Ahmed Hassan shares his take on outdoor living and tales from million dollar projects.
Mark: You’re inside MyFixitUpLife and we’re inside theDaVinci Roofscapesbooth inside design construction week, the first ever. We’re digging in …
Theresa: We are.
Mark: And we’re getting dirty.
Theresa: We are getting dirty and I’m excited because usually the international builders show, kitchen and bath show, we don’t talk about landscaping at all. We don’t talk about dirt, we don’t talk about getting all in it and everything.
Ahmed: It’s a builders show.
Theresa: I know.
Damon Lang:We’re builders though.
Theresa: We not embracing. That’s such an important part of the exterior of your home, having a gorgeous landscape and you guys are rocking it. You’re like-
Ahmed: She should be our salesperson.
Mark: Yeah.
Theresa: You’re like the landscape gods.
Mark: By the way, I met Hassan and David Lang.
Damon: Damon.
Mark: Damon, God I wrote it down.
Damon: David, Damon.
Mark: Damon, I don’t know, do we follow you on Twitter?
Theresa: We do, I just did !
Damon: We just sat here for five minutes and we all got each other’s Twitter handles.
Theresa: Oh, wait, I have got your first. What is your other Twitter handle?
Damon: The GPL.
Theresa: GPL …
Damon: Las Vegas, yes.
Theresa: Las Vegas, so follow him at GPL Las Vegas-
Damon: Thank you.
Theresa: To make up for us not getting your name correct.
Damon: Yeah, you’ve got to do it three more times.
Mark: Landscape expert installer, personality, landscape designer.
Damon: Boom.
Theresa: There you go!
Damon: I call myself a green industry hype man.
Theresa: Ah, now are you-
Damon: I’m like the Flavor Flav of landscaping.
Theresa: Do you have an action figure?
Damon: An action clause. If you don’t know who Flavor Flav is, then you are way too young.
Mark: Dude, do you have a giant shovel? You just hang on?
Damon: No, it’s all good.
Ahmed: Damon and I, we’re doing two presentations here today at the International Builders Show. Our stage is about three inches off the ground.
Damon: Yeah
Ahmed: Two to three inches off the ground.
Theresa: What’s the footing on that?
Ahmed: Twelve inches.
Mark: Did you have to pour concrete?
Ahmed: It’s a simple deck. We’re in Ply Gem’s booth. Ply Gem is known for, they make windows, they do siding, and they also have a few outdoor living products, which is primarily their vinyl and PCV fencing and they also have a whole slew of veneer products.
Damon: Yeah, veneer.
Theresa: Okay.
Ahmed: Stuff that we’re doing in facing. These days, landscapers, designers, people like Damon and I, though we grew up doing simple landscapes, you know, plant some trees, put some shrubs in, maybe put in a little lawn and sprinkler system, these days everybody wants outdoor living. Now we have to be general contractors. We do landscaping.
Theresa: Building outside.
Mark: On the outside.
Ahmed: We’re basically doing, we’re creating all of the accoutrements that you want to have inside your house, but we’re going to build it outside.
Theresa: You’re literally building a house outside that just doesn’t have permanent walls. Is that literally what you’re doing?
Ahmed: Right, but it has a roof.
Theresa: Because it has a roof?
Ahmed: Yeah, it doesn’t have a roof specifically.
Damon: Sometimes it does.
Ahmed: Sometimes we have walls too.
Mark: You’re running pipe, you’re running wire, running conduit.
Ahmed: We have electrical now in our landscapes. You’ve got irrigation. You’ve got drainage. That’s the infrastructure. If you want some automation, then you’ve got to have wiring or landscape lighting. All of that is infrastructure like you have in a house.
Theresa: Do you do outdoor bathrooms too, like, totally out there? People are taking baths out in the
Damon: I have.
Ahmed: Brothers, do we need outdoor bathrooms?
Mark: The answer is yes! Even if it’s no, say yes, because that’s what I’m building the rest of this show
Theresa: I thought a real man doesn’t need an outdoor bath, like, the world is your urinal.
Ahmed: Well, right, but we build them for the women.
Theresa: Do people actually ask for-
Ahmed: And then when it’s busy, we go use the shrub like we’ve been doing since the beginning of time.
Theresa: A bathtub outside that’s not like encased at all?
Ahmed: Yep.
Theresa: People literally are taking baths in their backyard?
Ahmed: Totally, yeah.
Theresa: Nice.
Ahmed: Outdoor tubs, outdoor showers, saunas
Mark: Outdoor showers
Ahmed: Literally, everything indoors, we do outdoors.
Theresa: Therapy and everything?
Ahmed: Damon is a Las Vegas fabulous, bad-to-the-bone designer. Every show I’ve ever done in Vegas, is with this guy.
Damon: You said, “Genius,” one time.
Ahmed: I’m not saying that today, though.
Damon: Okay.
Ahmed: I mean, he does some phenomenal work. It’s Vegas, right? And Vegas is known to be over the top, right?
Damon: Exactly.
Ahmed: You walk through these hotels, you see these wonderful arrangements of, “Oh, my God” everywhere, and people want that now in their yards.
Theresa: Crazy.
Ahmed: It is.
Theresa: What’s your yard like?
Ahmed: Next question.
Mark: Clearly, it looks like ours.
Ahmed: My yard is really-
Mark: Yeah.
Theresa: Is it a work in progress?
Ahmed: Let me tell you what I tell my wife and our three kids and everyone else. I make money doing other people’s yards. I spend money at home. Actually, we just bought a new home in October and I have the most beautiful, spectacular view of the Sierra’s. I live about 30 minutes east of Sacramento in California. Beautiful view. Just keep looking at the view. Don’t look down at the landscape. Not this year.
Mark: Do you live near Cool California?
Ahmed: I do.
Mark: We have a-
Theresa: We have a great friend who lives in Cool. He’s very cool.
Mark: All right, I’ll get him over here. Maybe you guys are neighbors.
Ahmed: Yeah, Cool is an area where there is a ton of switchbacks up in the mountains and apparently it’s very cool.
Theresa: Okay, so I want to know-
Mark: He lives outside.
Ahmed: Sounds cool.
Theresa: I want to know though, do you not show your wife and children the projects that you guys are doing so that she doesn’t know how awesome things are or could be?
Ahmed: She does. She knows.
Ahmed: Yeah, how do you get away with that?
I have two good excuses. For my clients, it’s their budget and on TV, it’s the networks budget. At home it’s our budget, babe.
Theresa: Ahhh.
Mark: Moving on.
Ahmed: Is there anything else we want to do?
Mark: Okay, so you’ve done a million projects, TV, all over the place. Most over-the-top mind-blowing project you think you guys have worked on.
Ahmed: Oh, Damon, you go first, because we were talking about this earlier.
Damon: Yeah, I know, the question has come up a couple of times.
Ahmed: The budget it on it too.
Damon: I’m currently wrapping up a $700,000 plus landscape project.
Ahmed: $700,000 budget.
Damon: Yes.
Theresa: I’m sorry, excuse me?
Damon: Yeah, I know, it’s so awesome!
Theresa: Is that paid in cash?
Ahmed: He said he’s wrapping up.
Damon: That’s what’s in my backyard.
Theresa: Oh, nice.
Ahmed: Is the cash.
Mark: Do you take checks?
Damon: We have everything.
Theresa: Wow.
Damon: Just like we mentioned, the shower, the tub, the sauna, the kitchen is better than their kitchen inside.
Ahmed: That’s ridiculous.
Damon: Whatever. They wanted it all.
Mark: Did you bring the Colorado River in there?
Damon: Yeah, we did.
Ahmed: And re-routed it.
Damon: We re-routed it.
Ahmed: To run up hill.
Damon: We’ve done things you’ve never seen before. It’s actually really
I’ve never done a project of that size, that caliber. I’m working on-
Theresa: What happened?
Damon: I’m not in Vegas.
Mark: Dude, man up!
Damon: I’m working on a $200,000 landscape, which is the largest one I’ll ever do. It’s probably a $300,000 project.
Ahmed: You don’t know that yet. You might get a bigger one after that.
Damon: Well, we’ll see.
Theresa: You’ve got to keep fishing. There’s big fish out there.
Ahmed: That’s what we’re working on now. Actually, we’re doing a ton of web and promotional video as part of this build, because I love to showcase landscaping. I love to teach people, to talk about it, to showcase the professionals, the trends, how we get the work done. I just think the process is awesome.
Theresa: Where can we find videos from you guys to show us how to do things or what you’re doing.
Ahmed: As soon as my website is relaunched. You know how websites are, right? The relaunch was supposed to be February 1st. It’s now the 4th.
Theresa: April?
Ahmed: It’s now the 4th.
Theresa: Yeah.
Ahmed: I’m saying the middle of this month. My website is ahmedhassan.tv.
Theresa: Okay, and what’s your website?
Damon: Mine is greenplanetlandscaping.com.
Theresa: I love that.
Mark: That’s cool.
Damon: Your talking green planet because $700,000 as a budget is huge.
Ahmed: That’s a green
Theresa: You’re like building your own planet. You’ve got a whole thing.
Mark: You could wallpaper Nevada with $20 bills and $700,000 dollars. Holy smoke!
Theresa: Did you guys create something over at Ply Gem with all the different materials that they have? Is there a display over there that is yours?
Ahmed: Ply Gem already had a beautiful display already set up. We’re there really to talk to folks about it.
Theresa: So you’re just appreciating it.
Ahmed: The builders show, I mean, there’s really a hodge podge of people here these days. It used to be builders, specifically builders. Now there’s builders, there’s marketing folks, there’s remodeling specialists, there’s interior decorators. Everybody comes over here because it’s an awesome place to network. What we’re really doing is we’re talking about the evolution of outdoor spaces, because landscapes have changed. Now everyone wants all of it in their yard.
Theresa: Now from everything from outdoor TV’s to spas to every-
Ahmed: Everything. Keep going.
Theresa: Is there something that you have ever been surprised that somebody came to you and said, “I want that?”
Ahmed: I love those surprises.
Ahmed: Remember the water running up hill?
Ahmed: It’s challenging. Okay, I haven’t actually seen that in a landscape, but everything else is fair game.
Theresa: Have either of you done anything like mini roller coasters or anything like crazy, weird stuff too?
Ahmed: No.
Damon: Remember the one we did in that yard and it had a play area? It wasn’t a roller coaster.
Ahmed: The splash pad one?
Damon: Yeah, the one in the backyard there. We create play areas, but a roller coaster is a little different.
Theresa: That’s like crazy.
Mark: That’s a whole
Ahmed: There was a dad on YouTube I saw who had done that, but-
Theresa: The log flume.
Ahmed: The liability might be a little too much to try to tackle.
Theresa: What about outdoor lighting?I’m always curious about that.
Ahmed: That’s everything. Outdoor lighting is everything. Most of us are working during the day, so to be able to come home and see everything lit up that we did, is so essential, but LED lighting, that’s the trend now. We’re seeing the prices come down and more and more people are looking into going LED.
Damon: Actually Hunter, I did a video with Hunter this last year on their FX Luxor controller and they have dimmable LED’s.
Mark: Now you’re talking.
Damon: Yes, my dear.
Damon: If you want to turn on and blast the yard at night so you can clean up everything after the mess, you can do that, but if you want to have mood lighting and you have different zones, so you can have intensity, it’s phenomenal.
Theresa: If you have you’re tub outside and you have an outdoor kitchen, you have a little romance going, you turn down your LED’s and you’re like … hello.
Ahmed: You turn on the outdoor speakers, you’ve got the mood lighting, maybe making time.
Mark: We’ve got a mood that we’ve got to get into. It’s called a break.
Theresa: We do.
Mark: We’ll be back with more from DaVinci Roofscapes booth. Check out ahmedhassan.tv.
Ahmed: Yes.
Mark: Greenplanetlandscaping.com for giant projects. Check us out after the break. We’ll be back with more MyFixitUpLife.
