The insulation isn't what makes mold.

Warm, moist air coming up into the cold attic is.

And Eric, you are in the right zone to care about this.

Washington's energy code puts King Pierce to homeless Thurston Clark and the rest of the west side in climate zone 4C.

And that C stands for marine.

So let's talk about why addicts mold.

Here's the mechanism of all this.

In the winter, warm, moist airhouse sneaks up through the gaps in the ceiling, hits the cold underside of the roof deck, nail tips condenses, and in a cold snap, it shows up as frost.

When it melts, we get wet sheathing, wet insulation, ceiling stains, and even water dripping out of light fixtures and bath fans.

Not good.

So a lot of times it's coming through those bath fans, kitchens, drying vents into the attic.

Plus, any gaps are on duck ductwork, wires, plumbing light fixtures, and the attic hatch.

And in western Washington, our winters are long and damp.

So a roof deck that gets wet might not dry up very well because there might not be any sunny days for anytime soon.

So that's why air sealing and ventilation matter so much on that side of the mountain there.

And again, we're getting into that climate zone stuff, but it's all going to relate to all of you out there.

So what to look for when you're up there?

Frost or rust on the nail tips poking through the roof deck.

Dark staining on the sheathing.

Inspectors usually will see this first on the north facing slope which gets the least sun and stays the coldest.

So that's kind of what you see.

Now here's the other part.

Air seal first.

So what I like to do, yanking all the old insulation out.

Now here's the thing.

If you have any of that vermiculite insulation, before you go get crazy on that, make sure you get it tested.

The problem with the vermiculite is that was mined out of the same minds as asbestos.

So it's hit and miss.

We did testing on the stuff that we had there at the beach house.

No, we had just came back with a solid.

No, as far as having the, having the asbestos in that.

But you could go either way.

So get that tested so you know what you're dealing with.

If so, just have it abated.

Have them come in.

They'll vacuum it out with hepa, get it out of there and have it cleaned up.

That stuff comes out pretty good.

This is the time that I say it's after that's done.

Air seal the ceiling from the attic side.

You're never gonna have easier access.

So ceiling stops that conditioned house air from leaking into the attic.

And that's the main mold source.

And it's money flying out of the roof too.

So make sure you deal with that.

So go through there, seal that up.

What I like to do is if you've got all those holes where they ran the electrical and the plumbing up through the top plates and all that, get in there with the fireproof foam.

I like to seal that stuff all up, any of those big holes.

So get in there with the fire rated spray foam.

Might as well go through and do that.

And then you're going to want to make sure and caulk everything so you don't have any air leakage around there.

Get something good.

I like the big stretch caulking.

That works well.

It cleans up easy and it moves a lot, which is great.

Now when we come back, we're going to talk the rest of this trick here because this is really going to help you out to get this going.

We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that dial.

We're just getting started.

Not from you, not from anybody.

Welcome back to the around the House show.

I'm Eric G if you're just joining us, we've been talking about all the questions we got in on around the House Nation.

This is our Facebook closed group out there.

So if you're a Facebook user, feel free to jump on there and then you can ask to be a part of it and I'll be the one that goes through it.

So if you've got a fake profile, all that kind of stuff might not let you in.

But if you look like a real person and you just don't have two friends and you created it last week, well, we'll let you in there.

This is a kind, gentle place.

In there we talk about home improvement stuff.

There's no smack talking.

We just have a great time with good people in there.

So we cause we try to make that a safe place for everybody to go in there and talk about the real things about your house.

We've been talking about my buddy Eric GJ who got on there and so here's what's going on.

So we're talking about removing it, making sure that you got any of the asbestos stuff out of there, but making sure you go around and caulking all those seams, wire and plumbing holes.

I like to use the spray foam with the fire rated stuff.

So just in case you get a fire, it's not going to go up to the attic.

Anything you can do like that to help, that is not a bad thing.

And IC is insulation contacts.

So swap them for IC rated and airtight which is ICAT.

ICAT fixtures gasketed or cocked to the ceiling.

So if you're gonna keep Those old non IC fixtures, it needs a sealed enclosure and 3 inches of clearance from insulation.

That's usually what the rules are with that.

So you're gonna build a box around it, do that and then go ahead and insulate around that just so you keep it way away from it so things don't overheat.

Now chimney chases, never stuff foam against the chimney.

Use sheet metal flashing sealed with high temperature caulk, fixed dam to keep the insulation back.

Do all those things.

Follow the local building code to do that.

DOE witherization job aids have a bunch of information on this as well, but just check with your local building code.

Make sure that you're not stepping on anybody's toes there as well.

That can change state to state, city to city.

And in Washington, that's probably going to be a state thing.

So now here's the thing.

Attic hatch weather strip it and glue rigid insulation to the top so it isn't the biggest hole in the ceiling.

And then safety, of course, check for any active knob and tube wiring.

50S house, probably not common for older homes.

That's when you want to deal with it.

Don't insulate over it.

And then if you've got any old insulation that looks like vermiculite, which is those little brown gray pebbles, check that asbestos like we talked about earlier.

And if you have any gas appliances that draft naturally, make sure that you're not sitting here creating any problems with combustion.

Safety test after tightening the house, pretty easy to do.

Now here's the other thing that can really lead to mold.

It's venting it.

Right.

So here's what happens.

Before I want to talk real quick about venting.

And this is going to be.

Before we talk about venting the attic, I want to talk about venting your.

Your vents that come out.

So your bath fans, your.

Maybe it's a bath fan that's in the laundry room.

Maybe it's the range hood fan.

So for bath fans, I usually use the properly sized insulated duct.

Again, check your local code here.

I like the insulated duct because here's what can happen if you're in a cold climate.

If you put.

I'm just going to put metal.

Awesome.

If you do sheet metal and you don't insulate it, what can happen is that humid moisture, you're taking a shower, all that goes rushing up through there, it hits the 35 degree metal in there.

And now that water is going to condense and go running down and drop right onto what's ever under that fan.

Could be the floor, could be anywhere else.

So you want that.

But always check that building code to see what they recommend in your area.

So make sure that comes out.

You also want to make sure you've got a hard metal duct, sealed, taped.

All of these have to go completely outside of the attic.

Especially in 50s houses.

60S, 70s, there's a good chance that somebody didn't do that venting.

Right.

And it'll go up into a kind of next to a roof vent or things like that.

Nope.

This needs to go all the way out the structure.

So if you're up there, make sure those go into its own roof vent that goes out that's designed so it's totally sealed.

Comes up into that goes out of the structure a hundred percent.

No sharing any vents that goes with and make sure it's the right size.

If you're trying to push a lot of air through a little tiny vent that can be a problem.

If you've got a big range hood it could be even bigger.

Maybe that's a 10 inch duct.

Got to do the research.

So make sure that goes out of the building.

Now next up we're talking about ventilation soffits getting air out whether it's through a ridge roof fence, gable invents.

So asphalt roofing manufacturers say vents should never be blocked.

So here's where we start getting into code.

And this again we're going to want to talk to your local code but we're just going to kind of work with IRC here which is the international residential code.

So IRC R800 62 calls for 1 square foot of net free vent area for every 150 square feet of attic.

You can drop to 1 per 300 if 40 to 50% of it is high vents within 3ft of the ridge and the rest is low.

Now Washington owned code has its own separate vapor retarder condition that applies to zone 6 and 8.

So it doesn't get you in 4C.

So you see where this starts to get kind of complex.

Exhaust should never exceed intake.

Exhaust being those big roof vents on the top surface versus the stuff that's coming in from the soffits.

If there's more exhaust, the attic can pull air from inside the house through can lights in the hatch or anywhere else it's leaking.

So don't mix exhaust types as well.

Ridge vents which go right down the top ridge plus gable vents or ridge vents plus a power fan can completely short circuit your airflow.

One vent ends up added as intake part of the attic goes stagnant.

Weather gets in, you got humidity issues.

This can be a problem.

The biggest problem where I see is attic vent fans.

These powered ones that you plug in, they can create negative pressure that pull conditioned air out of the house through those gaps.

And the things that I was telling you to seal up.

Never put one of those in without getting in there and sealing up that drywall and up from the ceiling in there to make sure.

Otherwise you're just pulling cool air or hot air out of the inside of the house.

Gets expensive not Going to pay for itself.

Make sure they're not creating negative pressure.

So passive soffit to ridge ventilation is a better bet.

Now here's where you got to be careful with insulation baffles at every vented soffit.

So you want to keep 1 to 2 inches of airspace to the roof deck with the baffles extending above the insulation depth so eaves stay clear.

Now, here's the thing.

If you want to go Rockwool, awesome.

Rockwell has their comfort bat.

This is a bat insulation.

So this isn't something you blow in.

You're going to lay it down there.

So I love it.

It's unfaced stonewool.

So it's non combustible water and moisture resistant, inorganic, doesn't promote mold growth.

So here's the thing.

So if you look at the R value by thickness, you're gonna get the R30 at seven and a quarter inches and R38 at nine and a half inches for attic use.

So you're gonna lay the first layer between the joists, fitted tight, no gaps, compression.

The second layer, you're gonna go the opposite direction, perpendicular across the joists, so it covers the wood and the seams.

That's how you're going to get to the R value you need vapor open is also a feature of Rockwool.

So it's going to let the moisture through.

So you're not going to create any places for moisture to get caught.

So they make bats, boards, pipe insulation.

They don't do it as a blow.

So if you want to blow it in, other makers do blown mineral wool.

But I do like it better than blown cellulose, all of that.

So that's something to consider.

I think it's really good if you go in there.

The fire resistance and the moisture resistance is what makes this key.

All right, we come back, we're going to talk some design questions from John.

That's next up when we come back on around the House.

Hey, make sure you're following us.

Make sure you're following us on social media and subscribe to all of that Round the House.

We'll be right back after these important messages.

Don't change that dial.

Hey, guys, welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

I'm Eric G. Hey, make sure you follow us on social media.

If you're listening on the radio out there, just head over to aroundthehouse online.com.

You can find everything right there.

You can message us off the website, you can message on social Media.

We've got two YouTube channels.

And today we're talking about a post I did last week on around the House Nation, our closed group there.

We had so many great questions that came in on that post.

I said, we're doing a show out of this.

Let's have some fun.

And so we've been talking about, if you're just joining us and you're one of the people that messaged, we had a bunch of stuff that we've talked about.

We were talking about some insulation from GJ there.

We were talking with Ian about zip systems about that.

So make sure you if you're on the radio and you're like, man, I was just in Home Depot getting stuff and I came out and turned the car on and just found you.

Head back on your favorite podcast player.

You can find the episode there.

Just look for the around the House show.

So the next one here we had John come in and I've known John for a while.

I'm not gonna out him here.

He owns or owns.

He runs a huge Facebook group out there for appraisers.

We'll just leave it that he's been on the show before.

Great dude.

Love him.

So he just moved into a typical 16 year old Florida pool home that feels sterile.

And so he was asking accent walls, trim and molding help.

Let me paint the picture here for you.

Beautiful house, looks well cared for but it has that kind of matchy, matchy beige, gray, whatever you want to call it.

Walls, tile, everything in there just doesn't have any pop.

And I could sit there and make things expensive and say, man, you got tile everywhere.

Tear up the tile, have some fun.

Let's try to keep it affordable for John here so we can make sure that we do that.

We've talked a ton about color in the show so you might want to go back and check our app Episode from Beige to Bold Mastering paint colors that I did with Wendy Glacier here a little bit ago.

That's another one.

And then why do they even bother?

You're see a ton of hot colors out there.

So that's a great place.

Let's talk about color first though.

Two fixes.

Warmth and depth.

Color handles the warmth.

Molding is going to give you some texture and some Depth.

I made fun of this one.

I don't think this is going to help you.

Williams has celery, Benjamin moorehab's Webster green Bear grounded, which is kind of an earthy olive.

The industry color wise, is moving to warm, earthy, nature inspired colors.

And that's actually the cure for sterile.

There's another trend that we'll talk about later in a story that'll be coming out in the next few weeks where we're starting to see food, hot food trends turn into color trends.

We'll be talking about that a little bit later.

Accent wall placement.

Some people are for them, some people aren't.

If you're good, gonna do them, and I've done them myself.

Pick the wall your eye goes to when you walk in, like behind the sofa bed, headboard wall, fireplace, TV wall.

Not the full wall of windows that you're just gonna catch out.

That goes to the sliders, the pool.

It's mostly glass and it's just gonna.

You're just.

You're gonna miss it.

So that's not going to make the impact you're looking for, but that's where you want to start.

Paint the trim or drench it.

You don't need white trim.

If you look at what Benjamin Moore suggests.

They kind of want you to go beyond white to show off architecture.

Or try color drenching.

Where the walls, the trim and the doors are one color.

All you do is change.

The sheen can be pretty forgiving and looks pretty cool, too.

Now let's talk sheen.

Since you're in the sun capital, paint the trim and you're going through it.

I like to do the walls in a mat or an eggshell if you're looking for that.

Any durability, I try to go as flat as I can that I can still clean up.

Eggshell is the durable middle ground for busy rooms.

Trim indoors.

Satin to semi gloss, which highlight the molding and wipes clean, makes a difference on the base trim, especially with tile.

So glossier sheens make dark colors look darker and they're going to show every flaw.

So sampling in the sheen that you actually like.

That way you can make sure you do it so the bright sun shifts colors big time.

In Florida, a color that looks perfect on a chip can go washed out at noon and completely differently under the lights in your house when they're on in the Evening.

So paint two coats on a foam board or just paint the wall you're gonna do.

Get a sample.

It's always about the color samples, guys.

Run down.

If sometimes paint stores will have a color sample sale.

Get down there, buy a little bit, put it on the wall, see what it does.

Take a look at it.

Look at it for a week and go, does this suck or is this cool?

You'll know.

So when take a look at it.

Make sure you put the sample up before you get painting.

Otherwise you're just gonna have to do it over again.

And the only winner on that is the paint company because they sold you twice the amount of paint.

Now the next one.

Moldings.

Trim is one of the best bang for your bucks.

Ways to add character.

You want it to fit the house.

If you got a mid century or modern house, maybe trim's not gonna be your friend.

But if it's more traditional or you're getting into all those different styles, make sure it fits the right style.

So you can picture frame molding.

You can do accent walls where you do some depth to it, where you're actually making it look like a panel where you can do raised molding on it.

That's a really cool, almost like a Wayne's cut that you could do in the dining room accent wall hallway.

I like doing a beefier baseboard sometimes, but here's where you run into problems.

That beefier baseboard can fight you when you're in a kitchen because you'll have maybe a 6 inch baseboard going around.

You're like, I like that beefy look.

Now you get down to that four and a half inch toe kick and it looks kind of goofy.

So be careful.

Plan it out to make sure you don't have those issues.

So have some fun with moldings.

If it fits your house, you could get away with it, John, in your house there, because looking at the pictures you posted up on there, I think it looks pretty good and you could do some more with it.

And that's going to open up some ideas for you because I think those colors look pretty cool if you added some color, started throwing some stuff in there and really made it look awesome.

So have some fun with it, find some moldings and then start getting after it.

And then one other thing too that I say.

In a house that you can have some fun with, especially when you've got kind of that tan earth tone tile, have some fun.

Ceiling fans, lighting, all that stuff can really change how it looks.

And that can be a big difference in that as well.

So take some time with that, play around with some moldings, get a piece, hold it up, see what it looks.

Now here's the other thing that you need to be careful with.

Florida has humidity issues.

So before you go in there, if it's wood or mdf, let it sit in there for a week or so.

Let it acclimate to the room and that I would prime and paint every side first, including the back cut ends.

If you're anywhere near the pool, lanai, bass and laundries might want to think about going PVC or another moisture resistant trim.

That could save you a ton of headaches as well.

So look at that.

But keep it in scale in your house.

You don't have 10 foot ceilings in there, so don't go putting some big, huge stuff in there.

It's going to look kind of goofy.

So the bigger the ceiling, the more scale, the bigger you can get with those moldings.

So skinny trim on a tall wall looks like you just missed the mark.

So be careful and then start with one room and see how it looks, see how it feels.

So bottom line is, John, sterile means no warmth, no depth.

So add the color, have some fun with trims and see what you can do.

If you're going to remodel, you could do some tile in there, but that's a big project and the tile looks pretty decent.

I think if you play around with there, you could have some fun stuff.

Couple of things in there.

Duane, who's a contractor in my area here, he made some comments on making sure to hire licensed bonded insured contractors.

Figure out who they are, make sure you're hiring them.

We talk about that a lot.

My buddy David Applebaum, who's in their Architect of the Stars is doing some great projects.

He was killing it.

He always is.

I'll try to see if I can talk him into coming on the show.

He has been so busy doing just stunning, amazing work out there for all the famous people down in Southern California.

He does a great job of creating their dreams as well.

And then by lady Dan's been cranking on projects.

That dude was building outdoor kitchens.

He was just doing a big patio.

You can see some of the pictures up there.

So there's a lot of things out there that you can have some fun with on the projects.

If you're working on one now, head over to the around the House nation and put it up on there and have some fun with it.

Love to do some more of these talking about it.

And if you follow over there I'm gonna try to do here this year.

This is something that we're just finishing up the studio with, and I think it'll be a lot of fun.

We're gonna do some live ones, too, so you can come in and be a part of the conversation as we do it out of the studio.

I just got to get some time over there, get that knocked out, which I hope to do in the next coming weeks.

To find out more, head to Aroundthe House online dot com.

We'll see you next time.

I'm Eric G. You'll be catching around the house.

You don't want to be a Debbie Downer?

Just turn a frown upside down?

Don't be a stick in the mud?

Grab your buddy, grab your butt?

Take.

This good time and turn it up louder?

No one ever talks about the night?

Stay with a bad countenance.