Homeowners Be Aware

Navigating DIY Projects with Billie Asmus - The Repaint Tray Story

• George Siegal • Season 2 • Episode 102

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September 26, 2023

102. Navigating DIY Projects with Billie Asmus - The Repaint Tray Story

Ever wonder how to transform your living space with a fresh coat of paint without the usual mess and fuss?  Billie Asmus is an innovator from rural Iowa. She is revolutionizing the DIY painting landscape with her ingenious invention, the Repaint Tray. Billie, founder and CEO of Repaint Studios, takes us on a journey through her entrepreneurial path, sharing how her love for DIY projects led to a remarkable invention that promises to simplify painting chores. 

Here’s how you can follow Billie:


 

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/repaint_tray/ 


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Repaint.Products 

 

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_repaintlady 

 

Website: https://repaintstudios.com/   

 

Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mama_beekay/

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If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

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Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Thanks for listening!

George Siegal:

Thank you for joining me today on the Homeowners Be Aware podcast. Do you paint things around your house or is there a project you've been wanting to tackle and are ready to give it a shot? My guest today is Billie Asmus. She's the founder and CEO of Repaint Studios and the inventor of the Repaint Tray. You are going to love her latest invention that can make painting a lot less messy, along with some great ideas for tackling those DIY projects. I'm George Siegal, and this is the Homeowners Be Aware podcast. Your home is your biggest investment. Every week on this podcast, you'll learn how to protect it. Billie, thank you so much for joining us today.

Billie Asmus:

Thanks, I'm really excited to be here.

George Siegal:

Now, one of the things I was interested in talking to you about, because when I've tried any DIY projects around the house one of the biggest messes and I'm always intimidated by his painting because you know you're going to make a total mess Tell us about the product or the idea that you had and what you've done to make things better with that.

Billie Asmus:

Oh yeah. So a few years ago I had actually a small business of refinishing and refurbishing furniture, and I would get a lot of clients that would come to me with pieces from their parents or grandparents that just didn't necessarily fit the decor that they had in their house anymore, and nine times out of 10, they would want me to paint that piece and update it to fit whatever they had in their house. So I was painting probably every single day, and I just got really sick of the plastic paint ray liners that I was going through, and plus, I was trying to stay home with my daughter at the time too, and there was really no easy way for me to just kind of set aside my painting projects without paint drying out or, you know, just things kind of cracking and just not, you know, being as fresh as I needed them to be. And so I will never forget, I was standing next to my garbage can and I went to Amazon looking for a reusable paint tray and nothing was showing up, and I thought this is too simple of an idea.

Billie Asmus:

Something like this has to exist out there, like surely other people are annoyed of these same problems. And so then I was like 14 pages deep and on Google, and I was still not finding anything. And I'm like you got to be kidding me. There's, there's no way, there's nothing like this. So I reached out to a friend who does agricultural patents and I just asked him to do a basic search for me to see if there was a reusable paint tray out there, and he wasn't finding anything, and so it was kind of then that I had this idea for my paint tray, which it's called the repaint tray, and it's a reusable paint tray liner and a lid, that's all it is.

George Siegal:

But now let me ask you this though, because I'm not as creative in thinking up ideas like it sounds like you are, but it seems like once you have something like that, now what's to stop everybody from doing it? And then your great idea all of a sudden just becomes just another idea.

Billie Asmus:

Well, I mean, I guess the thing from my end is, you know, I pursued a patent attorney to kind of file a patent for me to make sure that I'm protected, so that there wasn't going to be a competition or other people kind of fighting against it. So you know, I'm protected from that standpoint, but if something falls through, there is the potential for other people to create their own version of it. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of about the extent of that.

George Siegal:

Yeah, Amazon seems to take everything and just run, they do yeah they do and it's really. You know as much as I'm guilty, because I get packages from them daily, yeah, and I walk over and use a local business. To me that is so much better and you were talking about. You know the hassles with needing that reusable tray. So how much time does that save somebody? So you can just leave the roller in there, you cover it up. I mean, how does that save you for that when you start back up after the day?

Billie Asmus:

I mean it will save you so much time and effort in general. I mean there was times that I would be painting and we are leaving for vacation the next day and I was fine with just snapping the lid on it, knowing that I was going to come back a week later and just pick up right back. You know where I had left off, and that's the nice thing with it is. I mean I can leave my paint in there for weeks and not worry about it, come back and keep painting.

George Siegal:

That's awesome. Now, when you talk about repurposing furniture, that's something that we've gotten into not doing the work. We found somebody that's really good at it, but we moved here. We had a China cabinet that the movers ruined because the path furniture pads melted on it, because they left it in the truck too long.

Billie Asmus:

Oh no.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I know, but we were able to find somebody to come in and paint it and change the color. So we salvaged that furniture. We changed the color of our bedroom. Rather than go out and buy expensive new stuff or even stuff that's crappy quality now because they made it better years ago, you can just make it look better yourself.

Billie Asmus:

Oh yeah, I mean, and that is truly kind of one of my heart, you know, my heart goals and missions with all of this is, you know, I have a passion for repurposing things and bringing new things to life. I mean, just yesterday I made a basketball hoop out of a stop sign. You know, there's so many random things that I liked upcycling and be able to reuse in a home and have new home decor, and a lot of that goes with furniture because, I mean, you know, the old saying goes they don't make them like they used to, and furniture is one of them. It's just not very many solid wood pieces that you can find anymore unless you're spending, you know, almost thousands of dollars, and painting them or refinishing them is a great way to bring it back to life and reuse it again.

George Siegal:

Yeah, you must hate the popularity of particle board and that just that crap that so much furniture is made of these days that even when it chips and you can see that it just kind of it's cardboard it falls apart.

Billie Asmus:

Oh yeah, I had a lot of clients come to me. They're like, can you flip this? And it would be, you know, veneer or particle board. And I'm like I can, but I can't promise that it's going to hold up for a very long time.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I mean I, the old furniture, just has so much more weight to it that it feels like you know it's just finding the right paint. And also, I mean I think it's a great skill. Is that a DIY thing? Can I mess it up? Or am I better off finding somebody to do that kind of stuff? I know it's rewarding for a lot of folks to do it themselves.

Billie Asmus:

I mean, painting is one of the easiest things somebody can do. It's a great way to get into DIY, or just you know, whether you're painting a room in your house or you want to flip a piece of furniture, it's a great and easy way to start. So if you have a piece in your house that you're like I don't like this, the easiest way to start is just by painting it, and obviously you know the first few steps. You want to make sure that it's clean, getting rid of any stains and everything on it that you can, and you know, if there's a few layers of paint on it already, typically I would recommend stripping that furniture down before you're deciding to repaint it again. But you know, if it's not too bad, then you can just clean it. Maybe scuff it up a little bit, prime it and paint it, or even just adding new hardware is a great way to kind of bring it back to life and make it look new again.

George Siegal:

You find people are getting more into DIY stuff now and they want to take that on. I mean, there's so many shows on TV that show people different projects and everything. I've always found and I find this with computer stuff when I'm watching somebody do something that clearly I'm not good at, it just never seems the same when I do it myself, because the screen looks different or something is different With DIY projects. If I watched you do it it would look easy, but then when I do it I'm just fearful I'll make a total mess.

Billie Asmus:

Well, let me say don't believe anything you see on the internet. First of all, because no matter how good you are at flipping furniture or renovating a bedroom or whatever it is, there's always going to be some small details or inconsistencies that you might not see in a photo or a video. I mean, filters are powerful. So I mean there is times that I was flipping furniture and a lot of people be like, wow, this is fantastic. And, mind you, I was my own worst critic, so I was picking out all the tiny details that most people probably were not seeing. But it just it really depends on the person and how nitty gritty you really want to get into each piece that you're flipping.

George Siegal:

Even when I'm doing tutorials, I never get past step one a lot of the time because it just looks different what they're doing. For example, just a prompt that somebody would enter on a computer and then I go wait, my screen doesn't look like that. How do I do that? With painting, I mean stripping the paint you got to. There's certain things you should be equipped with, and maybe you have it out in the garage, not in your house. So there's certain safety measures people should be taking when they dive into that stuff.

Billie Asmus:

Oh yeah, I mean, especially when you're stripping furniture, you need to have gloves and you need to have glasses. You really have a mask, because that can get really fume really quick.

George Siegal:

Okay, now, before we went on, we were talking about the challenges of construction and home building and projects, because you were listening to one of my other podcasts and that really is a nightmare. I have an episode on this week that is with a contractor, because I always mouth off about how crappy builders are, and I was with a guy who happened to be a builder and so I went out to his job site and when you see it done well, it's so impressive and it makes me so jealous because I go. How come I never experienced that?

Billie Asmus:

Right, yeah, I mean we just bought a house, let's see, about five, five years ago and it was definitely a fixer upper. I mean like orange shade carpet in the bathrooms and you know, the electrical needed a complete overhaul. The lights like flickered in the basement and I hated being here at night when we were working on the house. But yeah, I mean we've just like run into a lot of problems and you know, I'm thankful that I have the skills and the knowledge to be able to learn how to do a lot of these things. But man, I really wish I kind of went back and hired some more professionals along the way to kind of do a deep dive into what I was buying. But yeah, I mean there's just a lot of things that go along with the process.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I think it's tough to find people that are good in a big city but for different reasons than what you have here. I think everybody kind of prays on you and you know you're getting. You get a variety of estimates from somebody that's low, bidding it to somebody that's way overcharging because of where you live. What do you find out? Where you live, where maybe there's less to choose from in terms of who's doing the work, Well, so we're in rural Iowa and the tough thing is is, well, just buying a house.

Billie Asmus:

In general you're already kind of slim pickings, so it's kind of hard to find something that fits the needs that you have for your family or whatever it is that you're looking for. But you know, the tough thing is there might be a handful of handymen and women out there that are saying you know, I can do this and I can do that, but they might not be super qualified to be able to do some of like the more heavy lifting type things like putting in a structural beam or, you know, reworking some of the HVAC and plumbing or electrical or whatever that needs to be done. But the tough thing is is if you really want somebody that is top tier, I mean, you're going to probably be waiting almost a year or two before you can actually get them to start working on your house because it's so backed up.

George Siegal:

Which is kind of funny. If somebody's available, you're going. Why are they available?

George Siegal:

So it's that you want somebody now, but if you have to wait a year it's not good. But the guy that's available now, I always found that with those home warranties where they say they'll send somebody out for a $75 service charge, well, the companies that they pick at to come out and do your work, or people that happen to be sitting around and usually aren't that good, Right, yep, and I think with any town, you also just want to pay attention to word of mouth and talking to other people and hear what their experience are with any type of home project that you're doing, so you know the right person to talk to.

George Siegal:

Yeah, that's definitely true. If a contractor or builder gives you their references, find the people that aren't on that list, Because you know, if I'm going for a job, sure I'm going to give you my sister and my cousin and people that know me, but you really want to dig and find out if these people are legitimate. Now, where did you develop this love for doing these kind of projects and this hands-on stuff? Where did that come from?

Billie Asmus:

Well, I started flipping furniture, probably back in high school, and I just remember I had this dresser, which I actually still have it it's in my daughter's bedroom now but I had this dresser it was this white dresser and I had like this pink floral stencil on it. And I was starting to get into high school and I was like this is ugly, this does not fit my high school decor anymore, like I don't need pink floral furniture. And I remember asking my mom, like can I please get some new furniture? Can I paint my room, you know whatever? And she just did not want to put in the effort or the time to it. She's like no, it's fine, it works, it's functional, it doesn't matter what it looks like. And that bothered me. So I was like, okay, well, fine, then I'm going to paint it. And so I had my dad help me bring it down to the garage and I took it all apart and I just started painting it.

Billie Asmus:

I mean, I definitely did it wrong, but it was my very first time doing it and it was before. There was a lot of, you know, diyers and YouTubers and everything that was out there sharing DIY stuff, so it was a lot of just like guessing game for me and surprisingly it's held up pretty well. But it is a goal of mine to refinish that at some point in the future for my daughter's bedroom. Now, but I don't know, ever since I kind of just did that one project. I just fell in love with it and I've always just kind of been doing small projects here and there ever since then and it kind of just developed into this business a few years ago and then I was only like a month into that business of flipping furniture for people when I came up with the idea for my repaint tray and then now that has completely taken over.

George Siegal:

Yeah, and you decided to make it even more complicated. You were pregnant when you were doing all this.

Billie Asmus:

Yes, oh man. So I was. I had my daughter when I started my small business of refinishing furniture, and then I was also staying home with her. And then the summer of 2021, I found out I was pregnant with my son, and I was still trying to flip furniture for people. But I was way more sick with this pregnancy than I was with my first, and so it made it really hard for me to be around the fumes and the paint and stuff, and so I actually had to turn people away and give furniture back, which I felt really bad about. But in the end, I think it was okay for me to set it aside, because then I could focus more on other things.

George Siegal:

And I made a documentary film about parenting. I think that's the toughest job out there, because if you want to do it well, it's not an easy job. And so when you factor in now two kids and your business, how tough is that.

Billie Asmus:

Oh my gosh, it was. I mean it's still difficult because my son is 18 months old and my daughter just turned four, so I mean it's definitely a handful, and when my son was born he was extremely colicky, I mean, and that was a nightmare. I just remember there was just a few nights in a row where my husband and I would trade off and the only way my son was content was like driving around in the van, and so my husband would hop in the van, drive around for like two hours and then come back and then I would feed him and we'd trade off and then I'd hop in the van and we did that for nights on end.

Billie Asmus:

But the very beginning of my business, I remember being on a few different Zoom calls and I still had my son home with me and I had him strapped to my chest while I was trying to have these Zoom calls and be on the phone and working on the computer. And I'll never forget there was one Zoom call where I had him strapped to my chest and I was just like praying that he would not have a complete screaming match. And sure enough he did. He just completely melted down while I was on this Zoom call with a potential manufacturer and I basically I couldn't even talk over the mic because he was screaming so loud and so I just typed in the chat I'm like I have to go, we'll reschedule. And just hung up and I was like, oh man, but and it's okay, because it never even worked out with that manufacturer anyway.

George Siegal:

Well, do you find that that can almost be a kryptonite for certain people? I mean, if you're sitting there holding a baby while you're doing an interview, they might be thinking, well, this might be difficult to work with this situation. I mean, I would hope we would be past that in this world, knowing that it is possible for a mom to do both. But did you think you ran into that a little bit?

Billie Asmus:

Oh, yeah, plenty of times. I remember there was one interview that I had with a mentor and I was in the process of looking for a business partnership and he had mentioned to me he's like now, when you go into some of these meetings, you might want to avoid you mentioning being a mom. And I was like why? What does that have to do with anything? And he's like, well, they might not think that you're as dedicated to this or that you're really focused on wanting to bring this product to the market and building your business. And I mean excuse my language, but that was total bullshit.

Billie Asmus:

Like are you kidding me? No, like I'm not going to that's. If a business partnership does not want to do a deal with me because I'm a mom, then they are not the right people for me to work with. And eventually I did find the right business partnership and they're fantastic and they've worked with other moms and other parents in the industry who have young kids and they've helped bring other baby products to the market, which has been really fun to watch. But yeah, it was tough, especially in the beginning there, just seeing people turn me away or kind of give me this side eye that I was trying to stay home with my kids and build a business at the same time.

George Siegal:

Yeah, that's kind of unbelievable. You should be applauded for that, not scorned for that. Have you had the opportunity, the thrill, to take your kids on an airplane yet?

Billie Asmus:

Not yet, but my daughter is constantly asking me well, we can go on an airplane.

George Siegal:

If you want to see how people dislike you have a baby on a plane that is not having a good time, it is. It's an unbelievable experience. You'll never feel worse about yourself than that moment. Because parents that are conscientious there's nothing you can do. And if you're surrounded by people on the plane that don't have children, it's kind of like the business. There's going to be a lack of sensitivity towards your situation.

Billie Asmus:

Oh yeah, I mean yeah, I've traveled quite a bit on airplanes and I've been in those situations. I've watched or from the outside at least I've watched other parents struggle with that and I cannot believe some of the people that get so frustrated with it and I'm like the babies can't control themselves. Like, give the parents some grace. They're already beating themselves up inside their head. You know they don't need the looks too.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I mean. Sometimes there's parents where the kids kick in the seat or running around and they don't do anything, and those parents need to raise their game. What advice would you? What advice would you have for entrepreneurs, somebody that has an idea, like you, since you've advanced yours pretty far. What would you say to somebody who's sitting out there with a great idea?

Billie Asmus:

I would say the first thing is to keep it secret, especially if you know something like that does not exist yet or isn't out on the market and you've already done that research. Definitely keep it close to your chest until you've been able to talk with a patent attorney and work through some of those details. And the next thing I would say is definitely get support, especially early on. If you can get connected with a local entrepreneur center or another center that has resources for early stage entrepreneurs, that's really gonna help you advance further, because a lot of times they're gonna be able to help you get connected with mentors that maybe have been in similar situations. Or if you are looking for manufacturing or financing or whatever it may be, those resource centers are gonna be fantastic because nine times out of 10, those resources are free, and free resources are great for an early startup entrepreneur.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I mean, that's great advice and you also have to be careful, as you've mentioned, who you talk to, because, like for me as a TV producer, so do you create shows or films. If I go to HGTV, I've had ideas, I wanted to send them. They have you fill out a form saying we probably already have this idea and are working on it, but go ahead and send us yours. I mean, you really have to be careful who you share your idea with.

Billie Asmus:

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is kind of an off you know side story, but we actually my husband and I had the opportunity to talk with some of the creative team from Bushlight, from Anheuser-Busch, and Anheuser-Busch is really big about supporting farmers and we're in Iowa and Iowa is like one of the top buyers for Bushlight beer and my husband gave me my idea that hey, you guys should really print corn like a corn on the cob on the can. That would be really cool. And then you know some type of promotional thing or whatever and advertising that hey, we support farmers. And next thing, you know, it was like a month or two later and, sure enough, like they had the corn can and they're advertising, and my husband's like I thought of that and I was like, yeah, well, you told him about it.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I mean that's frustrating when that happens and it's hard to then get involved in litigation. I had a company years ago where Best Buy sent us a notice saying you can no longer use your logo because it's too similar to ours. I went to our attorney and said do they have anything here? And he goes no, it doesn't look anything like your logo. But change your logo. And I said why? And he goes because you'll never. They'll outlast you, they'll destroy you. And it's tough being the little guy.

Billie Asmus:

Yeah, yeah, that has kind of been a small fear of mine is, you know, cool, I'm being discovered by some of these big companies, but what is the off chance that they might try and take me down versus, you know, trying to be friendly and so there's, you know, there's that chance that you could walk into. But I think when you're an entrepreneur, you just kind of have to let yourself overcome these fears and keep pushing forward.

George Siegal:

You ever try to imagine how well you would do on Shark Tank with your idea?

Billie Asmus:

The amount of times I've been asked a question like you should be on Shark Tank or have you been on Shark Tank? You know it's so funny, but yeah, I have thought about it. I watched the show a lot. I actually had the chance to meet with Kevin Harrington, who was one of the original sharks on Shark Tank, and I was able to get some mentoring advice from him, because he's brought some crazy products to the market and he's the inventor of the infomercial. So, yeah, he was able to kind of give me some advice as far as applying to Shark Tank and whatnot. That's something that I want to pursue, but for right now I think I'm going to hold off.

George Siegal:

I think they would like you. I think they would destroy me. I mean, I just I would get one or two sentences in and they would look at me and go what are you even doing here? You're a moron, and so just too intimidated by that. So that's never going to happen. Plus, I don't have any ideas. So let's kind of wrap this up with what advice you would have for anybody that has a DIY project that they want to do in their house. I know you have a great product that you're coming out with for them, but what would you tell somebody who has that project around the house that they want to do to get them to just jump in there and try it?

Billie Asmus:

I think the first thing is you can kind of budget out exactly what you want to do, depending on how much you want to spend, and then add maybe a couple hundred dollars on top of that, because you might not know what you're going to run into with projects. Even if it's as simple as you know, adding a wanes, coding around the room, or you're going to put in a crown, molding or something like that, you never know what you're going to run into into some of those projects. So it's always good to budget a little bit more ahead of time. And I would definitely say prep is going to be the most important piece. If you are not accurately prepping whether it's painting a room or painting furniture or refinishing the flooring prep is going to be the biggest thing in the process, because if you do that step incorrectly or you skip it all together, then you're probably going to set yourself up for having to refinish that project a year down the road because you did not prep properly.

George Siegal:

And if somebody is thinking of getting involved with electrical, would you tell them to get a professional that you could really mess that up if it's electrical.

Billie Asmus:

You can mess that up. Yes, I would definitely say, especially if you're doing extensive electrical work, you should really hire somebody.

George Siegal:

Yeah, that's where the boundaries have to be. So, hey, Billy, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your product. When can we expect to see this in stores? Is there a timeframe?

Billie Asmus:

I'm really hoping in the next few months that I'll be able to at least have it online to be able to sell. Right now, everything is all pre-orders. I actually just got notice from manufacturers today that they are finishing up the pre-production sample and I should have it, or well, it will be shipped out this Friday, so that pre-production sample will show exactly what it's going to look like on the shelf and what customers are going to be able to receive on their doorstep. So, pending that all goes well, I mean I should be able to really kind of get out there and get these into people's hands, probably in the next couple months.

George Siegal:

Well, that's exciting. I'm going to put all your information in the show notes. I wish you nothing but success with this. It's great. I hope you knock it out of the park.

Billie Asmus:

Thank you, I really appreciate it.

George Siegal:

All of Billie's contact information is in the show notes. If you enjoyed what you heard today, it would be great if you could become a regular subscriber so you don't miss any episodes. They come out every Tuesday. The goal is to teach you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Owning a home is a huge responsibility. It helps to know as many things as possible to avoid costly mistakes. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.

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