Latest / Repcolite Home Improvement Show / Removing Stumps; Painting a Metal Building (with a Twist!); The Impact of William Morris on Design

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Removing Stumps; Painting a Metal Building (with a Twist!); The Impact of William Morris on Design · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Home in Progress, sponsored by repco
0:04
Speaker 1: Like Paints and Benjamin Moore. Because the paint is the project.
0:08
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to put in the work,
0:09
Speaker 1: make sure it's going to last. Use the good stuff.
0:11
Speaker 1: All right, here's what we've got coming up on the
0:13
Speaker 1: show today. At the end, I'm going to be digging
0:16
Speaker 1: into the world of William Morris, the man behind those
0:18
Speaker 1: famous wallpapers who ended up reshaping design as we know it.
0:22
Speaker 1: Before that, I'm going to walk you through how to
0:23
Speaker 1: prep and paint a metal outbuilding when you don't even
0:26
Speaker 1: have running water on the job site. But right now,
0:29
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something that's kind of one
0:31
Speaker 1: of those frustrations for a lot of homeowners. You know,
0:33
Speaker 1: not all of us, but there's a good chance that
0:35
Speaker 1: you're either dealing with this right now or you will
0:38
Speaker 1: run into it at some point in your career as
0:41
Speaker 1: a homeowner. Here's the scenario. A tree comes down on
0:45
Speaker 1: your property, right or you take it down, whatever, But
0:48
Speaker 1: you don't have somebody come out to grind out the stump. Now,
0:51
Speaker 1: maybe you couldn't afford it, maybe you didn't think of it,
0:54
Speaker 1: Maybe you know you just didn't want to drop the
0:56
Speaker 1: money on it. You could have afforded it, but you'd
0:58
Speaker 1: rather buy something really fun than to spend that money
1:02
Speaker 1: getting a stump taken away from your yard. I mean,
1:05
Speaker 1: it's not a fun way to spend money either way.
1:07
Speaker 1: You left it, and as time goes by, it just
1:10
Speaker 1: sits there, right, and it becomes a forever part of
1:13
Speaker 1: your landscaping. You mow around it, sometimes, you use it
1:17
Speaker 1: as a base when you're playing baseball. You trip over
1:20
Speaker 1: it from time to time, and so on, so on
1:22
Speaker 1: and so on and so on. It's not a good look,
1:24
Speaker 1: and in most cases, stumps negatively affect the beauty of
1:28
Speaker 1: our outdoor spaces. But getting rid of them isn't always
1:31
Speaker 1: so simple. I mean, you could carve a bear into it.
1:34
Speaker 1: I should have added that to my list of things
1:37
Speaker 1: you could do with it, because I've seen that people
1:39
Speaker 1: will carve some kind of animal into it. But it's
1:42
Speaker 1: probably not for everybody anyway. Getting rid of them isn't
1:46
Speaker 1: always so simple, all right, but it is doable. So
1:49
Speaker 1: let's cover and dig into some affordable I love affordable,
1:53
Speaker 1: one of my favorite words. We'll talk about some affordable,
1:56
Speaker 1: DIY friendly ways to remove tree stumps and roots without
2:00
Speaker 1: out calling in a contractor and without renting anything that
2:03
Speaker 1: requires a trailer and a waiver and all that stuff.
2:06
Speaker 1: All right, now, first off, do you need to get
2:09
Speaker 1: rid of a stump and the roots? You know, once
2:11
Speaker 1: you cut it down? And this is the place to
2:13
Speaker 1: start really with this conversation, because if you don't hate
2:16
Speaker 1: how it looks, or it's not in a place that's
2:18
Speaker 1: really detracting from the look of your yard, is it
2:21
Speaker 1: really necessary to remove it? Am I just giving you
2:24
Speaker 1: busy work? Or is this something that you need to
2:27
Speaker 1: take care of. Well, if you don't hate how it looks,
2:30
Speaker 1: or it's not in a place that's really detracting from
2:33
Speaker 1: the look of your yuard, it's probably technically not necessary
2:36
Speaker 1: to remove it. You know, it's not going to hurt
2:38
Speaker 1: anything immediately. Now I noticed I did say the word immediately.
2:41
Speaker 1: That's the word I chose there. It's not going to
2:44
Speaker 1: hurt anything immediately. There is a little foreshadowing in that,
2:47
Speaker 1: so we'll get to that in a minute. But you
2:49
Speaker 1: can leave them in place and eventually they'll just rot
2:52
Speaker 1: away on their own, right, it'll go the natural way
2:55
Speaker 1: of everything. You know, we're all doing it right now,
2:57
Speaker 1: Everything will rot away on its own, So that's good.
3:00
Speaker 1: The problem is that eventually it could be years, right,
3:04
Speaker 1: you know, eventually riding away. It could take them years
3:06
Speaker 1: to do that. And in the meantime they're in the way,
3:08
Speaker 1: the stumps are, they get covered by grass, all the
3:10
Speaker 1: things that we talked about, They become trip hazards. You
3:13
Speaker 1: got to mow around them, blah blah blah. So you
3:15
Speaker 1: got to deal with that all that time, you know,
3:17
Speaker 1: Is that really all that fun? Is that something you
3:19
Speaker 1: want to deal with. That's that's for you to decide.
3:21
Speaker 1: But there is something that I haven't mentioned, and it's
3:23
Speaker 1: something that I had not thought about. With stumps that
3:26
Speaker 1: you leave in the yard, and it's a little thought
3:28
Speaker 1: that's going to get in your head and kind of
3:30
Speaker 1: make you want to act on this. They can become
3:32
Speaker 1: homes for carpenter ants, termites and all their fun little
3:35
Speaker 1: insect friends, and that could be a problem that you
3:39
Speaker 1: regret down the road. So you might want to get
3:41
Speaker 1: them out. You can leave them, but you might want
3:43
Speaker 1: to get them out all right, So if you do
3:45
Speaker 1: want to get it out, how do you reasonably and affordably?
3:48
Speaker 1: One of my favorite words in the English language affordably.
3:51
Speaker 1: You know, it's just so sweet whenever that's used. You know,
3:55
Speaker 1: in any situation, how do you affordably and easily get
3:58
Speaker 1: these things out? I want to talk about what I
4:01
Speaker 1: think is probably the best overall route for homeowners, and
4:04
Speaker 1: then I've got a couple other ways that will help you,
4:07
Speaker 1: and then you know, some last ditch efforts. But this
4:09
Speaker 1: first one, the work is going to start by just
4:11
Speaker 1: taking a good look at the problem, right, you just
4:13
Speaker 1: got to go out there and assess the situation. So
4:15
Speaker 1: head out after the show, look things over a little bit,
4:18
Speaker 1: you know, measure the diameter of the stump. If you
4:21
Speaker 1: can try to get a sense for how deep that
4:23
Speaker 1: root system might go. You know, that's pretty tricky to do,
4:26
Speaker 1: but you could get some idea by looking at it.
4:29
Speaker 1: If the stump is small, you know, maybe eight inches
4:31
Speaker 1: across or less, and if the roots don't seem to
4:33
Speaker 1: be too widespread, it's a great candidate for a hands on,
4:37
Speaker 1: no rental approach. And what most people will do in
4:40
Speaker 1: this situation is to just start by digging. You know,
4:43
Speaker 1: you just want to start exposing the base of the stump.
4:45
Speaker 1: You're looking to gain access to the big support roots.
4:49
Speaker 1: But before you start all that digging, you've got to
4:51
Speaker 1: call misdig you know, eight one to one. They're going
4:55
Speaker 1: to come out. It'll take several days. There's a process.
4:58
Speaker 1: You want to get on it, but they'll come out
5:00
Speaker 1: and mark everything. You don't want to hit a gas line.
5:03
Speaker 1: You don't want to hit a utility line or anything
5:04
Speaker 1: while you're going after the roots. That's a sad situation
5:08
Speaker 1: and it can happen kind of quickly. So call eight
5:11
Speaker 1: one one, call miss dig eight one one before you
5:14
Speaker 1: start your digging, all right. Now, once you've done that
5:16
Speaker 1: and everything's marked, a good shovel is really all you
5:20
Speaker 1: need to get started. But you're probably gonna want a
5:22
Speaker 1: mattic or a pick axe. These are both fun things
5:26
Speaker 1: to say and fun things to own, and they're not
5:29
Speaker 1: going to be expensive. So get one of those or both,
5:32
Speaker 1: and that's gonna help you cut through the compacted soil.
5:34
Speaker 1: Now it's a workout, right, there's no way around this.
5:38
Speaker 1: But you're using a pick axe or maybe a mattic
5:42
Speaker 1: or both, and that's gonna make you look and feel
5:44
Speaker 1: pretty cool. You know you'll be sore, but you're gonna
5:48
Speaker 1: look super cool, all right. So it's an even trade.
5:52
Speaker 1: On top of that, this works, you know, it takes time,
5:55
Speaker 1: but it works all right, so dig at it. Once
5:57
Speaker 1: the roots start revealing themselves, the wrong way to say it,
6:00
Speaker 1: they're not revealing themselves. It makes it sound like they're
6:03
Speaker 1: doing the work. You're doing the work. Once you start
6:05
Speaker 1: revealing the roots, the goal is to cut them right.
6:08
Speaker 1: I mean not rocket science here, and axe will work,
6:11
Speaker 1: but a bow saw or a reciprocating saw, something like
6:14
Speaker 1: a saw's all. Something like that is going to be
6:16
Speaker 1: way faster. Now. Of course, if you're going to go
6:19
Speaker 1: the power tool route, you know probably are anything. You know,
6:22
Speaker 1: you know, you take care of you, but throw on
6:24
Speaker 1: some safety glasses, gloves, things like that, and also be
6:27
Speaker 1: careful with the power tool with your blade. You know,
6:30
Speaker 1: cutting through roots is hard on tools, you know, because
6:32
Speaker 1: you've got the dirt there. It's just just hard to
6:34
Speaker 1: get a nice clean approach to it on all of
6:37
Speaker 1: the different roots that you're going to be cutting off.
6:38
Speaker 1: So keep a few extra blades on hand. Now. One
6:41
Speaker 1: of my favorite little tricks is to water that area
6:44
Speaker 1: the day before you start, you know, not right before.
6:46
Speaker 1: You don't want mud, you know, or anything like that.
6:48
Speaker 1: But damp ground is going to be softer than hard
6:50
Speaker 1: packed earth, of course, and it's going to be easier
6:53
Speaker 1: on your blades when they hit it. Now, once you've
6:56
Speaker 1: cut through the major roots, the stump is basically freed.
7:00
Speaker 1: What you want to do here is to use your
7:02
Speaker 1: shovel or you're matic as a lever and kind of
7:04
Speaker 1: just start rocking the stump back and forth, and that's
7:06
Speaker 1: going to break the last stubborn feeder roots that are
7:09
Speaker 1: still holding on. Now. For smaller stumps, you know, maybe
7:12
Speaker 1: under six inches or so in diameter, you can usually
7:15
Speaker 1: pry and wiggle them out by hand, you know, like
7:17
Speaker 1: a tooth. Once they're loose enough. It's satisfying work when
7:21
Speaker 1: it gives way, and you're going to feel like some
7:24
Speaker 1: kind of he man or he woman or whatever you
7:27
Speaker 1: want to feel like. It's pretty cool. For bigger stumps,
7:30
Speaker 1: this is where people often reach for a truck and
7:32
Speaker 1: a chain, But honestly, that's where things get a little dicey,
7:36
Speaker 1: a little dangerous. We've all seen social media videos of
7:41
Speaker 1: really really bad scenarios when people do this. Chains can snap,
7:45
Speaker 1: trucks can lurch. I've seen the stump shoot out and
7:48
Speaker 1: hit the back of the truck and take out the
7:51
Speaker 1: back window, all kinds of terrible things. People get hurt.
7:55
Speaker 1: If you're going to go that route, at least use
7:57
Speaker 1: a proper toe strap instead of a chain. Go slow
8:00
Speaker 1: and go steady, no jerking, and really keep everybody back
8:04
Speaker 1: from the action, right everybody, And this is all on you.
8:08
Speaker 1: This is not from my recommendation that you're choosing to
8:11
Speaker 1: do this, but if you do, take whatever steps you
8:14
Speaker 1: need to to be safe and honestly, really, for something
8:18
Speaker 1: bigger than a dinner plate, you're probably better off moving
8:21
Speaker 1: onto other methods entirely. And you've got a couple main
8:24
Speaker 1: options here. There's still DIY friendly, the patient approach, you
8:28
Speaker 1: could do that. You could take chemicals and use the
8:30
Speaker 1: patient approach, or you could rent some serious machinery. Let's
8:34
Speaker 1: talk about the chemical method first, because sometimes the best
8:36
Speaker 1: tool is just time. You know, you don't want to
8:38
Speaker 1: give it all the time to rot itself out of
8:40
Speaker 1: the ground. That's too much time. But the chemical route,
8:44
Speaker 1: that might be a better way to go if it's
8:45
Speaker 1: bigger than a dinner plate. Now I wasn't aware of this,
8:48
Speaker 1: and I probably should have been, but you can buy
8:50
Speaker 1: stump remover at most hardware stores. You know, it's usually
8:53
Speaker 1: potassium nitrates. You could find that, or really you can
8:56
Speaker 1: just use epsom salts. You basically just drill some holes
9:00
Speaker 1: into the top of the stump, right an inch wide
9:02
Speaker 1: or so, a few inches deep, a bunch of holes
9:05
Speaker 1: spaced across the surface. Then you pour in the salt,
9:07
Speaker 1: pour in the stump remover. If it's granules, then you'd
9:10
Speaker 1: add water. Some stump removers are gonna come liquid, most
9:14
Speaker 1: of them will be granules. But pour in the salt,
9:17
Speaker 1: pour in the stump remover, add water, and then cover
9:19
Speaker 1: the stump with a tarp. Now the tarp's going to
9:21
Speaker 1: help retain moisture, it's going to help retain heat, and
9:24
Speaker 1: both of those are going to of course speed up
9:26
Speaker 1: the breakdown. And after a few weeks, sometimes a little
9:29
Speaker 1: bit longer, it softens enough that you can start chopping
9:32
Speaker 1: it apart with a shovel or an axe. Now it's
9:34
Speaker 1: not quick, you know, it's not you know, instantaneously removed
9:38
Speaker 1: from the yard. But it's low effort and it's super
9:40
Speaker 1: budget friendly, and it's really not going to take that long.
9:43
Speaker 1: So if you get on it now, maybe in a
9:46
Speaker 1: month or so you've got it out of the ground
9:48
Speaker 1: all right. Now, some people like to burn stumps. That's
9:51
Speaker 1: another way that the internet will recommend. It's one of
9:54
Speaker 1: those you know, recommended methods out there, but personally I
9:57
Speaker 1: skip that one. Skip it between the smoke, the legality questions.
10:01
Speaker 1: Can you even do this in your area? The smell
10:04
Speaker 1: of it, you know, burnt stump not really as fun
10:06
Speaker 1: as it sounds. Plus it rarely gets everything. Yeah, you
10:10
Speaker 1: end up left with this charred mess and possibly you know,
10:13
Speaker 1: possibly angry frustrated neighbors who knows I wouldn't burn it out.
10:16
Speaker 1: Don't do that. Use the stump remover if it's a
10:18
Speaker 1: big stump, or you know, maybe it's better to just
10:21
Speaker 1: go and rent a grinder and get it out that way. Now,
10:25
Speaker 1: renting a grind, you're probably gonna cost around a couple
10:27
Speaker 1: hundred bucks or so for the day, depending on where
10:29
Speaker 1: you get it from. But in the right hands, that'll
10:32
Speaker 1: reduce a great, big, massive stump to mulch in less
10:35
Speaker 1: than an hour. You still need to do some prep.
10:39
Speaker 1: You've got to clear the rocks, branches, stuff like that.
10:41
Speaker 1: Maybe cut the stump down lower with a chainsaw. But
10:45
Speaker 1: really it's a good compromise between full DIY of digging
10:49
Speaker 1: it out and hiring a professional. You know, if you've
10:51
Speaker 1: got a big stump to deal with, this might be
10:53
Speaker 1: a way to go. Just be aware. Of course, I
10:55
Speaker 1: don't even need to say this, but it's on the
10:57
Speaker 1: radio and everybody's listening, so I guess I do have
11:01
Speaker 1: to say it. Stump grinders aren't toys, of course, so
11:04
Speaker 1: wear safety glasses, hairing protection gloves, follow the instructions, and
11:08
Speaker 1: if it looks too intimidating, just call somebody who's done
11:12
Speaker 1: it before and go that route. All right, However, you've
11:15
Speaker 1: removed the stump, the last thing that you need to
11:17
Speaker 1: do is to smooth everything out, of course, and get
11:19
Speaker 1: your yard back in order. So fill the hole with
11:21
Speaker 1: a mix of top soil, maybe some of the wood
11:23
Speaker 1: chips or the dirt that you dug out, pack it
11:26
Speaker 1: down lightly. You want to lead it slightly mounded to
11:29
Speaker 1: allow for settling, and then throw some grass seed on it.
11:32
Speaker 1: You know, water it really well and in a few
11:34
Speaker 1: weeks you'll never know the tree was even there. And
11:38
Speaker 1: fall is a really great time to do this and
11:40
Speaker 1: get that grass growing. So there you go, removing a
11:43
Speaker 1: stump number of different ways to go, some of them
11:46
Speaker 1: more affordable than others, but all of them should get
11:49
Speaker 1: you to the point where you've got a nice, pristine
11:51
Speaker 1: yard once again. No more tripping, no more mowing around
11:54
Speaker 1: that thing. All right, that's removing tree stumps. Now, I've
11:57
Speaker 1: got a little bit of time before segment, so I
12:00
Speaker 1: want to take a moment to address an email that
12:03
Speaker 1: I received this week about the show from the week before. Now,
12:06
Speaker 1: if you remember, last week, we had a car guy
12:09
Speaker 1: expert on Chris Hardesty. He writes for Auto Trader and
12:12
Speaker 1: Kelly Bluebook, and we talked about the best colors for
12:15
Speaker 1: cars in terms of resale value, safety, and so on. Anyway,
12:19
Speaker 1: I received an email from Kurt who wanted me to
12:22
Speaker 1: know that he really liked the segment, but he thought
12:25
Speaker 1: we missed something big when it came to the conversation
12:27
Speaker 1: on car colors in terms of maintenance. Kurt wrote, gloss
12:31
Speaker 1: black is by far the easiest color to match for
12:34
Speaker 1: touch up and repair, which is why for forty years
12:37
Speaker 1: plus all of my Jeeps have been black. Super easy
12:40
Speaker 1: to remediate chips and blemishes. End quote. So there you go.
12:44
Speaker 1: I told Kurt that I'd work that correction into the
12:47
Speaker 1: show and I managed to do it. Promise is made,
12:49
Speaker 1: Promises kept. That's my way. All right. How do you measure,
12:53
Speaker 1: prep and paint a metal building. It's a great question
12:55
Speaker 1: that I received from a customer and it comes with
12:57
Speaker 1: a little bit of a twist. We'll get to that
12:59
Speaker 1: right after. This home in progress is brought to you
13:02
Speaker 1: by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore. Top to your paint
13:05
Speaker 1: expert advice. Your next project is way easier than you
13:09
Speaker 1: think it's going to be. All right, let's dive into
13:11
Speaker 1: a paint question that I received this past week, and
13:14
Speaker 1: before I do, I want to remind you that you
13:16
Speaker 1: can send your paint and design questions to Radio at
13:19
Speaker 1: repco Light dot com. I'll answer them via the email.
13:23
Speaker 1: You know right away you'll get your answer. But if
13:25
Speaker 1: I end up using your question on the show, like
13:27
Speaker 1: I'm doing with this one right now, I'll send you
13:29
Speaker 1: a gift certificate for a free gallon of Benjamin Moore
13:31
Speaker 1: or Repcolite Paint you choose, And if that sounds like
13:35
Speaker 1: a good deal, make sure you send your paint and
13:37
Speaker 1: design questions to Radio at repco Light dot com. All right,
13:41
Speaker 1: let's get to the question for the week. And it
13:43
Speaker 1: really seems straightforward and simple right off the bat, until
13:47
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I'll get to that in a minute. It
13:50
Speaker 1: started like this, A gentleman emailed me and asked how
13:53
Speaker 1: to figure out how much paint he needed to paint
13:56
Speaker 1: and old metal building. All right, super straightforward, and it's
13:58
Speaker 1: good info to have and to know because this is
14:01
Speaker 1: going to help you assess how much paint you need
14:03
Speaker 1: for any paint project. So to figure out how much
14:06
Speaker 1: paint you'll need, you first need to figure the square
14:08
Speaker 1: footage of your space. You know, not the floor square footage,
14:11
Speaker 1: but the wall square footage, and you do that by
14:14
Speaker 1: taking the length and multiplying it by the height. You
14:17
Speaker 1: do that for each wall or each surface area, add
14:20
Speaker 1: them all together, then subtract the square footage of windows
14:23
Speaker 1: and doors, and once you've got that number, that's the
14:26
Speaker 1: square footage that you need to cover. Not to figure
14:28
Speaker 1: out how much paint you need, you generally just assume
14:31
Speaker 1: that a gallon's going to give you about one coat
14:34
Speaker 1: on four hundred square feet if it's a sealed surface,
14:36
Speaker 1: So that should help you get a ballpark for how
14:39
Speaker 1: much paint the project's going to require. So that's the
14:41
Speaker 1: first step measuring for the paint. And if you missed
14:44
Speaker 1: any of that math, I know I went fast. Check
14:47
Speaker 1: out our blog post on paint measuring. You know, it's
14:49
Speaker 1: not the most exciting post of all time, but it
14:52
Speaker 1: will help you figure out how to do that measuring
14:55
Speaker 1: for pretty much any project you're working on. So you
14:57
Speaker 1: can find that online at repcolight dot com. Just click
15:00
Speaker 1: the blog tab on the main header and you're good
15:03
Speaker 1: to go. All right, once you've got that figured out
15:06
Speaker 1: for this instance, now you just need to do the
15:08
Speaker 1: work to get that building painted. So I just rolled
15:10
Speaker 1: on with my answer and explain that, like most paint projects,
15:14
Speaker 1: all of this is going to start with the prep work.
15:16
Speaker 1: You know, in this instance, we're talking about a metal building,
15:19
Speaker 1: and these buildings get dirty, they get chalky, they get
15:21
Speaker 1: rusty over time, so you need to really give it
15:24
Speaker 1: a good cleaning, you know, scrub it with TSP or
15:26
Speaker 1: a TSP substitute, and then rinse it thoroughly and let
15:29
Speaker 1: it dry. On a metal building, rust is going to
15:32
Speaker 1: be a big enemy. You don't want to just paint
15:34
Speaker 1: over it. You've got to scrape it. You got to
15:37
Speaker 1: hit it with a wire brush. You've got to get
15:38
Speaker 1: away all the loose stuff, you know, remove that sand
15:41
Speaker 1: it smooth, and then hit that area with a rust
15:44
Speaker 1: inhibiting primer. If you skip that step, the rust is
15:47
Speaker 1: just going to keep growing under the paint and it's
15:49
Speaker 1: going to push it off and you're gonna have problems
15:51
Speaker 1: down the road way quicker than you would like. So
15:54
Speaker 1: once you've got it all prepped, it's time to paint.
15:56
Speaker 1: And for the main body of the building, you want
15:59
Speaker 1: a high qual one hundred percent acrylic water based paint.
16:02
Speaker 1: Benjamin Moore's Element Guard or Regal Exterior. Those are great options,
16:06
Speaker 1: so is Repcolites Endura. These products are flexible enough to
16:10
Speaker 1: expand and contract with the building, and they're going to
16:13
Speaker 1: hold the color really well through the seasons. So that
16:15
Speaker 1: was my original answer. You know, that's it in a nutshell.
16:19
Speaker 1: I sent it off and I felt really good about
16:21
Speaker 1: it until he replied with that major complication that I
16:25
Speaker 1: hinted at a little bit earlier. And here's the deal.
16:27
Speaker 1: He has no water available at the site. So his
16:31
Speaker 1: follow up question was this, can I just dry brush
16:33
Speaker 1: the building for the cleaning and call it good. Well,
16:36
Speaker 1: here's the thing. As much as I hate to say it,
16:39
Speaker 1: dry brushing alone just isn't going to cut it. You know,
16:42
Speaker 1: paint in this instance is really going to just be bonding.
16:45
Speaker 1: You know, it's a surface bond. There's no penetration into metal.
16:48
Speaker 1: It's not like wood that it can soak into and
16:50
Speaker 1: get a little bit of a grip. It's metal, there's
16:52
Speaker 1: no penetration. It's just a surface bond. And if chalk
16:55
Speaker 1: and dirt are left behind on that surface, the paint
16:58
Speaker 1: will stick to that layer, that chalk and dirt layer
17:01
Speaker 1: instead of the actual building. And then when that chalk
17:03
Speaker 1: let's go, or that dirt let's go, the paint goes
17:05
Speaker 1: with it, and you'll see peeling way earlier than you should.
17:09
Speaker 1: So what does he do? You know, what's the solution?
17:11
Speaker 1: If he doesn't have running water out there, well, he's
17:13
Speaker 1: got to find a way to bring water to the building.
17:16
Speaker 1: And some folks do this by hauling five gallon pails
17:19
Speaker 1: of water or larger totes, you know, something like that.
17:22
Speaker 1: And then when they've got the water, they're like that,
17:24
Speaker 1: they scrub the siding using that water, you know, mixed
17:27
Speaker 1: with TSP or a TSP substitute, scrub it on and
17:30
Speaker 1: get it cleaned, and then to rinse it. This is
17:32
Speaker 1: where it gets even trickier. You know, how do you
17:34
Speaker 1: do that? A lot of times people will pick up,
17:37
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a larger plastic garbage can clean one
17:41
Speaker 1: and fill that with the water that they brought in
17:43
Speaker 1: their five gallon buckets. Then you can drop a submersible
17:46
Speaker 1: pump into that and run a garden hose off of it.
17:49
Speaker 1: Just remember these pumps, these submersible pumps, they're designed to
17:52
Speaker 1: move water steadily, So forget about using the spray nozzle
17:55
Speaker 1: at the end of the hose. Instead, just leave the
17:57
Speaker 1: hose open and use your finger, you know, old school style,
18:01
Speaker 1: to get a jet going to get the building rinsed.
18:03
Speaker 1: It's not glamorous, it's not terribly wonderfully easy to pull off,
18:07
Speaker 1: but it will work all right. Coming up, William Morris
18:10
Speaker 1: is one of the key voices of the arts and
18:11
Speaker 1: crafts movement, and his ideas on beauty and craftsmanship still
18:15
Speaker 1: shape our homes today. We're going to get to that
18:17
Speaker 1: right after this. This is home in progress where the
18:20
Speaker 1: to do list is long, and that's all right. We're
18:24
Speaker 1: not crabbing at you. We're not going to yell at you.
18:26
Speaker 1: That's how it is. It's how ours is too. It's
18:28
Speaker 1: probably supported by repcoll like Paints and Benjamin Moore because
18:32
Speaker 1: home projects are easier when you've got people you can trust.
18:35
Speaker 1: All Right, it's time to talk about William Morris, you know,
18:38
Speaker 1: the wallpaper guru, one of the founders of the arts
18:41
Speaker 1: and crafts movement, William Morris. I want to talk about
18:44
Speaker 1: him and five ways that he changed how we think
18:47
Speaker 1: about beauty in our homes, you know, beauty and design.
18:49
Speaker 1: And before I can jump into all of that, I
18:52
Speaker 1: do have to give you like an origin story, you know,
18:54
Speaker 1: some backstory info, because this is going to set up
18:57
Speaker 1: everything that follows. I'll try to move through it quickly
19:01
Speaker 1: so we can get to the really, really good stuff.
19:04
Speaker 1: But you know this stuff, you do need some of
19:06
Speaker 1: this to really establish the rest of the story. All right.
19:09
Speaker 1: To begin, we got to go back to the very beginning.
19:13
Speaker 1: Morris was born in eighteen thirty four, just outside of London,
19:16
Speaker 1: all right, So eighteen thirty four, William Morris enters the
19:19
Speaker 1: world and as he grows up, through those early years
19:22
Speaker 1: of childhood and such, he spends all of his days
19:26
Speaker 1: you know, outside exploring, you know, and not all of
19:29
Speaker 1: his days. You know what I'm saying. He's outside a lot.
19:32
Speaker 1: You know, you can picture him a little kid, running
19:34
Speaker 1: around in his knickerbockers, his suspenders. You know, he's wandering
19:38
Speaker 1: through woodsy areas, fields, gardens. He's touching everything. He's finding flowers, birds,
19:43
Speaker 1: He's probably running through poison. Ivy probably did that once.
19:47
Speaker 1: He was a good observer. He only had to do
19:49
Speaker 1: that once before he learned never ever do that again.
19:52
Speaker 1: He's probably peeking in badger dens. He was curious, you know,
19:55
Speaker 1: they did. The big bottom line is that he soaked
19:59
Speaker 1: everything in. He's out in nature, soaking it all in.
20:02
Speaker 1: You know, the color of the leaves as the different
20:04
Speaker 1: seasons play out, the way the vines wind around each other,
20:07
Speaker 1: the way birds are moving through the branches, all of that.
20:11
Speaker 1: He absorbs all of that. Now, when he gets older
20:13
Speaker 1: and it's time for college, he heads off to Oxford
20:17
Speaker 1: with the plan of studying theology. And that's where everything
20:20
Speaker 1: begins to change from you know, where he thought he
20:24
Speaker 1: was going to go with his life into it, you know,
20:25
Speaker 1: a completely different direction. At Oxford he meets Edward Burne
20:30
Speaker 1: Jones and I'm not sure if you're familiar with the
20:32
Speaker 1: name or not, Edward Burne Jones. He was a fellow
20:35
Speaker 1: student who would later go on to become one of
20:37
Speaker 1: Victorian England's most celebrated painters. Now through Edward Burne Jones,
20:42
Speaker 1: William Morris is introduced to the pre Raphaelites. Pre Raphaelites
20:47
Speaker 1: a group of artists. Just think of them as the
20:49
Speaker 1: long haired proto hippies of the Victorian art world. You know,
20:53
Speaker 1: that should at least give you a good vision of
20:54
Speaker 1: who they are. Their vision as artists was to move
20:58
Speaker 1: dramatically away from the idea, realized forms and the softened
21:02
Speaker 1: landscapes of the Royal Academy. And what they wanted to
21:05
Speaker 1: replace them with was, you know, vivid colors, incredibly intricate details,
21:11
Speaker 1: things like that. They wanted to represent what was truly
21:13
Speaker 1: there in the world and what the eye was truly seeing.
21:17
Speaker 1: You know, that's the important thing to take away truth
21:20
Speaker 1: in art. That's what they were after. And for Morris,
21:23
Speaker 1: that concept that idea wasn't just interesting, it was completely electric.
21:28
Speaker 1: It completely captured him. He'd already felt a little bit
21:31
Speaker 1: of those stirrings as a boy wandering the countryside and
21:34
Speaker 1: soaking in nature. But with the pre Raphaelites, it all
21:38
Speaker 1: clicked into place. You know, what had been a feeling
21:40
Speaker 1: before was now a philosophy. Truth in art, truth in architecture. Truth.
21:45
Speaker 1: You know, that's what he was after. Now a little
21:48
Speaker 1: bit later, that philosophy that he's forming runs headfirst into
21:51
Speaker 1: a practical problem. You know, Morris gets married after college
21:55
Speaker 1: or after the time at Oxford, and he begins furnishing
21:58
Speaker 1: his first home. And when he doing that, everything that
22:02
Speaker 1: he finds to put in the house is hideous. You know,
22:05
Speaker 1: it's mass produced, it's over ornamented, it's too much. You know,
22:08
Speaker 1: it's practically exactly what you'd expect to find in the
22:12
Speaker 1: Victorian era. So he's encountering all of this ugly decor,
22:17
Speaker 1: you know, for lack of a better word, and what's
22:19
Speaker 1: he going to do? Well, Rather than tolerate what he
22:22
Speaker 1: couldn't stand, he decided to go to work designing things
22:25
Speaker 1: for himself. With help from his wife and his circle
22:29
Speaker 1: of artist's friends, he spent two years creating furniture, textiles, glass, miurals,
22:34
Speaker 1: you know, things that matched his ideals. And in eighteen
22:38
Speaker 1: sixty one, you know, a few years of past, he's
22:41
Speaker 1: outfitted his home with things that he's designed with his
22:43
Speaker 1: group of friends. And by eighteen sixty one, that little
22:46
Speaker 1: experiment grows into a company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company.
22:51
Speaker 1: And it's a company producing everything from stained glass and
22:54
Speaker 1: hand painted tiles to simple oak furniture and wallpapers. You know, basically,
22:58
Speaker 1: the company wasn't interested in cranking out machine made clutter.
23:02
Speaker 1: That wasn't its purpose. Its goal was to help everyday
23:05
Speaker 1: people fill their homes with objects that were truly beautiful
23:08
Speaker 1: and functional. Basically, he wanted to do for others what
23:11
Speaker 1: he did for himself in his first home. So that
23:14
Speaker 1: was eighteen sixty one when that company was founded. Years later,
23:18
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy five, Morris took full control of the
23:21
Speaker 1: company and rebranded it Morrison Co. And that's how we
23:25
Speaker 1: know it today. So there you go, the backdrop, the
23:28
Speaker 1: childhood in nature, the friendships, the rebellion against the ordinary,
23:32
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Now, let's dig into five key
23:35
Speaker 1: ways that William Morris changed, not just wallpaper, but the
23:38
Speaker 1: very way we think about beauty and design in our homes.
23:41
Speaker 1: All right, So the first one that we're going to
23:44
Speaker 1: cover is he rebelled against fakery. Right rebelled against fakery.
23:49
Speaker 1: In the Victorian era, fakery was everywhere, you know, absolutely everywhere.
23:54
Speaker 1: You walk into a fashionable home and you're going to
23:56
Speaker 1: see wallpapers pretending to be marble. Would you know, even
24:00
Speaker 1: velvet fireplaces, you know, fireplace is built from you know,
24:04
Speaker 1: cheap slate. They're painted to look like they're fine stone.
24:08
Speaker 1: Pine furniture was brushed and wood grained, you know, so
24:12
Speaker 1: that it looked like mahogany. Even the base boards were
24:14
Speaker 1: painted to mimic marble. Okay, and the artists who did
24:18
Speaker 1: this were really good, so it often took a really
24:20
Speaker 1: close look to figure out, you know, the trick and
24:23
Speaker 1: to figure out what the material actually was. And to
24:26
Speaker 1: William Morris, you know, he hated this. It was all deception.
24:30
Speaker 1: He saw it as all lying. You know, the walls
24:32
Speaker 1: not velvet, but the wallpaper wants you to believe that
24:35
Speaker 1: it's velvet. That chair isn't oak, but you're supposed to
24:38
Speaker 1: think that it's oak. He hated all of that, and
24:41
Speaker 1: that instinct in him that aversion to that fakery was
24:45
Speaker 1: already in place years back when he refused to step
24:47
Speaker 1: foot in the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty one, now
24:50
Speaker 1: the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty one. It was a
24:53
Speaker 1: massive world's fare inside the Crystal Palace, which was an
24:56
Speaker 1: enormous enormous glass and iron in Hyde Park. You know,
25:02
Speaker 1: this big world's fair is going on eighteen fifty one.
25:04
Speaker 1: Millions of people are pouring in to marvel at the
25:07
Speaker 1: latest machine age miracles, you know, steam engines, printing presses,
25:11
Speaker 1: furniture stamped out by factories. At this point in time,
25:14
Speaker 1: Morris is sixteen years old. His family buys tickets, you know,
25:18
Speaker 1: they're going in. They get their hands stamped so they
25:21
Speaker 1: can go back out and come back in again in
25:23
Speaker 1: case they need to use the bathroom or something. But
25:25
Speaker 1: Morris refuses to even go in the first place. And
25:28
Speaker 1: he refuses on principle. It's not just teenage angst or
25:31
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, he's not poudy because he's
25:34
Speaker 1: not hanging with his girlfriend. He's annoyed because everything inside
25:38
Speaker 1: this place, everything that they're lauding and promoting and displaying,
25:43
Speaker 1: all of it is gaudy and fake and soulless to
25:46
Speaker 1: him at sixteen, and he wants no part of it.
25:49
Speaker 1: So that was early on in his life. Later, his
25:52
Speaker 1: friendship with the pre Raphaelites that I mentioned earlier. That
25:56
Speaker 1: friendship deepens those ideas and those ideals, and he develops
26:00
Speaker 1: this passion that follows him the rest of his life,
26:04
Speaker 1: This passion to speak truthfully with his art, with his designs,
26:07
Speaker 1: and with the materials that he uses. You know, that
26:10
Speaker 1: just becomes ingrained in him, and that conviction shows up
26:14
Speaker 1: really interestingly in his first home, the Red House. Most
26:18
Speaker 1: Victorians would choose to cover brick, you know, when they
26:22
Speaker 1: built a house out of brick, they choose to cover
26:23
Speaker 1: it with stucco or paint or something like that, anything
26:27
Speaker 1: to cover that brick up. But Morris and his architect
26:30
Speaker 1: friend Philip Webb left there as completely bare, deep red
26:33
Speaker 1: brick plaine, unapologetic. You know. It was all about honest materials.
26:38
Speaker 1: It was about honest construction, hiding nothing, you know, just
26:41
Speaker 1: complete honesty. That same principle ends up running through all
26:46
Speaker 1: of his wallpapers and his textiles. You know, Morris drew
26:49
Speaker 1: his patterns from super careful observation, you know, sketching roses
26:53
Speaker 1: in his own garden, watching birds, steel strawberries at his
26:56
Speaker 1: country home, things like that. But his wallpapers, they weren't
26:59
Speaker 1: trying to be nature or to fool you into thinking
27:02
Speaker 1: that your wall was a meadow. You know, that wasn't
27:04
Speaker 1: his goal. Instead, they celebrated what they actually were, you know,
27:07
Speaker 1: beautifully crafted patterns inspired by the natural world, but at
27:11
Speaker 1: the end of the day, still just images on paper.
27:14
Speaker 1: He wasn't trying to hide that fact. They were honest
27:16
Speaker 1: about being decoration, and they were honest about their inspiration
27:19
Speaker 1: and where it came from. And this was just a
27:22
Speaker 1: huge breath of fresh air in that time period. You know.
27:25
Speaker 1: By prioritizing honesty, William Morris challenged the Victorian assumption that
27:29
Speaker 1: beauty required pretense. His ideas sparked the arts and crafts movement,
27:34
Speaker 1: like we talked about at the very beginning. He influenced
27:36
Speaker 1: designers across Europe and America all over the place, and
27:40
Speaker 1: he ended up paving the way for Modernism's idea of
27:43
Speaker 1: form follows function. You know, even today, when we admire
27:46
Speaker 1: exposed brick, natural wood, or just simple organic patterns were
27:50
Speaker 1: still echoing Morris's vision. So that's the first way William
27:54
Speaker 1: Morris changed how we think about beauty and design in
27:56
Speaker 1: our homes. He replaced fakery with honesty. Get to the
28:00
Speaker 1: second way, that Morris changed how we think about design,
28:02
Speaker 1: and this builds directly on what we just talked about.
28:06
Speaker 1: For Morris, design wasn't just about taste. It was about morality.
28:10
Speaker 1: And this might sound a little extreme, but Morris believed
28:13
Speaker 1: something really really radical, that living surrounded by lies, even
28:18
Speaker 1: small ones like fake woodgrain, living surrounded by lines, actually
28:22
Speaker 1: changed who you were. You know. Dishonest, cheap or ugly design,
28:26
Speaker 1: he argued, didn't just offend the eye. You know, I'm
28:29
Speaker 1: not just offended, you know, visually or esthetically by this.
28:32
Speaker 1: It actually damaged people. And on the flip side, good design, useful, beautiful,
28:37
Speaker 1: honest design could make life better for everybody that it touched.
28:41
Speaker 1: He saw this at both ends of the spectrum, workers
28:44
Speaker 1: and consumers. So for workers, mass production completely drained in
28:48
Speaker 1: his idea, in his mindset, completely drained the joy out
28:52
Speaker 1: of making anything, you know. By the eighteen eighties, he
28:55
Speaker 1: was speaking out against the industrial system, and not just
28:58
Speaker 1: because it produced you know, kind of ugly, shoddy products.
29:02
Speaker 1: He argued that factories instead, or as well, you know,
29:05
Speaker 1: also robbed craftsmen of their dignity, you know, instead of
29:09
Speaker 1: creating something beautiful from start to finish, workers you know,
29:12
Speaker 1: were just reduced to repeating one tiny task all day long.
29:16
Speaker 1: So no creativity, no pride, no connection to the final product.
29:20
Speaker 1: You know, those were his ideas. It tore the workers down,
29:23
Speaker 1: It turned you know, craftsmen into machines. And to Morris,
29:26
Speaker 1: this wasn't just unfair. It was dehumanizing, stripping away what
29:30
Speaker 1: made work meaningful, so huge deep thoughts and consumers they
29:34
Speaker 1: weren't spared either. To Morris, you know, living surrounded by
29:38
Speaker 1: deceptive objects, you know, pine painted that look like oh,
29:40
Speaker 1: wallpaper pretending to be silk, things like that, you know,
29:43
Speaker 1: machine made lace imitating handwork, surrounded by stuff like that
29:47
Speaker 1: wasn't just settling for cheap substitutes. It was living, you know,
29:52
Speaker 1: living with lies. That was what he saw in this.
29:55
Speaker 1: We were living with lies, and day after day he
29:58
Speaker 1: believed that those lies would all our moral senses. You know,
30:01
Speaker 1: we get comfortable with falseness, we stop expecting truth. So
30:05
Speaker 1: for him, ugliness and dishonesty they weren't just surface problems.
30:09
Speaker 1: They weren't just esthetic issues. They were moral failures. And
30:13
Speaker 1: by contrast, a chair that's made with care, or wallpaper
30:16
Speaker 1: printed by hand, it's not just prettier it doesn't just
30:20
Speaker 1: look better, it's honest. It honored the maker, It honored
30:23
Speaker 1: the user. And when we talk today about authentic living,
30:27
Speaker 1: or when we choose quality over quantity, or when we
30:30
Speaker 1: feel drained by cheap, disposable stuff, you know, that's Morris's
30:34
Speaker 1: insights still at work, you know, and how we feel
30:36
Speaker 1: about design and beauty in our homes. All right. The
30:39
Speaker 1: third way that Morris reshaped design is that he transformed
30:42
Speaker 1: wallpaper from something that you ignored into something that you studied.
30:47
Speaker 1: I love this point. Victorian wallpapers. They were incredibly elaborate.
30:52
Speaker 1: We talked about that, they were ornate, they were incredibly detailed.
30:55
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. They were designed to impress without
30:59
Speaker 1: really being examined all that much. You basically think of them,
31:02
Speaker 1: you know, Victorian wallpapers, think of them like background music,
31:05
Speaker 1: you know, at a fancy restaurant, you know, rich costly.
31:08
Speaker 1: It fills every surface, but you're not really supposed to
31:11
Speaker 1: pay attention to it so much. Now, Morris completely changed that.
31:15
Speaker 1: He made wallpaper worth contemplating. And to do this he
31:19
Speaker 1: had to break all the rules. You know, the design
31:21
Speaker 1: world at that point was split between you know, basically
31:24
Speaker 1: two camps geometric reformers who wanted rigid stripes and mathematical shapes,
31:30
Speaker 1: you know, on the wall. And then there was the
31:32
Speaker 1: French ornate style in wallpaper that tried to look like
31:35
Speaker 1: you know, carved plaster or silk brocade or whatever. It
31:39
Speaker 1: tried to make incredibly hyper realistic, you know, visuals. Those
31:43
Speaker 1: were the two options. Morris really didn't like either one,
31:46
Speaker 1: so instead he crafted something entirely new. Patterns drawn from nature,
31:51
Speaker 1: you know, naturalistic patterns, but not literal patterns. You know.
31:54
Speaker 1: The things he came up with were flat, but they
31:57
Speaker 1: were still alive. You know. The vines and flowers were
31:59
Speaker 1: arranged so your eye could follow the rhythm, you know,
32:02
Speaker 1: kind of trace the curves and feel the truth of
32:05
Speaker 1: how the plants grew. Critics when they saw this new
32:09
Speaker 1: work they were, you know, baffled, maybe it's the right word.
32:12
Speaker 1: They were not immediately impressed. They called the papers peculiar
32:17
Speaker 1: because they didn't fit into any of the established or
32:20
Speaker 1: pre existing categories. The architect Richard Norman Shaw, for example,
32:24
Speaker 1: he dismissed them as just too bold quote wallpaper. He
32:28
Speaker 1: said should be a background, pure and simple. But that
32:31
Speaker 1: was exactly Morris's point. He wanted wallpaper that engaged you,
32:34
Speaker 1: that invited you to look closer. You know, you could
32:36
Speaker 1: spend time with a Morris design still, can you know.
32:39
Speaker 1: There's a lot to look at, you know, tracing the
32:42
Speaker 1: vines with your eyes, just a lot to look at.
32:44
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the look, you know, it was
32:46
Speaker 1: the making as well. You know, at a time when
32:48
Speaker 1: most wallpapers were churned out by machine, Morris revived handblock printing.
32:53
Speaker 1: You know, some of the designs that he did require dozens,
32:56
Speaker 1: you know, of different blocks, weeks of labor, and layer
32:59
Speaker 1: upon layer of natural pigment. In an industrial age, you know,
33:02
Speaker 1: when everything is machine made. Morris chose craft over convenience,
33:06
Speaker 1: and he did it every single time. Artists and aristocrats
33:10
Speaker 1: immediately embraced his work, even though the critics maybe didn't.
33:14
Speaker 1: You know, these other folks saw what the critics were missing,
33:17
Speaker 1: that Morris had taken wallpaper and elevated it from you know,
33:20
Speaker 1: just just decoration on a wall or background noise to
33:23
Speaker 1: genuine art. And we still live with that shift today,
33:27
Speaker 1: you know, every time we choose a statement wallpaper for
33:29
Speaker 1: an accent wall or stop to really, you know, really
33:32
Speaker 1: look at a pattern on our walls. We're echoing Morris's revolution.
33:36
Speaker 1: He taught us that walls don't have to just sit
33:38
Speaker 1: quietly in the background. They can sit quietly in the background,
33:42
Speaker 1: and that's not bad either, But they can you know,
33:45
Speaker 1: be focal points. They can be something that really draws
33:48
Speaker 1: the eye. They can be canvas. Is worth contemplating, all right.
33:51
Speaker 1: The fourth way that Morris reshaped design is that he
33:54
Speaker 1: planted the seeds for making beauty accessible to everybody. Now,
33:58
Speaker 1: this one's complicated because more Rs carried a contradiction at
34:01
Speaker 1: the heart of everything he did. You know. On the
34:03
Speaker 1: one hand, his dream was democratic, I guess is the
34:07
Speaker 1: way to say it. He believed every single person deserves
34:09
Speaker 1: beauty in their daily life, not just the wealthy people.
34:12
Speaker 1: And by choosing wallpapers and textiles as this medium rather
34:16
Speaker 1: than paintings or sculptures, he was deliberately working, you know,
34:19
Speaker 1: in materials in forms that could, in theory, you know,
34:23
Speaker 1: reach ordinary homes. But there's a problem. You know, Morris
34:26
Speaker 1: was uncompromising about quality. We talked about it a little bit.
34:30
Speaker 1: He insisted on handprinting, you know, he insisted on natural
34:33
Speaker 1: dyes and weeks of painstaking labor for every design. Now,
34:37
Speaker 1: I've got a video linked in the show notes that
34:39
Speaker 1: shows exactly what the process was like, and it's astonishing.
34:43
Speaker 1: You know, some Morris papers required fifteen separate woodblocks, each
34:46
Speaker 1: one pressed carefully into place, and every time you watch
34:51
Speaker 1: the craftsman press it down, you can hear a cash
34:55
Speaker 1: registered ding. Just listen for it. You can hear it.
34:58
Speaker 1: And that's the point I'm getting at. Because of the method,
35:00
Speaker 1: the papers that he made were crazy expensive, so expensive
35:05
Speaker 1: that only the wealthy and the upper middle class could
35:07
Speaker 1: even afford them, you know, exactly the opposite of what
35:10
Speaker 1: he was trying to do, and he knew this and
35:12
Speaker 1: it really drove him nuts his entire career. He wanted
35:15
Speaker 1: to create beautiful things for everybody, while also paying craftsmen
35:18
Speaker 1: of fair wage and using the finest materials and methods.
35:23
Speaker 1: But all of that together really ended up just being
35:27
Speaker 1: art for the elite, you know, That's what he ended
35:29
Speaker 1: up doing. So what's his real contribution here? I guess
35:32
Speaker 1: I think it boils down to this. Morris established the
35:35
Speaker 1: principle that art belonged in everyday spaces. You know, he
35:39
Speaker 1: started the conversation that, you know, beauty is for everybody
35:43
Speaker 1: regardless of your class or your income. According to him,
35:46
Speaker 1: the dining room in my house, my little nondescript house,
35:50
Speaker 1: that's just as worthy of displaying art and beauty as
35:53
Speaker 1: a museum gallery. Right, And that's really really radical. He
35:56
Speaker 1: was treating common homes with the same dignity as a
35:59
Speaker 1: e lead mansions or institutions. And while he couldn't practically
36:04
Speaker 1: make that all work out, you know, the way that
36:06
Speaker 1: he wanted to. He couldn't make that work out himself.
36:09
Speaker 1: Later designers were able to complete his vision. You know.
36:12
Speaker 1: They took the esthetic principles that he established and eventually
36:15
Speaker 1: found a way to adopt them for mass production. And finally,
36:19
Speaker 1: when that happened, all of us, even the regular folks
36:22
Speaker 1: like us, I can only speak for myself, the regular
36:26
Speaker 1: folks like me, could have access to truly beautiful items
36:29
Speaker 1: for our homes and our lives. You know. So Morris
36:32
Speaker 1: planted the seeds, others harvested the crops, and maybe, you know,
36:36
Speaker 1: just thinking about it, maybe his contradiction was necessary. You know,
36:39
Speaker 1: if he had compromised on quality, his designs might not
36:43
Speaker 1: have been compelling enough to inspire later generations, you know,
36:46
Speaker 1: by proving the value of beauty at the highest level.
36:49
Speaker 1: He kind of made the case for why everybody deserved
36:52
Speaker 1: access to it. At least that's a way to look
36:54
Speaker 1: at it, all right. Finally, the fifth way that Morris
36:56
Speaker 1: changed how we feel about beauty and design. He didn't
36:59
Speaker 1: just influence products. He sparked a movement. You know, I've
37:02
Speaker 1: said it up a few times already, but William Morris became
37:04
Speaker 1: the central figure in the Arts and Crafts movement. His ideas,
37:08
Speaker 1: you know, honest materials, using honest materials, and using them honestly.
37:12
Speaker 1: You know, that idea, the idea that beauty belongs in
37:15
Speaker 1: daily life, that dignity belongs in craft. All of those
37:18
Speaker 1: ideas formed the foundation for the Arts and Crafts movement.
37:22
Speaker 1: And for Morris, it wasn't just about style or just
37:24
Speaker 1: about aesthetics. You know, he was also pushing back against
37:27
Speaker 1: the dehumanization of both workers and consumers in the industrial age.
37:32
Speaker 1: You know. He was insisting on human dignity just as
37:35
Speaker 1: much as visual beauty, you know, and because of that,
37:37
Speaker 1: his influence spread way beyond wallpaper. You know, it reached
37:40
Speaker 1: into furniture, into architecture, into the homes that we live in,
37:44
Speaker 1: into even how we built and crafted those homes and
37:48
Speaker 1: that furniture, you know, Gustav Stickley's furniture, Frank Lloyd Writ's
37:52
Speaker 1: organic designs, the Craftsman Bungalow. All of these things and
37:56
Speaker 1: way more, Carrie Morris's DNA, and all of them traced
37:59
Speaker 1: back to his rebellion against mass produced ugliness. And what's
38:02
Speaker 1: really interesting last thing I'll get to is that Morris
38:05
Speaker 1: didn't just you know, stop with interior stuff. In eighteen
38:08
Speaker 1: ninety one, just five years or so before he died,
38:11
Speaker 1: he launched the Keelmscott Press, one of the most famous
38:14
Speaker 1: private presses in history. You know. He designed typefaces, borders, illustrations,
38:19
Speaker 1: and he printed on handmade paper. His masterpiece, the Keelmscott Chaucer,
38:23
Speaker 1: which is definitely worth the look, is still considered one
38:26
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful books ever created, you know, but
38:29
Speaker 1: of course you can see it coming from a mile away.
38:32
Speaker 1: That same contradiction that he struggled with with his wallpaper
38:35
Speaker 1: and all of that followed him here. The books that
38:37
Speaker 1: he was making, they were so labor intensive they could
38:40
Speaker 1: only be afforded by wealthy collectors. Still, he did set
38:44
Speaker 1: a standard of beauty that others would later adapt and
38:46
Speaker 1: spread through modern printing technologies. So the guy was just
38:50
Speaker 1: moving in all kinds of directions all the time. When
38:53
Speaker 1: he died in eighteen ninety six, other people carried on
38:57
Speaker 1: the work at Morris and Co. But his influence really
39:00
Speaker 1: stopped rippling outward. His designs, you know, wallpaper designs, they're
39:03
Speaker 1: still in print one hundred and fifty years later. You know,
39:06
Speaker 1: his philosophy echoes every single time we choose fewer but
39:09
Speaker 1: better objects, every time we value the handmaid over the
39:13
Speaker 1: mass produced, and every time we insist that functional things
39:16
Speaker 1: can also be beautiful. Whenever we do that, we're channeling
39:19
Speaker 1: William Morris. So, yeah, he gave us beautiful wallpaper, but
39:22
Speaker 1: he also left us with a reminder. You know, don't
39:24
Speaker 1: just fill your house with stuff. Choose things that matter.
39:27
Speaker 1: Surround yourself with objects that do their job well and
39:29
Speaker 1: bring you joy, Make it useful, make it beautiful, and
39:32
Speaker 1: your home is going to be better for it. All right,
39:34
Speaker 1: that's going to wrap it up for today's episode of
39:36
Speaker 1: Home in Progress, brought to you by Repcolite Paints and
39:39
Speaker 1: Benjamin Moore. Thanks so much for hanging out with us
39:41
Speaker 1: a little bit today. We really appreciate it and if
39:44
Speaker 1: you did enjoy the show, subscribe, you know that would
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Speaker 1: be great. You'll never miss another episode. And if you
39:49
Speaker 1: have a minute, leave a quick rating or review wherever
39:53
Speaker 1: you're listening, and that will really help us out and
39:55
Speaker 1: it helps other people find the show all right for
39:57
Speaker 1: home in progress, I'm Dan Hanson. Thanks, thanks for listening,
40:00
Speaker 1: have a great week, and I'll see you next time.