Million Dollar Contractor Stephen Fanuka shares home trends for 2014
Stephen Fanuka talks 2014 home trends, reclaimed wood and Million Dollar Contractor with MyFixitUpLife hosts Mark and Theresa
Mark: And you’re back inside MyFixitUpLife with my trendy wife Theresa.
Theresa: Trendy?
Mark: Your a trend setter.
Stephen: Trendy Theresa.
Theresa: I know and that’s the sound of our guest on the line Stephen Fanuka. How are you?
Stephen: Not bad. How are you Theresa? Happy New Year to you both.
Theresa: Happy New Year to you. I’m very excited. We’re in 2014, we made it, congratulations. Mark?
Stephen: Congratulations. It’s an order. Yes, we’re going to make it in 2014 right into 2015 real quick.
Theresa: We are. It’s going to go by so fast.
Mark: So Stephen Fanuka for the Million Dollar Contractor, you must be working so far out on these projects that really 2015, not that far away for you.
Stephen: No, not at all. We always try to be outside the box. We’re always trying to be ahead of the curve and our main goal is just to keep inspiring everybody else to inspire us right back.
Theresa: So if you’re working so far out and you’re inspiring us which I love, we’re talking about 2014 home trends, so you don’t have to really look into your crystal ball, you can just sort of look on your computer to find out what you’re doing. So what are we going to be all wanting and loving this year?
Stephen: This year, we are going to be taking the reclaimed wood that you’re seeing being installed outside these past 
few years coming inside. We’re starting to put reclaimed wood up on the walls, on the ceilings, on cabinets, everything from oak to pine, to mahogany. Anything we can find that’s historic and old, we’re reclaiming it and we’re bringing in yours including Ipe.
Theresa: I think that my husband just fell in love with you a little bit for saying that.
Mark: I love that stuff. I love it.
Stephen: I love you Mark. Men, group hug.
Mark: The bromance continues.
Theresa: That hug that guys deal with the back slap.
Mark: Yeah, that’s a radio back slap right there.
Stephen: I got one better. Not only we’re putting in walls, we’re using it on … If you got a wood like Ipe, which you know is resistant and impervious to the outdoor conditions because it’s really start outside Ipe. We’re using it on backsplashes in kitchens.
Mark: Are you kidding me? Are you edge joining it? Are you tongue and groove or all kinds of stuff?
Stephen: You can tongue and groove it but you can edge joint it as well because, remember, it’s not really dealing with the weather more, it’s inside, but the best thing is it’s in the future baby. You are here, it’s now, bring your all indoors and we’re reclaiming everything.
Theresa: The reclaimed wood look is fabulous and I love it so and I think I love it more than I used to because of my husband and his sort of passion for it. To balance that out, is there anything that’s sort of happening with shinier surfaces and stuff to sort of balance that look out?
Stephen: No. A lot of people are taking polished stone. The matter of fact Theresa what they’re doing is they’re taking polished stone and they’re taking the shine out of it, they’re honing it.
Theresa: Really?
Mark: That’s unbelievable.
Stephen: I’ll tell you something. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of the idea because as you will know, a polished surface is the actual natural feeling of the stone itself. So when you go honing, you actually have to apply an artificial sealer. 
What’s going to happen is that artificial sealer is going to protect it in the long run. So you’re actually taking a step back to create something and then having to go step forward to make it last.
Theresa: So that’s a lot of extra work to make it look like it’s really worn. I kind of like that in a way.
Mark: Of course, we’re married and Stephen we’re going to fight for a second now. Anything that would require me to do more work to get to the same place, that’s the root we take.
Theresa: I like it. That makes sense.
Stephen: A happy DIY wife is a happy DIY life.
Theresa: That is so true.
Stephen: You asked me to bend down. I tell you how low do you want me to go.
Mark: Just parking lot underneath the bottom of the ocean.
Stephen: You got it.
Theresa: Are we seeing these home trends on your show too, Million Dollar Contractor?
Stephen: Yup, season 4 we’re actually doing a project now with Erin Heatherton, she’s a Victoria Secret supermodel and she wanted a wood look but not something new so we came up with the idea. I just finish
ed the 14,000 square foot house that was on season 3 and I was using reclaimed wood and I said, “You know what? I would love to bring the reclaimed wood inside.” She loved the idea. It took us forever to find the right boards because we wanted perfect boards. We wanted six inch wide width and then we wanted to match solid beams on the ceilings.
It took us some time but you go to the yard, you handpick them. I never let anybody give me what they want. I go to yards and I pick them out personally and that’s different.
Theresa: When they see you coming, do they get nervous when you’re picking out wood because, bet, you’re so picky.
Stephen: I don’t usually have one person helping me, it’s usually a half dozen helping me. To be honest with you and the one thing you have to remember about reclaimed wood if you’re going to still like you need a hundred square feet, you really should be buying 150 square feet. So you have 50% wastage, so you have to keep that in mind, but reclaimed wood is inexpensive. If you take the reclaimed Mark and Theresa, if you take it and you sand it down, it starts to look petrified. It starts to feel petrified and speaking of shine Theresa, if you sand down a reclaimed oak board that’s fuzzy and you can get a splinter on it, if you sand it down with a hand sander, it’s going to give you a shine as if it was smooth, petrified and waxed and that’s we’re doing to it.
Theresa: I think I just fell in love with you a little bit right there.
Mark: So you’re taking boards with like saw texture and saw marks and that kind of thing that came off a barn maybe or a part of a timber frame?
Stephen: Exactly.
Mark: Are you running them through a planer and then hit them with a sander?
Stephen: Sometimes, we only have to run them through a planer. What I tell people is try with the hand sander before you ran it to the planer because you may actually like the look that you’re going to get. But because you’re sanding it down with the hand sander, you’re actually fold closing the pores making it smooth and you really … You get this low luster sheen that imply that there has been wax applied to it when there is no wax.
Mark: That’s how I like my irony. Stephen Fanuka, Million Dollar Contractor, nothing you do is low-luster. You’re spirit, your energy, your projects, your dialed on this on the trends, we love it man.
Theresa: Yes we do.
Stephen: Mark, Theresa you understand and we both do this for one reason. It’s about inspiring others. Not every job is a million dollars, but if you take other people’s opinion and you inspire from them and then you take it a step further, it becomes a million dollar idea and it’s the value in itself, not the actual monetary value. We do this. We’re not on this talking because we’re going to make a million dollars, we’re here talking because you, myself, we want other people to feel like they just earned a million dollars just hanging around us for a little bit.
Theresa: I love it.
Mark: And that is priceless.
Theresa: That is priceless.
Mark: We’ll be back with more MyFixitUpLife. Check out Stephen Fanuka at Twitter @stephenfanuka and we got to go. We’ll be back in a minute with more MyFixitUpLife.
