Interview: Yard Crasher Matt Blashaw talks with MyFixitUpLife

Mark and Theresa talk their love of outdoors and how to put a little magic into yards with Yard Crasher Matt Blashaw.

Mark: You’re back inside MyFixitUpLife with my wife Theresa. Whas’ up!

Theresa: You’re making me nervous, Mark.

Mark: My energy level is growing.

Theresa: Why?

Mark: Because we’re talking backyard DIY, and I want to go outside.

Theresa: Yes, I know. But you can’t go outside yet. It’s not recess time. You’re going to have to wait till the bell rings and you can go outside and play kickball with your friends. You have to sit in your seat like a good boy until we’re done.

Mark: I have to go to the bathroom.

Theresa: No you don’t.

Mark: I need a hall pass.

Theresa: No, because you’re just going to run out of the building. I don’t trust you. I bet Matt had the same problem.

Mark: Matt Blashaw, DIY Network, yard crasher, contractor extraordinare. Do you have a hall pass?

Matt Blashaw: Theresa, did you give Mark his Ritalin this morning? Or his …

Theresa: No. I think he might have snuck some extra coffee, too. I think it’s a little uncontrollable. But was recess your favorite, too, in school growing up?

Matt Blashaw: Oh, are you kidding me? I hated school. I love school. Kids, stay in school. But I would not be … I loved, recess time was my favorite time, because I could actually get outdoors, and I didn’t have to be inside of a classroom. Because I was ADD, and I still am attention deficit. So very hyperactive. That’s why Yard Crashers is a perfect show for me. Because like Mark could do 2 things at one time. I try to do 10 things at 1 time, so my brain runs at that level. It’s perfect for me.

Theresa: When you’re crashing a yard, you have to be doing 10 things at once, because those projects go fast and there’s so much going on. I have to say that a lot of my friends say that’s their favorite show to watch on the weekends. Get up on Saturday and just hang out and watch you work.

Matt Blashaw: That’s awesome. I love it. A lot of … It’s catching on, especially now in spring, people looking for ideas. I get asked the question all the time. They say, “Is it really a 2-day show?” And I look at them and I say, “Absolutely.” For all your listeners out there, it is a 2-day show. We start at 10:00, well, you know, 7 o’clock day 1, and we have to end at least 3 or 4 o’clock on day 2, because, I mean, it’s crazy. It’s full throttle home improvement. But hopefully giving people good ideas, good inspiration. It’s perfect for me, because by the end of it I’m actually tired, which is great.

Theresa: That’s a really good sign of a good project. One of the things I like, too, about your show is that you, on Yard Crashers, Matt, actually you call out and thank the contractors that are helping you, that are working behind the scenes and helping with all the projects, and they’re gathered around, and saying these are the people that helped do this. I think that is so awesome. I don’t see that on all the shows.

Matt Blashaw: You know, I am blessed to have such amazing crew that’s with me. These guys … It takes a special kind of contractor to be able to do a show and to have this much pressure on them. Because you’re cutting at lightning speed, and putting together and creating. It takes … I’ll say that we’ve weeded out quite a bit of contractors. But a lot of shows, yeah, you’re right. You can’t see, you don’t see the contractors. So now I get to show them the love. We get to show them their talents. I’m only as good as the talent that surrounds me, too, as well. I learn from these guys. We all learn from each other. We all create together. Sometimes we make these incredible things that by the end of it we look at it and go, oh my gosh, how awesome was that. Or by the end of it, we have arguments. But either or, I love working with these guys. It’s basically like capturing video of a speeding train. Whatever happens, that’s real stuff that happens there. I’m glad to show the love there.

Mark: Wow. First of all, I’m stacking up the questions that I have.

Theresa: Oh no.

Mark: Because as you talk, I go, “Wait. That’s a better question.”

Theresa: It’s like a lumber pile.

Mark: This is a better question. So I could either back up and ask you 9 questions, or I’ll just go to the last one in the index.

Matt Blashaw: I like it.

Mark: It’s this. You’re talking about cutting 100 miles an hour, and doing all this stuff. But things go wrong. There’s a gas line that you don’t know about, or whatever, water line underground. Can you remember, or say, what your biggest, “What is that?” moment. Why is there a geyser coming out of the roof moment.

Matt Blashaw: Well, Mark, it’s funny that you say gas line. I won’t say the city or the episode, because we’re not going to show it. It was actually pretty scary. We were in the back yard. This is what happened. We had a guy, when you … This is just a tip for people at home. If you’re going to do some digging in your house, call the number. I believe it’s 811. Sometimes it’s different. You’ve got to call the dig. Have them come out and mark your lines, electrical, gas, whatever. We did that, but the lines that came out, they didn’t flag it really well. What happens when you put 20 or 30 people back there, and we’re trying to do demo, those lines get done. Those lines get erased.

So there was a gas line that we were … We were having to auger, we were doing this really cool patio with these posts. We were having to go down 2 feet. We were getting, I was augering with the tractor. I got to the last one, and I looked at my contractor, and he marked them out. I said, “Hey, are we sure there’s no gas line?” He goes, “No. It runs along the fence.” I’m like, “You sure?” We should have looked back at pictures. All of a sudden, I’m digging through, and I just hear this pshhh. You literally see dust and dirt fly up. It hit a main gas line. I scream at the top of my lungs, “Everybody out of the backyard!” I mean just out. We all ran. You could hear it from blocks away, this seething. It just happened. We were going, and all of a sudden. So we called … The paramedics came out, the fire department they came and did it. What’s funny is I asked the fire department, I said, “Hey, is this something normal?” He goes, “Every day, man. Every day.”

Theresa: Oh no!

Matt Blashaw: Yeah. It happens around this area because they … This thing should have been put about 3 feet. It was put about a foot.

Mark: Oh yeah. Around here they’re 5 feet deep. So even if you build a deck right on top of it, which you shouldn’t do, there’s almost no chance that you’re going to hit it, because it’s that deep. But anyway …

Theresa: Wow. A foot.

Mark: Segue. Foot deep. What a disaster. So Matt, how about some easy to do DIY work, where, say, you don’t die.

Theresa: Oh, that’s a good thing. I like that feature.

Matt Blashaw: Here’s how to not blow up your house. Step one. I think that’s a real … That’s definitely a … It just happens. It just happens. What’s crazy is that that was in a different city, so we have different codes. You’ve got to be able to kind of … Who knows? This was one of those really quick neighborhoods that they just threw that stuff in. There should have been a lot more safeguards against it. What’s crazy is that was a 2-1/2 hour delay. We still got done in time. And it rained that day, too. Maybe if you guys will watch. It’s coming up in the new season here. You can try to see which episode it is. You’ll see at the beginning of the day I’m really, really happy. Then you see my brows and the wrinkles and the gray start to get a little bit darker by the end of the day. You’ll see the stress level. You’ll see which one I hit the gas line.

Theresa: You kind of look like that Expedia gnome by the end of the day.

Matt Blashaw: Exactly.

Theresa: Wait, is that a gnome in their yard? No, it’s Matt Blashaw.

Matt Blashaw: It’s just what happens.

Mark: Here’s a question, and actually a DIY-er asked this to me recently. We built a pergola recently. It says it on the bag of concrete. Pour it in there dry, and someday ground water will come in and mix the concrete and harden it up. I said to him, “I don’t like to do it that way.” Now I get to ask you, what do you like to do? What happens on Yard Crashers when you guys have to pour concrete for deck footing posts, or a pergola like we were doing, or something like that.

Matt Blashaw: Anything that requires, like if you have a 6 x 6 timber, something that’s really, really structural, that’s really going to have a really deep footing, 2, sometimes 3 foot footing, I’m going to want to mix my stuff up, and I’m going to want to mix it wet. Usually what I’ll do, if we’re pouring the patio, too, as well, you can do a 2 for 1. You can dig the holes. You can set your posts. Then you can build a form for your patio, so when the concrete truck comes in you can just pour it into the footers and pour your patio at the same time. But that’s very, very structural, and you have a lot of lift and uplift on that. If there’s fences and stuff that’s just a little bit lighter duty, there is, I believe Quickcrete. You have to look at the company. They make and formulate, because I actually talked to the guys that make it. They formulate a dry set, what’s called. You put the Quickcrete in, or the concrete in dry, and then you wet it down on top.

But if you’ve ever left a bag of concrete outside for an extended period of time, and it’s just outside getting moisture in there, by a couple weeks, 3 weeks, it’s usually as hard as a rock. So it will … The thing is to get all that cementateous material, all the aggregate, all that mixed up really, really good. If it’s heavy, heavy stuff, go with a wet set. If you just have really light duty, you can do it with a dry set, but just make sure it’s formulated for a dry set.

Theresa: Okay.

Mark: That makes sense.

Theresa: Yeah.

Mark: That makes sense.

Matt Blashaw: Does that make sense?

Mark: I get it.

Theresa: Yeah, definitely.

Mark: Fortunately, you answered the correct answer.

Theresa: Oh, ding, ding, ding. You won a fabulous prize!

Matt Blashaw: I chose wisely.

Theresa: You did.

Mark: Well, that’s what I told the guy, is that, it’s great that it goes in dry and it’ll mix someday. But the wind is going to blow right now. I want the concrete dry before whatever happens.

Matt Blashaw: Exactly.

Theresa: That’s good.

Mark: But you have been at Epcott doing some stuff down there with obviously Donald Duck, the real character, real person, Donald Duck, and a garden show. What is going on down there?

Matt Blashaw: I love Disney. First of all, I don’t know if you guys know this. I worked actually as a back stage tech for Disney, as a carpenter and a rigger for Disney when I was like 27, 28, 29, before I started my contracting business. I have a real personal connection with them. I just love Disney. I had my honeymoon at Disney. I’m a Disney freak, and fanatic. They have this thing called the … Every year they do, HGTV sponsors the International Flower and Garden Festival. They bring in the keynote speaker, one of the HGTV stars to come and do a talk. I was able to give some backyard … The name of my talk was “Putting Magic Into Your Yard.” I figured Disney, let’s do some magic, the whole waltz thing. So putting magic back into your yard, and really just trying to give people that step up in order to start their spring projects.

Theresa: So in the 2 minutes that we have left, what are some simple things that you, that we can do on the weekend to put a little magic into our yards?

Matt Blashaw: I’m loving, I give pops of color. I think what separates from a professional yard from just the normal yard is really adding that color. I told people, something you can do tomorrow is paint the back of your house. If you have a single-story house especially, don’t be afraid to paint the back of your house to really brighten it up. It’s like painting a room. Because no one’s going to see the front and back of your house at the same time. It’s just not going to happen. You can give your whole backyard a transformation with just painting the back of your house. You can also add, I’m into a lot of glazed pots. Glazed pots are awesome, because then you can add … And don’t just put glazed pots, you put plants in it, don’t just put it on the patio. Put it in your landscape, so that year round you can have color in your yard as well.

Also, if you have a drab slab, is what I like to call it. You know, these people just put down concrete. They’re sick of the gray. Go and get a masonry stain. You can warm it up with some caramel colors, some really warm Tuscan colors, by just rolling it on. You can change the whole look of that concrete and really give it some color. I think it’s really something to add back there. A lot of stuff. Then look for plants that have variegation to it. I don’t know if you know variegation. Variegation is a lot of different colors in the leaves, not necessarily the blooms. There’s one called the abelia kaliedescope, which is one. Another one called the, it’s a Chinese French flower that I’m really into, the laura petalum. A lot of things like that you can put into your yard. It just doesn’t have to be flowering, but it gives you color within the leaves, too, as well. I’m excited for spring, and I hope everyone just dives in. Watch Yard Crashers, get inspired, and let’s … Spring has sprung. Let’s start building.

Theresa: I think that those are awesome ideas that I think pretty much everybody can do on a quick weekend. We have to go to break.

Mark: Check out Matt’s show, Yard Crashers on DIY Network, and follow him on Twitter @MattBlashaw.

Theresa: Because we do.

Mark: Follow us. We’ll be right back. Growing big, on MyFixitUpLife.