Home In Progress

Dan opens with something that might ruffle a few feathers: gray exterior paint has had a long run, and it's starting to show. He talks about where the design world seems to be heading instead. Then he takes a detour into the surprisingly long and interesting story of how the tape measure came to be. From there, he walks through six practical budgeting tips for anyone with a renovation project on the horizon. And he closes out with a solid how-to on painting a front door, including one trick most people don't know that can save you from a really frustrating result.

• [00:00] -- Is Gray Going Out? Exterior Color Trends Right Now
• [05:27] -- The Surprisingly Long History of the Tape Measure
• [18:43] -- Six Budgeting Tips to Keep Your Renovation on Track
• [34:30] -- How to Paint Your Front Door the Right Way

Dan opens with a mild provocation: if you're thinking about painting the exterior of your home this year, gray might not be the move it used to be. Not because it looks bad -- it doesn't -- but because it's become the default. Drive through almost any subdivision built or updated in the last decade and you're looking at gray on gray on gray. When a color gets that ubiquitous, it stops signaling that someone made a deliberate choice. It just signals that someone painted a house.

Gray came in as a reaction to the builder-beige era, and when it first appeared it really did look sharp. The modern farmhouse look, black window frames, white trim -- it all worked beautifully together. It still does. But a decade is a long time to run on the same palette, and a lot of homeowners are starting to feel like their neighborhood looks a little sterile. A little samey.

The shift that's showing up in paint stores and design forecasts is toward colors that feel connected to the natural world around them. Warm greens, muted sage tones, earthy olives, sandy neutrals, warm taupes, creamy whites, and greige (the gray-beige hybrid) are all gaining ground. These aren't colors that scream for attention, but they don't disappear either. They feel settled. They feel like they belong to the land around them -- to wood and stone and brick and landscaping.

Importantly, a lot of these same tones are showing up in interior color forecasts too, which makes sense. They're grounded, natural colors that work in a lot of contexts.

The short version for anyone thinking about an exterior project this year: the design world is starting to say "maybe try something warmer." Cool, flat gray has had its moment.

Dan's first rule of color still applies, though: if you like it, that's pretty much all that matters.

Picking a specific exterior color involves a lot of variables -- roof color, brick or stone if you have it, how much sun the house gets, which direction it faces. RepcoLite color consultants can help in store based on photos you bring in. Some will come out to the house for a design fee and make recommendations in person. Stop into any RepcoLite location to start that conversation, or reach Dan directly at [email protected] and he'll connect you with the right people.

People have needed to measure things for as long as they've been building things. Early on that meant body parts -- hands, feet, fingers. The Egyptians used cubit rods. Surveyors used rods, cords, and chains, including something called Gunter's chain, which turned out to be less exciting than it sounds: a 66-foot chain made of around 100 links, dragged through farmland and over rocks. Useful, but not exactly something you clip to your belt. Tailors had flexible cloth tapes, but those could stretch, wear out, and absorb moisture, making them fine for measuring shoulders and waistlines but not reliable for repeated job site work.

The challenge nobody had fully solved yet: how do you build something flexible enough to coil up for portability, accurate enough to trust, and durable enough for real work?

Enter James Chesterman, born in England in the 1790s. He started out making powder flasks in London, which led him deep into the world of small spring-loaded mechanisms. He became fascinated with springs, flex, tension, and controlled energy. He later moved to Sheffield, one of Britain's great steel centers, where he became especially skilled with flat wire and spring steel.

Spring steel is one of those materials that does remarkable things quietly. You bend it and it wants to come back. You coil it and it stores energy. You release it and it moves. That basic behavior shows up in clocks, doorbells, umbrellas, window blinds, and eventually in measuring tapes.

One of Chesterman's applications for spring steel was crinoline frames, the steel-hooped undergarments that gave Victorian women that famous bell-shaped silhouette. Before spring steel frames, achieving that shape meant layers and layers of heavy petticoats. Chesterman's spring steel cage was lightweight, bendable when the wearer sat or moved, and then it would spring back into shape. Fashion application, yes, but also real engineering.

There's a popular story that says Chesterman invented the tape measure because the crinoline craze died out and he was left with warehouses full of flat spring steel wire and needed something to do with it. It's a neat story. Dan admits he started researching this segment specifically because of that story.

The problem is the timing doesn't hold up. The steel-frame crinoline became a major fashion item in the 1850s, but records show Chesterman was already working on steel measuring tapes as early as 1829. So the better version of the story is this: Chesterman was deep into spring steel and flat wire well before crinolines became fashionable, and those same skills turned out to be valuable during the crinoline boom. When fashions changed and that market faded, the same flat steel technology was redirected back into tools -- especially longer steel tapes for surveyors and engineers. His steel measuring chain improved on Gunter's design by using flat spring steel tape instead of links, jointed in 20-foot sections, markable with measurements, and rollable into a compact leather case.

It was more portable than anything before it. But it still wasn't the modern tape measure.

The next big leap came in America in 1864 when William Bangs Jr. patented a spring-return tape measure. Pull the tape out, take your measurement, let go, and the spring winds it back into the case. Useful -- and almost certainly the cause of more than a few pinched fingers.

A few years after that, Alvin Fellows improved on the idea by adding a spring click that could hold the tape in place. Now it would lock in and stay instead of immediately retracting.

Then in 1922, Hiram Ferrand solved one of the last big problems. A flat strip of steel will bend under its own weight the moment you extend it into the air. Ferrand changed the shape of the blade by curving it across its width -- concave on one side, convex on the other. That shallow curve gave the tape stiffness and let it extend several feet without collapsing.

Stanley Company took all of these ideas and put them together into what we think of as the modern tape measure. They moved to a flatter, more squared-off case (which made inside measurements much easier), added the floating hook on the end (which slides slightly to compensate for its own thickness -- if your hook looks a little loose, that's intentional, not a defect), and stamped the case length right on the tool so you can push the back of the case against a surface and add that number to your tape reading without bending it into corners.

In 1956, Stanley combined the curved blade with a retracting spring, which they describe as the point the first modern coilable and retractable tape measure was born. In 1963 they introduced the PowerLock -- molded case, thumb lock, yellow blade, sliding hook, one-handed convenience -- and when that patent expired, the PowerLock became one of the most copied tape measure designs in history. The one in your junk drawer is almost certainly descended from it.

Home projects have a way of getting away from people. The obvious costs are easy enough to plan for. It's the stuff around the edges -- broken things, things you had to rebuy, delivery fees, disposal, unexpected problems behind the drywall -- that can quietly blow a budget wide open. Dan runs through six tips for thinking about money before the project starts so you're not scrambling once it's underway.

Most people get this backwards. They pick a number first -- "we want to spend $20,000 on the kitchen" -- and then try to force the project into it. Once the work starts, they realize the kitchen they actually want costs $27,000, and now they're stuck making compromises under pressure.

Flip it around. Start by being honest about what you actually want: the scope, the materials, the finish level you're expecting. Price that out as realistically as you can. Then work with the number you get. If it's too high, you can still make cuts, but you do it intentionally before the project starts while you can calmly swap out countertops or scale back extras -- not halfway through the job when every cut feels like a loss.

Once you have your project number, add 20% to it and mentally put that money in a box. Label it spent. Not because you plan to use it, but because you're being honest about what projects actually cost once real work begins.

A $30,000 estimate is an estimate, not a final number. It's based on what's visible before the walls come open. Once work starts you might find damaged wood, outdated wiring, insulation that doesn't meet code, a tool you didn't know you'd need. The 20% is for those costs -- and only for those costs. Not upgrades. Not add-ons. Not a nicer version of something you already chose. Only hidden or underestimated costs that belong to the project you already committed to.

For a $30,000 project that means planning for $36,000. For a $15,000 project, $18,000. Uncomfortable, yes. But if the estimate holds, you finish with money left over. If the project costs what projects often do, you're ready for it instead of panicking.

People routinely decide in May that they want a major project done in July and then discover that good contractors are already booked solid. The bigger the project, the further out the schedule tends to run.

As soon as a project is on your radar, start making calls. Even if it's too early to book, ask when you should reach back out to get on the schedule. That conversation takes five minutes and can save you from being forced into a bad hire later because you ran out of time and options.

When people are working against a deadline with no good choices left, they take the first person who calls back, skip checking references, and ignore warning signs. Three bids is still a solid standard -- not necessarily to find the cheapest, but to understand the project better. Three bids will show you what's included, what's missing, and whether one number is suspiciously high or low.

If you need a painter, RepcoLite can help. Stop into any location and ask for recommendations, or head to repcolite.com and look for the Find a Painter form about halfway down the homepage.

If your house was built before 1980, add an extra 10% on top of the 20% contingency from tip two. Older plumbing, older wiring, insulation that doesn't meet current code -- these things exist in a lot of older homes, and the odds that opening one wall leads to an unexpected conversation go up meaningfully the older the house gets.

Materials, fixtures, and finishes typically eat up 50% to 60% of a renovation budget. That's where the biggest budget swings happen, and it's also where people are most tempted to cut when money gets tight.

Before cutting anything, ask where quality will actually change daily life, where it will reduce maintenance, and where it will help the project last. And then ask where it really won't matter much at all. Those are two different conversations.

On paint specifically: in high-traffic areas -- hallways, kitchens, bathrooms, mudrooms, kids' rooms -- buy the most durable product you can afford. The cost of repainting a few years after a renovation because you skimped on paint is a real bummer. A guest bedroom that gets used occasionally is a reasonable place to use something more economical. You don't always need the top of the line everywhere, but don't cut so far that you end up regretting it.

Scope creep is what happens when a project quietly grows after it starts. You begin with a bathroom repaint. Then the vanity seems like it should be updated. Then the exhaust fan. Then maybe the floor. None of those individual decisions are crazy, but together they can add thousands of dollars to the final bill without you fully realizing it's happening.

Before the project starts, decide what's included and what isn't. Write it down. Share that list with your contractor. Then make a rule: any new addition gets priced out separately before you approve it. Not "yeah, go ahead." Not "we'll figure it out later." You get the number first, then you decide.

Changes during a project aren't always wrong -- sometimes you see things better once the work is open. But let them stand in front of you with a price tag attached before they get added to the scope.

Renovation budgets are a starting point, not a finish line. Most people go over, and most people don't regret it because the project was worth it. But there's a real difference between going over because something unexpected happened and going over because there was no real plan. One of those is just how life works. The other one's avoidable.

All six tips are in the show notes at repcolite.com -- click the On the Radio tab.

Front doors are one of the best small exterior projects you can do. A fresh color changes the look of a house more than most people expect. Not a lot of paint, big impact. But there are a few things worth knowing before you open the can.

Pick a mild, dry day and start early, before the heat sets in. Heat affects how the paint lays out and will show in the finished result. Starting early also gives you plenty of time for the paint to dry before you need to close the door for the night.

For most standard repaints, leave the door on the hinges. Taking it off makes sense if you're stripping it down or spraying it, but not for a normal paint job. Chock the door open with a wedge or a block of wood so it stays in place and doesn't swing while you're working.

Remove as much hardware as you reasonably can -- handles, deadbolt plates, door knocker, kick plate. Tape what you can't remove.

Front doors collect a lot: hand oils, dust, pollen, spider webs, whatever else the outside world throws at them. Wash the door down with a good degreaser, wipe it off, and let it dry completely. Then scrape off any loose paint, sand the surface smooth and dull, and wipe the dust away. If you've got bare wood, bare metal, or spot repairs, prime those areas before you put the finish coat down. Don't skip primer where the situation calls for it.

One of the most common front door problems is blocking -- when fresh paint bonds to the weather stripping and then pulls or peels when you open the door. It happens because paint can be dry to the touch but still soft enough underneath that the weather stripping presses into it and bonds overnight.

The best fix is to remove the weather stripping if you can. A lot of modern weather stripping sits in a groove around the doorframe and can be carefully pulled out with a painter's five-in-one tool or a putty knife. Work slowly so you don't gouge or stretch it. Pull it out, set it aside, and leave it out for a few days while the paint cures. With nothing pressing against the fresh surface, you dramatically reduce the chance of sticking.

If you can't remove it, give the paint as much open time as possible. This is another reason starting early matters. Paint thin coats rather than one heavy coat. And use a product formulated to resist blocking, like Benjamin Moore Exterior Aura or Benjamin Moore Command.

On a paneled door, start with the recessed areas and detail work first. Use a good angled brush on the inside edges of the panels, then the flat panel areas, then the rails (the horizontal pieces) and the stiles (the vertical pieces). The idea is to do the fussy work first and then move out to the broader areas so you're always working into a wet edge.

Good tool combination for a front door: a quality angled sash brush for the detail work and a small roller system -- Wooster's Jumbo Koter with four-inch covers is a good option -- for the flat sections. Two lighter coats will always look better than one heavy one.

For any questions before you start, stop into any RepcoLite location. The staff there can walk you through the project and point you toward the right products for your specific situation.

• RepcoLite Color Consultants -- available in store (bring photos) and some offer in-home consultations for a design fee; start the conversation at any RepcoLite location
• Dan's email for color consultation referrals -- [email protected]
• Find a Painter form
• Benjamin Moore Exterior Aura -- recommended for front door painting; block-resistant
• Benjamin Moore Command -- also recommended for front door painting; block-resistant
• Wooster Jumbo Koter -- small four-inch roller system, good for flat sections of a paneled door

This week on Home In Progress, Dan opens with something a little different -- a look at the animal kingdom's most surprising builders and tool users, and what any of us can take from that. Then he gets into the main topic: the growing number of homeowners who've decided they're staying put, and what that shift in thinking should mean for how you spend renovation dollars. Dan walks through five can't-lose projects for the forever home, including some smaller-scale, paint-friendly versions of each one for when the budget isn't there yet. He closes with four questions that can help you figure out which project is actually the right first move for your specific house.

• [00:00] -- Welcome and Teaser
• [00:34] -- Animals Using Tools (and What That Has to Do With You)
• [05:35] -- The Forever Home Mindset
• [09:59] -- Project 1: Outdoor Living Space
• [13:21] -- Project 2: Kitchen Refresh
• [19:25] -- Project 3: Windows, Insulation, and Air Sealing
• [24:36] -- Project 4: Basement Upgrade
• [30:50] -- Project 5: Primary Bathroom
• [33:46] -- Four Questions to Find Your Best First Project
• [38:53] -- Paint, Final Thoughts, and Wrap-Up

Dan opens with a fun detour into the animal kingdom. Turns out humans aren't the only ones who build things, use tools, and pass down traditions.

Termites [01:09] -- Termite mounds can rise more than 20 feet in the air with walls 18 inches thick. Inside, they're honeycombed with tunnels, chambers, and air channels that regulate temperature and humidity like a built-in HVAC system. Architects have actually copied the design. The Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe, designed by Mike Pearce, uses passive cooling modeled directly on termite mounds and consumes about 90% less energy for ventilation than a comparable conventional building.

Sea Otters and Chimps [02:07] -- Otters float on their backs, rest a stone on their belly, and smash open clams and mussels against it. Some otters even have a favorite rock they carry tucked in a pouch of loose skin under their arm so it's always handy. Chimpanzees strip leaves off twigs and use them to fish termites out of mounds. The more interesting part: different chimp communities in the same forest have entirely different tool traditions, passed down like family recipes. In Tanzania, two neighboring groups both fish for termites with sticks, but one group consistently makes their tools wider and longer than the other. In Senegal, one community has invented something no other chimps on earth do -- they make actual spears, sharpening the tips with their teeth and using them to hunt.

Crows and Elephants [03:55] -- In a famous Oxford experiment, a crow named Betty was given two pieces of wire, one bent into a hook and one straight. Her cage mate stole the hook. Betty took the straight wire, jammed it into a crack, bent it into a hook on her own, and used it to fish meat out of a tube. She did it nine out of ten times when the scenario was repeated. Asian elephants snap branches off trees, strip them down, and shorten them to just the right length for swatting flies. They're not using whatever's lying around -- they're modifying the tool to fit the job.

The Takeaway [04:51] -- If termites with brains the size of a grain of salt can engineer a skyscraper, and crows can fabricate hooks on the fly, and otters are basically one step away from a tool belt, whatever you're telling yourself you can't learn probably isn't as true as you think.

Dan poses a question to start: if you knew without a doubt you were never moving from the house you're in right now, what would you change first?

That question is reshaping how a lot of homeowners think about renovation right now. Homeowner spending on home improvements is projected to hit $518 billion in 2026, and it's not being driven by the luxury market or house flippers. It's regular homeowners who've decided they're staying. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and a 2026 survey from Great Day Improvements, nearly two-thirds of homeowners expect to be in their current home for 11 years or more. And 44% of homeowners now describe where they live as their forever home.

If you bought or refinanced around 2020 or 2021 at 3% or lower, you already know why nobody's moving. A 7% mortgage waiting on the other side of a sale has a way of making your current house look a lot better.

When that's the context, the renovation calculus changes. You stop asking what a future buyer will want and start asking what will actually make your family's life better for the next decade or more. That shift changes everything about where renovation dollars go.

West Michigan winters get all the complaints, but the springs, summers, and falls are genuinely great. If you're staying in your home, it pays to think about how much of that you're actually using.

Dan's honest about his own situation here: his deck has no seating, nobody ever uses it, and they're wasting dozens of evenings out there every year just by not having the space set up. The vision for this project can be as big as a covered pergola, an outdoor kitchen, a hot tub area with weather-safe TV and speakers -- spaces that function as actual rooms. The return on that isn't measured in resale dollars. It's measured in summer evenings with your family.

Paint-friendly version: If the bigger build-out isn't in the budget, start smaller. Get the deck cleaned up and restained. Get dedicated seating out there. If you've already got wood or metal chairs that have seen better days, RepcoLite can usually help you get them cleaned up and looking good again. Create a space that actually invites you to sit down.

The kitchen is where most families spend an enormous amount of time, almost all of it either cooking, cleaning, or entertaining. A kitchen that looks good and functions well makes daily life easier in ways that are hard to overstate.

Dan talks through what a refresh can include: painting or refacing cabinets, new countertops, updated hardware, a new sink and faucet, new appliances, updated lighting, new floors. Some of those things aren't cheap. But the payoff comes from 300-plus dinners a year in a space that doesn't make you feel bad every time you walk into it.

Dan's own kitchen confession [15:33]: '80s oak cabinets he doesn't like, dated hardware, a track light that's a direct import from the same decade with shiny brass everything and two or three working bulbs, Formica counters that have lost most of their original color. He's not proud of it. He knows it drags him down. He also knows it doesn't have to, and that a couple of weeks of work would change most of it.

Paint-friendly version: Painting the cabinets and updating the colors is one of the highest-impact, most budget-friendly changes you can make in a kitchen. Pair that with better lighting and some new hardware, and you can dramatically lift the mood of a space without touching the counters or the layout.

Older homes lose a significant amount of heat through inefficient windows, attics, rim joists, and basement walls. Every year you stay in the house, you're paying for that inefficiency. Replacing outdated windows with modern low-E glass triple-pane units, combined with serious air sealing and insulation in the attic, is one of those projects that starts paying you back the day it's done.

The payback isn't just in lower heating bills, though that's real and measurable. It's also in comfort. Eliminating drafts, keeping warm spaces warmer and cool spaces cooler -- that changes how you feel about being inside your own home.

Dan is careful not to oversell the financial return. Windows alone don't always pay for themselves quickly in energy savings. Insulation and air sealing tend to give you better bang for your buck on the utility side. But when you're in your forever home and you're not doing the math on resale, the calculation shifts. It becomes less about payback period and more about making the house a more comfortable place to live every single day.

Dan also mentions a past show segment on opening painted-shut windows from 2024, and will link to it in the show notes for anyone dealing with that specific problem.

Paint-friendly version: You can't make old windows more efficient with paint. But you can improve how they look and feel. Getting painted-shut windows functioning again doesn't cost much and doesn't require much more than some know-how. Dan's got that covered in the 2024 segment linked below.

Almost every West Michigan home has a basement. A surprising percentage of them are being used for storage and not much else. A finished basement adds livable square footage without changing the footprint of the house, and it grows with you -- a playroom becomes a teenage hangout space becomes a home gym as the years go by.

Dan's current lower level is wall-to-wall paneling, drop ceiling tiles, and carpet, all from the '80s. It works. The kids have used it. It's served its purpose. But there's a lot more potential there.

Paint-friendly version: This is one where paint can genuinely transform a space on a fraction of the budget of a full finish-out. Dan tells the story of doing exactly this in his first house -- a dark, dingy Michigan basement that nobody wanted to be in. He cleaned everything up, painted the block walls with RepcoLite's Carefree in a satin sheen (economical and holds up well), painted the floors, brought in some rugs, improved the lighting, and had the old windows replaced with ones that could actually open. The whole project was inexpensive. The result was a space that went from something everyone avoided to the kids' playroom. Dan's daughter Tessa was apparently such a fan that she was down there at 3 in the morning with a flashlight at age three. He puts most of the credit on the paint job.

If the full basement renovation isn't in the cards, painting the walls, the floors, and the open ceiling can be a huge win on its own.

Most people start and end every day in the primary bathroom. It's also usually the room that gets the least renovation attention because it functions fine. Dan's point: fine is a very low bar for a room you use twice a day for the rest of your life.

Updated tile, a new shower or tub enclosure, a double vanity if the space allows, good lighting, painted or new cabinets, a new fan, better counters and faucets -- these improvements pay off in making a daily routine feel less like something you're just getting through.

The math is simple. Multiply the time you spend in that bathroom each day by 11 years, or 15. It adds up fast, and it makes the case for getting the space right.

Paint-friendly version: Painting the vanity cabinets and updating the lighting can change the entire feel of a bathroom without a full renovation. Add some new hardware while you're at it, and it's a meaningful upgrade at a fraction of the cost.

Even if all five of those projects make sense in theory, you've still got to figure out which one is the right first move for your house. Dan offers four questions that can help narrow it down.

Question 1: Where does your house fight you every single day? Not what don't you like -- that's a different question. This is about friction. Where does the house actually push back on your daily life? Not enough counter space in the kitchen? Two people can't get ready at the same time in the bathroom? No place for people to sit in the living room? The spots that create the most daily friction are usually your real pressure points.

Question 2: Which room do you avoid, and why? Most homes have a space that quietly stopped getting used. Nobody eats at the dining room table anymore. The back porch furniture has been out there for three years but nobody sits in it. The basement is technically finished but everyone avoids it. When a room gets written off like that, it's worth figuring out why. Sometimes the room you've stopped using is the one that needs the most intentional thought -- not necessarily the most money, just the most honest thinking about what went wrong.

Question 3: Are you solving a real problem, or just updating a surface? New countertops on a kitchen with a bad layout is still a bad kitchen. New tile in a bathroom with no storage is still a frustrating bathroom. Before committing to anything, ask honestly: if I fix the thing I'm thinking about fixing, will I actually feel better about the space? Or will I finish the project and still be bothered by the thing underneath it -- and now I've spent money and locked myself into living with the original problem even longer?

Question 4: If budget and skill level weren't a factor, what would you change first? Most people self-limit. They draw boundaries for what's possible based on what they can afford or what they think they can handle, and they rarely revisit those assumptions. Strip all of that away for a minute. Spend some time in the hypothetical. What you land on usually tells you something true about what's actually bothering you most. Then reassert reality and look at whether there's a version of that project -- maybe a paint-only version, maybe a phased approach -- that you can actually do now.

Dan closes with a reminder that there's no better bang for your buck project than new paint. Even if the bigger renovation is still a few years off, fresh paint in the right space can carry you further than you'd expect, and it might be more than enough to get you by until the time and budget are both there.

• RepcoLite's Carefree paint -- mentioned as the product Dan used on basement block walls in his first house; satin sheen recommended for durability
• Opening Painted-Shut Windows (2024 episode)
• Free Cabinet Painting Guide

Home In Progress is on the air every weekend and available anytime at repcolite.com -- click the On the Radio tab on the homepage. Dan also posts episode content on Facebook and Instagram throughout the week.

Home In Progress is brought to you by RepcoLite Paints and Benjamin Moore. People often think of paint as just another line item on the supply list. But everything you do, every hour of prep, every stroke of the brush, comes down to the quality of what goes on the wall. The paint is the project. Make sure it's the best.

Home In Progress | RepcoLite Paints | Sponsored by Benjamin Moore

This week on Home In Progress, Dan starts off with one of the more entertaining detours the show has taken in a while: spite houses. Real buildings, built by real people, for the sole purpose of making someone else miserable. Then he gets into a deep dive on two-tone kitchen cabinets, answering six questions that almost always come up when people consider taking on that project. And he closes out with deck season, including why most product claims about longevity don't hold up in Michigan, and why RepcoLite's Deck and Dock Wood Protector works differently than most of what's out there.

• [00:00] -- Show Preview
• [00:54] -- Spite Houses: When Homebuilding Gets Personal
• [15:26] -- Two-Tone Kitchen Cabinets: Six Common Questions Answered
• [41:25] -- Deck Season: What You Need to Know Right Now

Most people who've had a bad run-in with a neighbor or a family member haven't responded by constructing an entire building. But spite houses are real, they show up throughout American history, and they're exactly what they sound like: buildings put up primarily to annoy, block, or inconvenience somebody else.

112 West Church Street, Frederick, MD

In 1814, the city of Frederick decided to extend Record Street straight through a piece of land owned by Dr. John Tyler, a wealthy ophthalmologist who was also credited as the first American-born physician to perform a cataract operation. Tyler fought the decision, lost, went home, and started thinking.

He found an old local ordinance that said the city couldn't build a road through a parcel if construction on a substantial building was already underway there. So he hired a crew and overnight, they poured a foundation directly in the path of the road. When the road workers showed up the next morning, they found a hole in the ground, a crew of builders, and Dr. Tyler reportedly sitting in a chair watching the whole thing and looking very pleased with himself. The road was never built.

Tyler finished the house. It ended up being a three-story Federal-style mansion with 17 rooms, over 9,000 square feet, 14-foot ceilings, and eight working fireplaces. He never actually lived in it. He already had a house right next door. The whole thing was just a very expensive way to win an argument.

The Tyler Spite House still stands at 112 West Church Street in Frederick. It's been a bed and breakfast, been used as offices, and has been on and off the market for well over a million dollars for years. It's also rumored to be haunted, so there's that.

44 Hull Street, North End, Boston (along the Freedom Trail, across from Copp's Hill Burying Ground)

This four-story wooden house is 10 feet wide at its widest point and tapers down to just over nine feet in the back. At the narrowest spot inside, you can stand in the middle and touch both walls without fully extending your arms. There's no front door. You enter from a side alley.

The story that's been passed around for generations goes like this. Two brothers inherited a piece of land from their father. One went off to fight in the Civil War. While he was gone, his brother stayed home and built himself a large, comfortable house on basically all of the inherited land. When the soldier brother came home and saw what happened, he had one thin sliver of land left to his name. So he built the narrowest house he could fit on it and positioned it to block his brother's light and kill his view.

Whether that's all historically accurate is a little murky. But the house is real, it's still there, and if spite didn't build it, something at least a lot like spite was probably involved.

Newbury, Massachusetts, outside Newburyport near Plum Island

A pale pink house with a cupola, sitting completely alone in the middle of a salt marsh. No neighbors, no trees, no context. Just wetlands in every direction.

Built around 1925, the story goes that a couple going through a divorce agreed the husband would build his wife an exact replica of the home they had shared in town. The catch was she forgot to specify where it had to be built. So he built it in the middle of an isolated salt marsh, with no fresh water and plumbing hooked up to saltwater. She allegedly took one look and refused to set foot inside.

Whether that's true or legend, nobody can say for certain. But the house is still out there if you've ever made it up toward Plum Island.

Dan wraps the segment wondering if some of the truly baffling exterior color schemes you see driving around might have a little spite behind them. If you're going the other direction and want a color scheme that's actually beautiful, RepcoLite and Benjamin Moore can help. And if you do go bold, Benjamin Moore Aura covers beautifully no matter what color you choose.

Current sale: Benjamin Moore Aura and many other premium Benjamin Moore exterior paints are 20% off at every RepcoLite location through May 25.

Two-tone kitchen cabinets look great in photos. Then you stand in your own kitchen and try to figure out where the colors go, and suddenly you've got a lot of questions. Dan works through six of the most common ones.

Stop thinking about color first. Start by looking at your kitchen and finding places where it already naturally changes or transitions. Two-tone cabinets work best when the color shift happens somewhere the eye expects a shift anyway.

An island is the most obvious example. It already sits apart from the perimeter cabinets and reads as its own piece, so a different color there makes sense to people right away. But there are other natural breaks to look for too, like a pantry wall, a built-in hutch, a coffee bar or desk area that feels separate from the main kitchen, or a clearly defined wall of cabinets that stands apart from the rest.

The most common rule of thumb is lighter colors up high and darker or stronger colors lower or on a focal point. Lighter uppers make the kitchen feel more open. Darker lowers give it some weight and ground the space. That's why you see so many kitchens with cream or white perimeter cabinets and a navy or charcoal island.

It's a rule of thumb, though, not a hard rule. Dark uppers can work if the kitchen has great natural light, taller ceilings, glass-front cabinet doors, or a mix of open shelving. Context matters.

What you want to avoid is a scattered approach where the second color shows up in a random cabinet over here, another section across the room, maybe one upper somewhere else. Even if each individual spot makes some sense on its own, the overall effect reads as unplanned. Keep the color placement logical and intentional.

No. In kitchens without an island, the most straightforward move is light upper cabinets with darker lowers. But you can also pick a defined zone to give a different color to, a pantry wall, a built-in hutch, a coffee bar, a prep area that sits apart from the main run of cabinets. Designers talk about this as giving an area its own identity, treating it more like a piece of furniture than a cabinet that has to match everything else. A deep green pantry wall against off-white perimeter cabinets can look great, for example.

One thing to watch in a no-island kitchen: keep it to two cabinet colors. Once you add a third on top of floors, countertops, backsplash, hardware, and appliances, the kitchen starts to feel like a lot very quickly.

It can, but it doesn't have to. In a larger kitchen with good natural light, you've got a lot of room to work with. You can go darker on the lowers, use a bold pantry color, push the contrast further. A smaller kitchen with limited light is a different situation. Two cabinet colors in a tight, low-light space can make the room feel chopped up, and one cabinet color might genuinely be the smarter call there.

Dan admits this is the question that probably rules out his own kitchen for the project. That's okay. Not every space is the right fit for it, and it's a lot better to figure that out before you paint everything than after.

One color should do the calming. The other should do the talking. That's the principle. Pick one quiet color and one color with some character. If both are loud, the kitchen becomes visually exhausting to be in.

The quiet color is almost always going to be something like a warm white, a cream, or a soft greige. The character color is where the personality comes in: a navy, a sage green, something deeper and moodier.

Three Benjamin Moore pairings Dan mentions that work in just about any kitchen:

White Dove and Hale Navy -- a warm white paired with a navy that basically acts like a neutral. It's not going to look dated in 10 or more years. About as safe and timeless as it gets.

Swiss Coffee and October Mist -- a creamy white with a soft sage green. More muted than the navy option, better for someone who wants to step into color without it being too loud.

White Dove and Aegean Teal -- Aegean Teal was Benjamin Moore's Color of the Year back around 2021 and is still going strong. A little more current-feeling than the other two pairings.

If you want to go deeper and moodier, colors like Vintage Vogue, Kendall Charcoal, Mysterious, and Silhouette can be beautiful. But they're more demanding. They have complex undertones that shift through the day. What looks like a warm espresso at 10 in the morning can read cool and purple by 4 in the afternoon. Use them carefully, put them somewhere the room can support them, and sample them at multiple times of day before you commit to anything.

Benjamin Moore color samples are $5.99. Get enough to put on a real-sized area and live with it for a few days.

Before you commit to specific colors, take a hard look at what's staying in the kitchen.

Floors -- This is where a lot of kitchen paint regrets start. Warm oak floors (honey oak, red oak, hickory, anything with orange or yellow in it) can clash badly with cool gray cabinets. The cabinets and the floor don't need to match, but they need to get along with each other. Warm floors generally want cabinet colors that can live with warmth: warm whites, creams, soft sages, warm greiges, balanced navies, deeper greens that don't go too cool or icy. Cooler floors can usually handle cooler whites, cleaner blues, charcoals, or cooler greens more easily.

Counters and backsplash -- Apply the same warm and cool thinking. If those surfaces are already doing a lot of visual work (busy granite, bold patterned tile, lots going on), the cabinets probably need to settle things down, not add more noise. If those surfaces are simple, you've got more room to bring contrast and personality in through the cabinets.

Appliances and hardware -- Stainless steel is basically neutral and works with most things. Matte black appliances push a kitchen cooler and more modern. If you've got existing hardware you're keeping, it's already pulling your cabinet decision one direction or another. Brass wants warmth. Polished nickel and chrome work better with cool tones. Matte black goes with both but leans modern.

Lighting -- Color shifts a lot under different light. A navy that looks rich and classic in a bright showroom can look nearly black in a dim kitchen. A white that looks soft in one room can look dingy in another. A green that looks calm in daylight can go muddy at night under the wrong bulbs. Sample the colors in your actual kitchen and look at them in the morning, at midday, and in the evening before you decide anything.

Two-tone cabinets have been around for about a decade now. Roughly one in four homeowners who renovate their kitchens go with contrasting upper and lower cabinets. That's not a flash in the pan. It's an established option at this point.

What tends to date a two-tone kitchen isn't having two colors. It's the specific choices: contrast that's too strong, undertones that fight each other, too much going on at once, or a color combination that was copied from a trend photo but never really fit the house in the first place.

Pairings that hold up well are the ones that don't announce the year they were done. Warm white with a navy island isn't going to feel embarrassing in five years. Warm white with sage green is not a risky design move.

Some dating is unavoidable. Every kitchen eventually shows its era. The goal isn't something that stays timeless forever. It's something you'll be happy with for 10 to 15 years, which is roughly how long a kitchen goes before it gets refreshed anyway.

Make calm choices. One quiet color, one character color. Keep the placement logical. Pay attention to the floor and countertops. Don't pile on extra colors. And choose colors you actually like, not just what looked good in a photo you found online last week.

Dan put together a free guide with product recommendations, tips, and tricks for painting cabinets. You can get it at repcolite.com/cabinets -- just fill out the form with your name and email and he'll send it over.

It's spring. Time to talk about decks. Dan covers the realistic expectations for deck coatings in Michigan, why right now is a good time to tackle the project, and what makes RepcoLite's Deck and Dock Wood Protector worth recommending year after year.

Products that advertise three to five years of protection weren't tested in Michigan. Michigan winters, spring rain, and summer heat are hard on deck coatings. Plan on one to two years before you need to redo it. If you're not particularly picky, maybe you push it a little longer. But if you expect it to look good, one to two years is a more realistic number.

The weather has been mostly dry for a few weeks and temperatures have been mild. That matters more than it might seem. When it's 90 degrees out and the sun is beating down, deck coatings dry too fast. You can't work the product in properly, you end up with lap marks and streaks, and the coating doesn't get a chance to penetrate deeply into the wood.

Cooler temperatures mean a longer open time and a much more forgiving application. As long as the deck has been dry for about 48 hours, this is a good time to work. Don't wait until June or July when you're fighting the heat and the product at the same time.

You need a clean, dry surface before any product goes down. How you get there depends on what the deck looks like right now.

For chemical cleaning, Benjamin Moore has a full system of deck cleaners that covers different situations. Stop into any RepcoLite store with some photos of your deck and they'll help you figure out the right steps.

If you'd rather go mechanical, RepcoLite also rents an on-floor sanding machine that can get boards looking almost new again. There's only one available and the rental calendar fills up fast, so ask about it sooner rather than later at any RepcoLite location.

Most deck coatings are designed to make water bead up on the surface. You've seen the commercials. Looks impressive. But those beads of water sit on the deck, the sun comes out, and each one of them acts like a tiny magnifying glass focusing sunlight down onto the finish underneath. Over time, that breaks down the coating in small spots all over the deck. Death by a thousand magnifying glasses.

RepcoLite's Deck and Dock Wood Protector is formulated differently. Instead of making water bead up, it disperses it and thins it out so it evaporates quickly. No beads, no magnifying glass effect, no premature breakdown.

A few other things worth knowing about it: the open time is long, which makes application very forgiving and hard to mess up. And when it does eventually need to be redone, it fades out rather than peeling or flaking. You don't have to strip the old stuff off or fight the previous finish. You clean the deck, let it dry, and recoat. That's it.

Both oil-based and water-based versions are available at RepcoLite. Oil-based is the standard recommendation. Water-based is a little easier on cleanup but can be trickier to apply once the weather heats up.

Deck and Dock, both versions, is 20% off at every RepcoLite location through May 25. The weather is right, the pricing is right. Good time to get it done.

• RepcoLite Deck and Dock Wood Protector (oil-based and water-based) -- repcolite.com
• Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior Paint -- 20% off at RepcoLite through May 25
• Free Cabinet Painting Guide -- repcolite.com/cabinets
• Benjamin Moore Color Samples -- $5.99 at any RepcoLite location
• Benjamin Moore colors mentioned: White Dove, Hale Navy, Swiss Coffee, October Mist, Aegean Teal, Vintage Vogue, Kendall Charcoal, Mysterious, Silhouette
• RepcoLite On-Floor Sanding Machine Rental -- ask at any RepcoLite location; one unit available, books out quickly
• Tyler Spite House -- 112 West Church Street, Frederick, MD
• Boston Skinny House -- 44 Hull Street, North End, Boston
• Plum Island Pink House -- Newbury, MA, near Plum Island

Home In Progress is on the air every weekend and available anytime at repcolite.com -- click the On the Radio tab on the homepage. Dan also posts episode content on Facebook and Instagram throughout the week.

Home In Progress is brought to you by RepcoLite Paints and Benjamin Moore. People often think of paint as just another line item on the supply list. But everything you do, every hour of prep, every stroke of the brush, comes down to the quality of what goes on the wall. The paint is the project. Make sure it's the best.

© Home In Progress | RepcoLite Paints | Sponsored by Benjamin Moore

Episode Date: 05/09/26 Episode Number: 458

This week on Home In Progress, Dan tackles one of the most dreaded things a homeowner can face — the smell of a dead animal somewhere in the house — and walks you through exactly how to find it, remove it, and get your home smelling normal again. Then he shifts to the practical side of Art Deco: how to bring that bold, geometric style into your own home without going overboard. And finally, Dan makes the case that paint finish is just as important a design decision as color — and shows you some surprisingly elegant tricks you can pull off with nothing more than a change in sheen.

• [01:46] — Dead Animal Smell: How to Find It, Remove It, and Prevent It
• [19:25] — Art Deco at Home: A Practical Guide
• [33:26] — Paint Finish as a Design Tool

Dan's son Caleb bought a house and discovered a smell that turned out to be a dead possum under the floor — frozen all winter, then very much not frozen come spring. Dan uses that story to kick off a practical, no-nonsense guide to dealing with dead animal odors in your home.

How bad will it be — and how long will it last? Size of the animal, temperature, humidity, and airflow all determine severity and duration. The rough timeline:

• Mouse: a few days to about a week
• Rat or squirrel: a couple of weeks
• Possum, raccoon, or larger: several weeks — potentially up to two months in a warm, damp, enclosed space

How to find the source:

• Use your nose. Walk slowly, close doors to isolate rooms, and track where the smell intensifies.
• Check near outlets, baseboards, vents, attic hatches, crawl space doors, and under stairs.
• Let your pets help — a dog or cat obsessively sniffing one spot is a clue worth following.
• Watch for blowflies. Large, metallic-looking flies congregating indoors often indicate a nearby carcass. Follow them.
• Note: the smell often seems to come from vents, but pest pros say the animal is almost never inside the ductwork — it's usually in a wall or attic space near a duct run. The HVAC is just moving the odor around.

Once you've found it — how to remove it safely:

• Wear gloves and a mask, especially in enclosed spaces.
• Get air moving before you start: open windows, run a fan.
• Do not sweep or vacuum rodent droppings — that stirs particles into the air and can spread disease. Instead, spray droppings with a disinfectant or a 1:10 bleach-and-water solution, let it soak 5–10 minutes, then wipe with paper towels and mop the area again.
• Double-bag the carcass and dispose of it per your local regulations.

What happens after removal depends on the surface:

• Hard, non-porous surfaces (concrete, metal, vinyl): Clean promptly, ventilate well, and the smell usually clears quickly.
• Porous materials (insulation, carpet pad, unfinished wood, drywall, ceiling tile): Decomposition fluids soak in and the smell can linger — or seem to come back on humid days — long after the animal is gone. In these cases, remove the contaminated material, clean with disinfectant, and then apply an enzymatic cleaner to break down any remaining organic residue at the molecular level. This is the step that eliminates the odor rather than masking it.

If you can't find or access the source: The intense phase will eventually pass on its own as the carcass dries out. While you wait:

• Activated charcoal bags — place them as close to the affected area as possible. They trap odor molecules physically rather than adding a scent. Recharge them in sunlight every couple of weeks. Available at most stores for around $10–15 for a multi-pack.
• Foaming enzymatic cleaners (like BAC-A-Zap) — drill a small hole into the wall cavity, inject the foam, and the enzymes go to work on organic material from the inside. Available online or through pest control suppliers.
• Use both together for best results — but be honest with yourself: if fluids have soaked into porous materials inside that wall, you may eventually need to open it up.

The final step — odor-blocking primer: Once the source is removed and the area is clean and dry, if you're still worried about lingering odor, you can seal hard surfaces with a shellac-based odor-blocking primer like BIN. Important: this is the last step — a lock on a problem already solved — not a first response.

Two things worth knowing:

1. Not every mystery smell is a dead animal. Propane and natural gas have a chemical odorant added to them that some people experience as a decay or skunk smell rather than the classic "rotten egg" description. If you can't find a source, the smell isn't fading, or it has a sharp chemical edge, leave the area and call your gas company.
2. The "poison makes them leave the house" idea is a myth. Rodent poisons do not cause mice or rats to go outside searching for water, and they don't dry out the body to eliminate odor. The rodent eats the bait, gets sick over several days, and dies wherever it happens to be — usually inside a wall, under insulation, or behind an appliance. This is one of the reasons pest professionals often recommend snap traps inside the home instead of poison: you know exactly where the animal is.

Prevention — sealing entry points:

• Inspect the exterior of your home for gaps and holes.
• For small openings: skip foam or caulk alone — rodents chew right through it. Pack the gap first with copper or stainless steel mesh, then seal over it with exterior-grade caulk or pest-blocking foam.
• For larger openings: use hardware cloth, metal flashing, or other chew-resistant materials.
• Check chimney caps, vent screens, damaged soffits, loose siding, and gaps around pipes and utility lines.
• Go into your garage, close the door, turn off the lights. If you can see daylight around the door frame big enough to fit a dime, that's a mouse entry point.

Last week Dan covered the history and origins of Art Deco. This week he makes it practical: how do you actually bring Art Deco into a real home without making the space feel like a 1920s movie set?

The good news: Art Deco translates surprisingly well into modern interiors — especially when you borrow selectively. You don't need to go all in. Borrowing a few core principles can give any room more elegance, confidence, and visual impact.

Three core ingredients of an Art Deco-inspired room:

1. Shape — Art Deco loves geometry, clear lines, and repeated patterns. Think: a mirror with a stepped frame, wallpaper with a fan or geometric motif, a rug with bold linear structure, a light fixture with globes and symmetry, a vanity with fluted details, or a cabinet with curved corners and brass pulls. It's a structured style — not casual.
2. Contrast — Art Deco works best when there's tension in the room: light against dark, gloss against matte, soft upholstery against hard metal, cream walls against black trim, jewel tones against warm metallic finishes.
3. Sheen — Art Deco has always had an affinity for surfaces that reflect light: lacquer, mirrored materials, polished metal, glass, smooth stone, sleek tile. Even if your paint color is quiet and reserved, bumping up the sheen can push a room toward an Art Deco feel without committing to bolder colors.

Color: Art Deco isn't just black and gold (though black, ivory, brass, and chrome is certainly one classic palette). The style also works with:

• Rich jewel tones: emerald green, sapphire blue, deep teal, burgundy, plum
• Softer palettes: blush pink, dusty rose, pale aqua, warm cream, smoky taupe, elegant gray

What matters most is that the color choices feel deliberate — polished and intentional, not random.

Two approaches to bringing Art Deco in with paint:

• Go dramatic: A deep green in a dining room, a rich navy in a bedroom, a charcoal in a powder room — especially when paired with brass lighting, crisp trim, and geometric accents.
• Go soft and elegant: Warm cream, pale blush, or a light gray-green on the walls, and let black accents, metallic fixtures, and geometric shapes carry the Art Deco energy. This is often the smarter route — the paint creates the atmosphere and the accessories do the style work.

The golden rule: make a statement, not ten statements. Art Deco becomes overwhelming when every element is competing for attention. Let one or two things speak.

Best rooms to try it:

• Powder rooms — small, high-impact, and a great place to experiment with darker, glossier choices. A jewel-toned wall, brass sconce, bold mirror, black vanity, and geometric tile can be a knockout.
• Entryways — Art Deco is great at first impressions. A strong console, a sunburst mirror, and a crisp wall color can make an entrance feel intentional and elegant.
• Dining rooms — Art Deco has natural ties to entertaining, which fits the dining room perfectly. Great for a room you want to feel more special and elevated.
• Bedrooms — especially with upholstered shapes, symmetry, and softer Art Deco palettes (dusty rose, muted green, warm ivory).

Three questions to ask yourself before you start:

• Do I want this room to feel dramatic or elegant?Dramatic: lean darker and richer — deep greens, navy, charcoal, black accents, metallic finishes. Let the room have weight.
• Elegant: lean lighter and softer — cream, pale blush, taupe, muted blue-green, soft gray. Let the accessories do the style work.

1. Where is the geometry going to come from? Pick one or two sources — wallpaper, a mirror, a light fixture, tile, a rug. Not every surface. Intentional pattern reads as Art Deco. Pattern everywhere reads as chaos.
2. Where is the shine going to come from? Brass? Chrome? Glass? A satin or semi-gloss finish on the walls? A glossy vanity? Mirrored furniture? Choose strategically. A little shine goes a long way — too much and the room starts to feel like a hotel lobby.

We talk a lot about color. But the finish — the sheen — is a design decision that gets far too little attention, and it can be just as powerful.

The core idea: The same color can feel completely different depending on the finish.

• Flat/matte: absorbs light, reads deeper and softer, hides imperfections — which is why it's standard on ceilings
• Eggshell: clean and practical
• Satin: polished and slightly reflective
• Semi-gloss/high-gloss: dramatic and light-bouncing — but will show every flaw

Sheen plays two roles: durability and hiding imperfections (the practical role most people think about) — and a design role that most people never consider.

Four finish tricks worth trying:

1. Same color, stepped-up sheen on the trim. Paint walls and trim the exact same color, but go one or two sheens higher on the trim. Matte walls, satin trim. Eggshell walls, semi-gloss trim. The architecture quietly emerges — the trim catches more light, the room feels more considered and custom — without changing the color at all.
2. Use sheen to control where the eye goes. Keep walls soft and quiet (matte or eggshell), then let a satin bookcase, a painted door, or a glossy piece of furniture become the feature. Same color throughout, but the finish tells your eye where to look.
3. The jewel box powder room. Take a small room, paint it a deep saturated color (emerald, navy, burgundy), and use semi-gloss or high gloss on every surface. Light bounces off everything. The color stops being color and starts feeling like a material. You walk in and feel like you stepped into something.
4. The glossy ceiling. One of the great underused tricks in design. Paint a ceiling in a high-sheen finish — even just white — and it reflects the room back at itself, making a low ceiling feel taller and a small space feel bigger. Designers use this in dining rooms, entryways, powder rooms, and small studies regularly.

A word of caution on glossy ceilings: this is one of the hardest paint jobs in a house to pull off. A ceiling gets raking light from windows and overhead fixtures, and gloss will broadcast every drywall seam, tape joint, screw pop, roller mark, and brush stroke. Most residential drywall isn't finished to the standard that gloss demands — you'd need skim coating, sanding, priming, and sanding again before the finish coat. If you want to experiment, try a satin sheen first. And if you go full gloss, hire someone who has done it before — and ask to see photos.

• Nature's Miracle — enzymatic cleaner for odor elimination (available at pet stores)
• BAC-A-Zap — foaming enzymatic cleaner for wall voids and enclosed spaces (available online and through pest control suppliers)
• BIN Shellac-Based Primer — odor-blocking primer, the strongest option for sealing surfaces after odor remediation
• Activated Charcoal Bags — available widely, ~$10–15 for a multi-pack; recharge in sunlight every few weeks
• Copper or Stainless Steel Mesh — for packing gaps before sealing with caulk or pest-blocking foam

🎙 Home In Progress is on the air every weekend and available anytime at repcolite.com — click the On the Radio tab on the homepage.

Home In Progress is brought to you by RepcoLite Paints and Benjamin Moore — because the paint isn't just another line item on the supply list. Everything you do — every hour of prep, every stroke of the brush — comes down to the quality of what goes on the wall. The paint is the project. Make sure it's the best.

© Home In Progress | RepcoLite Paints | Sponsored by Benjamin Moore

In this episode of Home in Progress, Dan Hansen starts with a look at why smells have such a powerful effect on the way we experience a home. Unlike sights and sounds, odors connect quickly to the emotional and memory centers of the brain, which means a smell can instantly shape how comfortable, clean, or welcoming a house feels.

That leads into a real-life odor problem involving Dan’s son’s house, several cats, a squirrel in the attic, and a dead possum under an entryway. From there, Dan lays out the most important rule for dealing with household odors: don’t just cover them up with candles, sprays, or air fresheners. If you want the smell gone, you have to eliminate the source.

The segment walks through three practical tools for removing odors at home. First are absorbers and neutralizers, including baking soda, activated charcoal, and white vinegar. Next are enzymatic cleaners, which are especially useful for biological odors like pet urine, but need to be used properly and should not be mixed with bleach or harsh disinfectants. Finally, Dan explains encapsulation, using odor-blocking primers and shellac-based products like BIN or clear shellac to seal in stubborn smells that regular paint will not solve.

In the second half of the episode, the conversation shifts to the history and philosophy of Art Deco design. Dan explores where Art Deco came from, how it developed in the 1910s through the 1930s, and why the style felt so fresh and forward-looking after World War I. He covers the importance of the 1925 Paris exposition, the visual traits that define Art Deco, and how the style eventually evolved into the sleeker, more aerodynamic look of Streamline Moderne after 1929.

Along the way, Dan explains why Art Deco was more than a decorating style. It was a design philosophy built around modern life, new materials, elegance, technology, and the belief that beauty did not have to come from copying the past. Art Deco found beauty in the present, and that is one reason it still feels stylish nearly a century later.

This episode covers two very different but practical home topics: how to eliminate household odors and how to understand Art Deco design. Dan explains why smells are so emotionally powerful, how to stop masking odors and start removing them, and which odor-removal tools actually work. Then he explores the origins, materials, colors, and philosophy of Art Deco, showing how this iconic design movement changed the way people thought about modern homes, buildings, furniture, and everyday beauty.

In this rerun episode of Home in Progress, sponsored by RepcoLite Paints and Benjamin Moore, Dan Hansen opens with a personal update about his golden retriever, Maggie, whose health emergency led to a change in this week’s schedule. From there, the episode revisits a practical homeowner question: does air duct cleaning actually reduce dust in the home?

Dan shares listener feedback and real-world experiences with duct cleaning, noting that while some homeowners notice a cleaner smell or short-term improvement, most do not report a dramatic, game-changing reduction in dust. He explains when duct cleaning may be worth considering, especially for allergy sufferers, homes that have recently gone through renovation work, and households with pets that shed heavily. He also offers a simple DIY inspection tip using an inexpensive snake camera so homeowners can see what is actually inside their ducts before spending money on a cleaning service.

The second half of the episode features highlights from Dan’s conversation with painter Keegan Summers of Vivid Creative Contracting. Keegan talks about growing up in a fourth-generation painting family, stepping away for college and the Air Force, and eventually finding meaning and purpose in the trades. The conversation covers common DIY painting mistakes, how to fix paint problems, the importance of prep work, and what homeowners often misunderstand about professional painters.

Keegan also shares practical advice on cabinet painting, including multi-stage cleaning, sanding, and the amount of prep required for a long-lasting finish. He discusses favorite tools and products, including microfiber rollers and Benjamin Moore Scuff-X, and makes a strong case for young people considering the trades before taking on major college debt.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and Rerun Announcement

00:33 Maggie’s Health Update

02:33 Why This Week’s Episode Is a Rerun

03:17 Recapping the Dust Problem

04:32 The Reality of Air Duct Cleaning

06:36 Is Duct Cleaning Worth the Money?

07:44 A Simple DIY Duct Inspection Tip

09:08 Meet Painter Keegan Summers

09:56 Growing Up in a Painting Family

11:43 College, the Air Force, and a Career Detour

14:33 Finding Meaning in Trade Work

16:09 Why Purpose Matters in Your Work

19:26 Back from the Break

19:44 What Homeowners Misunderstand About Painters

20:00 Common DIY Painting Mistakes

21:35 How to Fix Paint Problems

23:05 Bats on the Ladder

25:05 Favorite Tools, Rollers, and Paint Products

30:08 Cabinet Painting Prep and Process

34:29 Life Beyond the Job

36:19 Why the Trades Can Beat College Debt

39:12 Wrap-Up and Final Offers

In this episode of Home in Progress, Dan Hansen opens with a story about slicing his finger on a new rotary shredder and officially passing cheese-grating duties on to his kids. From there, he wraps up his multi-week series on what the brain wants from the spaces we live in by turning to one of the biggest design decisions of all: color.

Dan explains that paint color is not just about personal taste. It also affects us biologically. He explores how color sends signals through the eye and into parts of the brain involved in stress, alertness, and emotional regulation. Along the way, he breaks color down into its three core elements: hue, brightness, and saturation.

The episode looks at what research suggests about common color families. Red tends to be stimulating and physiologically activating. Blue is often associated with lower heart rate, lower blood pressure, and better emotional recovery. Green shows especially strong connections to stress reduction and restoration. Dan also explains that saturation works like a volume knob, making colors feel louder or quieter, and notes that very dark spaces can sometimes make us feel more watchful or on edge than mid-range values.

Most importantly, he offers a practical framework for choosing paint colors more wisely: do not start with the color itself. Start with the feeling you want the room to create. From there, Dan walks through helpful color guidance for bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, home offices, and bathrooms. He also reminds listeners that RepcoLite color consultants are available to help homeowners make confident choices.

00:00 Welcome and sponsor

00:12 Rotary shredder mishap

01:31 Why color affects us

02:59 The biology of color

07:15 Hue, brightness, and saturation

08:49 What research says about red, blue, and green

14:00 Saturation as a volume knob

16:02 Brightness and hidden stress

18:40 Turning the science into practical advice

19:27 When the deeper point finally clicks

20:28 Why color affects biology, not just preference

21:52 Choose the feeling first

24:32 A living room color regret

26:52 Room-by-room color guidance

28:08 Bedroom colors for calm

30:00 Kitchen colors and controlling warmth

31:10 Flexible color ideas for living rooms

32:47 Home office colors for focus

33:37 Bathroom colors for a reset

36:49 What the feeling of home really means

39:01 Final thoughts and where to get help

In this best-of episode of Home in Progress by RepcoLite Paints, sponsored by Benjamin Moore, Dan Hansen covers two popular home improvement topics: how to reduce dust in your house and how to paint kitchen cabinets. In the first half of the episode, Dan explains what household dust actually is, where it comes from, and why some homes seem to get dusty so quickly. He breaks down common causes of indoor dust buildup, including skin cells, pet dander, fabric fibers, pollen, soil, HVAC airflow, and dirty or inefficient furnace filters. He also explains how low indoor humidity can keep dust floating in the air longer and shares practical tips for reducing dust throughout the home.

Dan’s dust-control advice includes using a HEPA vacuum, dusting with damp microfiber cloths, washing bedding and curtains regularly, vacuuming upholstered furniture, replacing furnace filters on time, checking filter efficiency, using air purifiers, and maintaining indoor humidity around 40 to 50 percent. He also discusses whether duct cleaning may help and previews that topic for a future episode.

In the second half, Dan gives a detailed step-by-step guide to painting kitchen cabinets, especially older stained or varnished cabinets. He explains how to remove and label cabinet doors and hardware, clean away built-up grease, sand the surface correctly, choose the right bonding primer, block stains and tannin bleed, and select a durable cabinet paint that will hold up over time. He also shares tips on sanding between coats, using better brushes and rollers, avoiding common mistakes, and giving the finish enough time to dry and cure before reassembly.

Whether you are trying to cut down on dust in your home or thinking about repainting your kitchen cabinets, this episode offers practical advice that can help you get better results.

00:00 Best-of episode setup

00:42 Why the house gets dusty so fast

01:27 A short tangent on height and dust

05:09 What dust actually is

07:14 Where household dust comes from

08:39 HVAC filters, airflow, and ductwork

11:09 Humidity and why it matters

12:09 Practical ways to reduce dust

16:21 Building a realistic cleaning routine

17:12 Air purifiers, filters, and duct cleaning

18:37 Wrap-up and cabinet painting preview

19:31 Why painting cabinets can be worth it

22:02 Understanding project scope and cabinet types

22:43 Remove and label doors and hardware

24:47 Prep mindset and deep cleaning

26:53 Scuff sanding the right way

28:54 Priming and blocking stains

32:07 Sanding primer and choosing paint

34:05 Applying the second coat and allowing cure time

35:42 Reassembly and finishing touches

36:45 Final tips and wrap-up

Host Dan Hansen opens the episode by noting a technical mistake in the original on-air broadcast, which led to the spring painting segment being repeated—then leans into it with a quick apology and a story about how contractor Joe helped him upgrade from a box grater to a rotary cheese grater after a painful pizza-making mishap.

From there, Dan dives into one of the most common spring questions: When can you actually start painting outside? He explains why air temperature alone isn’t enough, emphasizing the importance of surface temperature, dew point (keeping surfaces at least 5–10°F above it), and moisture content in wood (ideally below 15%). He also discusses surfactant leaching and how overnight conditions can impact fresh paint. To help extend the early-season window, he highlights Benjamin Moore Element Guard for its ability to handle lower temperatures and resist rain quickly, and shares a practical day-by-day approach to spring exterior painting—including why you should always store your paint indoors overnight.

Shifting indoors, Dan shares a firsthand experience helping his son repaint a home, where RepcoLite Optima delivered impressive coverage over both deep, dark colors and even bright bubblegum pink. While nearly achieving one-coat results, he still recommends two coats for a consistent, professional finish.

The episode wraps with a deeper look at biophilic design—how incorporating elements of nature into your home can reduce stress and improve well-being. Dan walks through simple, practical ways to apply it: using natural color palettes, incorporating wood and stone, embracing imperfection through ideas like wabi-sabi, protecting meaningful outdoor views, and adding plants (real or artificial) to create a calming environment.

He closes by encouraging listeners to connect with the Home in Progress podcast and Facebook page—and offers a warm Easter greeting.

00:00 Welcome and On-Air Correction

00:42 Rotary Grater Upgrade

02:56 Michigan Spring Frustrations

04:38 When to Paint Outside

05:34 Surface Temperature Matters

06:47 Dew Point Basics

07:43 Moisture in Wood

09:06 Surfactant Leaching

11:08 Element Guard

12:12 Outdoor Painting Schedule

13:40 Keep Paint Warm

14:22 Shift to Interior Painting

15:08 Repainting Son’s House

15:51 Optima Paint Overview

16:36 Dark Colors Coverage

18:18 Covering Bright Colors

18:32 Final Recommendation

19:00 Greenery Benefits Tease

19:09 Sponsor Break

19:31 Brain Needs at Home

21:05 Biophilic Design Explained

21:53 Nature Lowers Stress Fast

24:21 Earth Tone Color Tips

26:20 Natural Materials

28:17 Sponsor Break

29:43 Wabi-Sabi and Imperfection

32:04 Protecting Your Views

33:43 Plants: Real or Artificial

36:14 Series Wrap and Next Week

37:45 Podcast and Facebook

39:35 Easter Sign-Off

When can you really start painting outside in the spring? It’s not just about air temperature—and getting this wrong can ruin a project.

Dan Hansen breaks down the real factors that determine whether exterior paint will succeed or fail. He explains why surface temperature matters more than air temperature, how to use an infrared thermometer to check it, and why dew point and moisture content can quietly sabotage your work. You’ll learn when wood is actually ready to paint (hint: below ~15% moisture), why frozen or damp substrates cause problems, and how to plan a smart early-season painting schedule. He also highlights Benjamin Moore Element Guard, designed for cooler conditions and rain resistance as fast as 60 minutes.

Then the conversation shifts indoors—to something most people completely overlook: lighting.

Your brain is constantly responding to light in ways that affect your sleep, mood, focus, and overall wellbeing. Dan walks through the research behind this and explains why “irregular light” (the wrong kind of light at the wrong time) can throw off your system. He connects this to real-world environments—from hospitals to workplaces—and shows how lighting choices at home can either support or fight against how your brain wants to function.

You’ll get practical, actionable advice:

1. Why morning light exposure (within an hour of waking) matters more than you think
2. How to choose the right bulb color temperature (2700K vs 3500–4000K) depending on the room
3. Why layered lighting beats a single overhead fixture every time

Finally, Dan tackles a viral carbon monoxide ad and clears up a common misunderstanding: CO detectors are not designed to detect every trace of carbon monoxide immediately. He explains how UL 2034 standards actually work, including threshold levels and built-in delays, and what that means for your safety.

You’ll also learn:

1. Where and how to install CO detectors
2. When to replace them (typically every 5–7 years)
3. Why annual inspection of fuel-burning appliances matters
4. When a low-level CO monitor might be worth adding as a supplement

00:00 Welcome and March Rant

01:53 When to Paint Outside

03:05 Why Surface Temperature Matters

04:18 Understanding Dew Point

05:14 Moisture Levels in Wood

06:37 Element Guard in Cool Weather

07:47 Planning a Daily Painting Schedule

09:57 Why Lighting Matters More Than You Think

10:31 How Light Affects Your Brain

14:31 Real-World Research Examples

17:13 What “Irregular Light” Means

18:28 Practical Lighting Fixes

19:54 Why Morning Light Is Critical

22:45 Choosing the Right Bulb Temperature

24:56 Warm vs Cool Lighting by Room

26:51 Why You Should Layer Lighting

30:58 Carbon Monoxide Ad Breakdown

34:00 How CO Detectors Actually Work

36:21 CO Safety Tips and Best Practices

39:02 Wrap Up