DIY Network’s Jeff Devlin talks Kitchen & Bath Industry Show trends

‘I Hate My Bath’ host Jeff Devlin shares what he’s loving at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show.

Jeff Devlin: Every time I get a microphone near me I try to do my radio voice.

Mark: That’s not eerie at all.

Jeff Devlin: That is my radio voice.

Theresa: This is going out tonight for Cindy.  I love you.

Mark: We’re glowing with the light of friendship!

Jeff Devlin: The voice of God back there. (laughs) Sounds like an angel.

Mark: We are hanging out with our pal and good guy, and host of DIY Network‘s I Despise My Bathroom, Jeff Devlin.

Theresa: Oh. Name change?

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. You know what? When the name was decided upon, we were trying to figure out what was going to work for the show.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: We were trying to get creative.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: That wasn’t going to work. (laughter) We’re just right to the point. We hate your bathroom. Okay. Great.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: there it is. That’ll work.

Theresa: I do, too. I’ll tune in. I’ll tune in.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. That is is.

Mark: Yeah. You’re like that scene in the Grinch movie, where he’s screaming down at Whoville.

Jeff Devlin: Oh. The best movie ever.

Mark: Ebenezer Who, I hate you.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. I remember it well.

Mark: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: Kids watch that way too many times.

Mark: Oh. Millions of times.

Jeff Devlin: That’s a good summer movie.

Theresa: It is a good summer movie. Because like you’re hot-

Mark: Can I just say now that it took forty seconds to get off track with Jeff Devlin, that beats our previous record. (laughter)

Theresa: Okay. I’m excited-

Jeff Devlin: Focus.

Theresa: You’re on Twitter now.

Jeff Devlin: Thanks to you.

Theresa: I kind of forced you.

Jeff Devlin: Thanks to you.

Theresa: I totally did force him into it.

Mark: I know you did.

Theresa: Yeah. I did.

Jeff Devlin: You signed up, sent me the passwords, the whole deal. It was like, “Oh, by the way Jeff, here’s your new account, here’s your Twitter name.” I was hash-tagging and dollar signs and whatever the hell it was.

Theresa: I know. Dollar signs, everything. Because I wanted to tweet you. I wanted to tweet you so bad that I had to sign you up.

Jeff Devlin: This is getting awkward. Your husband’s right there. (laughs)

Mark: Yeah. I am sitting right here.

Theresa: Everyone who’s like listening, you have to follow. Because you have to get more followers, DIY Devlin.

Jeff Devlin: I do. I do. You know, it was tough in school to have friends. You know, I had to pay them, too. Now, I kind of figured maybe I’d have a couple extra. I’m growing. Every day is a new friend. That makes me happy.

Theresa: Your circle of friendship is growing.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. You know what? I have to be honest. The social network thing, like I’m not really that good at it. The more I do it, the more interesting it gets. The more companies that I get to meet. The more new products I get to see come out. It’s good. You know, I always thought it was like, “Hey, I’m having a hamburger for lunch, let’s tweet about it.”

Mark: Yeah. Exactly. That’s what you’re doing here at Design Construction week in KBIS, is you’re looking for new stuff for your forthcoming DIY Network show.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. I mean, this has been four years we’ve been- thank you DIY Network, for letting me do this for four years. To see the brand new products, to touch them, to feel them. Even some of them, before they ever come out. It’s awesome. It’s just life altering for some of us. You know, solutions in a bathroom. Look, there’s tile in a bathroom, there’s toilets in a bathroom. We’re trying to, obviously, always push the limit and new products. It’s not always the stuff that you see in front of the walls. It’s sometimes stuff behind the walls.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: How things are roughed in. How plumbing, you know, the introduction of Pex, for crying out loud. Like all these simple things have changed and revolutionized how we do stuff. Something like Shower Pans, the Schluter and stuff like that. The Noble, those companies, Tile Redi. The fact that now I can drop them in, a carpenter. I mean, let’s be honest, I started as a carpenter. I’m a wood-worker. I’m now tiling and doing stuff like that. The fact that it’s now put in my hands, in homeowner’s’s hands, that they’re making these products just like awesome.

Theresa: It’s great, too. Because viewers and fans want to see you doing something different every single time.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. Tell me about it.

Theresa: Every single time.

Jeff Devlin: There’s a little bit of pressure there occasionally.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: They’re like, “Hey. Come on. Can’t you do something different?” I’m like, “Yeah. Okay. Sure. Sure. ”

Mark: I’ll be flying in on a zip-line through the window.

Jeff Devlin: I will say this, you guys would be proud of me. It was a little bit ago, we put in a life-size wind chime inside as a divider, in somebody’s bathroom. Now, wait for it. Now here’s where Tim can appreciate this. Because not only did I take aluminum tubes and hang them, I actually did a G major scale and we cut them, and we tuned them with a guitar tuner and rung them. When you rake across it, it’s like ding, ding, ding. It like, it hits. Now the hard part about this is, is the homeowner that we got to do this, he was just having a baby, and he just sent me a text the other day and be like, “I have to take those things down. They’re just constantly hitting.” (laughter)

Theresa: It’s not as relaxing as you-

Jeff Devlin: It is if you’re gentle with it. When you’re a two year old, you’re not gentle with anything.

Mark: No. You just plow through that. They’re swinging around and smashing stuff.

Jeff Devlin: I’ll send people plans if you want to know how to do that. Just let me know, I’ll shoot you free plans.

Mark: Nice.

Theresa: That is awesome.

Mark: DIY Devlin on Twitter.

Theresa: Yep. Are you looking for anything for your house though?

Jeff Devlin: Yes.

Theresa: Are you like keeping it in the back of your mind? Because you’re going to be home now more.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah.

Theresa: A few days. Is your wife going to like have her-

Jeff Devlin: Oh. She has a list.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: I burned the first list, somehow another one came up. I started feeling bad. Because the tarp on my roof, it actually disintegrated and put a new tarp on the roof. (laughter) Now I think I have to really focus on actually doing a roof. I was holding out. I wanted to do cedar. I have an older house. I didn’t have the deep pockets to be able to do it. I was like, I’ll wait, I’ll wait, I’ll wait. I also have to redo the dormer, I have to do this and do that. I also kind of want to spend time with my kids, too. There’s that balance of when I’m home, what do I want to do? Do I want to, you know, sit and watch The Grinch with the kids, or do I want to get up and rip off my house?

Mark: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: I do want to do that, the tarp seems to be working for now. (laughter) You’ve never said, “Hey, Jeff, I’ll be over.”

Mark: No. No. I would never help you. I mean, there’d be no reason.

Jeff Devlin: We wouldn’t get anything done, to be quite honest with you.

Mark: Oh, it would be ridiculous. We’d never get up the ladder.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. No way in a million years.

Mark: No.

Theresa: Mark usually ends up doing roof projects when it’s like a hundred degrees out, or it’s like zero degrees out.

Mark: Yeah.

Theresa: If you find, you know, a day where it’s going to be excruciatingly hot or cold-

Jeff Devlin: Of course.

Theresa: He’ll come.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. The one this is

Theresa: athletic.

Jeff Devlin: I get up on the roof, I start sweating a little bit, quite honestly, I’m not good with heights. I’ve been up there, I’ve trimmed way higher than I should’ve, but I had to take a couple of drinks to get up there. Don’t do that at home. I’m not that comfortable with heights. I know now, what I’m comfortable with and what I’m not comfortable with.  The first time in my life I can say, I’m going to have somebody do that for me. Before, it was like a pride thing. I’m like, I going to do everything in my house. I got to be able to do this, I got to be able to do that.

Mark: You’d never finish.

Jeff Devlin: No. I have a high expectation of what I want my house to be. I got to the point where I was like, this is not going to work for me.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: It’s like when I solder a plumbing pipe, I’m like, oh my Lord, the whole thing

Mark: There’s no more solder left. What happened?

Theresa: Basically, you want Norm Abram to come over, and that would be good.

Jeff Devlin: Yes. I just want to sit near Norm. Truth be told, the real reason why I got into construction, was because of This Old House Norm Abram, Tom Silva, The Yankee Workshop, all that sort of stuff. Basically, I wasn’t very good in school. I knew I wanted to work with my hands. I sat down, started watching the show, started getting inspired. Never in a million years did I think I was going to get to be on TV. That was just sort of a fluke. Now I’m going to hunt them down. It’s going to get creepy.

Theresa: He’s here. He’s here.

Jeff Devlin: I know. When I see him, I might even tackle him.

Mark: He loves that, by the way.

Theresa: Yeah.

Mark: I’m sure he’s got security with him.

Theresa: Yeah. Can you imagine though? Because kids are watching you on DIY Network now, and they’re like, “I want to be like him.” How do you feel about that?

Mark: Is your super hero name-

Jeff Devlin: If they really knew me they- no. Look, I’m very blessed to get to do what I do. I really do love it when you see a homeowner get what you’re doing. It’s about showing them new products. It’s about showing them a new way to do something. It’s also about sometimes trying something different. Like we do things that are just … sometimes ridiculous. You know? I’ll be honest with you. It’s kind of thinking outside of that box that starts the creativity rolling. Like, yeah, you might not put orange paint on your wall normally, if you it in a can. Now you can do it and it’s like, okay, it’s really not that bad with the whole picture.

Theresa: Yeah.

Jeff Devlin: It’s getting people to think a little differently.

Theresa: Okay.

Jeff Devlin: Kind of like a smack in the back of the head.

Theresa: Yeah.

Mark: It’s like you don’t have to do the whole thing orange. You could do a feature wall.

Theresa: You could do a stripe. You could do a little something something. You could do it in like a picture frame. You could do all kinds of stuff with orange.

Jeff Devlin: You sell it with the hands.

Theresa: The hands. You got to do the hands. If you don’t do the hands. If you don’t do the hands, you just sit here. You don’t look like you really believe it.

Jeff Devlin: Yeah. Oh I believe it.

Mark: If you do this, there is no question that you believe what you’re talking about.

Theresa: I mean, it’s got to be true.

Jeff Devlin: Amen.

Theresa: It’s got to be true. For sure.

Jeff Devlin: Amen.

Theresa: Coming up on your show, what are we going to be turning into soon. Can you like give us little hints? No.

Mark: No hints. Okay. We’ll just sit quietly for the rest of the interview.

Jeff Devlin: I will say this. Each bathroom is different and unique. We always try to find something different to put in the bathroom. Meaning, it’s not always like … okay, we’re always going to use the toilet for a toilet. We’re starting to use-

Mark: You know what, Jeff?

Jeff Devlin: At least I hope you’re using- no sink use.

Mark: We digressed.

Jeff Devlin: Again.

Mark: Remember that zip-line I was talking about?

Jeff Devlin: It’s just trying something new. Because we get bored very simply. I mean, we don’t take our medication sometimes. When you put in the same beige tile over and over and over again, you’re like, you got to do something a little crazy. I think people expect that.

Theresa: In like the minute that we have left. Are bidets something that you think are going to come back into the United States, like a thing?

Jeff Devlin: Here’s the deal. Look. Can I say dingle-berries?

Theresa: Sure.

Jeff Devlin: Europeans did it right. It’s cleanliness is next to godliness, or whatever the saying is. It makes sense, right?

Theresa: Mm hmm.

Jeff Devlin: I don’t see with how small bathrooms are over here, I don’t see people plumbing in a separate bidet. I think that the features people with have a combination toilet and all that sort of stuff. I think it might come back. I would love to be the first person there to see my son test it out. Because he’s going to scream like a banshee. I think it’s going to be a learning curve, I’m going to duct tape him to the seat because he needs it.

Theresa: Yeah. They have like the heated seats with the music and all that

Jeff Devlin: Like literally, Kohler has a toilet that blows hot air on your feet while you’re going to the bathroom. That is cool and that’s where it’s going.

Theresa: Angels giving you massages.

Mark: We’ve got to blow a little cool air and make it happen right now. We’re taking a break. Check out Jeff Devlin at DIY Network.

Theresa: Follow him on Twitter, DIY Devlin.

Mark: Check us out after the break. We’ll be back with more MyFixitUpLife.