On the show today, Molly touches on how she’s able to take on extensive DIY projects with a 9-month-old baby crawling around and how other parents can do the same. Molly goes into how her and her husband saved over $50,000 when they bought her brand new home by paying for builder-basic from the general contractor and then DIYing her own projects to add value & vibes. One of my favorite things we discussed is how Molly completely rebranded her social media back in October and started a new account and grew it to now over 100k followers in only a few months. As a creator myself, the advice Molly gives on how to replicate her growth is gold. Molly is a great follow and is truly one of the kindest people in the DIY niche. Don’t forget to give her a follow (@therenegadehome)!
On the show today, Molly touches on how she’s able to take on extensive DIY projects with a 9-month-old baby crawling around and how other parents can do the same. Molly goes into how her and her husband saved over $50,000 when they bought her brand new home by paying for builder-basic from the general contractor and then DIYing her own projects to add value & vibes. One of my favorite things we discussed is how Molly completely rebranded her social media back in October and started a new account and grew it to now over 100k followers in only a few months. As a creator myself, the advice Molly gives on how to replicate her growth is gold. Molly is a great follow and is truly one of the kindest people in the DIY niche. Don’t forget to give her a follow (@therenegadehome)!
Hey, what's up. What's up? What is up? I am your host, Alex Dalessio and welcome to the real life renovation podcast. If you're looking to get your hands dirty and do it yourself in your home, then this is the go-to DIY and home renovation community. Just for you. I invite you to join us each week as I chat with some of your favorite DIY creators across the entire space to discuss all that goes into their DIY journey and the renovation project that Dave accomplished in their homes and how you can achieve similar results. The zero experience like I did when I started. And there's no better community for, to gain that knowledge, confidence, and inspiration to release your inner bad-ass upon every corner of your home. So let's pick up the hammer, have some. And mail your home renovations together. Welcome to the real life innovation podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dalessio and today is episode five and I have the lovely Molly Miller with me. You may know her from, at the Renegade home on Instagram. Molly's a mom of three, one of which is a nine month year old baby. So if you are a mother or a parent, you know how hard it is to DIY, uh, with little kids running around. So she is, uh, the goat of mom, DIY is out there. Uh, I've coined her, the DIY paint goddess because she literally knows every paint. I swear that there's ever been. And I've learned so much from me personally. So if you don't follow already go check her out. Uh, her and her husband owned a tile installation company. And my favorite project so far has been her renovating her grandmother's bedroom. After her grandfather recently passed away just to cheer her up. She has a heart of gold. She is an amazing follow. And so Molly, I'm going to open up the floor to you on my classic. First question. Imagine you're sitting down with HGTV, HGTV, producers, and you need to pitch them on a show for you. What is the name of the show and why?
Molly:Okay. Well, thank you for that intro. That was so way too kind. Um, but I think after doing everything that we did at my grandmother's house, Um, if I was going to pitch a show, it would be something along the lines of like going in and, uh, recreating spaces for people who have experienced loss of some kind. It was super fulfilling to do that.
Alex:Yeah. I couldn't imagine. And, and walk us through it. So what, what exactly, um, did you do, was it a surprise if I'm not mistaken? Because obviously you couldn't completely surprise because it was her
Molly:bedroom. It wasn't a surprise, but she. She was having a really hard time just being in their bedroom. And, you know, I can only imagine what that would be like after, you know, 50 years living with somebody and then going to bed every night without them. Um, so we just wanted to give her like a new, just a new feel. Cause I know spaces hold memory. And for sure, she was definitely feeling that like, you know, she just needed a place that she could. Kind of escape from all the, you know, the grief.
Alex:So yeah, I think you killed eight. So I've been following along. Was there, I think I'm, if I miss it, I apologize. Was there an official reveal for it or?
Molly:Um, well, I kinda did like a, yeah, I did do a real and official, real reveal, but there's still like, it's not completely finished. There's still stuff that needs done.
Alex:Is there anything else
Molly:was doing not completely finished at this point, but she
Alex:does the project completely. Is it
Molly:ever, she does want me to go in and, um, paint her doors. So like that'll probably be the last main part of the
Alex:project. And one of my favorite, uh, tricks that I've learned from you that haven't gotten to put into place. Is your file folder trick that I've seen you paint into your doors with, if anyone hasn't seen it, uh, go check it out. And all of her reels, they all go super viral for very good reason. Um, millions of views on a, but one of them Molly basically takes like your classic, like Manila full file folder, essentially, and sticks in between like crevices, like the doorway or under, um, baseboards. And it allows you to paint without getting it on your doorframe or on your floor or whatever. And it is one of the best hacks that I honestly, personally haven't been able to use, but I can't wait to do it.
Molly:Um, I was actually just doing that right before we got on this call. Um, cause I'm painting two doors and it's, it's just so quick and easy, you know, and you don't have to waste all that
Alex:tape. So exactly. And I think the best part is I've gotten one of those. Uh, it's like almost a foot and a half long. I don't even know, it's like$5 a home Depot or Lowe's, but it's like this little metal pan, that space basically for that. But the great thing about the folders, like when you get painted on it, just toss it. Whereas when you get paint on the other stuff, like you have to clean it all the way off or else when you put it up against the next surface, it's going to get all over it again.
Molly:And people were kept telling me to try the paint shield. And so I did it and we did it in stories. And, um, I just feel like the file folder is more bendable, so you can kind of get under things and into corners and stuff. And I just feel like it works better. I don't know. It's weird, but I
Alex:didn't even think about that part because he had the, the, I forget what it's called, but it's so rigid. So when you want to get under baseboards and stuff, you can't. Bended under the curves and then levelness of like floors and, and it's also
Molly:a bigger surface too. So like you can kind of, you have more room to mess
Alex:up type of thing. So you have so many paint hacks. Where the hell did you learn? Well,
Molly:when we moved into our house here, um, the builder, they just did like a flat builder grade paint job and everything's white. So we, once we moved in here, we kind of started painting everything. Every single one. Um, and I just in basically out of necessity of like getting it done quickly, I've come up with a lot of tricks, but also looked for tricks. And so like not all of those hacks are my own. I've found them from other people and like recycled them. And that's the thing about creating content is like, you can, you can bring the same ideas, but in a different way, or like repackage it. In a way that's more digestible to your followers. So
Alex:yeah, I think you do such a great way of like short, sweet to the point and the way you show it off is always amazing. I've learned so much from you. So talking on that, um, so you guys bought a new home, right? So, um, what year was it built? Pretty recent thousand
Molly:17. Yeah.
Alex:And then, so what has your. Mostly I'm so jealous because my home was built when the light bulb was invented. So
Molly:when you said that, I was like, that is crazy. Yeah.
Alex:So I it's really cool. Uh, I imagine that, um, it's so crazy that people are walking around here with. Um, and there's definitely, probably some ghosts down in my basement, but I feel like they're on my side. So
Molly:definitely it looks like it could be hunted for
Alex:a thousand percent, but I think they're on my side. They probably weren't at first they're like, what is this kid doing to our home? But, uh, yeah. Um, so how has your journey been with the new home? Because is it, are your walls still uneven or.
Molly:Yeah. Yeah. Actually there are you, you would be, you wouldn't believe it, but like, yeah. Um, but not nearly as bad cause we've definitely done. Like our, our first home that we bought was, um, a little fixer upper and we literally gutted it and fixed it up from the ground up. So like I have that experience too, working on a home that was older. Um, but that was sort of the stepping stone to buy this home. Cause then we ended up selling it. And then that sort of gave us like, you know, the ability to buy this home. And we were still on a budget. So we didn't, um, do all the upgrades that you could do when you're, when you're having a home built. So we just figured, like we did like bare minimum unfinished basement, and we figured we would do all of that as we could, you know? Um, so, but yeah, it's definitely different in a new home. You don't have all the issues that you may run into in an older home. Um, but. You have different issues, you know? Um, but it's definitely, I would say definitely an advantage and definitely easier to work on a newer home, for sure.
Alex:Yeah. And it's so nice. Cause like, for me I've so when I ripped up, I think I might've mentioned in a previous podcast, but when I ripped up my, our master bath. Um, everyone on Tik TOK while I was posting the videos, one of my videos went pretty viral and they're all going. If those tiles came up that easy, then they had like some DIY or before you probably did it in, you're probably gonna do the same. Um, so it was nice cause you at least, I mean, obviously there's plenty of professionals out there that are not that great. And don't take the time to do good work, but you at least have the knowing that professionals have been in your home and done it and you don't have. Um, someone that doesn't know what they're doing. Yeah. Messing around.
Molly:Well, actually funny thing is like, when we moved into this home, it was the last lot in, uh, you know, multiple lots. This was the last one. It was like a freak incident. How it all came together. Um, we actually went to school with the builder and knew them. Um, so they allowed us to like, Cody did all of our flooring and everything. So he did a lot, a lot of the finishing work we did, um, which, yeah, that's, my husband could be up. Um, so we put in all the flooring and stuff. So like a lot of the stuff we did. So it's like, if something's wrong, it's on us. Um, but the building, uh, you know, the actual building of the house, obviously the builder did that, but a lot of the finishing work we did. To
Alex:save money. So how much did you like ballpark save from doing the labor yourself?
Molly:I would say probably 50,000 easy, at least because there was so many options they give you, like, do you want to finish basement? Do you want, and this house is weird. It actually has two basements. So like there's the basement that I talk about all the time. And then we call another one, which we call the basement basement. Cause it's like a tri-level with an, with a basement. So it's really weird. But, yeah, so we actually have a whole nother unfinished basement to
Alex:do someday biggest that space.
Molly:Every, each space is 1200 or 700 square feet. So it's four levels of each 700 square feet. Wow. It's weird how they, so when we bought it, there was only two finished levels and then both basements we've. Worked on as we moved in, but there was options to finish them if we wanted to. And we saved a lot of money by not doing
Alex:that. Yeah. I've seen 'em so obviously I'm working on my basement and it was going slowly but surely, but your base man looks amazing. Did it, I guess when you had just had your most recent kid, is that when you guys were like, I need another bedroom, actually,
Molly:it's kind of funny. So we finished the basement and then we found out we were having another baby. And then we were like, well, crap, we need another bedroom. Um, so then we actually redid the entire basement, like reframed out a bedroom down here after it was already finished. Um, which was kind of nice because we could make it whatever size we wanted. We can, we made our closet, which is like the best part. Yeah.
Alex:Awesome.
Molly:And so, yeah, so we kind of did it twice. Actually. It was just insane, but
Alex:yeah. Um, I was going to say, so, so Dai wine with a nine month year old baby. Yeah. What
Molly:is that like? Well, it's been really, like, it's been very. I won't lie. It's been difficult for sure. Especially like when he was very small, it was a lot easier. Cause he would nap twice a day at a certain time. It was like, you know, I knew when that was. Um, now I'm lucky if he naps for like an hour and a half in the afternoon. Um, and so I definitely, it's definitely been tough, but my older two are in school. So like that's easy. But, yeah, I'm still learning how to do it. You know, I'm not a pro or anything. Like a lot of times when I'm working on a project, he's in the room with me, you just don't see it. I'm like he's in a bouncer or he's, you know, he's behind me is the man behind the camera. He's definitely around. He might be a pro by, by the time
Alex:he's one, right. He's probably absorbed so much knowledge is going to be the best painter of all time. He may just be that's so funny. Yeah. I got to say. So me and Kyle, um, we're laughing about this a couple of weeks ago that, uh, the majority of the DIY space just tends to be stay at home moms that are creating awesome places in their, in their homes. And you guys are like my heroes, like I know how much a struggle it is for me. I couldn't imagine. Having to deal with, especially, it's one thing to have kids once they're a little bit older and they go to school, so you can kind of be like, I get out of my hair, it's going to get them out of the house. And then I can do my thing. But like when under five years old, before they go to kindergarten or pre-K, I guess, need a brush up on my, my toddler ages. But, uh, it's, it's amazing how you guys are able to juggle that. Like, I, my mind is blown, especially with. As you know, like social media is no joke, it's it more than probably doubles your workload and definitely, um, you know, it'd be one thing. If you were just cutting it out, DIY behind the scenes, no one would know you could do things here and there, but when you're setting up recording, you're putting on your Instagram story probably while you're feeding your baby, you're responding to comments, you're responding to messages. It adds so much time. And on top of that, you're a full-time mom. It's
Molly:insane. It is definitely. Um, and actually up until like the last month I was working on top of that, like two, three days a week, I was working. So, but now it's been, this has been like the first couple of weeks where I'm just home and it's been really nice, like really, really nice. Um,
Alex:so yeah, I love it. And then, so you and your husband. So I wanted to touch on that. So you guys own a tile installation company. Do you, when you say, when you working, are you working for that company or,
Molly:yeah. And also, um, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Well, Cody does all of the tile installation and all of that stuff. So it's really his business. And he works with, um, he has one guy who works with him. Um, but we just, you know, all the backend stuff he does from home or we do from the house type of thing. So just like, you know, there's a lot of stuff that goes into owning a business, like taking calls and the estimates and all that stuff, you know? And so.
Alex:That's so cool to me, especially, I mean, did, did COVID affect you that affected at all? Do you feel like it helped more hurt more?
Molly:Um, it, well, we had to be off here. It was like a mandatory, all construction was shut down for, um, at least two or three weeks. So that was definitely set us back for sure. Um, but honestly, no, because people are still building people are. I guess renovating and stuff and builders, a lot of our work comes from builders. Um, and so that business is booming. So honestly we ha we've been really fortunate to not be super effected by that, except for the time when we had to, he had to shut down men for mandatory purposes. So
Alex:yeah, that's gotta be nice to working with new belts compared to rhinos where you have to deal with the demo. You don't know what you're going to deal with when you rip it. Yeah. Um, and you can just walk in there at a nice, hopefully squared wall and you can throw some tile up there and wipe your hands
Molly:clean water. It is. But there's also like a lot of yucky stuff that goes into working with builders too. Cause they're they don't want to pay, you know, like it's, it's it definitely has like its pros and cons for sure. I think, I think he honestly prefers going in and doing, um, like single family homes type of thing as it does to builders.
Alex:Is that cause it's more of like a personal touch. Like he can it's
Molly:because he can set his own prices type of thing. Like builders usually have a set rate that they're willing to pay and every shower is the same, but they all have different issues or whatever, you know? And so sometimes you're not compensated for the extra work that you do with builders type of thing.
Alex:Yeah. As I say, cause my, um, my career before I ended up going full time into the. Was for coming to call Clark construction where I was a project engineer. So, uh, we were building like a $50 million hospital in Baltimore city and I would run a lot of the, I didn't ever get my hands dirty. I never learned really anything in terms of GLI from that it was more like office work, but I was running a couple of sub contractors, mainly like mechanical electrical plumbing, stuff like that. And I saw firsthand how cutthroat. Like, I know builders is a little bit different than like commercial buildings, but it's all the same how cutthroat general contractors will be. And I personally hated it cause I had, you know, my bosses were making me be the bad guy and like squeezing these family owned businesses like dry I'm, like w and in the midst of COVID. I'm supposed to be mad at them for stuff that they can't control. Cause they can't get materials to the
Molly:job. And that was another part of it is materials. Like we're still waiting for floor. He's still waiting for flooring to come in for certain houses that for months it's been months, it's still pretty bad. Um, for some things like, like that and obviously the price of like wood and, and all of that has gone up ridiculously. So, um, there's that part of it too, but yeah. Uh, working for builders, I feel like that's a whole different, that's like a whole different thing, you know?
Alex:Yeah. I could, I could only imagine, especially, you know, as a business owner, because you probably get a lot of repeat, you try to, you know, do what you, you don't want to like scream at somebody for being, uh, an asshole at the end of the day.
Molly:And a lot of times, he, a lot of times he's going into these houses and it's, there's no electric yet. There's no. So you have to bring your generator, you're working in freezing cold. Like, so there's the cons to that, you know, I definitely, he, I couldn't do what he does that's for
Alex:sure. Yeah. When I had to log around our job site, I developed such an appreciation from every single trades person. I was just baffled what they were able to do out early. They would have to be on site like 6:00 AM. It was just nuts. What they were able to do in the freezing cold. Sometimes I'm like hanging off of the building, basically strapped to it, like a line. And you're supposed to be like drilling things. I'm like, I can barely drill standing up. Right?
Molly:Yeah. Well, yeah. The other day he was just working in a house where the painters were there and they had just sprayed the entire house. And he came home with paint, like four different spots on his jacket because he just kept forgetting that the house had just been sprayed. You know, it's like, so you're dealing with that type of stuff when you're just trying to get there and do your tile. Um, you know, but yeah.
Alex:What are his typical hours like? Are they pretty,
Molly:he honestly, he's got it made as far as that goes, because you can work whenever he wants. Um, except for when we're super busy and we have to get stuff done, then he's obviously working on weekends too. You know, knock stuff out, but for the most part, he's home by like four o'clock, which is awesome.
Alex:So that is, that is great. I feel like a lot of construction starts early in the end early for the most
Molly:part. He used to start a lot earlier, but since I've had the baby and I get the kids on the bus, it at eight o'clock, he's stays here with the baby. So I don't have to bring him to the bus stop. Cause it's like a mile away from our house it's not close. Um, and so his hours have kind of changed even more just since we had the baby. And he, he starts a little bit later, which is really nice. So that is honestly no complaints in that area. He, he really has it hasn't made as far as like hours go and just being able to work. As long as the job gets done in time,
Alex:I might have to hit you up for some tile tips. And that definitely, that is one of my all time, like most respect to people that are really good at it, but it is so tedious because the littlest thing, it can be really messy when you don't know what you're doing. Um, and it's scary. Cause it's, it's pretty much, it's not technically permit permanent cause you can beat it up and get it off. But. It basically is permanent. And if you put it a little bit offline and then you keep stacking on top of that, you should like, you don't realize until you take a step back and it's all dry. It is like the worst feeling.
Molly:Yeah. And I just, from going on jobs with him and stuff, I, I just have a huge respect for what he does cause the math that goes into it and making sure that everything is there's so much, you have to take into consideration on these jobs that I couldn't do it. Like my brain does not work like that. So
Alex:the funny thing is, uh, so when we were doing our master bathroom, we did the whole shower. Like we took it back to the. And then me and Kylie and my wife, we were like talking about game plan where we want to put a, like a niche and all this. And I started watching YouTube videos, like, Hmm, how to do niche. And then I started watching all of the math that was involved in like, you need to have your tiles laid out so you can measure it. And then you need to know your exact grout joint. And then you need to measure here, here, and you want to make sure that your tiles line up in full tiles and both sides. And I was like, I looked at Kylie after like days of research. Listen, we can take a shot at this, but there's a 50, 50 chance that my measurements are going to be off and it's going to look like crap. And so at the end of the day, I was like, listen, we're not going to do an issue. And like worst case scenario down the road for like, Spots for shampoo bottles. Like I'll just, I've seen videos where people will like cut a little bit out of the grout and they'll use like some adhesive and like stick a little corner
Molly:shelf shelf. Yeah. That's a good alternative
Alex:for sure. I was like, I'm not messing with it. And that was honestly, one of seeing other creators do, um, I'm like power to them because most of them had turned out great. But I was just like, it was not worth the trouble to find some shampoo bottles. So.
Molly:Oh, I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. And there's,
Alex:there's so much math involved in it, but a lot of math yeah. Has to be my least favorite. But for you. Now that you, so for those of you who don't know, um, Molly recently rebranded to add the Renegade home, used to be at gray lane home and had like a following of like closest six, something around 6,000. It was,
Molly:um, I it's weird. Like I stopped posting over there. It was like 4,500, I think. And now I'm almost at 5k and I haven't posted there in so long. So it keeps growing now that I'm not posting there, which is very bizarre, but yeah.
Alex:So, so what, so now you're up to, so this was from what I can track just a few months ago when you kind of went with the rebrand. And now for those of you who haven't seen at the Renegade home, Molly's new profile, she's now over like almost 120,000 on Instagram and on Tik TOK. It's like, well, over 200,000, I can't remember the exact number. It's like two 70 something close to 300. So walk us through it because I've had, I had several questions from some lifestyle. Um, that we're so curious into kind of the reasoning, why you think it worked, um, just kinda your whole thought process.
Molly:Well, I had posted over on gray lane for honestly, it was probably almost four years and it not super serious about it, but just sharing my projects and stuff and kind of got serious about it and then experienced no growth. Um, but that was also before reels were a big thing. And I feel like with reels, you've had, we've had the opportunity to. The algorithm has changed, you know, and they're now showing small accounts content to large audiences, you know? Um, so anyway, I started to post on Tik TOK that went really well. I had like a video that went super viral and the closet, the closet video. Yeah. That was one of my, and I was like, you know what? I found you well, yeah, probably because that's where a lot of people found me from that video. But. I was like, I'm going to take this seriously and just post every day for 30 days. And I did that and I saw how well that the video content did. I was like, I need to do this on Instagram. So I just also, I think I had a lot of like limiting beliefs too, of like, oh, that'll never happen for me. I could never do this as a job. Just a lot of yucky stuff that was kind of attached to that account. So when I started fresh, it was like a brand new opportunity and all of those beliefs were just like, you know, like anything's possible, you know, like that's a huge thing. It's just mentally like we have a lot of blocks or I did at least, you know, um, that were holding me back. I don't know why, why I did that to myself, but as soon as I believed it was possible, it started to change. And that account just literally. Took off like the new Instagram account. I think Tik TOK helped for sure, because people, as soon as that video went viral, like I got like a thousand followers overnight and that was like a huge boost, you know? And then from there I just started posting all the same videos as reels. And that seemed to be like the winning combination, you know, it's just to continue to post valuable content for people, um, in short form. You know, just very digestible information that people can use,
Alex:you know? So a hundred percent. Yeah. And I remember, cause you had messaged me, I want to say on Tik TOK back in December. Cause I remember I was in New York city at me and Kylie went on like a little day trip. Um, and I was already like knee deep into the. Eight beers, but you messaged me. And I was like, oh my God. Like, cause I recognize you right away. Cause we both followed each other. At that point, you messaged me about working with the brand. And I remember like, um, then I was like really invested in your journey. I was trying to like help as much from, cause I, I love this community because it's very much the creators and the space. It's very much like NA. I only I can win. And like, your success is my failure and stuff like that. Um, and that was one of the coolest parts. Cause then I really started following along on Instagram from that point is when I clicked all over on Instagram. And I forget how many followers you had at that point, but you just, within the
Molly:very
Alex:many, maybe like a few thousand or something. And then over the next month, I remember cause, um, probably like a week ago I told Kylie that you were going to be my next. And she was like, oh, who is Molly? I was like, you remember when we were at that bar in New York city? And like, um, someone was messaging me and I was half drunk message him back. And she was like, oh yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah, well now she's like really, really, really blown up. And I told you, she was going to for just from her take talk. And I was like, guess how many followers she had? She has now. She was like 10,000 or something else, like childlike multiplying that by 10. And she was like,
Molly:it's insane. I'm still shocked by the cause at Christmas time, I think I had like 7,000 followers. So this all just happened, like Sophia
Alex:it's. So well-deserved and you can, it's funny. Cause how you can look back and you can see the point on when your content kind of changes and sticking to what worked and kind of finding different variations of what does, what did work. And I remember you messaged me a few weeks ago and you were like, oh, like similar thing, like you're going to pop off soon. Just keep sticking on reels. And then over the last, like three weeks, like I had like, like 10 times to my followers, which I'm super appreciative, every single one. And it's still insane in hindsight. And I help any creator, even if you're not creative listened to this, um, it like your time is coming as long as you stick to it. And then you find what works. The biggest thing I've found is give, like, put your self in the mind of a viewer, like give value and people, you know, will be interested and want to follow along your journey.
Molly:Definitely. And also consistency. It was huge. I was very inconsistent in the past. I would take like months off from posting, you know, as soon as I became consistent posting that's when it all changed. Yeah, because I remember
Alex:you did the like 10 reels and 10
Molly:days that's what did it. And then one of them popped off and then, you know, multiple were popping like literally they were all going viral. What is
Alex:happening? So the weirdest thing to me is so tick tag, right? You post a video and after two days baring, some, some of them will pop off a little bit late, but for the most part, like you, they will die down pretty much after two days reels, like I had one real, like my first one just hit them. Um, it started popping off like two and a half weeks later. And I was like,
Molly:awesome. That's same thing with me. It was like a delayed reactions. Yeah. You never know which one could go viral and it, and for me it was one that didn't do well to begin with. I almost deleted it. It did so bad. And then thank God I did it because two weeks later, you know, it started getting views. So, yeah.
Alex:And it's so funny, the ones that will do well on Tik TOK, aren't the same ones that'll do well on Instagram, even though it doesn't make any sense. You're like if it's captivating, engaging comment or. Why will it do one on one, but not the other, it's almost exclusively that that always happens to
Molly:me. That's so true. It's really insane.
Alex:So, but so now you have this giant following. Um, so are, how serious are you going into this? Full-time because I was talking to Kyle, um, last episode, he recently just went full time a month and a half ago. And he's at about 11,000 Instagram followers. He hasn't gotten the chance to really dive into tick-tock yet, but he has been able to develop probably the most loyal. I don't know if you follow him.
Molly:I listened to the episode and I had heard about him before from heart eyes, DIY. She had, she had shared him a bunch and. I th I think that's amazing just his whole journey and everything. The loyal following that he has is amazing. It's
Alex:so well-deserved like hill posts. It was amazing. He'll post. He had this one brand sponsor posts with him sitting on his coffee table. Just a picture of, with a coffee maker, a really nice coffee maker. And it was just a page. And I think like 40% of his followers liked and commented. And I was like, that's awesome. And I've talked to some of his followers once I posted him being on my story, they came over and they were like, we love Kyle and anything, like he says, he told us to follow you. Like, that's still a level of like a sincereness he has with his followers and he prays a community and it's something that I think every creator should strive for. And I think that's why he's been able to monetize so well, but. So
Molly:that's the thing, like you could be making the same amount of money as a smaller account with a huge community, you know, who was loyal, you know, there's a large account who doesn't have that loyalty or whatever. So definitely the goal for
Alex:sure. So how has, so I remember I was talking like, uh, last week, so you're taking a much more serious now.
Molly:Yeah. Well, I. Uh, a contract with a management company now. So that's like very scary, but we'll see
Alex:what it's so exciting though, because the worst part honestly, is dealing with all of them negotiation. It ran reach. It becomes so overwhelming. I spent an hour today just with a response email to a brand, just like, here's my line. Here's this? Here's that? Because you always want to come with facts, not just like, I want this, I want that. And there's so many things that I didn't understand, like content rights, um, exclusivity. There's the thing I just learned this term though. There I'd never heard that term. One of, if anyone doesn't know a white listing, as you've seen it above. So when you're scrolling through social media and a creator, you see an ad that a creator posted for brands like home, whether that's a home Depot, Hey, this is my trip to home Depot. And then it's an ad that just shows up randomly on her feed. Even though you don't follow them, that's whitelisting where essentially they pay that creator to create that post. And now let's say home Depot is putting all this money into that video to shoot it out as an ad now to people that do not follow. Yeah. So originally I worked with a company called taro. It's like a T R O way back, like around Memorial day and basically like a bug spray for the perimeter of your house. And they, I had done the video and it performed okay. And they were like, we really liked the content. Do you mind if we. Like you give us this link that we can now pump money into it. And it'd be great because you can have a bunch of exposure to people you don't know. And I was like, how are you a free exposure? Yeah, you can use it. And they ended up pumping like 200,000 views into that. Gosh. And now knowing that I was. I cringe at it. Cause I'm like the amount of money as a creator, you can charge because it's your content.
Molly:Well, that's the thing, like we don't know what we don't know in the beginning. That's happened to me too. Um, a couple of times and I just, I am so bad with money asking for money. I just don't want anything to do with that part of it. Um, but it's incredible. If you think about how much the companies can reuse your content and how much money they're actually saving using your content, as opposed to like a big marketing campaign. If you think about it, that way, that you're like, okay, maybe it is worth a little bit more, you know, it's just a free product or whatever,
Alex:a hundred percent. Um, because I remember, uh, we had talked last week and you were mentioning about doing stuff with some of the companies. Kind of moving into and I had given you a number. I was like, this is what you should be charging based on what I know I can charge. And I can tell us a little bit like, whoa, because people don't realize how valuable it is because you know, being a creator is hard work and we appreciate every single person that follows our journeys and it's difficult. Um, Giving access to a brand like I'm making yourself vulnerable. Probably isn't the right word word, but opening up your audience to something that you're saying, Hey, this is a cool brand. I like this product. That's a big deal. Yeah. Um, a lot of people think you just take whatever deal comes. There's so many, I'm sure you have plenty. There's so many emails that I get every day from like these weird Amazon people. Like a lot of times it'll be like, exactly. It will be like an, um, an Asian, uh, email signature at the bottom. Like in a, I don't want to like say it's like Chinese letters or Japanese or whatever, but it's an Asian lettering. That's clearly not English. Yeah. Delete report spam. There's I get like two or three a day.
Molly:Have you had anybody try to hack your account yet? Because that happened to me multiple times.
Alex:Really? Do you have the two factor authentication? I
Molly:do. But what they do is they'll try to come into your DMS and say, oh, we're from the verification team or whatever, fill out this form and you'll have your verified check mark or. Which obviously it sounds like a scam from the beginning, but then you go in and you fill it out. I guess they, it looks like an Instagram form. So they want people to put their password and everything and which I would never do, but I'm sure that they do get people,
Alex:oh, a hundred percent. They probably hold your account hostage and see how much money you would pay as a creator that now spent all this time creating a following of, you know, six digits, like over a hundred thousand followers. And they'd be like, all right, pay me this amount of money or. Start from. Yup.
Molly:Yeah, exactly. Or they just hijack your account and turn it into whatever and use your following, you know, who knows what they do.
Alex:Yeah, that's, that's insane. There's gamers everywhere. I actually, I'm one of the funniest emails I've gotten. I think I posted on my Instagram and made a joke about it. I got an email from feat finder.com and they, and they were like, foot fetishes are the new thing. Like, it might not be your niche, but you can make a lot of money. Look, here's your link. And I posted on my story, Joe. Um, and like did like a walk with like my socks on or whatever. And it was like new sponsor, like completely joking. I thought it was going to hit, like, and everyone was going to understand, I got like tens of 20th DMS. Like people like, wait, what? I was like, God, please. I would never,
Molly:it wasn't serious. Yeah.
Alex:That's hilarious. Yeah. So there's definitely a lot of. Intricacies that you have to learn as a creator, but it's a lot of fun. Like, I, I get messages from people all the time. I like try my best to message every single person back. Um, and they'll just be like, wow, taking time out of your day to like respond to me. And I'm like, no, like you're the reason why I do this. I appreciate every single one of you. Like, I'm nothing without you guys. And the
Molly:same exact way with, with DNS. I really tried really try really hard to get back to every single person. Yeah.
Alex:It's difficult. Um, it can be a difficult time as well. I always like put myself in that mindset. Like I remember Kyle did it to me when I, like he sent his pad, he spent five minutes sending me a voice message about how he grew his following and how much he appreciated me and stuff. And I remember like it made my entire week, um, and it really inspired me and. I'm Aaron telling us stuff. If I ever am blessed to be in that position and people look up to me in a similar fashion, I will do everything I can to make sure that they know that I like the feeling is reciprocated. And then I'm not anybody without them.
Molly:For sure. Yeah.
Alex:And that's why working with brands and my opinion is as a creator, like if you ever see a brand post from myself or Molly or any of your favorite creators with DIY space or not, I can't speak for everyone, but for the most. Just know that that is a brand that they probably have vetted. It's probably taken three months to go through the negotiation stage before you even see the, the final product. And they don't take it lightly when they put a brand across to you. Because, you know, they're, they're not just out here trying to squeeze their accounts cause. As a career to me
Molly:could be if we wanted to, we could be making money still in the drop, shipped things from Tyna. Yeah,
Alex:exactly. Yeah. It could be technically a lot more lucrative than a, it mostly is for a lot of creators. Right. But speaking for myself and I'm Holly, like we care about each and every one of you and we want to put forth brands that, you know, we think you would enjoy or have fun with or would help you in, in any way.
Molly:Or brands that we love and use, you know?
Alex:Exactly. And I've seen, I've seen, especially on Tik TOK, I've seen people work with brands that is very cringy almost, and it's just like, it's just,
Molly:I've gotten so many weird things like, you know, protein shakes and buy and stuff. That's just not in my niche. And I don't feel comfortable pushing that to anybody, you know? Yeah. It's one thing. If I take it every day and I use it and I rave about it, but like random products that I'm not gonna, you know, like that's not, I'm not here to push you guys vitamins and like, you know,
Alex:so when wink, wink reached out to me, the wine company, like the, they ship you wine, they were like, can you do an unboxing? I literally responded. No, like I'm not doing an unboxing. That's not me. I would never, that's
Molly:good that you stood your ground. That's really
Alex:good. I was like my father, like, I would never make him sit through a stupid unboxing. Like, that's not my thing. So I
Molly:mentioned like, if it's something you actually love and you believe in, and it's a product you use and you know, that's, that's what it's all about, you know, sharing it with, that's the thing. And
Alex:I, and I messaged them back and I was like, I just want you to know, I love wine. I think I've heard only good things from your. What if I made a custom wine rack and I tied it into
Molly:that. So that's why he made the rack. Exactly.
Alex:And then they were like, oh, this is so cool. This is awesome. I was like, yeah, like why would I just sit and post a Tik TOK, comedian boxing.
Molly:Yeah. That's perfect.
Alex:Real life renovation, unboxing. And I can't wait. Yeah. So yeah, definitely navigating the brands is definitely new. Um, just made a close friends, Instagram story, where I had basically just opened it up to anyone. Um, I think I put you on it as well, BiPAP, but, and, um, I just put a question box on day. Number one, like what would you like to see? I got like probably 80 to a hundred responses in like 40 of them had to be about brands. That's insane, but like 40 of them. Cause people are so curious about it. And I was like, I will tell you. Everything. I'm legally allowed to tell you cause and the signed contracts that, you know, you can't divulge everything out of respect for the brand. Um, you know, and, and things like that. Yeah, it's, it's a new thing that you can't Google. I trust
Molly:that there's really no guide blinds or books that tells us how to navigate it.
Alex:Any creator that hasn't Googled, how much should I charge with this many followers is lying to your face. Cause we've all done it. And there's no, there's no good data on it at all, because. Base like friends with Kyle with 11,000 powers, his super loyal, all 11,000 followers is so much different than somebody with like an empty 50,000 followers where like, no one actually
Molly:it's more valuable for
Alex:shows. So there's just no way to do
Molly:it. His small community is way more valuable in that case a thousand percent.
Alex:But yeah, I can't wait. I'm so excited to follow your journey. Um, and see, not just on the DIY side, but the business. And just see you do your thing. Especially jumping from gray lane home to the Renegade home is just amazing to see. And I think it's inspirational for any creator in this space. Um, just across the board that it's never too late. I mean, four
Molly:years. Yeah. That was a long time. A long time of like, this is never going to happen for me. Sometimes you just have to change your strategy and change your mindset, you know,
Alex:and then double down once you, once you figure it out because you posted 10 reels in 10 days and did
Molly:it,
Alex:and it just popped up. So I love it. So with that, I think that was so much value right there. I really wanted to go into my classic quick fire round if you don't mind and then we'll close it. All right. First one is going to be, I think I always started off Lowe's or home Depot. Lowe's okay. Instagram or Tik TOK. Instagram, for sure. Okay. This one I had to ask you favorite paint brand share with millions. Nice Lowe's and Sherwin Williams. Dublin down one stop shop.
Molly:Yeah, but I, but we actually, this is crazy, but we don't have a Lowe's where I live. It's like 30 minutes away, actually Lowe's and home Depot are both 30 minutes away, but we do have a Sherwin Williams. So that's why I'm always at the actual Sherwin Williams store. Yeah. Like I I'm rarely at Lowe's
Alex:to get my paint sound going to the actual paint store rather than Sharon Williams or Behr in home Depot. Uh, like rather going to home Depot or Lowe's, they're the people in the actual paint store really know what they're talking about. Whereas if you go to home Depot or Lowe's like, one of my tips to you is it may be somebody that's just on a quick rotation, filling in someone for break. And they probably in the lumber yard, like section, but they needed a Finland and all they're there to do is say what color, okay. Let me type in that color code. So if you asked them, Hey, should I, cause I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to put. Pain in the bathroom, didn't even think, oh yeah, yeah. I never thought about that. And I walked in the Cheryl Williams and I was like, Hey, I'm doing a bathroom. Like I was thinking about this. They were like, are you kidding me? And they were like, like three employees, like surrendered. They were like, no, no, no, no. And they gave me like a five minute lecture.
Molly:Like it was a very nice paint ever. I really liked, I really liked the look of it, but I think you get like a very similar look with eggshell too. Like it's still pretty much.
Alex:And that's a little bit more
Molly:durable eat. Definitely. You can wipe it down. Coming from someone whose entire house was flat. When we moved in with kids, it was an absolute nightmare. I couldn't imagine flat
Alex:white walls with kids. Yeah. That sounds like a nightmare, like you said. Okay. Next one. Um, iced coffee or hot coffee, hot. Nice. Me and Kylie always get into debates out into what temperature justifies switching. Iced coffee in the summer to hot coffee. Do you switch it at like
Molly:I'm, I've not very like, um, I, I just like regular coffee, like I don't really go to Starbucks. I don't really do the ice coffee thing. Just regular old coffee. That's what I want every morning. Like from my Keurig, I'm not super fancy. Um, I don't really, even, I don't even really drink iced coffee. I think maybe sometimes I'll get like a frozen coffee, I guess. When I take my kids to Dunkin donuts. But yeah, not he,
Alex:yeah. Am also Dunkin fanatic over Starbucks. So let that be on the record. Duncan, coffee and food. It's not close. I tell people if I want a fancy drink or I want the vibes to get work done it Starbucks, not even close. Yeah. But if I want and I used to hot coffee and I want food, I'm going to Dunkin donuts.
Molly:Yeah, Duncan, their food is really good in the morning when it's like fresh, you know, it's the best time to go, but usually there's a line around the entire building. So at least here,
Alex:but no same here. Okay. We got a couple more favorite project of yours so far.
Molly:Um, that's tough. I always say this is my favorite project. I've probably said it about every project, but. I would probably say building the sideboard that we built or the little console cabinet, just because it taught me so much, you know, that I didn't know before that. Yeah. And I just felt so proud of it.
Alex:That's always the best feeling when you just take a step back. But
Molly:honestly, they're all kind of my favorite. I couldn't pick one.
Alex:The next, the most recent is usually my answer. Yeah. The one I just finished. Um, okay. I always ask this question. Number one, excuse people tell themselves on why they can't start DIY in their house.
Molly:I think the number one thing people tell themselves is they don't have tools. They don't mainly that they don't have tools or time to do it. Um, or the expense of it. Like I've said to my followers a lot, like when I first started doing DIY, we lived on a third floor apartment with two small kids, everything we did had to go up and down three flights of steps. Um, and I just started small doing like furniture flips mainly. That's all I could really do in that apartment. I didn't need any tools to start you really, all you need is a paintbrush, sander, maybe, um, and paint. And that's it. Like anybody can start just start. I would tell anybody, start small for sure. And you can do it. You don't need a lot of tools. You don't need a lot of. You know, fancy equipment, you know, or even really skills. Like you can learn anything now on like YouTube or Google.
Alex:Yeah. It's actually crazy what you can learn. And it's, it reminds me of two things that Dawson and episode three and Kyle and episode four. Doesn't sell the same thing. Start small, start with something like a furniture flip. Cause if you mess up, guess what? Like, it was probably $10 from Goodwill anyways. Yeah. Throw it in the trash. Cause that's where it was going already. It's not like your first thing is trying to tile the shower and now your shower is messed up and you start there. And then Kyle, he said each project in his eyes when he's never done a task is like an achievement online. And it's like a new excuse, basically to get a tool. Like for me, when I needed to build a coffee table, I got a table socks. I needed to rip down a bunch of long boards. And that was, to me, it was like my achievement unlocked. You've earned this table saw.
Molly:Yeah, definitely just go slow and buy things as you need them. You can also buy things hand on like Facebook marketplace and, you know, type of thing. They don't have to be brand new.
Alex:Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent. So my last question to you. As the dubbed paint goddess, what is your favorite hack
Molly:paint hack? I would say the file folder trick for sure. I use that every time I paint.
Alex:I can't wait to use it. I'm going to tag it.
Molly:That's probably the one I use the most for sure.
Alex:Cool. Well, all right. That's all I had for you. Did you have anything before we sign off?
Molly:Nope, I don't think so. Thank you for having.
Alex:Yeah, absolutely. And, um, everyone again, it's at the Renegade home. Holly Miller. She's amazing. Go check her out Instagram and Tik TOK. You will not regret it. She'll probably save your butt when it comes to painting as well. If you check out her reels and Tik TOK. So again, Molly, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I'm so invested in your journey, both on channels and behind the scenes as well, because I know how much work you put in to get here almost five years now. So excited for you and can't wait. Awesome.
Molly:Thank you
Alex:yet. Another amazing episode in the books. Thanks to Molly. I seriously, can't wrap my head around all of the parents out there, whether you're mom, dad, if you have little kids running around and you're still able to DIY around your home while you full-time jobs going on, I just don't understand that you guys are my heroes. I noticed in the cards for me down the road in a couple of years with me and Kylie. I just I'm, you know, I struggled to do stuff now and, uh, it's really insane what you guys were able to accomplish with the little ones running routes. So anyways, um, thank you again to Molly. Seriously, the paint goddess. I couldn't, she is the best when it comes to paint, go check out her profile. If you haven't already at the Renegade. Uh, and yeah, I just want to say, I appreciate you being here again. If you're able to give me a five-star rating, that would be amazing. Four stars is good as well. I'm not greedy. I never will be three stars and you can keep that to yourself. No. Uh, thank you. And, um, one of my good friends, Jamie, she had mentioned that if you're on Spotify, I guess they make you listen to a certain amount of episodes before you're allowed to, to rate, which I understand completely, but, uh, just know I see each and every rating. Uh, and then I appreciate that alone. So again, if you're still listening, thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I look forward to bringing you episode six and hanging out with you guys. So that