Luxury Living with Debrae Little

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This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The

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Music. Welcome to luxury living with Debray, where we explore the world of luxury interior design. I'm your host. Debray little, and today we're delighted to have Nathan Taylor, a leading general contractor who specializes in high end projects. Nathan's company is TFD construction. How are you today? I'm good. Debray, thanks for having me. Oh, you're welcome. I'm excited to delve into the world of luxury construction. So Nathan, can you tell me, how did you start your journey and what you drew you into working in the luxury market? Well, it started when I was just a kid. My father owned a drywall and painting company. When I was little, he started that, and I grew up scrapping drywall on the weekends as a 1012, year old boy, and he'd take me out to a job site and move that pile of scraps and put it in the dumpster. And so I would do that when I was young, and I just kind of grew up in the industry, and I wasn't a huge fan of going to college. That wasn't something that I really wanted to do. So afterwards, after high school, I served a mission for my church, came back and just went to work for my dad full time. And then when the economy decided to crash in 08 he shut down his drywall and painting company, and we did a few things for off and on for a couple of years, and then we decided to open up a general contracting company. So in 2012 we opened TFD construction, and have been doing that ever since, and our primary focus was always high end residential, because that's where my dad's drywall and painting company focus was, was high end residential, multi million dollar homes, things like that. So that's where we gained our experience for for high end luxury homes. And we just transitioned that into being a general contractor instead of a subcontractor. That's a great journey, though. I love that story that that will definitely appeal to a lot of the young folks who want to get into the construction business and and have aptit Probably not to attend college and still make it and be successful and enjoy business that's really true to their heart. You know, on on that point, there's a huge, huge problem with labor, skilled labor, in the construction industry, because for decades, we have raised our children to feel like they have to go to college. College is an important thing, and I'm not saying that that it's not because it is an important thing and people need to be educated, but there is a gigantic kind of hole where we have made it a bad thing to go into skilled labor and into trade labor, because, Oh, you didn't get a college degree. So you must not be smart. You must not be, you know, good or have value. So this is the fallback. This is fall back, and there's a huge labor shortage in the construction industry because of that, kids don't feel like they can go out and be part of the trades and learn how to take care of their family or provide for their family with their hands. And what a lot of people don't know is a skilled electrician, a skilled plumber, a skilled carpenter, they can make a six figure income, just like a doctor, maybe not quite to that extent, but you can make a six figure income and support your family very nicely. As a skilled tradesman, if you put in the work and the effort and learn what you're doing, right? I think that applies to just about anything that you decide you want to do. You have to put in the time and and the energy and you have to invest in yourself. Yeah, and basically what you're saying. So I have a question for you. So is your dad still involved in the business? He is, to an extent. He's trying to retire, and he's doing it's not that I won't let him. It's he wants to retire, but he doesn't want to retire. So he's doing a really bad job at retiring.

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But he is still involved. He he does a lot of our quality control, and he, he visits the jobs and, you know, identifies issues that need to be fixed, or, you know, whatever, before we get to a point where the homeowner, or you as the designer, come in and say, Hey, why does this look wrong? So he's kind of our first line of defense for.

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Quality Control and stuff, which is important everyone needs that. I think finishing work is utmost, utmost importance for me as a designer. I mean, I'd love to see all the I want to make sure that everything is fantastic behind the walls, that the plumbing is done right in the electrical but certainly when you walk in, you want to make sure that that finished product is up to your standards, and it looks great and it functions at the same time. And that's always the hard part, right? Because everybody focuses on the beginning, and they work out, oh well, we have all this electrical work that we need to get done, and we have the plumbing and the framing and all of that kind of stuff. It usually eats up the budget. So by the time you get to the finishes and you need to make changes, or there's a problem, lots of times you're running short on your budget because everybody's focused in the beginning instead of the end, where, if you focus on the end result from the very beginning, you're able to identify things before they become a problem and eat up your budget. Well, that makes sense. So then do you show your prospective clients the your finished product, as opposed to the work in progress. We try to. I mean, it really goes a long ways when clients aren't there during the beginning phases, because we're able to get things done. And they walk in and they go, what about this? What about this? What about this one? We're not done yet. You're looking at something that's not done, and they they tend to be, I don't know, excited about little things that maybe, in the end, aren't an issue, but to a homeowner, everything that they do is an issue because they're emotionally involved. It's their home, right? And so that's, you know, that's one of the things you have to juggle. Well, yeah, that's true. That brings an important point, because you know you have the vision and the designer has the vision, but the client is only looking at the end result. They don't have the vision and they don't nor do they understand the process, which is a question I have for you, how do you handle clients in terms of

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keeping them in the loop and letting them know what's going on. How do you normally communicate with them and you manage their expectations during a project? There's a number of different ways that we we try and disseminate that information. So first and foremost, it's on site meetings with our clients from the very beginning, being involved in their some of their design choices and some of those things, we try and help them see that certain choices are better than other choices.

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They might want to see something done a certain way. And in the end, if we do it a different way, we still end up with the same result, but we did it in a way that was more budget friendly, more

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gave us the better result in the end. But we communicate with email. We communicate through text messages, pictures that we send them and updates. Sometimes it depends on the type of job that we're doing. So if we as the general contractor are running the entire job, then we have a much more involved relationship with the client, where, if we're working in tandem with a designer such as yourself, projects that we've worked on with you in the past,

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a lot of the client back and forth is done through you, the designer, and we just give you our input, and then you are the liaison to the homeowner. So there's you know, each project is so different that it has to be approached in a very specific way to that client. So some clients want to be super involved. Some people don't. Some people, you know, live out of state, and they're like, just get it done, and I'm happy to come and see the end result. So

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it just really depends. We have some project management software where we are able to send out information to our clients and things like that that help with that communication, because communication is the key to any successful project. No, I totally agree, and sometimes I find that designers can be a nice

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buffer between you and the client situation for sure. What's the key differences between managing a luxury project versus, say, a standard one? How do you ensure that these standards are the higher standards are met throughout the process?

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There's a saying that we get told in the construction industry the difference between a custom luxury contractor and a Track Builder is like 27 details, right? It's all in the details. Do you take care to prep your woodwork correctly? Do you take care to, you know, hang your drywall in specific ways that allows for a better finish? Do you make sure that your framers using, you know, a higher quality lumber that may be a little bit more expensive, but in the end, it gives you a straighter, flatter wall, types of things like that. It's in the details. That's how you make the name for yourself, and it's in running a clean project. So one of the things that we pride ourselves.

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In on our projects are being is being very clean and tidy. So at the end of the day, when you're doing a remodel, for instance, on a home, when the homeowner gets home from work or whatever, they don't want to come into an absolute disaster, right? They're living through chaos and through construction, and that's a hard thing to begin with. And then you add dirt and debris and clutter, and you know, any number of things onto that, and it just creates a more stressful environment for them to live through. So we focus a lot on maintaining a very clean work site, and that has gone just leaps and bounds beyond what most other experiences for our clients have been in the past. So keeping that job site clean makes a big difference, and it allows you to see where you're at at the end of the day, instead of, you know, missing some of those small details. Yeah, well, I've had those experiences where we're missing big details out of boxes where they have been they've been lying around, and the screws that you need, or the whatever equipment that you need to hang something is no longer there because someone has tossed it, because they didn't bother to open up the box and kind of set things up and to make sure you had everything, have everything that you need so that you can do your job. And in a clean job site, it's much easier to identify what you need to keep and what you don't otherwise, everything just looks like junk and it gets thrown in the ground. No, it does. Can you give me an example of a project

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that that you've working on or have worked on in the past, that that requires a high degree of customization in today's market, a lot of the affluent clientele are customizing where they're my side of things and the design side, I find that they're customizing rugs and we're dying rugs, or we're cutting rugs, or we're doing all this customization, which is different than someone who just, You know, has a standard track home, and then you're just going to go in and do and size the rug, and you lay it in onto the floor, and then, you know, add your furniture. There's a lot of customization, even when it comes to LED lighting or cabinetry that's being built. So what's your experience has been? Because I'm finding that that's more trend oriented these days than the standard, even with refrigerators or appliances or anything else. Yeah. So we have a couple of projects, one that we are getting ready to start here in the next month or so that is very customized. We're remodeling the outside of a home, and the details that are going into the remodel of this home are, everything is custom. Nothing is bought off the shelf. Everything is is designed specifically for either the space that it's going in or the the part of the home that we're remodeling. So for instance, we're taking all of the eaves, and we're they right now. They have two steps in the eaves. Were reframing the eaves just, just what is an eave for our audience that does so the Eve is the overhang part of the roof that comes from the wall and extends out over which allows the rain to fall off of the house instead of onto the to the wall of the house. So that's the Eve, the little kind of vertical part of the roof that hangs out past the wall. So we're reframing those to make them bigger and more One Piece, instead of two steps into eaves and very technical. And then we're putting a composite wood on the bottom of them, which is a challenge in and of itself, because that's not a typical usage for composite wood. So a lot of the materials that we've had to source have because we live in the Las Vegas climate and we have very high heat issues that we have to deal with, especially on roof lines and on the outside of a home, you know, finding products that are able to withstand that heat and still be, you know, achieve the the look that the designer's going for and those types of things, they're very difficult to accommodate. So very customized putting up fencing that is in Las Vegas, we don't put a lot of fencing up, right? All of the fencing that you see in Las Vegas, for the most part, is cinderblock wall fencing, right? That's pretty typical. So this particular owner wants something that doesn't look like cinderblock, and so we're putting up a composite wood fence. Well again, heat issues, material sourcing, that type of thing, trying to find the appropriate products to achieve the look that they're going for. So very, very customized in what we're doing, a lot of LED lighting, like you said, faux beams that we're manufacturing from scratch, because you can't just go buy a beam and stick it on a wall or on the ceiling. I think it's exciting. It's exciting to see all the new trends and things that are coming and to vogue right now. So I'm all about that, and I usually see that in the luxury market, absolutely. Let me talk.

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About sustainability.

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I had done some preliminary research earlier in the year looking at what the new luxury owner market is looking for and the younger generation. If I can say that word is looking for sustainability, they're looking for recycled material that's being used in their home. And what are your thoughts on that? And have you seen that? I'm starting to see that as being a big deal. I mean, there's a trend of of having Japan D, which is a combination of Scandinavian design as well as Japanese design, and they're going back to real furniture and real pieces that are made with craftsmanship and and that type of thing. But it's all about that sustainability and where this material came from, from, what forest and how is it treated? And, you know, also in terms of how is it treated, if there's,

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like, off gasses, if that's such a thing, or urethane, when you, you know, install a floor and you're using a top coat and those kind of things. But what are your thoughts on that? I think there's a big trend moving towards some of those more sustainable products.

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It creates issues in the construction industry, because a lot of those sustainable building materials are much more difficult to work with. They they don't give you the same look. They don't react the same ways. A good example was back in the 70s, before, I think it was 1976

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or 1978

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there was lead in the paint. Right? Everybody's familiar with leaded paint and the hassles you have because, you know, you can't just remove lead paint. It's a big deal. It's it's because it's deadly to people, right? But the paint itself was so far superior to the paints that we encodings we have today, because the lead that was in it created that glassy, smooth look on all your finishes that everybody loves, right? They love that. But when you took the lead out of the paint, now you can't brush it, and that's why 90% of the woodwork that you see painted nowadays has brush marks in it. And the painters tell you, Well, I can't get rid of the brush marks. Well, it's because there's no lead in the paint. It's the way that it was manufactured. Am I saying we should put lead back in our paint? No, I'm not, but those sustainable products and those newer types of technologies come with their own sets of drawbacks. And sustainable products are great if they're recycled and you can achieve the same look and do the same things that you can then, by all means, you use the sustainable product. You know it's better for the environment. Nobody wants to go down and deforest the the world. That's not what we're trying to do.

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So sustainable products are a great, great thing, but they do come with challenges in the in the construction side of things that make building harder and, in some cases more expensive. I don't know if you've noticed in sourcing products for your projects, that if it's sustainable, nine times out of 10 is more expensive because of the production costs and the workability and all of those things. So it makes it more expensive. And in today's world where everything is substantially more expensive than it was four years ago, it makes bringing a project in on budget or under budget, really, really difficult,

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but they have their place. Now. They do have their place. It's almost similar to going to the supermarket and buying regular eggs versus organic. I mean, there's a cost variance between the two, you know, and you that's a decision you just have to make that you feel comfortable with in your life about things like that.

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Can you basically give me an example of a project that's been that's been fairly complex, that was, well, that was complex, and how did you handle it? I mean, I find oftentimes that as a designer there you're trying to manage expectations, and you have a client who is paying you to make them happy. Yeah, you know you have to please them. That's part of your job. And so if you could think to a project that maybe that you've had recently or in the past, that posed question problems with either on the construction side or personnel or or having to deal with a client, you can answer it on any of those areas in terms of what's your best way? And I know we talked about communication earlier, but what is the best way to to to calm the the nerves of a client, or to bring a project back together when it seems like it's just falling apart due to availability of supplies, or whatever the case may be. So early on in our history as a general contractor, we had a project where we were remodeling this couple's home and basically doing the master suite the bedroom math.

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Bathroom, the whole thing, it was a really large project, and it was really complicated with the way that they wanted the finishes to go in. Everything was natural limestone on the floors, on the walls. They had some river rock stuff running through it that was super technical, a bunch of HVAC work that had to be relocated because of the redesign of the master suite, some new exterior doors going onto a patio. So it was pretty complicated, and the homeowner was very, very insistent that we start as soon as possible. They really wanted to have things done before a certain time. The project required plans and a permit, and we had submitted the plans we were waiting on the county jurisdiction to get us the permit. We had a permit number, and they said, You got to start. And we're like, well, we can only go so far before we have to get an inspection. We know, you know, the county's slow. They're working through some things. We were like, 80% there for getting the permit. So we didn't have a problem starting with the demolition and getting some of the, you know, the structure, part of the job done, but we got to a point, after about three weeks worth of work that we couldn't go any further because we needed inspections, and we still didn't have our permit, and we were waiting on the county, and we told the homeowner when we started, this is a possibility. If we don't have our permit, we'll get to a point where we can't work, and we're going to pull off the job until we have the permit so we can get our inspections.

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And the homeowner was fine with it, until we had to pull off the job.

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So we got to a point where we couldn't go any further because we needed inspections. And so we're like, look, we can't do anything. We'll be back as soon as the permits issued. We're here the next day, you know, we'll call the inspections. We have the inspector come, and then we Off we go. It sat for six weeks waiting for the county to issue the final permit so that we could call an inspection. And in that six weeks, every single day was a text message or an email or a phone call from the owner, what's going on, what's going on, what's going on. And everyone got more frustrating and more frustrating on them, not on us, but they were more frustrated every single day, to a point where they were threatening to fire us from the project because we weren't doing anything. And that was that was really hard, and it was a learning experience, because this happened, like, I don't know, nine months after we started our general contracting company, so we were still kind of new to the scene, right? We were trying to keep a homeowner happy by starting but then we ended up making things worse because of the delays that we had that took a lot of talking and, you know, sitting down with them and really explaining to them and showing them the emails back and forth between us and the county, and all of the things to really help them understand that. Look, this isn't us. We're not doing this just because we don't want to be on your project. Last thing we want to do is walk off a project. We want to be here finish it because we don't get paid until we're done. You know, that's one of the reasons why we're there. So I think we've, I've had those experiences of trying to make projects go faster, and sometimes everything seems to go wrong, but if you can, you know, hopefully

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make the customer understand what you're going through and involve him in the whole process, and explain to him what a permit is and how it take, how long it takes an inspection, and hopefully that would would help with that whole process, but it but it does happen. It was hard, and it took a lot of lot of time and a lot of frustrating back and forth before we were able to work through it. Then we got our permit, got the inspections, and off we went. And you know, in the end, it was fine, but it was a learning experience for us and for them, obviously, for future work that they would end up doing. But for us, it, you know, we we learned how to manage those expectations better, and so now on projects that we go into from the very beginning, I'm very upfront with people about the process, sometimes to my detriment, right? Because people don't want to hear that. This is what the reality is. They want to hear the HGTV version of what's going to happen to their house. They don't want, they don't want the reality. Because when you tell them the reality, they go, I don't want to deal with that. And then they either cancel the project, or they try and find somebody else to do the project, or it goes sideways. I've had that happen a number of times, but I would rather have a project go sideways and we not get it, than get into a project and have a homeowner that has unreal expectations, and that can be an even worse situation in the end. Yeah, I think so. So what to just to wrap this up a little bit,

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if I'm a homeowner and I'm looking to hire a contractor, what what should I be looking for? What can you recommend to our listening audience of what they should do, and what are the steps, and how do they select the right contractor? There's,

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there's many, many things that go into that, but I think what homeowners need to really understand.

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It is that nine times out of 10 the lowest price is not the correct price. There's always going to be somebody that will come in cheaper, whether it's because they're not licensed, or they're cutting corners or they're using inferior products, there's always someone that will be cheaper. So the cheapest guy is not usually the right guy to pick. So that's number one.

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Number two is make sure that when you meet the person, you feel good about them. If they throw out excuses or, you know, different types of things go with your gut, because nine times out of 10 your gut is right, and most people have a pretty good sense of, hey, I trust this person, I like this person, I think they'll do a good job versus

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this guy's a fast talker, or this person doesn't do things right, you know, do some research. Make sure that they have a license and that they're using licensed subcontractors. Those are super important things.

Unknown Speaker 25:54
One of the biggest issues we have in in Las Vegas specifically, is unlicensed contractors. There are 1000s of them out there working without licenses. And just because your general contractor is licensed doesn't mean your subcontractors are licensed, right? So you want to make sure that the general contractor is upfront about using licensed subcontractors, those types of things. That's number two. And then number three is being realistic about what you want for the budget that you have. That's one of the hardest things that homeowners can't seem to get past. They want the HGTV version or the Pinterest version of their kitchen, but their budget is, you know, a third of what it actually costs to do it. Yeah, yeah. They get a coke instead of champagne, right? So that's really hard for homeowners to understand that that false reality that those TV shows have created and Pinterest has created, you don't get those pictures for the budget that you have most of the time. So if you can be realistic about your budget and understand that when somebody comes to you and says, Hey, this bathroom remodel is going to cost you $85,000

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and you go, Well, I only had 30 Well, you don't have enough money to do the project, or you have to scale back the scope of what you're doing substantially in order to meet your budget. There's two options in construction, and in most things, you get three out. There's three options. You have quality, you have cost, and you have time and you get to pick two of the three, that's it. You don't get all three. So you have to choose which way you want to go with your project. So they have to have a priority. Not only do they need a wish list that they've accumulated from Pinterest, they also need to actually have be realistic about what their budget is, yeah, and be honest and have an upfront conversation with your contractors that are bidding the project. One of the hardest things as a contractor is to go into a project, especially a design build project, where you walk into a person's bathroom, for instance, and they go, I want to do this, and I want to do this, and I want to do this, and I want to do this. And as the contractor, you go, okay, I can bid all those things. And then at the end of the day, you send your bid in, and they go, Well, I sent this other contractor said he could do all the same things for half the cost. It's not possible. Somehow there was a miscommunication or a vision that got sidetracked or was looked at differently. So making sure that you're being honest and upfront with your contractors and saying, Look, I have $100,000 to do this project. So what can I do for the $100,000 that allows us as contractors to go, Okay, well, you can do this, this and this, but you don't get these other three things that you wanted because it doesn't fit in the budget. But if you just say, well, I'll just see where your budget comes in, you're gonna get numbers from five different people seven different ways. So they need to prioritize their their wants and their desires. Yeah, well, I have to say thank you so much for visiting with us today. Nathan once again. This is Nathan Taylor from TFD construction, and I've had the pleasure of working with him on some of my design projects. And I will let him tell you how you can reach out to him. So you can reach us@tfdgc.com

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or you can call our office at 702-701-9982

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or my cell phone is available at 702-204-2059

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we are a licensed general contractor. We also hold a an electrical license. So we do electrical work as well as general contracting, residential, commercial, ground up, remodels, the whole deal. Thank you so much. Nathan Taylor from TFD construction for sharing your insights and experiences with us today. It's been a pleasure learning more about your work and the impact you're making in the luxury interior design world. And to our listeners, stay tuned for more episodes of luxury living with Debray on K, U, N, V, 91.5,

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every third Sunday at 9:30am

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Thank you. Applause.

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