Latest / Repcolite Home Improvement Show / Household Odor Removal Tips and the Timeless Style of Art Deco

Transcript

Household Odor Removal Tips and the Timeless Style of Art Deco · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. You're listening to Home
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in Progress by Repcolite Paints, sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I've got a ton of stuff that we're going to
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: cover today. That's not so much a ton. It's two
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: different topics, but there's a lot of stuff within those
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: two different topics, and they're completely I mean, man, talk
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: about disconnected topics. I'm not going to tell you what
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the second one is. It's a lot of fun that's
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: coming up right now. Though. Let's talk about smells. Yeah, smells, odors, stinks.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about stinks. I guess they're not always stinks.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't always just assume, you know. I guess you know,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: experience tells me when we talk about smells it's stinky.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But that's not necessarily the case. They can be great things.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Of course they can be great things. Smells. Let's just
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: get moving on. Smells are really really powerful things, right,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: We've all noticed that before. Smell is really really power
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And part of the reason why smells have such an
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: impact on us is because the sense of smell is
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: wired differently from every other sense. You know, I don't
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: know if you knew this. I didn't know this. But
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: other senses sight, sound, touch, taste, all of those senses
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: get routed through our brain in a way that allows
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: our brain to sort and then you know, kind of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: configure the information before it reaches our emotional centers. But
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: smells don't work that way. They completely bypass the thinking
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: part of our brains and they go straight to the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: emotional part, the feeling part. And that's why odor evoked
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: memories tend to be way more emotional and usually extend
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: way back earlier, you know, in our lives than memories
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: triggered by the other senses. And that's why, you know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: like a whiff of grandma's kitchen, you know, the smell
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of grandma's kitchen, just the slightest hint of that can
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: transport us back to childhood and grandma's kitchen way faster
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: than just a photograph. Can you know? The smell emotionally
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: places us in grandma's kitchen. I'm sure we've all got
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: memories that smells bring back. But like I said, smells
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: are directly connected to our emotional centers and they don't
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: just affect our memories, right, you know, we're focused on memories,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: but that's not all they do, they also affect how
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: calm and peaceful we feel in a given space. My kid,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: he just bought a house, and I'm so glad he did,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: because sometimes I run stuck trying to figure out what
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in the world am I going to talk about on
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the radio this week? This is episode four fifty six,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty six episodes. What new is there
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to say? Under the sun? Well, my kid bought a house,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and oh man, it's a treasure trove of content. He
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: bought a house. It had lots and lots of cats
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: in the house. Okay, picture house, ton of cats and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a dirt crawl space that the cats had access to. Now,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: you don't have to be an animal expert to put
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: two and two together and figure out how the cats
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: made use of that crawl space. It was unreal. So
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: he's got that that he's dealing with. On top of that,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the home inspection turned up the happy information that he
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: had a squirrel living in his attic. And then about
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: three weeks ago or so, I was helping him paint
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and I was confronted by what can only be described
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: as a living force in that home. Not living, that's
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the wrong word. It was a very dead, extremely dead force.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: He's got this little entryway, and this is the area
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: where the squirrel is living, you know above, you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: above the ceiling in there, so the squirrel's living in there.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And once the weather started heating up that room started
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: this stink in such a profound way, I mean, such
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: an impacting way that I quit using that entrance entirely.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: It was horrible, horrible. You'd open the door, hold your
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: breath and just hope you could make it to the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: other side and get into the house and then get
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: that door closed. But even once you got in and
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: shut the door behind you, the stink was there. It
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: was like stuck to you. It grabbed you, It held
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: onto your clothes, it held on to what everything, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: it was just with you the rest of the day.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It was a horrible, horrible, horrible turns out it was
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a dead possum under the entry So he has a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: squirrel up above that he's working on, and all the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: mess that a squirrel will create, and all the stink,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: and then he's got a dead possum. And he called
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and he said, hey, Dad, I found that stink. And
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: he was not sounding chipper when he called. He was
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you don't need He was not pleased. He was having
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a hard time maintaining his his composure because he was calling.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You know. Basically, it was a as he's discovering this,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: he's on the phone with me, so it was quite
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: an experience for both of us. But anyway, he's trying
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: to get his words out and he's telling me there's
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a dead possum under there, And I said, are you sure?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: He says, I'm looking at him, And then everything that
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I knew about possums, which there isn't a whole lot
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that I knew about possums, but one of the things
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I know is that they do play dead. So I
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: made sure he poked him with a stick a few
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: times to make sure he was dead. Turned out yep,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: truly and really dead in there, stinking it up like
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: there's no tomorrow. So anyway, all of those smells are
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: just kind of just you know, kind of hanging out
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: together in his house, kind of rubbing elbows, kind of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: just mushing themselves together and creating just an entire aroma
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that I equated with his house. You know, his house
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: is now not permanently, but at that point it was
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: completely locked in in my brain completely connected to this
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: amalgamation of horrible smells, all right, So it was kind
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: of depressing for him. It was depressing for everybody. Really.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It dragged him down in a big way. You know.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: It felt like an impossible hill to climb. You know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the house was cute. They were adding in new paint colors,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and that was really making it look you know, beautiful
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: and welcoming and all of that. But the smells were
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: so strong and all pervasive that they kind of overrode
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: every change he was making. And if you've ever dealt
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: with something like that, you know how frustrating, how like
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I said, depressing it can be, because you know, if
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you're like my kid and I, you may not really know,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: at least right off the bat, how to deal with
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: something like this. You know, you try the normal things
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you think to try, but when the smell keeps coming back,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it doesn't dissipate, it's not getting any better. You start
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: to wonder, how in the world do you get this fixed?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: How do you get a smell like that out of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a home. We're to talk about that from time to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: time over the course of the next few months. You know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: just a bunch of different stinks and smells that people
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: commonly deal with and then the right way to get
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: them out. We'll tackle things like dead animals. Well we're
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: not going to literally tackle the dead animals. We're going
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to talk about dealing with the dead animals with smoke damage,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you know, cigarette smell, sewer gas gotta love the sewer
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: gas mold. We'll talk about smells that could signal danger
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and what do you do with those. But before we
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: get into all of that stuff, you know, just little
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: bits and pieces as the summer unfolds. Before I get
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: into that, I do want to talk about probably the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: most important concept that applies to every smell problem that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: you're going to ever face in a home. See, when
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: you encounter a smell, you've got a couple of options.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: You can deal with it the way a lot of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: us do, the way we did with the smells of
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: my kids home. You can deal with it by trying
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to mask it, or you can do the better thing,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the right thing, and work to eliminate it. A lot
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: of the time, like I said, we're instinctively reaching for
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: or solutions that only mask the problem. So many of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the products that we see on TV or hear about
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: on the radio or you know, on the internet or
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: wherever we're looking, you know, on the Facebook, on the YouTube.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So many of those products are just masking smells. You know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: they're kind of couched in a way that maybe it's
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: removing it, but that's not what most of them do.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Most of them are just hiding the smell underneath layers
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: of other smells. So masking it is really not the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: way you want to go. That's a common way, not
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the right way to go. You want to get those
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: get those smells out. So skip the air fresheners, the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: scented candles, the plug in fragrance dispensers, the essential oil diffusers, popery,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: all of those things. They're all masking agents. Don't skip
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: them entirely. I mean, they can add smells and layers
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: of smells to a home, but don't use them to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: eliminate a smell, because it's not going to eliminate anything.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: It's just hiding it for a little bit. You know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: they put a new smell in place, we think the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: other smell is gone, and then when the candle goes
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: out or the spray kind of dissipates, the smell's right back.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: So that's masking the problem. Now let's talk about the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: better solution, eliminating the problem. And when we're talking about this,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: there are basically three real approaches you can try, and
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you should think of them as your toolbox against stink.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: These are different tools for different jobs, and I'm going
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to walk through them, and as I do that, your
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: goal is to just be aware of them. You know,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that's the goal today. Just be aware of these tools
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and break them out in the right scenarios. So let's
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: get to the toolbox against stink. But let's do that
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: right after this. Home in Progress is brought to you
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: by Rep cooll Lite Paints and Benjamin Moore. You know,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: people often think of paint as just another line item
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: on the project's supply list. But here's the thing. Everything
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you do, every hour of prep, every stroke of the brush,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: all comes down to the quality of the paint. The
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: paint is the project. Make sure it's the best. And
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: we're back. You're listening to Home in Progress brought to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you by Rep Coolite Paints and benj in More, and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: we're talking about dealing with stinks. And last segment I
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: talked about basically a toolbox. I just got into this.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: There's a toolbox in your fight against stink, and there's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a number of tools in this toolbox. You need to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: know about all of them and where you would break
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: each one of these tools out to eliminate a certain stink, because,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: as I mentioned at the end of last segment, when
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with stinks, we got really a couple of options.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: We can mask the stink, you know, just hide it
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: under you know, candle smells and pot pourri and air
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: fresheners and all of that. That's not a great way
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to deal with them because you're not dealing with the stink,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you're just hiding it. The right way to deal with
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: it is to eliminate it. And there's three different, basically
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: sets of tools in your toolbox to eliminate stinks. Let's
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: look at them and we'll break them down one at
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a time so you understand where you would use each one.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: All right, Tool number one absorbers and neutralizers. Now, these
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: things work by actually in interacting with odor molecules. You know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: on a microscopic level, they're either trapping these molecules or
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: they're chemically changing them so they no longer produce the
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: stink smell they're not adding a pleasant smell to compete
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: with the bad one. They're pulling the bad one out
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of the air or neutralizing it on contact. Now, in
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: future segments, when we talk about specific stinks, we're going
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to talk about these things and how to use them,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: you know, how exactly you would use them, you know, practically.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: But today, let's just look at things from a bird's
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: eye perspective, you know, just skim over them a little bit.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And when we're talking about absorbers and neutralizers, we're talking
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: basically about things like baking soda, activated charcoal, white vinegar.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: These are some of the basics in this category, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: they work really well. You know, baking soda, for example,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: it's mildly alkaline. It neutralizes acidic odor compounds. Now I'm
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: sure you know this already. That's why we so often,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you know, pop a box of baking soda in the refrigerator.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It's going to suck up all the stinks and take
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: care of them. But you can also sprinkle baking soda
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: on your carpet, let it sit overnight, and then vacuum
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: it up. It's a really simple, cheap and effective solution
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: for mild to moderate odors. That are airborne. Activated charcoal
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it's another one of these absorbers or neutralizers, and it
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: works because it has millions of tiny pores that physically
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: trap odor molecules. And while it may sound, you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: kind of specialized or unusual, you know, activated charcoal, Where
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: am I going to get this? You can find activated
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: charcoal odor absorbing bags at just about any store that
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you go looking, and usually you're going to find them
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: from around ten to fifteen bucks for a multi pack.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: You just set them in a room and they work passively.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Most of them can be recharged, which sounds really fun.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: You'll lay them out in the sun for a couple
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: hours and they're back to life, ready to go again,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and usually the last up to about two years. So
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: activated charcoal you can find it pretty much anywhere. Go
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: look for that white vinegar. It's a third absorber or neutralizer.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It's acidic and it's excellent at neutralizing ammonia based smells
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: like urine. See urine doesn't smell terrible, terrible, terrible when
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: it's fresh, you know, I mean, it's not probably like
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a rose garden, but comparatively speaking, it's worse as it ages.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It's the opposite of people. Right, we improve with age,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and our smells really go up as we get older
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: til we hit a certain point, then we're right back
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: where we started. But right now, you know, the middle
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: chunk is golden smell time, and that's where I'm living
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: right now. In golden smell time. Anyway, as urine ages,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: that sharp pungent odor develops, and it's happening because bacteria
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: is breaking the urine down and it's producing the ammonia. Now,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: ammonia is alkaline, vinegar is acidic, and when the two meat,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the acid neutralizes the ammonia and convert it into this
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: odorless compound. You know, it's not covering the smell. It's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a chemical reaction that eliminates the molecule that's causing the stink. Now,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: as I said earlier, we're going to talk more about
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: how to use these different products or tools when we
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: address specific stinks and odors. But for now, just realize
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: these are legitimate, proven approaches to eliminating smells. But they
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: do have limits. You know, they work on airborne odors
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and surface level contamination. They can't reach deep into soaked subfloors,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: saturated insulation, or you know, heavily contaminated porous materials. If
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the source of the smell is biological, you know, you'urine
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: decomposition or any kind of organic contamination, and it's embedded
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: in a material, it's going to keep producing a new
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: odor until the source itself is broken down. And that's
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: where the second set of tools comes in. Enzymatic cleaners. Now,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: these tools are really the single most effective weapon against
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: biological odors, and they work because enzymatic cleaners can living
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: bacteria that produce enzymes basically just natural proteins that break
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: down organic matter at a molecular level. Different enzymes target
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: different materials. I could give you a big long list
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of names of different enzymes, amyases, lip ases, you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: things like that, but you don't need to know that.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: The good news is you don't need a chemistry degree
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to pick the right enzymatic cleaner for your situation. The
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: major brands that you're going to find, you know pretty
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: much all over the place, especially at pet stores. Those
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: major brands, they're blended with multiple enzyme types to help
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: handle the most common biological messes. So, if it's organic,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, urine vomit, food decomposition, a quality enzymatic cleaner
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: is going to go after it. And the way it
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: works is this, when you spray an enzymatic cleaner on
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: a pet stain or biological mess or decomposition residue, you know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: residue from decomposition. Gotta love that residue. When you spray
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: an enzymatic cleaner on that, the enzymes literally digest the
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: organic compounds that are causing the smell. You know, they
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: just completely get rid of them. And as a big bonus,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: because the enzymes are breaking down the organic material itself,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: they handle both the stain and the odor at the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: same time, so they often perform double duty and that's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: why professionals in the cleaning industry call them the gold
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: standard for biological odors and stains. However, one critical tip
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: before we move on, don't use enzymatic cleaners right alongside
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: bleach or harsh disinfectants. And the reason is that those
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: chemicals will kill the beneficial bacteria in the cleaner and
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: then just you know, render it useless. So clean and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: disinfect first, let everything dry, then apply your enzymatic cleaner.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: All right. Third tool in your toolbox against stinks is
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: basically the concept of encapsulation and that's just a fancy
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: way of saying using primers or coatings or sealers to
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: seal in the smell, to encapsulate it. You know, sometimes
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the odor source is embedded in a surface that you
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: can't remove, you know, smoke residue or cigarette smell in drywall,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: pet contamination in a subfloor, you know, something along those lines.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: In cases like that, you can seal the odor in
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: with an encapsulating primer, and these primers create a physical
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: barrier that locks the odor causing compounds behind a sealed surface.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Bin primer it's a white, pigmented schillac that does a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: great job ceiling in stains and blocking odors. So that's
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: an option depending on the surface that you're ceiling and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: how it's going to be used in the future. A
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: clear shellac is also another option. You know, bin is
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a pigmented shillac. Just get a clear shallac. We've talked
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: about it in the past when we did a couple
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of segments on Sillaxe. But shellaks are excellent stain and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: odor seilers, and a clear shellac is an even better
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: odor seiler than a pigmented one. So if you aren't
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: going to be painting over the surface, and you really
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: don't need you know, that white primer look like kind
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of subflow or something that's going to get carpet or
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: whatever over top of it. If that's the case, a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: clear shalak is going to give you ultimate stink block.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: But even then, even then the white pigmented bin, if
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: that's where you need to go, that's still going to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: do a good job blocking stink as well. The key
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: thing to understand here is you can't just paint over
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: an odor problem with regular paint. The smell is going
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to bleed right through. You need a ceiling primer first,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: then your top coat. We'll get way deeper into this
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: on our episode on cigarette smoke, but for now, just
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: know that encapsulating primers or seilers exist and they're essential
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: for odor problems that live inside your walls. So there
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you go. That's the initial start to this whole series
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: on stinks and smells and odors in the home. Now,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: next week we'll dig into some practical stinks, and I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: think we're going to start with dead animals and the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: scroll in the attic, So that's coming up next week.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Right now, let's shift gears dramatically and let's talk about
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the Art Deco movement. Where did this movement originally? You know,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: what's the history behind it, and more importantly, you know
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: why does it matter to us today. We're going to
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: get to all of that right after this Home in
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Progress is brought to you by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Think about it. You spend hours prepping, sandy, taping, and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: then finally painting. Don't throw all that work away with
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: an inferior product. The paint isn't just another supply. The
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: paint is the project. Make sure it's the best and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: we're back. You're listening to Home and Progress by Repcolite Paint,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and for the last half of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the show, I want to spend a little bit of
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: time on a design style that still feels really bold,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: really glamorous and unmistakably modern, even though even though it's
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: big moment in the spotlight arrived like a hundred years
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: ago or so. Talking about Art Deco. Now, if you've
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: listened to the show for a while, you know that
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we've dug into the history and the importance of different
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: design movements that have played out through the years. You know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a few months ago we talked about Victorian architecture and design.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Before that, we spend some time looking at the arts
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and crafts movement and then at craftsmen homes. Now, what
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: makes those conversations so interesting, at least to me, is
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that these styles, you know, they're not just different looks,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: they're different responses to a changing world. You know, as
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: society changed, as industry grew, as cities expanded, as modern
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: life began to take shape, designers and architects kept asking,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you know, a version of the same question, and they
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: still ask it today. I mean, this question is what
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: drives design. But the question is this, you know, what
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: should the new world look like? You know, what should
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: everything that's happening around us look like in our buildings,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: in our rooms, and in the things that we live
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: with every single day. Now, Victorian design that was one
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: answer to that question. And while it was very much,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you know, to Victorian design was very much a product
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of the industrial age. In fact, it was largely able
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to flourish because of the industrial age and mass production
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: in all of those things. While it was a product
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of industrialization, the Victorian you know, esthetic often expressed itself
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: through older historical styles, you know, Basically it looked backward
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in a very nostalgic manner. Oh I wish we had
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: buildings that looked like this. You know. The Gothic Revival,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: for example, reached back to the Middle Ages. That's when
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: things were really beautiful. Let's make things look like that.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Other Victorian styles borrowed from classical architecture, from Renaissance forms
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and other earlier you know, earlier traditions. The Arts and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: crafts movement and then later the craftsman style answered that
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: same question, you know, about how our homes should look
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: in the modern world. They answered it very differently from
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the Victorians. You know. They pushed back directly against industrialization.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: William Morris, he was a big time mover and shaker
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in this movement, along with his contemporaries. Basically, that group said, hey, machines,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: they're degrading beauty. This group argued that we needed to
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: return to hand crafted goods, to honest materials, basically to
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: quality craftsmanship. They saw beauty and simplicity and handmade goodness,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and that's really noble in a sense. You know, A
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: part of that resonates with I can't say all of us,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: but a lot of us. You know, a lot of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: us like the idea of returning to simpler times, simpler materials,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: but it's still at its core, you know, basically, it
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: literally is a looking backward, you know, just like the Victorians.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: You know, victorians, arts and crafts all saw the modern
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: age and they wanted to go somewhere else, you know,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: further back. You know, they wanted to retreat from it.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And then comes Art Deco and it completely breaks that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: pattern of retreat. Instead of saying that the modern world
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: is ugly and that we need to get away from it,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Art Deco adherent said the modern world is powerful and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: sleek and fast, and with a little bit of effort,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: we can make it beautiful. And that's It's a completely
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: different approach. It's not nostalgic, and that's really important philosophically
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: as well as esthetically. You know, it's forward thinking, it's hopeful,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: it's confident, and I love that because it's embracing a
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: fundamental truth that we all have to grapple with. We
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: can't literally go back, you know, we can't go back
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: in time. We want to, or we may want to,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: lots of us do at many points in our lives.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe we want to go back. You know how many
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: times haven't you said, or or heard somebody say things
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: were better back then? You know, those were the good
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: old days. That's when life was really peaceful and slow
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and wonderful and all those things. You know, I do
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: this all the time, and I find myself wishing the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: kids were little again, or I'm watching, you know, watching
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the Andy Griffith Show, or leave It to Beaver, and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I think those were such simple times. You know, that's
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so easy. You know, life was so simple back then.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I think many of us get caught up in that
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: from time to time. But the bottom online, of course,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and the hard truth that none of us can escape,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: is that we can't go back to those days. I
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: didn't need to take this long to say that we can't.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: We're here now. This is what we've got. And I
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: love that the Art Deco movement at its heart saw that,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: acknowledged it and said, you know what, that's not a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: bad thing. It's not a loss. The modern is beautiful
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: as well. We don't need to run from this and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: live back then in the past. This is a good
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: place to be, you know. Let's make it as beautiful
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: as it deserves to be. Again, it's hopeful, you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it's very core. It's a hopeful and forward thinking esthetic.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: And it's also beautiful. You know, when you look at
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the design that came out of this era, it's compelling,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it's exciting, it's beautiful. Now, with that set, I've got
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to be clear, art Deco did borrow from the past
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: as well, just like the Victorians and many other styles.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So if you're sitting there at home and you're thinking,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you know that art Deco did draw from the past,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you're right it did. It did borrow from the past.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: It pulled from ancient Egypt, from classical antiquity, from African art,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Asian design, and so on. But and this is really
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: important here, it didn't borrow from these in the same
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: way that Victorian styles did. You know, Victorian designers revived
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the older styles. Art Deco tended to take those older
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: looks and motifs and then it abstracted them, you know,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it flattened them, it stylized them, it modernized them. So
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: even when art Deco looked backward, it wasn't in a
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: nostalgic you know, boy, I wish I lived back then
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: kind of way. It did that in a modern way.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: You know, it was taking old sources and putting them
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: through a twentieth century machine and cranking out something new.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: All right, Let's look at the origins of the Art
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Deco movement, and it kind of ranged from the nineteen
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: tens up through the nineteen thirties, you know, in that
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: kind of a range. So keep that range in mind,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and then to understand where art Deco came from, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: how it emerged on the scene. It really helps to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: understand what designers were getting tired of. You know, in
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the years before World War One, the dominant decorative style
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: was Art nouveau, and Art Nouveau, you know, had its
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: own beauty. It was all flowing lines and organic curves
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and nature inspired forms, lots of vines, flowers, you know,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: almost sinuous or liquid like shapes. But by the early
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen tens, especially in France, a lot of designers were
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: starting to feel like it had kind of run its course,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: you know, starting to feel a little bit much too much,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: too soft, too ornamental. There was a growing desire for
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: something more structured. Okay, that's before the war. Then comes
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the war, you know, World War One, and that changes everything,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you know, not just politically, but psychologically. The old world,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: with its empires, you know, all of its traditions, its
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Victorian and Edwardian sensibilities, all of those things had led
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: straight into the catastrophe that was World War One. And
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: when people came out of the other side of that,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: you know that they emerged at the end of it,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of interest in not looking back anymore.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: We don't need to rebuild that past. The past felt broken.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: What felt right was moving forward. The future felt good.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: The future felt honest, and that gave designers permission, maybe
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: even a mandate. You know, maybe we could say that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a mandate to stop looking backward and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: start building something that belonged to the present, to the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: here and now. And then the nineteen twenties hit and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: it was like somebody, you know, cranked up the volume
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to eleven on everything. Cities were growing just exponentially. Jazz
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: was in the air, the nightlife was electric cars, airplanes,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: ocean liners, skyscrapers. They were all reshaping daily life. There
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: was money everywhere, there was confidence, speed, you know, and
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: all of that energy started feeding directly into the design world.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: On top of that, you've got all kinds of other
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: things happening. In nineteen twenty two, the discovery of King
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Tut's tomb sent this wave of Egyptian inspired motifs into
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the fashion world and the design world. So you've got
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that happening. In the world of theater and dance, Russian
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: ballet companies were dazzling European audiences with bold, exotic stage
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: designs and vivid color that felt like nothing people had
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: seen before. So that's exploding. And then in the art
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: world you've got movements like Cubism, which were breaking forms
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: apart into angles and geometry. You know, all of these
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: influences were being absorbed by designers who are looking for
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: some new decorative language to use something modern, something bold,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: something that felt like right now, And that's what drove
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the movement, you know, the Art Deco movement. And for
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: its name, we can point to a major design exposition
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: in Paris in nineteen twenty five. Now I'd say the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: name in French, but when I try to, just sounded
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: like a ton of gibberish. I couldn't even tell what
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I was saying, and I had the words in front
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: of me, so I'm skipping it. But just know that
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the name of that exhibition involved the phrase decorative arts,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: and that's where the art Deco label came from. Another
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: thing that made art Deco somewhat unique as a design
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: style is that it wasn't just about architecture. It was
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a total design movement that encompassed everything from furniture to fashion,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to jewelry to vehicles. I mean it was everywhere, and
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that hadn't happened with things like, you know, the Victorian
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: style and stuff like that. All right, so the style
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was everywhere, But what did it look like? And more importantly,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: is there any importance to the movement beyond it just
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: being another design aesthetic to know about? Well? I think
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: there is. I think there's a lot of importance to it,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and we'll get to the look and why. I think
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: it's so important to every single one of us, every
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: single one of us, even if you don't like it,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: it's still important. We'll get to all of that. Right
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: after this, you're listening to Home in Progress, where the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: projects are real, the mistakes, they're educational, sometimes painful, mostly educational.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: And the only thing more stubborn than that old wallpaper
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: on your bathroom wall is your determination to get it fixed,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: probably sponsored by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore Paint with
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a purpose, people who care and everything you need to
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: get the job done right. And we're back. You're listening
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to Home in Progress by repcoal Lite Paint, sponsored by
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Moore, and we're talking about the art deco movement.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Last segment, we covered the origins of it. Now I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: want to go deeper, and let's just start with what
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it looked like. You know, if you're unfamiliar, art deco
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: is sharp, clean, controlled, it's deliberate, and I know that's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: not terribly helpful if you're looking for some good examples
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and you haven't already done this. Remember Google is your friend.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Google is your friend. Just google art deco and check
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: out what you see. When you do that, you're gonna
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: see zigzags and Chevron's sunbursts, you know, strong vertical lines,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of repeating curves. Basically, you're gonna see symmetry everywhere.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: You know, that's in all these designs. You're gonna see ornament,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you know, ornament like the Victorians had, well, not like
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the Victorians had. The Victorians had ornament. You're going to
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: see ornament in the designs, but the ornament in Art
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Deco is much more disciplined. You know, a flower is
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: no longer soft and loose the way it might be
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: in previous styles. Instead, it's streamlined, it's flattened. You know,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the natural form gets turned into a more modern pattern.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: The lines are straight and sharp. The flower is still there,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: but it's a modernized version of a flower. Now, all
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of this translated really easily into architecture and Google. You know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: if you've got your Google window open, just google the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Chrysler Building in New York and you'll see this building.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: If you're not familiar in can't instantly conjuring image. You
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: see a building with this gleaming metal crown and this
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: stepped profile. You know, perfect example of Art Deco in architecture.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Think of old movie palaces and hotel lobbies, you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: things like that. Art Deco architecture often dramatized upward movement
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: with strong vertical lines. You know, it's perfect for skyscrapers
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: because it could make a building feel both mind and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: elegant at the same time. Now, when it comes to homes,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Art Deco moved in in all sorts of different ways. Furniture, lighting, mirrors, clocks, radios,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you know, bathroom tile, wallpaper, glassware, hardware. You know, all
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: of it picked up Art Deco language. So even if
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the average homeowner never really lived in a pure Art
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Deco house, plenty of people lived with Art Deco objects.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: You know, the look filtered down into ordinary life, and
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: inside a room, Art Deco had a really specific feel.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Furniture tended to have clean, bold outlines, you know, think
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: of a club chair with a rounded back and thick,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: smooth upholstery rather than carved legs and tufted fabric. You know.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Cabinets and vanities often used polished wood or glossy lacquer,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes with contrasting veneers laid in geometric patterns. Mirrors were
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a big deal, you know, and they were often oversized
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and often with stepped or fan shaped frames, and they
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: were often placed to reflect light around the room. Lighting
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: leaned towards sculptural fixtures, frosted glass, chromer, brass, metalwork, and
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: then strong geometric shapes like cylinders, spheres, and tiered forms.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: All of that was big in the you know, Art
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Deco interiors. Surfaces also mattered, you know, where a craftsman
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: room might celebrate you know, quarters on oak or something
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: like that, and Art deco room wanted everything smooth, polished
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and deliberate, so lacquered finishes, mirrored panels, marble or polished
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: stone on tabletops or floors, chrome hardware instead of wrought iron.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: You know, the whole idea was that every surface should
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: look like somebody really made a very intentional choice about it. Now,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: color could go two different directions, yeah, probably a number
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of different directions, but two main directions. Sometimes Art Deco
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: rooms were rich and dramatic, you know, black lacquer against
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: ivory walls, deep emerald green, burgundy, navy, you know, with
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: metallic gold, maybe silver accents. Other times the palette could
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: be you know, like flipped, you know, way softer, cream, pale, jade, dust, rose,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: smoke gray, muted blue greens. But even then, you know,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: however the room went, it was always really really really intentional.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: The colors were placed, you know, they weren't accumulated over time.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: There was contrast that was intentionally sought after. It wasn't
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: just clutter. And that's really the thing that set Art
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Deco interiors apart from something like you know, a Victorian
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: room where the beauty often came from layering, you know,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: pattern on, patterned, fabric on fabric, objects gathered and arranged
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: over time until the room felt full and rich. And
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: art deco room didn't want to feel collected. It wanted
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to feel composed, like somebody designed the whole thing as
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: a single statement. So that's what art deco looked inside,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: you know. And that was art deco in the twenties,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the Roaring twenties. But one of the really interesting things
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: about art deco is that it didn't disappear when the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: economy collapsed. It adapted to what was going on. After
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the stock market crash of nineteen twenty nine, the full
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: blown luxury of the twenties Deco was way harder to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: pull off. Right, exotic materials, elaborate lacquer work, lavish metallic finishes,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: all of that got scaled back, but the core idea
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: survived and evolved into something that designers came to call
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: streamline modern. And what that looked like was a shift
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: in the shapes. Basically, where twenties art deco loved strong
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: verticals and sharp angles, the thirties version started pulling from
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the look of modern transportation, you know, trains, ocean liners, airplanes,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: so the corners got rounded a little bit, lines got
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: more horizontal, chrome showed up where gold used to be.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: New industrial materials like bake light and tubular steel replaced
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: some of the expensive hand crafted finishes. Everything got a
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: little bit sleeker, a little more aerodynamic, a little more accessible.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: So basically, art deco went from putting a tuxedo on
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the machine age like it was doing in the twenties,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to putting on, you know, a well cut suit in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the thirties. It was still polished, still intentional, but it
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: was a little bit leaner, and honestly, that's part of
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: why this style lasted as as long as it did.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: It wasn't so rigid that it could only work in
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: boom times. It could adapt to harder circumstances without losing
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: its identity. So that's art Deco. And as I wrap
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: all of this up, the thing that I want to
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: keep coming back to is that art Deco was all
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: about looking ahead, right and finding beauty in the future,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: but also in the here and now, you know, embracing
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the modern of what we had right now in finding
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the beauty in that, and that matters because it really
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: reflects a choice that people are faced with all the time.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: You know, a choice that you and I are faced
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: with all the time. And it's not a choice solely
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: about design or aesthetic or paint colors or anything like that.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's way bigger than that. It's a choice
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: about how we engage with the world around us. You know.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Do we look at the world, at change, at new stuff,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: at new tech, at the passing of the years. Do
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: we see all of that and find ourselves trying to
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: recreate what came before? You know? Are we looking backwards
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: not just a nostalgic you know, oh those are good
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: memories manner, But I want to go back there. I
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: wish I could go back there, you know. Is that
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: how we're looking at the past and at all the
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: things that have come and gone? Or are we looking
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: at what's actually here and now and asking how do
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I pull the beauty and the good and the joy
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and the piece out of this and bring it into
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: the moment. Art Deco did that, you know. It took
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: steel and glass and chrome and concrete, you know, all
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: these things of mass production and said, these aren't obstacles
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: to beauty, They're actually the raw materials for beauty and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that's a really really optimistic way to look at the world,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: and it's really refreshing. And that philosophy. I think that
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: philosophy is important to all of us, regardless of how
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: we feel about the actual look of art Deco. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: here's what I guess I'm trying to get at and
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: around about way we all are living in the world
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and the times, and in the homes and with the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: budgets that we've got. You know, we're all the age
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: that we are that can't be changed no matter what
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: we try to do. Our kids are young, they're older,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: they're moved out, whatever changes are happening, and today isn't yesterday,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and it's never ever ever going to be that way
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it was again. And yet there's always this temptation, even
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: though we know that, there's always this temptation to think
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: that beauty or happiness or peace belongs to some other
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: time back then, you know, some other styles, some other
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: price points, some other place. It's always somewhere else. Art
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Deco's underlying philosophy pushes back on that, and it says,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: among many other things. You know, art Deco says a
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: lot of things, but amongst all those, it says work
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: with what's in front of you, you know what you're
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: living with right now, and don't just work with it,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: but see the best in it, you know, find the
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: elegance and the joy and the beauty in the present.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Don't pine for things that used to be. Don't live
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: in the past trying to find beauty and happiness in
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: your life. Back there, because it's all here right now.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: You know. That's what you've got. That's what I've got,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: is right now, and there's real beauty in that. You know.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I love the Arts and Crafts movement, the look of it.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It's commitment to craftsmanship and simplicity. But I love the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: philosophy of Art Deco way more than the philosophies that
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: drove some of those other movements. You know, art Deco
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: says you don't need to go somewhere different to find beauty.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: It's right where you are. You just need to look
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: for it and reach for it. And that's such a
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: good message, you know, it's a great message for me anyway.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: You know, the best isn't behind, it's not back there somewhere.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: There's really good stuff right here right now, all right.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: That's a look the history and the philosophy and the
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: aesthetic of Art Deco. There's a ton more to cover,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: but that's what I can do today. If you want
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: to catch this episode again, you can find it online
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: at Repcolit dot com. While you're there, make sure you
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: check out some of the other ones I talked about,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: the Arts and Crafts Movement episode, the Victorian Architecture episode.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: A lot of good stuff to dig into. Whatever you
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: do today makes your paints a part of it. Have
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: a great weekend, everybody, and I'll see you next week.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: For Home in Progress by Repcolite Paints, I'm Dan Hansen.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Blipping the couple