Note: This episode originally aired in June 2025. The RepcoLite Endura sale mentioned at the end ran through the end of that month.Episode SummaryThis week on Home In Progress, Dan dedicates the entire show to one topic: choosing exterior paint colors without the stress, the second-guessing, or the Smurf house. He adapts a color training that RepcoLite's own Haley developed for store employees, adds a few of his own thoughts along the way, and walks listeners through everything from basic ground rules to architectural styles to brick homes to how many colors are actually too many. Practical, thorough, and worth saving if you've got an exterior project anywhere on your horizon.In This Episode

• [00:49] -- Sweet Corn Disaster Story
• [06:20] -- Why Exterior Color Choices Are So Stressful
• [08:41] -- The Training Framework from Haley
• [09:39] -- Three Ground Rules Before You Pick a Single Color
• [13:27] -- Working With What's Already There
• [20:00] -- Architectural Styles and Their Traditional Color Palettes
• [25:53] -- Working With Brick
• [30:08] -- How Many Colors Does an Exterior Need?
• [33:29] -- Shutters and Doors
• [34:42] -- Final Tips and Tools
• [37:43] -- Picking the Right Paint

Opening: The Sweet Corn Incident [00:49]Dan opens with a story from his week that he feels compelled to share and equally compelled to forget. Hot dogs and sweet corn for dinner. A deep-in-thought face while eating. His daughter Hannah catching the whole thing and trying not to laugh. Dan catching her. And then, involuntarily, the entire table getting covered in sweet corn. The family was not pleased. The corn was found in unexpected places for weeks. Dan relates this story on live radio to a large audience, which he acknowledges is exactly the kind of decision that defines him.From there, on to the actual show.Why Exterior Color Choices Are So Stressful [06:20]Dan did some research on how other homeowners describe the experience of choosing exterior paint colors. A few real quotes he pulled:

• "I cried. A lot, actually."
• "It was the most stressed I've ever been."
• One person described the finished result as looking "so childish. It was like a Smurf house, and I couldn't afford to have it repainted."

It's not an irrational reaction. The exterior of a home is visible to everyone who drives by. Getting it wrong costs real money and time, and it's on display for the whole neighborhood to see. Getting it right matters.The Training Framework from Haley [08:41]This episode is built around a color training module that Haley -- longtime show co-host, now full-time RepcoLite product and color trainer -- recently developed for store employees. Dan adapted it for the show and gives her full credit throughout. What follows is largely her framework, with Dan's thoughts mixed in.Three Ground Rules Before You Pick a Single Color [09:39]1. Colors Look Lighter OutsideOutdoors, with the sun as the light source, your colors are going to look two to three shades lighter than that same color would look inside the home. This is one of the most common exterior paint mistakes. Someone picks a mid-tone gray, it looks clearly gray on the chip, and then comes back to say it looks almost white on the house.The fix: choose colors a couple shades darker than you want the final result to look. It feels counterintuitive, but it's how it works.2. Scale Changes EverythingThe exterior of a home is a huge canvas, and colors gain strength at that scale. The "Smurf house" situation almost always comes from a color that looked good at smaller doses but became overwhelming when it covered the whole exterior.Look for toned colors that have some gray in them. They're easier on the eye, feel more sophisticated, and don't overwhelm at large scale. Good starting places: Benjamin Moore's Affinity Collection, the Historic Collections, and the Williamsburg Collection (144 muted tones inspired by 18th century colonial homes). These fan decks are safe bets that scale beautifully on big surfaces.3. Sample on the Actual SurfaceBenjamin Moore color samples put real paint in your hands. Use them. Paint a large area -- at least two feet by two feet -- directly on the siding, brick, or whatever surface you're actually painting. Texture affects how color looks, so a smooth foam board won't give you an accurate read. Paint the real surface, then observe it in the morning, at midday, and in the evening before you decide anything.Working With What's Already There [13:27]Before you even open a fan deck, take stock of the materials already on your home that aren't changing. These aren't limitations -- they're clues. Constraints, it turns out, actually help narrow decisions rather than just frustrating them. Research in psychology shows that small obstacles can increase creative problem-solving by nearly 40%. The things that feel like limits are often what give you a direction to push from.Landscaping and Fixed Materials [16:06]Landscaping -- Easy to forget about if you're choosing colors in winter, but it plays a big role. A lot of green in the yard -- hostas, ferns, evergreens -- means you probably don't want a green exterior. The house will disappear into the yard. Lots of white blossoms in spring? Maybe skip white for the body color. Look at the dominant tones in the landscaping and choose colors that complement them, not match or compete with them.Unpainted materials -- Stonework, brick, block foundations all have color. If you're leaving them as-is, they should guide your choices. Dan drives past a house where the stone has a cool bluish tone and the new siding clashes with it. From straight on you don't notice it. From an angle where they meet, it's jarring. Let permanent features inform your palette.Gutters, downspouts, fascia, and soffits -- These can be painted or changed, but if you're not planning to, factor them in.Roof Color [17:36]The biggest and least flexible element on most homes. Roofs don't get replaced often, so their color really matters when you're making paint decisions. As a general rule, the body of the house should be lighter than the roof. Gray or black roof: cooler tones like blues and grays tend to work better. Brown roof: warmer tones like beige, taupe, and red are usually a safer bet.Architectural Styles and Their Traditional Color Palettes [20:00]Style Guides, Not Rules [20:00]Unless you're in a historic district with regulations to follow, you're not locked in to any particular color scheme based on the style of your home. Architecture can guide and suggest. It doesn't have to dictate. Dan's main message going into this section: you've got more freedom than you probably think.Colonial Color Classics [21:30](Cape Cod, Georgian, Dutch Colonial)Traditional palette: muted classic neutrals for the body -- crisp whites, soft creams, beiges, grays. Usually paired with darker accent colors for doors, shutters, and trim: dark green, black, barn red, or yellow.Victorian Color Freedom [22:07]Lots of options here. More than most people realize. You can go rich jewel tones like emeralds or sapphires, soft pastels, or anything in between. There really aren't many firm rules with Victorian architecture. If you've got a Victorian home, stretch a little and have some fun.Craftsman Earthy Palettes [22:49](Bungalows, four-squares, Mission-influenced homes)These homes are about warmth, craftsmanship, and natural materials. Traditionally they lean toward earthy, muted colors -- browns, sages, grays. Colors that feel grounded and historically accurate for the style. Mustard and olive accents work particularly well as a way to modernize without losing the character.Ranch and Mid-Century Options [23:53]Mid-century Americana. Earthy tones are most common for the body: beige, taupe, brown, tan. White or brown for the trim. Burgundy or deep green for doors and shutters. That said, ranches in the '50s and '60s could be pretty expressive -- soft pastels on the body with bright doors and shutters wasn't unusual, and it still works on the right house.Working With Brick [25:53]Brick deserves its own section because it shows up across all architectural styles and it's frequently handled wrong.Brick isn't really a single color. It's a texture and a collection of tones that your eye averages into one overall impression. Any painted surface on a brick home -- shutters, trim, doors, foundation -- should take a backseat to the brick. That's the guiding principle.The most common mistake: going straight to white trim. White is too stark against brick. It breaks up the home's natural flow and creates visual tension. The brick is absorbing light while the white trim bounces it back aggressively, and the result just looks wrong.Instead, choose trim colors that recede: dark taupes, browns, blacks, dark blues, teals, greens. These complement the warm orangey-red tones in most brick without competing for attention. The house ends up looking more settled and intentional.If you're committed to lighter trim on a brick home, match the mortar color rather than going white. Mortar is already part of the visual mix that makes up the brick's overall tone, so it works with the pattern rather than against it.How Many Colors Does an Exterior Need? [30:08]No single right answer, but here are some practical guidelines.Two colors -- body plus one accent. Clean and simple. Works well on a ranch or any home where the...

Episode SummaryDan 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.In This Episode

• [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

Segment 1: Is Gray Going Out? Exterior Color Trends Right Now [00:00]Why Gray Took Over [00:50]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.What's Taking Its Place [02:42]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.Getting Help Choosing an Exterior Color [04:15]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.Segment 2: The Surprisingly Long History of the Tape Measure [05:27]Measuring Before Tape Measures [06:10]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?James Chesterman and Spring Steel [09:05]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.The Crinoline Myth and What Actually Happened [11:50]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 Tape Measure Becomes What We Know [14:08]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.Segment 3: Six Budgeting Tips to Keep Your Renovation on Track [18:43]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.Tip 1: Budget for What You Actually Want [20:45]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...

Episode SummaryThis 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.In This Episode

• [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

Segment 1: Animals Using Tools [00:34]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.Segment 2: The Forever Home Mindset and 5 Can't-Lose Projects [05:35]Why People Are Staying Put [06:10]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.Project 1: Outdoor Living Space [09:59]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.Project 2: Kitchen Refresh [13:21]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.Project 3: Windows, Insulation, and Air Sealing [19:25]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.Project 4: Basement Upgrade [24:36]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...

Episode SummaryThis 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.In This Episode

• [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

Segment 1: Spite Houses -- When Homebuilding Gets Personal [00:54]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.The Tyler Spite House -- Frederick, Maryland [02:27]112 West Church Street, Frederick, MDIn 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.The Boston Skinny House [05:57]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.The Plum Island Pink House [09:47]Newbury, Massachusetts, outside Newburyport near Plum IslandA 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.A Note on Exterior Color and Spite [12:43]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.Segments 2 and 3: Two-Tone Kitchen Cabinets -- Six Common Questions [15:26]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.Question 1: Where Do the Different Colors Go? [19:17]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.Question 2: Do I Need an Island? [24:47]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.Question 3: Will Two Colors Make My Kitchen Feel Smaller or Busier? [26:17]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.Question 4: How Do I Choose Two Colors That Actually Work Together? [29:07]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...

Episode Date: 05/09/26 Episode Number: 458Episode SummaryThis 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.In This Episode

• [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

Segments 1 & 2: Dead Animal Smell — Finding It, Removing It, and Preventing It [01:46]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.

Segment 2: Art Deco at Home — A Practical Guide [19:25]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...

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.Episode SummaryThis 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.Timestamps00:00 Welcome and Rerun Announcement00:33 Maggie’s Health Update02:33 Why This Week’s Episode Is a Rerun03:17 Recapping the Dust Problem04:32 The Reality of Air Duct Cleaning06:36 Is Duct Cleaning Worth the Money?07:44 A Simple DIY Duct Inspection Tip09:08 Meet Painter Keegan Summers09:56 Growing Up in a Painting Family11:43 College, the Air Force, and a Career Detour14:33 Finding Meaning in Trade Work16:09 Why Purpose Matters in Your Work19:26 Back from the Break19:44 What Homeowners Misunderstand About Painters20:00 Common DIY Painting Mistakes21:35 How to Fix Paint Problems23:05 Bats on the Ladder25:05 Favorite Tools, Rollers, and Paint Products30:08 Cabinet Painting Prep and Process34:29 Life Beyond the Job36:19 Why the Trades Can Beat College Debt39:12 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.Timestamps00:00 Welcome and sponsor00:12 Rotary shredder mishap01:31 Why color affects us02:59 The biology of color07:15 Hue, brightness, and saturation08:49 What research says about red, blue, and green14:00 Saturation as a volume knob16:02 Brightness and hidden stress18:40 Turning the science into practical advice19:27 When the deeper point finally clicks20:28 Why color affects biology, not just preference21:52 Choose the feeling first24:32 A living room color regret26:52 Room-by-room color guidance28:08 Bedroom colors for calm30:00 Kitchen colors and controlling warmth31:10 Flexible color ideas for living rooms32:47 Home office colors for focus33:37 Bathroom colors for a reset36:49 What the feeling of home really means39:01 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.Episode Breakdown00:00 Best-of episode setup00:42 Why the house gets dusty so fast01:27 A short tangent on height and dust05:09 What dust actually is07:14 Where household dust comes from08:39 HVAC filters, airflow, and ductwork11:09 Humidity and why it matters12:09 Practical ways to reduce dust16:21 Building a realistic cleaning routine17:12 Air purifiers, filters, and duct cleaning18:37 Wrap-up and cabinet painting preview19:31 Why painting cabinets can be worth it22:02 Understanding project scope and cabinet types22:43 Remove and label doors and hardware24:47 Prep mindset and deep cleaning26:53 Scuff sanding the right way28:54 Priming and blocking stains32:07 Sanding primer and choosing paint34:05 Applying the second coat and allowing cure time35:42 Reassembly and finishing touches36:45 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.Timestamps00:00 Welcome and On-Air Correction00:42 Rotary Grater Upgrade02:56 Michigan Spring Frustrations04:38 When to Paint Outside05:34 Surface Temperature Matters06:47 Dew Point Basics07:43 Moisture in Wood09:06 Surfactant Leaching11:08 Element Guard12:12 Outdoor Painting Schedule13:40 Keep Paint Warm14:22 Shift to Interior Painting15:08 Repainting Son’s House15:51 Optima Paint Overview16:36 Dark Colors Coverage18:18 Covering Bright Colors18:32 Final Recommendation19:00 Greenery Benefits Tease19:09 Sponsor Break19:31 Brain Needs at Home21:05 Biophilic Design Explained21:53 Nature Lowers Stress Fast24:21 Earth Tone Color Tips26:20 Natural Materials28:17 Sponsor Break29:43 Wabi-Sabi and Imperfection32:04 Protecting Your Views33:43 Plants: Real or Artificial36:14 Series Wrap and Next Week37:45 Podcast and Facebook39:35 Easter Sign-Off