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Matthew Van Eyk is Transforming Outdoor Spaces: Every Backyard Tells a Story · The iDesign Lab Podcast

• 0:00
  Voice Over: This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design.
• 0:05
  Voice Over: Curator of interiors, furnishings and lifestyles.
• 0:09
  Voice Over: Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott, idesign Lab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends.
• 0:25
  Voice Over: Idesign Lab provides industry insight, discussing the latest trends, styles and everything in between to better help you style your life, through advice from trendsetters, designers, influencers, innovators, fabricators and manufacturers, as well as personal stories that inspire, motivate and excite.
• 0:43
  Voice Over: And join us on this elevated, informative and lively journey into the world of all things design.
• 0:50
  Voice Over: Today, we're excited to have Matthew Van Eyck, the owner of Oakscapes, as our guest.
• 0:54
  Voice Over: Oakscapes is a premier paver and landscape design company that specializes in high-end residential design solutions, from crafting beautiful driveways and installing lush turf for your backyard garden to building the perfect paver patio.
• 1:08
  Voice Over: Matthew and his team at Oakscapes are passionate about helping clients fall in love with their homes by offering a comprehensive range of landscape and design services.
• 1:16
  Voice Over: Matthew prides himself on Oakscapes' reputation for excellence, always putting client satisfaction at the forefront.
• 1:23
  Voice Over: Join us as we dive into the world of high-end outdoor design the art of transforming outdoor spaces and the secrets behind building lasting client relationships.
• 1:32
  Voice Over: Welcome, matthew.
• 1:35
  Tiffany Woolley: Welcome to the iDesign Lab podcast.
• 1:38
  Tiffany Woolley: Today we have Matthew Van Eyck with us and we spend a lot of time talking about design and mostly about interior detailing.
• 1:46
  Tiffany Woolley: So today I'm excited to dive into exterior with you, but we want to start and tell us about who you are and your amazing company, oakscapes.
• 1:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: Thank you very much.
• 1:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, matthew Van Eyck, with Oakscapes.
• 2:02
  Matthew Van Eyk: I started the company about two years ago now.
• 2:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: I started doing pavers when I was 15.
• 2:11
  Matthew Van Eyk: 15?
• 2:12
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 2:13
  Matthew Van Eyk: Was your father doing it?
• 2:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: No, no, my parents bought a coulter home.
• 2:17
  Matthew Van Eyk: Okay, what's a coulter home?
• 2:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's like a big company, like a GL yeah, it's like a gl home or like a morrison or something like that, right, um, and so they bought, like a brand new culture, home in a community and um, you have your one year warranty.
• 2:33
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, with most of these builders right, and the driveway was done terribly, uh, so which we see quite a bit yeah, no kidding, no kidding.
• 2:45
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so I started.
• 2:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: My parents, like you know, went through the whole spiel of trying to get the warranty to fix it and whatnot.
• 2:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: So they had their paper guy come out and fix it and so he was working and you know we always like working outside my brothers and I and my dad.
• 3:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: So he's like, hey, do you need any workers outside?
• 3:04
  Matthew Van Eyk: My brothers and I and my dad.
• 3:05
  Matthew Van Eyk: So he's like, hey, do you guys, do you need any workers?
• 3:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: And this guy was like I don't know 50 or something, and you know, kind of like one of those good old boys like yeah, a little bit, a little bit kind of like a hippie, kind of kind of funny.
• 3:18
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, he's like sure.
• 3:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: So I was.
• 3:21
  Matthew Van Eyk: I was 15 or 16, and my brother's 14.
• 3:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so we started working for this guy.
• 3:27
  Scott Woolley: Oh, you started working for the guy yeah.
• 3:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: Really yeah.
• 3:30
  Matthew Van Eyk: So we were both in high school and we'd work whenever we had times off.
• 3:34
  Matthew Van Eyk: We were homeschooled.
• 3:36
  Tiffany Woolley: You were.
• 3:36
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, I didn't know that.
• 3:37
  Tiffany Woolley: I want to dive back into that.
• 3:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: Okay, yeah, so we could kind of like work when he needed us to work.
• 3:43
  Scott Woolley: you know he wasn't he didn't like that, Not just on your house, but on the house.
• 3:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: No, no, no yeah yeah, so we started working all over for Coulter Homes and Coulter was building a lot up in Stewart at that time so he had like four communities for Coulter he would do repairs on.
• 3:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: And then we, you know, was it driveways, driveways, patios, walkways?
• 4:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, mostly.
• 4:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, especially pool decks.
• 4:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: The pavers around pools always sink because they're not back graded correctly.
• 4:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: So we did a lot of pool decks.
• 4:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: And we were like we were young so we, just like when we were hot and tired, we'd jump in the swimming pool and stuff.
• 4:21
  Scott Woolley: At someone's house.
• 4:23
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it wasn't the most reputable in the world.
• 4:27
  Scott Woolley: So that's how you got started.
• 4:28
  Scott Woolley: That's like a funny story.
• 4:30
  Scott Woolley: That was hysterical, I mean so many people that we sit here and talk to.
• 4:34
  Scott Woolley: They went to college, they planned this, but you kind of just maybe fell into it yeah, literally, literally, literally so you learned the craft from this guy who was kind of a hippie.
• 4:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, he was a little bit of a hippie.
• 4:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: He was Brazilian, so he would.
• 4:49
  Scott Woolley: But I have to ask a question because we know your work, and your work is impeccable.
• 4:54
  Scott Woolley: It's really really well done, Thank you.
• 4:55
  Scott Woolley: Was this guy the same kind of high quality that you?
• 4:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: were Not quite so much.
• 5:01
  Tiffany Woolley: But you learned about probably what not to do.
• 5:04
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, we learned not what to do, and then we learned you know, when you do so many repairs, you know what.
• 5:09
  Tiffany Woolley: Is the problem?
• 5:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, causes problems, so that helped us out a lot, so my brother and I did that for three or four years.
• 5:18
  Tiffany Woolley: That's a long time at that age.
• 5:20
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, a long time yeah, and we were making $10 an hour, right, which we thought was gold, right, right, you know everyone else was doing, you know, hourly at Publix or whatever, making $6 or $7.
• 5:35
  Scott Woolley: But it's hard work.
• 5:35
  Scott Woolley: You carry bricks, oh yeah, so do you.
• 5:37
  Tiffany Woolley: You carry papers For sure.
• 5:45
  Matthew Van Eyk: But this guy, I mean, we didn't know, but he was making a lot of money off of us.
• 5:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: Oh, that's so, but yeah, so I did that.
• 5:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: Then I went to college.
• 5:49
  Matthew Van Eyk: I worked for a couple big gcs.
• 5:49
  Matthew Van Eyk: I worked for ranger construction, which is like a big commercial um civil construction company.
• 5:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: Then I worked for a gc and boca.
• 5:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: We did a lot of commercial renovations, which was a lot of fun.
• 6:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: But we work for national companies so what was all this work?
• 6:10
  Scott Woolley: exterior, outdoor, no hardscapes, so interior, too, no.
• 6:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: So for ranger it was civil construction, so you know you're doing.
• 6:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, we built bridges, roads to 95.
• 6:22
  Tiffany Woolley: Wow.
• 6:23
  Matthew Van Eyk: So, like big construction, that was a lot of fun.
• 6:30
  Tiffany Woolley: But it was I don't know.
• 6:30
  Tiffany Woolley: I don't like big corporate environments.
• 6:31
  Tiffany Woolley: I know you spent so much time right going through all the red tape.
• 6:33
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, so much time, I agree, so much waste.
• 6:35
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean it was really cool, like the Hood Road Bridge in Palm Beach Gardens up here, like I was on that construction project and it was.
• 6:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: It was a blast, but it's just, yeah, a lot of big, big corporations not a big fan of it.
• 6:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: So then I went to the gc in boca mds builders, which I loved a lot um, and they're excellent, the owner's excellent, my boss was excellent, so we had a lot of.
• 7:05
  Matthew Van Eyk: I enjoyed it a lot there.
• 7:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: But we work for national clients, so we work for Verizon and T-Mobile and those kind of companies Contracts.
• 7:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, great contracts, but we worked in the southeast, so I was the estimator and project manager for some and you just don't get to see your projects.
• 7:26
  Scott Woolley: Finished.
• 7:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, you know, they're in the middle of nowhere, Alabama or Mississippi, or you know, up north Florida.
• 7:33
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you like, you know you get to see pictures in your building.
• 7:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, you don't get to see, you don't get to make a relationship with your contractors and whatnot.
• 7:41
  Matthew Van Eyk: So I decided to quit there and then start Oakscapes.
• 7:46
  Tiffany Woolley: But I love that you knew that at a young age that you wanted to have a niche and you wanted to build something more.
• 7:52
  Matthew Van Eyk: Oh yeah, I always wanted to start a company.
• 7:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: You definitely have the entrepreneurial spirit.
• 7:56
  Scott Woolley: Yeah thank you.
• 7:57
  Scott Woolley: So you jump out of sort of corporate world into your own business.
• 8:03
  Scott Woolley: So now you're designing and creating your own business.
• 8:06
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, your own brand.
• 8:07
  Tiffany Woolley: What?
• 8:07
  Scott Woolley: made your pick doing outside, or, or you know, hardscapes as I call it, yeah, compared to doing something else in construction, or um, I knew it well, uh-huh, and I was good at it.
• 8:21
  Matthew Van Eyk: I am good at it, right, um Right, and you're in Florida, you want to go outdoors?
• 8:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know that's why people come to Florida.
• 8:28
  Tiffany Woolley: Isn't that the truth?
• 8:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: You spend so much time on your pool deck and your patio and you know you can build and create designs that people love and they spend a lot of time at, and then, especially with the outdoors and especially with primarily residential construction, you get to have a relationship with these people and you know they just appreciate you and love your work and you know, word of mouth, yeah, word of mouth.
• 8:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: But I just like love working with people.
• 8:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's, that's the, uh, the main reason.
• 8:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I love that.
• 9:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, my brother, actually he ended up.
• 9:02
  Matthew Van Eyk: He.
• 9:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: He owns a paper company up in Stewart as well.
• 9:05
  Scott Woolley: Really.
• 9:06
  Scott Woolley: So you're both kind of doing the same thing, is it like?
• 9:09
  Tiffany Woolley: a sister or like a sister, I would call it a sister company.
• 9:12
  Tiffany Woolley: No, we're a brother company.
• 9:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: We consider doing that, but it was just better, I think, just to do our separate.
• 9:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: We might merge eventually, very cool.
• 9:21
  Voice Over: But, he's been doing it for like six years now.
• 9:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: So yeah, so it was eventually um, but he's been doing it for like six years now.
• 9:26
  Matthew Van Eyk: So yeah, so it is.
• 9:26
  Scott Woolley: I mean all from yeah, a guy that's in your driveway yeah yeah that is so funny.
• 9:34
  Tiffany Woolley: Do you know where that guy is today?
• 9:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: oh yeah, he's still up in stewart.
• 9:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: He's still doing the same old thing.
• 9:40
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, yeah, yeah so what made you choose south florida?
• 9:45
  Matthew Van Eyk: obviously stewart's kind of not south florida, but yeah, so, to focus, my dad's a pastor, and so he's he.
• 9:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: I was born in canada, then he went to school in california and then he was called to be a pastor up in vero and then he transferred to stewart, um.
• 10:05
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's what brought us toero, and then he transferred to Stewart, so that's what brought us to Florida, and then I went to school at.
• 10:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: Fvu for engineering.
• 10:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: Oh wow, and so that's how I came down here.
• 10:12
  Tiffany Woolley: Yep.
• 10:13
  Matthew Van Eyk: And I've lived here for eight years or something like that and met my wife, got married here and her family's close by.
• 10:22
  Tiffany Woolley: Right here, yeah, aw.
• 10:24
  Scott Woolley: So it's literally the american dream yeah exactly, I love that so you jump into and create oakscapes.
• 10:30
  Scott Woolley: How did the name come about?
• 10:31
  Scott Woolley: Well, because designing, creating a name can.
• 10:35
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, that's, it's challenging, so van eyck means from the oaks in dutch okay and so I didn't want to like last name correct.
• 10:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: I didn't want to use my last name, just in case you know, someone ever sells it, or something yeah, um, but I still wanted to incorporate that.
• 10:52
  Matthew Van Eyk: So, and we want to do.
• 10:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, landscaping and hardscapes and whatnot?
• 10:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: So I thought it was a nice merging of the two it really is that's.
• 11:02
  Tiffany Woolley: I love that.
• 11:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it's kind of fun.
• 11:04
  Tiffany Woolley: It took a while yeah.
• 11:08
  Scott Woolley: So how difficult is it to go into a business like this and find your first client?
• 11:14
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, it's.
• 11:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean, it was a challenge, you know, I expected, anticipated, you know being, you know, rather slow for the first six months a year or whatnot.
• 11:29
  Scott Woolley: um, but I mean, did you have a client?
• 11:34
  Tiffany Woolley: or pound the pavement, literally knock on door.
• 11:37
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Scott Woolley: I did.
• 11:38
  Scott Woolley: Did you have a client to start with, going, okay, I've got a client, now I'm going to start this business because I've got some income coming in?
• 11:43
  Scott Woolley: So you basically decide you're going to start this company.
• 11:47
  Scott Woolley: You have no new business.
• 11:49
  Scott Woolley: You create a name and now you've got to go find a client.
• 11:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, yeah, that's challenging.
• 11:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it's very challenging.
• 12:00
  Scott Woolley: How did?
• 12:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: you overcome that.
• 12:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: It was.
• 12:02
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, I tried a lot of things and as you do it, you learn and modify and figure out what works.
• 12:11
  Scott Woolley: But what were some of the first things that you did?
• 12:13
  Scott Woolley: Was it putting a website together, putting an ad?
• 12:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so I did a lot of that background work before I quit my other company.
• 12:21
  Scott Woolley: Okay.
• 12:21
  Matthew Van Eyk: So I just did it at nights, you know, and on Fridays, and I take a Friday off here and there just to prepare for this right um.
• 12:30
  Matthew Van Eyk: So I had, you know, my website up, I had, you know, all my estimating templates and everything you know in check, you know, um, and then I had a marketing company ready to go.
• 12:42
  Scott Woolley: Okay, so as soon as I so you, hired a company to help you in the market, correct?
• 12:45
  Scott Woolley: So all of this is what we consider designing your life?
• 12:48
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, so you're designing and putting together a plan to launch a new business?
• 12:53
  Scott Woolley: Yes, sir, and it's.
• 12:55
  Scott Woolley: There's a story behind every one of these, and how people do it.
• 12:58
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Tiffany Woolley: So how did your values and, obviously, being homeschooled and what you learned shape the value and the principles to what Oakscapes is now and will grow into?
• 13:12
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 13:13
  Tiffany Woolley: I mean the name says a lot about the value.
• 13:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: Thank you, you know, I worked in construction in Florida a long time and there's a lot of poor contractors or subpar contractors.
• 13:26
  Matthew Van Eyk: As you know we've yeah, we've dealt with them Right and we still deal with them.
• 13:31
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so you know I always wanted to and you know my principles is to stand above everyone and do the best work you can, and so in our projects we try to stand by all the premier installation guidelines, the ICPI, which is the International Interlocking Paver Association, so there's national regulations for these things that aren't necessarily implemented but, they're suggested by guys who've been doing favors for years, so we try to do the best.
• 14:12
  Tiffany Woolley: I didn't even realize that.
• 14:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so we try to adhere to that.
• 14:18
  Tiffany Woolley: Is that changing constantly, or is that something that's kind of tried and true?
• 14:22
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean it is changing a little bit in regards to like trivertine and marble and porcelain and how you install all those things.
• 14:30
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know pavers have been around for like 150 years, so it's that really hasn't changed too, much.
• 14:37
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know.
• 14:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: There's, like you know, new designs for your edge restraints and whatnot, but it's pretty minimal designs for your edge restraints and whatnot, but it's pretty minimal.
• 14:49
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um and so, and so you know, just to you know, do good work, be a step ahead of everyone and, you know, communicate well.
• 14:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, I don't want to come back in a year or five years and someone be like, oh, this driveway looks terrible right um, you know, I want to be there for someone who could live in a house for 20 years and the driveway still looks great or the patio looks beautiful.
• 15:06
  Tiffany Woolley: Right right.
• 15:08
  Scott Woolley: So the projects that you're approaching in a new client are most new clients have a plan and you're kind of following what they want to do, or are you kind of leading them on the design process?
• 15:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it's probably about 50-50.
• 15:29
  Scott Woolley: Half of them have an idea of what they want to do, but do they have the stuff picked out?
• 15:35
  Matthew Van Eyk: No, very few have what they have picked out.
• 15:40
  Scott Woolley: So you're helping them in picking it out.
• 15:42
  Scott Woolley: Correct If you're not working with an a?
• 15:45
  Matthew Van Eyk: interior designer, correct, correct, yeah.
• 15:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you know, most people have like an idea of what they want you know, maybe not the exact shape and whatnot, or you know the the material necessarily.
• 15:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you know then we go through what their budget is.
• 16:01
  Tiffany Woolley: I was gonna going to say that would depict a lot right what the functionality is for it.
• 16:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know if it's.
• 16:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know if they have little kids there.
• 16:09
  Matthew Van Eyk: If they have, you know their grandparents walking around what's the safest thing for them to use, and then, obviously, their price point.
• 16:17
  Scott Woolley: So you brought up budget.
• 16:18
  Scott Woolley: Do you try to get out of people what their budget is?
• 16:22
  Matthew Van Eyk: Because most people don't want to express a budget, yeah, so I pretty much always try to get it out.
• 16:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: Most people don't want to.
• 16:32
  Scott Woolley: Right, which is a hindrance that people don't realize.
• 16:34
  Scott Woolley: We talk about that a lot.
• 16:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, that's a big thing and you know, especially with material selection, your budget plays heavily into that.
• 16:43
  Scott Woolley: Right construction.
• 16:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, your budget plays heavily into that right.
• 16:49
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um.
• 16:49
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you know, and budget's hard, especially if you're just doing a patio just by itself without doing a whole redesign.
• 16:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know people don't really know what the pricing is, or you know what to expect and since covid everything shot up, so you know they think it's still five dollars a square foot when the standard now is eight dollars a square foot or what have you?
• 17:08
  Matthew Van Eyk: um, so, yeah, budget it's.
• 17:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's difficult to get people to do that and, yeah, people aren't really anticipating like how much it's a big cost?
• 17:19
  Tiffany Woolley: yeah, and it will, because it covers a lot of area it covers a whole lot.
• 17:24
  Tiffany Woolley: So what is a standard Like?
• 17:26
  Tiffany Woolley: Do you base like budget on the price point of the house, of the real estate value?
• 17:33
  Matthew Van Eyk: No, not really Just for like consistency, it's mostly just based off of materials and then the project at hand the project at hand, if it's, you know, depends on where the home is you offer slightly different materials and whatnot Based on the value of the home or the area.
• 17:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: But you know I still try to not just make standard assumptions and, just you know, give everyone all the options and then say you know, papers are going to be your cheapest, travertine and marbles a little bit higher than your porcelain is the most expensive I know.
• 18:09
  Tiffany Woolley: and people automatically think now porcelain's, like you know, oh, it should be less expensive.
• 18:13
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
• 18:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: They think it's like cheap.
• 18:17
  Tiffany Woolley: Right and it's the opposite.
• 18:20
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, the material manufacturing for outdoor porcelain is quite expensive.
• 18:24
  Tiffany Woolley: It is.
• 18:28
  Scott Woolley: So kind of what we're talking about.
• 18:29
  Scott Woolley: When I say hardscapes, it's really you handle everything that's exterior of the house, from driveways, patios, walkways, planters Correct, yeah retaining walls.
• 18:39
  Matthew Van Eyk: Retaining walls.
• 18:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: All those steps, whatever has to be.
• 18:43
  Scott Woolley: Grass, artificial grass, correct yeah, pool design.
• 18:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, usually pool design.
• 18:49
  Matthew Van Eyk: We, you know we work with you guys on some things.
• 18:52
  Tiffany Woolley: Right.
• 18:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: And then there's a good pool contractor I work with.
• 18:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you know, usually I just let them handle the pool design for that, and then we construct the hardscape design based off of the pool design.
• 19:06
  Tiffany Woolley: Pool design.
• 19:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, because, like a pool, is usually the focus point, you know, of a patio.
• 19:13
  Tiffany Woolley: Right.
• 19:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: So it's good to hem out their design and what they want, and then you know work around that.
• 19:21
  Scott Woolley: Right know, work, work around that, right, yeah, so I see there's a lot more that's put into backyards than a lot of other places around the country because, people are spending so much more time oh yeah in their backyard.
• 19:35
  Scott Woolley: Oh yeah, you know, hanging out entertaining, jumping in the pool yeah so it's from an aesthetic point and a value standpoint of a home.
• 19:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:44
  Matthew Van Eyk: And even if you're planning on selling your house in five years or three years or whatnot, you're not going to lose that money if you put in a pool deck or a patio or whatnot.
• 19:56
  Tiffany Woolley: It comes back.
• 19:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it definitely comes back there's no doubt there's value yeah.
• 20:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean a lot of patios are the selling points for houses.
• 20:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: These days you know, especially here in Florida.
• 20:05
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know they could be like oh you know, the house needs some work, but it has a beautiful backyard.
• 20:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: Exactly, you're right, and that's what catches people's attention.
• 20:13
  Matthew Van Eyk: Right, that's so true.
• 20:16
  Tiffany Woolley: That's so true.
• 20:17
  Tiffany Woolley: So how do you balance the technical aspects of the outdoor, like drainage, in line with materials?
• 20:25
  Tiffany Woolley: And one thing I think about in design a lot is the undercover patio being seamless with a pool deck Like those are not necessarily seamless, but part of all the design.
• 20:37
  Tiffany Woolley: And meanwhile sometimes undercover patio you're using slab versus paver.
• 20:44
  Tiffany Woolley: It could be sand set like.
• 20:45
  Tiffany Woolley: How do we, how do you go about all those variables?
• 20:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: that's a hard question.
• 20:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it's.
• 20:56
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's a little bit challenging, especially in florida, because usually if you have like an undercover patio, especially if it's enclosed, it's already done.
• 21:08
  Tiffany Woolley: Yes, Often, you know and people.
• 21:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: you know people typically start with the inside of their house and then do the outside of their house and they don't usually like what do you say Coordinate the two?
• 21:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, yeah, have a cohesive design.
• 21:21
  Tiffany Woolley: My favorite word yeah, have a cohesive design which you like.
• 21:22
  Matthew Van Eyk: Saying yeah, my favorite word, yeah, and so that's always challenging, because you know people don't want to pay for the materials twice, right, and then say, you know this matches the inside.
• 21:33
  Matthew Van Eyk: But whatever you put, you know, if you like white stone and you put you know a beige or you know a tan in here, it doesn't match.
• 21:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's always a little bit challenging, it doesn't match.
• 21:44
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's always a little bit challenging and so it would be helpful to, you know, have people think a little bit of what the whole design is the interior and exterior.
• 21:59
  Scott Woolley: I think one of the things that Tiffany was also kind of alluding to was is that it's not just putting in a patio, you're for sure.
• 22:02
  Scott Woolley: You're taking into account drainage?
• 22:04
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, Like she mentioned.
• 22:05
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah that's always very difficult.
• 22:08
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, I worked in North Carolina for a year, where you have a lot of hills.
• 22:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: Hills, yeah, so it's easy to get rid of water, Right, you know very easy, and you know the properties are larger.
• 22:21
  Voice Over: They just slope down.
• 22:22
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, it just slopes down into the creek there and you don't got to worry about it.
• 22:26
  Matthew Van Eyk: In Florida we don't have that and by law all the water, that, all the rainwater on your property has to be retained on your property.
• 22:38
  Scott Woolley: Correct Can't roll off to someone else's.
• 22:39
  Matthew Van Eyk: Correct.
• 22:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's one of the teaching aspects in in when you're dealing with homeowners we just slip it right to the edge and it's not my property and you got to, you know, say no, that's not the proper way to do things.
• 22:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know.
• 22:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: You can't just put pavers right to your fence line.
• 22:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: If you don't, you know, put a drain in there and put the water somewhere else.
• 23:01
  Scott Woolley: Right.
• 23:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's always a struggle.
• 23:05
  Tiffany Woolley: Well and drainage can hinder your installation as well, can't it, I mean.
• 23:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah Well, and drainage can hinder your installation as well, can't it?
• 23:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so drainage in Florida is very challenging to work with, and so we're very mindful of it.
• 23:18
  Matthew Van Eyk: We try to make sure that all the water drains either to the front of your property or put a French drain in.
• 23:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: Those are additional costs that people don't appreciate, so it's hard to sell people on that because oh, this other guy.
• 23:33
  Scott Woolley: People don't think about that when they're redoing the backyard, because we've run into projects where we're going and we're redoing the interior of a house.
• 23:42
  Scott Woolley: The back of the house looks beautiful.
• 23:43
  Scott Woolley: It was recently done, but the people are saying we've got this problem that when it pours the water is collecting on this one side of our pool
• 23:52
  Scott Woolley: right near our back door and it sits there for like it will take a day for it to go away.
• 23:57
  Scott Woolley: What do we do about that?
• 23:59
  Scott Woolley: And then we look and who did your backyard?
• 24:02
  Scott Woolley: They didn't properly pitch.
• 24:04
  Scott Woolley: They pitched it the wrong way, where the water's rolling towards the house and puddling.
• 24:09
  Matthew Van Eyk: So there's two big issues with that in Florida.
• 24:13
  Matthew Van Eyk: Either they didn't pitch it the right way or they didn't consider where the water would pool and install the correct drainage.
• 24:21
  Matthew Van Eyk: And then the other big issue is in Florida is that everyone or not everyone many contractors use recycled concrete as their base material.
• 24:32
  Voice Over: And what's the?
• 24:33
  Matthew Van Eyk: difference.
• 24:33
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you're supposed to use like a lime rock base or something similar to that that lets water percolate through.
• 24:42
  Matthew Van Eyk: So when we do our installs, we do three to four.
• 24:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: For a patio, we do three to four inches of lime rock, Then you have your DOT bedding sand and then you have your pavers on top.
• 24:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: All those materials let water percolate through.
• 24:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so you don't have sitting water.
• 25:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know you still install your drains.
• 25:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know if you have excessive rain or whatnot, but you know just simple rain.
• 25:09
  Matthew Van Eyk: This lets water percolate through Recycled concrete.
• 25:10
  Tiffany Woolley: Does rain this lets water percolate through recycled concrete does not let any water is it less expensive recycled car less and is it like, like I was thinking of it this way too is it like not a natural, is it kind of a synthetic, correct, correct correct.
• 25:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you know there's.
• 25:25
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, on some jobs it's it's okay to work with to some degree, but for the large majority of jobs it's not the best.
• 25:37
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's a struggle with bidding projects.
• 25:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: You've got to educate the people and say we use the correct materials that are helpful for you, helpful for water, med know, helpful for water mediation, you know helpful for what the state requires.
• 25:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, not just.
• 25:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know what's cheapest and what we can do the fastest.
• 26:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, so those are.
• 26:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so you know like.
• 26:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: So the the best way to explain it is um, if you put recycled concrete in recycled concrete in a bottle of water and shake the bottle of water there's so much micro powder in there that the whole water bottle is discolored for like an hour or two.
• 26:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: The material that we use when you shake it.
• 26:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: It sits there in five minutes.
• 26:31
  Matthew Van Eyk: Material that we use when you shake it, it sits there in five minutes it all sinks down and it doesn't have the micro plastics or not like the micro concrete in it that inhibits the water to percolate through.
• 26:38
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, interesting yeah, so are you seeing, or is there currently, any kind of trends in your industry that seem to be like the hot thing that people are doing now, or yeah, people are really interested in porcelain, porcelain, very, very interested in porcelain.
• 26:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, and then there was shell shocked or price shocked correct.
• 27:01
  Tiffany Woolley: Well, in most of the porcelain, the, the, I feel like the drive of the design is because they're big pieces.
• 27:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: Correct, exactly, you're exactly right.
• 27:09
  Matthew Van Eyk: The large format is attractive to people and if you do marble or travertine, the biggest you can really go is like 24 by 16 inch, and porcelain you can go much, much larger.
• 27:23
  Scott Woolley: Why is that?
• 27:25
  Matthew Van Eyk: Just because.
• 27:26
  Scott Woolley: Is it the strength of the material?
• 27:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so like marble and travertine is a natural stone, so you're kind of stuck with the strength of the material, correct?
• 27:31
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so like marble and travertine is a natural stone, so you're kind of stuck with the strength of material.
• 27:34
  Matthew Van Eyk: Porcelain is a pressed and cooked concrete.
• 27:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean clay.
• 27:42
  Matthew Van Eyk: So it's a lot.
• 27:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's far stronger, like a concrete.
• 27:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: Paver is about 6,000 to 9,000 pounds per square foot.
• 27:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: Your travertine is like 5,000 and your porcelain is like 30,000.
• 27:56
  Matthew Van Eyk: Oh geez so it's much, much, much stronger.
• 27:59
  Tiffany Woolley: And you still have to.
• 28:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's still recommended to install it on like a slab first, versus Depends on the size the larger sizes they always recommend putting on a slab.
• 28:12
  Matthew Van Eyk: If you're doing it on a driveway, you can do it on the largest we suggest doing for sand set is, uh, two feet by three feet.
• 28:22
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, if you get bigger than that, the, the piece is just so big it almost tends to want to rock Right, which would, yeah, which doesn't look good and it'd probably crack easier.
• 28:37
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, correct the long term.
• 28:39
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you can do like 24 by 36 pretty well.
• 28:44
  Matthew Van Eyk: On sand we do a method called dry packing, and so when you put your base rock down, you have your bedding layer of sand and we mix a concrete aggregate with our sand and so it almost makes it like a thin layer of concrete that really locks all the material together and helps any tilting or anything or unlevelness.
• 29:08
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that helps a lot, especially on the larger format ones.
• 29:12
  Scott Woolley: So there's a technical aspect to doing what you do.
• 29:15
  Scott Woolley: Oh yeah, significantly.
• 29:16
  Tiffany Woolley: Well, there's your engineering background.
• 29:18
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, exactly Do you and your brother share like stories or like hey, I found this product.
• 29:25
  Matthew Van Eyk: Oh, all the time, all the time, and yeah, and then you know, like all construction, you always have struggles on your job, so we always go through that.
• 29:35
  Scott Woolley: So, jobs, is there a particular or is there one job that comes to mind that was like your favorite, or the job that you really loved or are most proud of?
• 29:48
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, anything special that you can tell us about that?
• 29:51
  Scott Woolley: You, yeah, I mean, I did my neighbor's job.
• 29:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, I love doing that.
• 29:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: My next door neighbor, they uh, they moved in about three or four years ago and they had us, you know, someone flipped the house and did like a poor patio job right so you know, we became friends, and so they're telling me what they wanted to do, and they didn't really know I did this, yet I was like, oh, I'd be happy to do it for you.
• 30:13
  Tiffany Woolley: Right, right, I'm heading that way.
• 30:15
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so we redid their whole back patio, we put in an outdoor kitchen, we put like an accent wall in with their TVs, because they love watching football on Sundays, and we put a whole bar in the kitchen.
• 30:28
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so I love that because it looks beautiful, but I also get to use it all the time I was going to say you get to visit it, your handiwork, yeah.
• 30:37
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that was a lot of fun, you know, and they, you know they love it and appreciate it and it turned out beautiful.
• 30:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: So that's probably the favorite job I've done so far.
• 30:47
  Tiffany Woolley: So back a little bit to the entrepreneurial spirit would, when you were getting your feet wet and starting, was it mainly word-of-mouth?
• 30:55
  Tiffany Woolley: Or I mean when you hear of that like special job they're your best.
• 31:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I mean that's for any like good qualified lead word-of-mouth is the best you know.
• 31:08
  Matthew Van Eyk: Working in construction for a number of years, you know I had some contacts already, um in the residential market, uh, so I had a few contacts and then, um your marketing when you're starting out is I?
• 31:23
  Matthew Van Eyk: I didn't know, I've never done marketing before.
• 31:25
  Scott Woolley: So so is it internet marketing?
• 31:27
  Scott Woolley: Is it yeah?
• 31:28
  Matthew Van Eyk: so google ads right primarily, uh, so trying to figure out that.
• 31:34
  Matthew Van Eyk: So the google ads leads initially, as we're learning, like weren't great, other than we do a lot of repair work, paper repair work, for you know, trees up lifting roots in your driveway patio, a lot of pavers sunk around your pool edge, so the Google ads were great for that, and we still get a lot of work out of that.
• 31:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so I did a lot of that work because I could do it myself and it was, you know, low overhead and you know most of it's a day or less work, so it gave me time to do other things.
• 32:13
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know larger projects.
• 32:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: Just, you know most of it's a day or less work um, so it was it gave me time to do other things.
• 32:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, larger projects, just, you know, take time and energy, um, but I yeah and planning, but I had the time to uh go around and do all these jobs, so, uh, that that that was very, very beneficial and helped me.
• 32:26
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, kind of get off the ground and and as you do these repairs, people appreciate a lot and you know, save your card and you know they have a friend who's doing a pool deck or patio, like hey, I know a guy who did a great job yeah, so that was that was a good way of just getting my name out to quite a few people.
• 32:44
  Tiffany Woolley: So what does your team look like today?
• 32:46
  Tiffany Woolley: Team look like today.
• 32:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: So right now it's myself and my crew.
• 32:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's primarily a three-man crew.
• 32:54
  Matthew Van Eyk: We pick up one or two guys, you know, for larger scale projects.
• 33:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: My crew leader is far better at pavers than me.
• 33:05
  Tiffany Woolley: Really yeah, wow.
• 33:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, yeah, he's the best.
• 33:08
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I love him a lot.
• 33:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: We work great together.
• 33:12
  Scott Woolley: How did you find him?
• 33:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: I drove around a lot looking at paper jobs Really yeah and looking at crews, so I found him doing a job, and you know he's doing an excellent, excellent job.
• 33:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: And he showed me some other jobs and when you're doing this long enough, you can quickly see what is good and what is good and what is bad.
• 33:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: So then you know he's.
• 33:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: He started out just doing a job for me here and there, and I mean I love his work a lot.
• 33:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's it's better than what I would do or what I could do you know, not for repairs, but you know driveway installs and pool installs and whatnot.
• 33:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: So yeah, so he's great.
• 34:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: I love him a lot.
• 34:01
  Tiffany Woolley: And then that gives you more time to pursue the entrepreneurial side of building a bigger brand, which I know you're in the process of evolving right now, which I think is very exciting and much needed which is, you know more, incorporating the whole outdoor experience.
• 34:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: Exactly.
• 34:20
  Tiffany Woolley: So tell us your philosophy on where that's going.
• 34:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, so we, we are starting to.
• 34:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: I wanted to just begin doing pavers because I knew the business aspect of it, the install aspect of it, but I didn't.
• 34:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, I've never owned a company or run a company, so I wanted just to start, you know, somewhat on a smaller scale and learn how to do it well put in your yeah, and put in your processes you know of how to schedule, how to budget a job and whatnot, and you know figure out how to do that all well, and then the goal, the final goal which we're building into right now is is being a complete exterior modification to the house.
• 35:10
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, thank you very so you know from your.
• 35:12
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know your hardscapes to your landscaping, to your lighting, your irrigation.
• 35:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: Uh, the goal is to really just be a one-stop shop so homeowners and clients don't have to call three or four contractors and you know, deal with all of them I agree, you can just call one contractor and get everything done.
• 35:30
  Tiffany Woolley: And that really back to my favorite cohesive word.
• 35:33
  Tiffany Woolley: But not only does the design look cohesive in that regard, but also you eliminate your risk, I feel like oh yeah, tremendously For clients, otherwise you just end up with a blame game.
• 35:44
  Tiffany Woolley: And he didn't.
• 35:44
  Tiffany Woolley: Or he's late, or she's late.
• 35:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, without a doubt.
• 35:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I mean later she's.
• 35:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, without a doubt.
• 35:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean there's the aggravation and a lot of pointing fingers and then you know, on any project you're gonna, you know there's little things you're you're bound to miss yeah you know, obviously you, you minimize those to extent that you can.
• 36:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: But when you work with just one company to do all the work, then you, they're responsible for it and it's not like, oh, I didn't know that was in, or it wasn't budget mining correct and it or it wasn't you know, you know, you know.
• 36:17
  Matthew Van Eyk: I didn't know we had to remove this tree.
• 36:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: I thought this demo guy was going to remove this tree like little things, like that it's so I mean and you.
• 36:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you just it's easier to price it, it's easier for the homeowner just to work with one contractor instead of four and scheduling, so it just makes everything a lot smoother.
• 36:36
  Scott Woolley: So in all these facets of what you're doing.
• 36:39
  Scott Woolley: How do you stay on top of what's new or what's coming out, or is there shows that you go to conventions?
• 36:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: There's a couple.
• 36:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: I've been quite busy so I haven't done a ton of them yet.
• 36:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, I'm working on, you know, hiring someone to do a lot of the running around for me, to give me more time to do that.
• 36:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: But you know, working with you guys, um, you know you guys stay on top of everything.
• 37:04
  Matthew Van Eyk: So you know you.
• 37:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know you tell me what's new oftentimes.
• 37:09
  Matthew Van Eyk: And then you know all my material suppliers.
• 37:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: They always stay, you know on top of what's new, yeah for sure, and what's selling a lot, and you know what's working, what's not working.
• 37:22
  Matthew Van Eyk: So they, you know, just being in construction, everyone communicates a lot, so that helps.
• 37:28
  Matthew Van Eyk: And in construction, everyone communicates a lot, so that helps.
• 37:30
  Tiffany Woolley: Is there certain vendors that you choose to purchase the materials from like as a regular go-to?
• 37:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, definitely so.
• 37:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: For porcelain, which is most popular, I only supply from one company called Hardscapescom.
• 37:46
  Scott Woolley: So porcelain is most popular now.
• 37:48
  Scott Woolley: Correct, compared to your typical thick paver, that most driveways or backyards For a driveway.
• 37:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: Just to step back, for a driveway we always suggest pavers, because they're called interlocking pavers, because the strength of the paver is in the the surface area of the one paver touching another, and so when you have cars driving and pushing on them, especially like when you turn quickly into a driveway, that's a lot of force on those pavers, um, and so porcelain and even marble or travertine, you know they, they're larger pieces, so you have less surface area between the pavers, um, and they're usually a lot thinner, so they tend to fail on a driveway.
• 38:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: On a patio, you don't have that issue.
• 38:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: So on a driveway, unless you're putting concrete down, and then you know mud setting um porcelain or marble or something on top of it, we try to always suggest doing a paver driveway, not on patios because you're just walking on it.
• 38:56
  Matthew Van Eyk: But for porcelain, yeah, we only supply from hardscapescom.
• 39:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: They got an office in Boca and then one in Jupiter or showroom.
• 39:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: The reason we only use them is because they have the friction go factor on the top of their pavers.
• 39:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: So it's a rough surface like a paver would be, but it has the beauty and elegance of like a porcelain tile.
• 39:25
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so why I like that?
• 39:28
  Matthew Van Eyk: First, like a marble or travertine is especially on pool decks where you have water it tends to get a little slick, but the porcelain is, since they have this rough surface, it's a lot, it's a lot safer and it's beautiful.
• 39:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: I think it's.
• 39:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, I like the more modern look, so it's very beautiful, and so that's why we supply from them exclusively For your marble and travertine.
• 40:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: There's, you know it's all imported from Italy, right?
• 40:05
  Matthew Van Eyk: Not Italy, turkey, excuse me.
• 40:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so you know it's more of the quality control on your suppliers, you know, not necessarily the material itself but a lot.
• 40:18
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, color variation correct yeah, so I primarily use sinai marble and tile down in pompano, um.
• 40:26
  Matthew Van Eyk: They're excellent to work with.
• 40:28
  Matthew Van Eyk: If you ever have to do an addition or an extension, they make sure you're pulling from the same lot that you already used and they're, in my opinion, their material is more consistent than some of the bigger contractors or distributors that go for volume.
• 40:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean, they still move a lot of material, but you know I prefer them and they're they're much easier to work with.
• 40:54
  Tiffany Woolley: Is there any sort of warranty that goes hand in hand with the work or the product at all, or?
• 41:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: For the material, yeah, yeah.
• 41:04
  Matthew Van Eyk: So for marble and travertine not really, because it's a natural stone, so it's not really the, since they're not manufacturing it.
• 41:17
  Matthew Van Eyk: There's not a lot of warranty on that On any job.
• 41:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's good to see if your contractor can give you 20 or 30 extra square feet, if you have the space to keep it, just for you know any issues or if something gets discolored, especially like your, your marbles, your lighter materials tend to always, you know they're porous.
• 41:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, they're very porous yeah they're very porous.
• 41:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: your porcelain and your pavers definitely have have a warranty on them.
• 41:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yep, huh, yep.
• 41:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: And then we, most contractors only do a one year warranty on their work.
• 41:53
  Matthew Van Eyk: We include a five year warranty on our work just because we believe we're installing it correctly.
• 42:01
  Tiffany Woolley: So yeah, so obviously your company Oakscapes has an impeccable reputation and how do you, like you mentioned before, like there is sometimes design changes that come up mid-process or mid-installation, or how do you kind of mitigate any of your risks or communications with the client when those things with the client when those things, yeah, it's good to just be open up front instead of.
• 42:32
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know you can always get caught doing the work and not getting paid for the work.
• 42:37
  Matthew Van Eyk: So it's always good just to communicate.
• 42:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: Well, if someone wants something different and it's, you know, minimal, you know you kind of just eat the cost.
• 42:47
  Matthew Van Eyk: Just, you know you don't want to be a hassle to your clients but, like on a larger change orders, it's always good to make sure they know what they want and know that it wasn't initially included and just communicate like if you're going to do this, you know it's going to cost this much more because it's different material or more material or you know many variations.
• 43:13
  Matthew Van Eyk: But, that's in my opinion.
• 43:15
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's just better to you know present what the cost difference, if there is a cost difference up front, and then you know move forward from there, instead of you know saying, oh, we did this work because you said we're going to do it, instead of you know verifying so, and then you know your, your, your clients, not caught off off guard and say, oh, I didn't know what that was going to cost more.
• 43:35
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know that happens, can happen.
• 43:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: So yeah, that makes life a lot smoother for for both, both parties.
• 43:44
  Tiffany Woolley: And like within this, like ecological.
• 43:47
  Tiffany Woolley: Is there any of that that you come across like?
• 43:49
  Tiffany Woolley: Oh we people.
• 43:51
  Scott Woolley: Do you have any clients or customers or people that are you know?
• 43:55
  Scott Woolley: Is this all echo friendly?
• 43:56
  Tiffany Woolley: or like is this, you know, not coming?
• 43:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: in the environment.
• 44:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, surprisingly not a ton of that um shocker yeah, there's not a, not a ton of that every now and then, um, primarily with artificial turf.
• 44:10
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, people are kind of get shifty about that just because it's it heats up a lot correct um, it's hot, it gets very hot and um and so people are worried about, like plastic, you know, getting in their soil, or plastic getting in their dog or their kids or whatnot.
• 44:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: That's like that aspect.
• 44:39
  Tiffany Woolley: Oh yeah, and does that happen?
• 44:41
  Tiffany Woolley: I'm sure we're all microplastic to death.
• 44:45
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I mean I don't think any more than drinking a water bottle, Right?
• 44:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I mean that's not really an issue Like for pets and stuff.
• 44:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: I mean, you know there's pet-friendly turf.
• 44:58
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah.
• 45:00
  Matthew Van Eyk: That only means it's more porous, right?
• 45:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: That lets you know the urine or stuff flow through better it's not like it's really safer than than the other ones right um, so yeah, the only, the only eco-friendly is really only an artificial turf.
• 45:18
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, you know, if people are doing it, we, you know, try to suggest.
• 45:21
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, do it under a pergola.
• 45:23
  Matthew Van Eyk: Or you know, do it under a tree where there's more shade.
• 45:26
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know if you're going to have your kids playing on it and whatnot.
• 45:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: If not, it doesn't really matter.
• 45:31
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, most of the time you don't go out when it's 90 degrees outside.
• 45:34
  Scott Woolley: You go out in the evening.
• 45:35
  Scott Woolley: We love artificial turf.
• 45:38
  Scott Woolley: Oh, me too.
• 45:39
  Scott Woolley: I love it.
• 45:39
  Scott Woolley: It's the best.
• 45:43
  Tiffany Woolley: Well, it's so clean.
• 45:44
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah it.
• 45:44
  Tiffany Woolley: With so many trees, it just the grass doesn't grow.
• 45:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, no, I love artificial turf a lot.
• 45:52
  Matthew Van Eyk: You know, I love mixing and matching it with pavers.
• 45:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: I do too.
• 45:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: I think it looks beautiful, I do too, yeah.
• 45:58
  Tiffany Woolley: So running a successful business involves lots of moving parts.
• 46:02
  Tiffany Woolley: We kind of touched on that.
• 46:03
  Tiffany Woolley: But how do you balance the creative part with all the technical moving part?
• 46:08
  Matthew Van Eyk: yeah, so I'm not extremely creative, sadly enough.
• 46:12
  Matthew Van Eyk: I wish I was more creative.
• 46:14
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, you know, if, if someone has an idea of what to do, I can execute execute it very well and, you know, modify it to improve it, but I'm not like the most creative person myself, um, so I, you know, rely on designers like, like you guys, to assist with that.
• 46:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: We've had a good relationship oh yeah, terrific.
• 46:39
  Scott Woolley: I love that standpoint.
• 46:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, we do too yeah, um, and so you know, especially like on larger projects where you know you have a whole patio or a whole backyard or a whole exterior remodel I heavily rely on people who have the design aspect.
• 46:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: I wish I did, but I don't have a terrific one.
• 47:01
  Scott Woolley: Well, we rely on people like yourself, right?
• 47:04
  Tiffany Woolley: Who can execute our designs in a flawless install?
• 47:09
  Scott Woolley: Yeah and I think what's even more important that we talk about is that people that we partner with that we bring on that when the client's coming to us going.
• 47:19
  Scott Woolley: Oh my God, I love this guy, matthew, that you have doing my backyard.
• 47:23
  Scott Woolley: He's just like great, I mean, that's a good that's you want to hear that with like every vendor for sure and everyone that you're working with you want the client to feel that way, no doubt in the process, no doubt because that's like we've said a number of times the word of mouth comes in over and over.
• 47:40
  Tiffany Woolley: Then for sure, for sure yeah I know, and even as we're sitting here and I'm hearing all these like technical things that I don't think about as much.
• 47:48
  Tiffany Woolley: I'm like as that one driveway we have, you know, in the works right now where we're like mixing the materials and we're doing a design in there.
• 47:56
  Tiffany Woolley: I was like I think only you can do that, yeah, yeah.
• 48:03
  Scott Woolley: So last question for you yes, sir so last question for you, yes, sir, for someone who's listening, thinking that they want to get into, you know, the exterior hardscape business, the landscape business.
• 48:14
  Scott Woolley: What advice would you give them?
• 48:16
  Scott Woolley: What?
• 48:16
  Scott Woolley: What would you say to someone?
• 48:20
  Matthew Van Eyk: I'd say, if I'd say, work for someone for three, four, five years before doing it, um, you know, and like at my last company, you know, when I was hired I told the owners I wanted to start a company eventually I didn't know when, um, so my old boss was, was very kind, he knew I wanted to do that and so he kind of brought me in on more of the business aspect of it than just you know my job, um, and you know how to work with clients, what jobs you pursue, or pursue more than other ones.
• 48:58
  Matthew Van Eyk: So I'd say that's probably the best, the best approach so you're living the american dream and I consider to be the american dream.
• 49:06
  Scott Woolley: Dream is that you fell into a business.
• 49:09
  Scott Woolley: You loved and liked the business, you learned a lot about that business and other aspects of construction and then one day you decided I'm going to go do this on my own.
• 49:18
  Scott Woolley: Yes, sir, you know it's a big risk to quit a job that you're working for a corporation.
• 49:24
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yes, sir, and then go.
• 49:25
  Scott Woolley: I'm going to start this business.
• 49:27
  Scott Woolley: I have no clients, no one's ever heard of me, no one knows that I'm doing this.
• 49:31
  Matthew Van Eyk: And I had one kid and one on the way.
• 49:35
  Tiffany Woolley: You had a child on the way.
• 49:36
  Tiffany Woolley: That was perfect timing, oh yeah.
• 49:38
  Matthew Van Eyk: I got my third one on the way now.
• 49:40
  Matthew Van Eyk: No, but it just proves that.
• 49:42
  Scott Woolley: I mean if you put your heart behind it.
• 49:45
  Scott Woolley: Oh, I mean if you put your heart behind it, no matter what you're looking to do possibilities can happen.
• 49:49
  Tiffany Woolley: With faith and hard work right.
• 49:51
  Matthew Van Eyk: A lot of hours, no doubt.
• 49:53
  Tiffany Woolley: No doubt about that.
• 49:55
  Matthew Van Eyk: But it's very rewarding.
• 49:57
  Scott Woolley: That's wonderful Well we appreciate your time and spending with us today.
• 50:00
  Scott Woolley: Thanks for having me and having you on the iDesign Lab.
• 50:04
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah thanks.
• 50:06
  Tiffany Woolley: And as we wrap up, we have a couple quick little questions, yeah, okay so what's your I mean you have little children and obviously one on the way what's your favorite?
• 50:15
  Tiffany Woolley: Like vacation, like hotel vacate, like I mean when?
• 50:19
  Matthew Van Eyk: you guys want to get away and um my wife and I is it what's the coolest, or maybe design, or I mean my favorite vacation right now with kids, um is my wife and I.
• 50:32
  Matthew Van Eyk: We go like for four or five days to an all-inclusive resort.
• 50:36
  Matthew Van Eyk: We usually do it every year and you just sit there and don't talk a lot and don't do a lot.
• 50:44
  Scott Woolley: You can sleep a lot are there any favorites that like uh, cool or well done.
• 50:50
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, probably the our favorite one was the sanctuary in dominican republic cool uh, that was yeah, that was was.
• 50:57
  Matthew Van Eyk: That one was terrific and the service there was amazing, yeah amazing.
• 51:01
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, that was that was.
• 51:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: That was probably the best one so far.
• 51:06
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, my family and my wife's family lives close, so it's not like we do a lot of vacations with family, just because we see them, you know once a week or twice a week?
• 51:20
  Matthew Van Eyk: That's good, Every other day that's wonderful.
• 51:23
  Matthew Van Eyk: And then you know, I have a lot of cousins.
• 51:25
  Matthew Van Eyk: My dad's one of seven.
• 51:27
  Matthew Van Eyk: My dad's one of seven.
• 51:28
  Tiffany Woolley: My mom's one of six.
• 51:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: Wow, how fun.
• 51:30
  Matthew Van Eyk: And so, like most vacations right now are just, you know, Families.
• 51:34
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, I go in a family and you know it's our kids are, you know, two and a half and one and a half and one on the way, so it's not like you can do a whole lot with them.
• 51:43
  Matthew Van Eyk: Right, so most lot with them right.
• 51:48
  Tiffany Woolley: so most of it's just you know hanging out with other people, kids, yeah, hoping they play together, exactly like that's what I say.
• 51:51
  Tiffany Woolley: It's like having built-in babysitting exactly like he's gonna go other place go to like a restaurant where they can walk around and yeah, so so restaurant.
• 51:57
  Scott Woolley: Is there any really cool restaurant that comes to mind?
• 52:01
  Scott Woolley: Um, we like to try to focus, like and think about design.
• 52:06
  Tiffany Woolley: Or you walk in or I even say even lack of design, because sometimes, like barefoot and the behind, I mean who knows?
• 52:12
  Scott Woolley: yeah, yeah, yeah we did a podcast recently about ugly design oh, that's kind of cool.
• 52:17
  Scott Woolley: You know, you don't realize, you don't think about it, but there's a lot of ugly design around us.
• 52:21
  Voice Over: Oh, there's no doubt a lot of time.
• 52:22
  Scott Woolley: We laugh about it and don't even really think about it like why did someone design you know that like crocs, you know like?
• 52:29
  Matthew Van Eyk: oh yeah, those are.
• 52:29
  Scott Woolley: You know, there's no doubt the christ, the ugly christmas sweaters, that people, you know, people throw parties yeah, I have not been to one, but there's like you know, restaurant because, because it's like restaurant, something that most people go to every so you know regularly, or yeah, yeah, uh, favorite restaurant design, or lack of design, or or experience, or even experience, because there's a the design and creating the experience.
• 52:59
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, we have a good friend who has like three qualifications the ambience, the food and the music I know live music is fun too yeah, I'm not a fan of live music oh that's my wife is so I put up with it every now and then I don't like it at a restaurant.
• 53:15
  Tiffany Woolley: It's too loud.
• 53:16
  Tiffany Woolley: I like to talk.
• 53:17
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, I like talking.
• 53:18
  Matthew Van Eyk: I don't want to maybe if it's someone I don't know great, um, but yeah not, I don't like it just most of the time at restaurants.
• 53:28
  Matthew Van Eyk: Um, probably elizabeth is in west palm beach.
• 53:34
  Tiffany Woolley: Yeah, that's such a cute atmosphere I love that and you can.
• 53:37
  Matthew Van Eyk: We usually always sit outside and you can look at all the big boats yeah, that's probably our favorite.
• 53:42
  Matthew Van Eyk: There's another good, a really nice one.
• 53:46
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's called yacht in west palm beach.
• 53:48
  Matthew Van Eyk: I'm at fort lauderdale, oh, it's kind of like it's, it's it's in a, it's in a marina, um, and it's like mostly service to the boats, boats, but it's a very nice restaurant.
• 54:03
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's right on the on the river there oh fun great good eating.
• 54:07
  Matthew Van Eyk: When I worked down there, we used to go for lunch there all the time.
• 54:11
  Matthew Van Eyk: It's a really nice place.
• 54:13
  Tiffany Woolley: Awesome.
• 54:14
  Tiffany Woolley: Well, thank you for joining us today.
• 54:16
  Matthew Van Eyk: Yeah, thanks for having me, I appreciate it yes thanks, yeah, certainly.
• 54:20
  Voice Over: All right iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW Group production in association with the Five Star and TW Interiors.
• 54:29
  Voice Over: To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW Interiors, please visit twinteriorscom.