- Welcome back to Houzz TV Live,
I'm Rick Spence and today, we're talking to Dave Spetrino
with PBC Design + Build out of Wilmington, North Carolina.
You have over a 100,000 saves on Houzz.
Yeah. - You've won awards,
every single year.
And so, we thought we'd check in with you,
see how things are going.
See how you're kind of dealing with COVID right now.
Right. - Let's start with that.
How are you dealing with the crisis right now?
- Well, I think the immediate crisis is
that I just realized when we got on here
that I have not had a haircut since February.
(Rick laughing)
So, I'm a little concerned about that.
But more importantly, I mean, it's serious stuff.
I think the fatigue though, it's really starting to set in.
And I don't mean the stir-crazy, cabin fever fatigue.
It's the frustration of not being able to
be able to focus on the things you wanna focus on
because half of your day is distracted by
what are the numbers, what's the news saying?
How close are we to a cure?
Are we over the curve, are we flattened yet?
- And I know you and the team there,
are really close at PBC.
But it's difficult because you're not around as much, right?
So how are you, kind of, keeping the camaraderie
when you can't be in the same office?
You can't be real close on a job site.
Only so many people can be there.
How are you guys dealing with that?
- Our office manager, Angela, buys all of our,
she buys all of our office supplies in January.
I mean staples, paper, highlighters,
tape, but she also buys toilet paper.
She buys an entire year's worth of office toilet paper.
So, when the joke of we're running out
of toilet paper came around, Angela built the tote bags.
And she's got all these snacks and all
these energy bars and then a stash of candy.
So she has a year's worth of all the things
that you consume in a year
and she built everybody tote bags.
And in there she put some branded socks, some swag.
You know, it's like your mother would have sent ya
your freshman year of college, you know, the care package.
She's got little hand sanitizers.
So the care package was really to make sure
our coworkers felt loved and just 'cause we can't hang
out we are looking out for each other.
- That's super fun, I love that.
I love the dog with the socks on.
It's smart, you got a little branding on there.
I think that's good swag to give to your clients.
Have them running around with the socks too.
- We are, it's funny, when somebody sees the socks,
somebody saw something on social media on the socks.
And the next morning, of course,
the direct messages were, "Mail me these."
Of course, we have everyone's address, so they'll
probably be two or three pairs, a dozen pair
of socks going out next week.
And it's a local company here in town.
They make the socks for us.
We get to support them and we get to do,
I mean we got tons of hats, we've got tons
of golf shirts, we've got tons of things.
The socks were just another hook.
- That's super fun.
Now, what I want to talk to you about is
something we're gonna hopefully get the Houzz community
to participate in and that's the birdhouse contest.
Tell me about the birdhouse contest.
- We got a project that's very natural.
It's basically the woods in the middle of the city
and we've committed to protecting the site
and only building on a small portion.
And part of that though, was the wildlife
out there is phenomenal.
Now, all of our job sites, we always have waste
and we always have things left over.
So how do you upcycle some of that?
And some of our homes are really nice.
So there's always some high-end materials
that end up in the dumpster.
And everyone, you know, I gotta do something with.
And what we're gonna do with that,
is we're gonna make some birdhouses.
A Houzz TV worthy birdhouses, so be prepared.
Everyone in the company is building birdhouses.
Even some subcontractors are building birdhouses.
There's cash prizes, I mean, it's not just the glory,
it's the fame and fortune that comes
with being the birdhouse, the bird-Houzz--
- The bird-Houzz king, the birdhouse king (laughing).
- Naming rights of the bird-Houzz.
- I think we could do a whole documentary just on that.
- We could do our own little, like my Houzz episode
where we pull the top off and we kind of
have the different rooms.
You know, this is--
- Fly a drone over the bird house, right?
Go see the plans, the before and after, talk to the birds.
- You know, we might even have to put some cameras in here.
So we get some of those Nest cameras
or something in the birdhouse.
- There's all kinds of tie-ins we can do with this.
- Look, Houzz, you guys are so creative.
Your community has all the good ideas.
So, we'll toss up some birdhouses
and your team can figure out, the Houzz community
can figure out, how to make it rock and roll.
- I love it, we're gonna revisit that for sure.
I wanted to talk to you about the Tony Hawk episode.
And Tony's just, I mean, he's impacted so many people.
The guy's so down-to-earth, amazing athlete.
Give me a feel for what that experience was like.
- Well, I'm gonna go ahead and confess.
I went total fanboy and I tried to control myself.
Like, I even gave myself a pep talk,
my wife gave me a pep talk.
Everyone was like, "Look Dave, he's just
"another guys who puts his pants on just like you."
But I gotta tell you, I mean, that experience,
I remember every minute of it.
From showing up in his office and he comes
up the stairs and he's carrying a skateboard.
It's not like he had a skateboard at the office
and then he puts the skateboard in the locker
and takes out another skateboard.
I mean, he rolls up the steps with a skateboard.
He's like, "Hey, I'm Tony," and like the geek
that I am, I was like, "Oh dude,
"we've met before, Mt. Trashmore, 1986,
"you signed my T-shirt."
You know, I mean, I could not believe I was
in the presence of greatness.
And I think what was so nutty, when we were doing a lot
of it, it couldn't tell my kids what was up.
But my kids follow him, they know who Tony Hawk is.
My grandmother knows who Tony Hawk is.
So I think when you got a guy who not only does good
by the community, good by the sport,
but is still very relevant.
How can you not get excited about doing a project with him?
So how are Kerry and Brad doing in the new space?
Are they just loving, have you been there,
have you done a punch list yet?
- Fortunately, no punch list, so we're that good.
Just want to make sure I get that out there.
Kerry and Brad are amazing.
Brad is a police officer here in Wilmington.
Their daughter is still, you know, amazing
and as cute as can be.
And the whole family is just wonderful.
But we stay in touch with them,
we see them every once in a while.
They come to our parties and different socials.
So they've become real good friends
and they love their house.
They never miss an opportunity and they were so great.
- So Dave, what's exciting right now in your world?
We've got a lot of cool projects going.
It's the custom homes that is our day to day business.
But it also allows us to do some things
that are, I guess, I call them vanity projects.
They are things that are important to us.
They're things that may not be necessarily as profitable
as our core business or our core skillset.
But one of the things that has been really interesting,
and this is happening all over the country,
especially in the Southeast.
Is we have all these railbeds that were part
of the industrial growth of our communities.
And a lot of these railbeds are no longer used.
You know, industrial areas have moved
out of the downtown areas.
But you still have, I mean think of New York City,
with the High Line.
Well, in Wilmington we have kind of a Low Line.
We have a gulch that cuts through our downtown
and that has been sitting fallow
really since the '60s and '70s.
An icehouse, now this is where ice was made.
And then, coming and going, if you were shipping blueberries
from the middle of the state onto a ship,
you had to ice it down with ice.
And if you were bringing fish in from the ocean,
in through Wilmington, you had to ice it down
with ice before it worked its way in.
So this icehouse is kind of the anchor along the railbed
and around that we have been developing places
for people to live over the last several years.
And it's really a cool project.
In 2000, three people lived in this area.
You know, today 70 people live in this area.
And these are people who care about walkability.
They care about sustainability.
They love the fact that we were repurposing existing land
and not having to go out and create new land.
- Wow, that is just too cool.
Well thanks for taking a little bit of
time with us today.
Very excited to see the birdhouse project
and when are submissions due?
Submissions are due May 10th,
so we'll do the video submissions then.
There's a lot of coworkers who are
really taking it up a notch.
They are putting together some great ideas.
I haven't been able to see anything yet.
No one wants to share any of their ideas
but I think you'll be real impressed
when you see the video submission come out.
- All right, we'll do a little trailer for the birdhouses
and have the Houzz community vote on it.
Sure. - And the winner maybe we
can have some fun with that.
- Love it, we would love it.
- Well, thanks again Dave.
- Thank you, had a great time, keep up the good work.
- Thank you so much, we'll be back in touch in May.
Thanks buddy.