Home Design Trends and Quality Built Homes: A Conversation With DiLoreto Construction
Note: this is a transcript from our recent AHA interview. If you would like to watch the video, check out our content studio page. This interview is also available as a podcast episode – find it here.
Steve Stack:
Brought to you direct from Studio 3B at Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods, American Hardwood Advisor is your source for trends, tips, and insights into how the building industry has evolved.
Join me, Steve Stack, along with guest builders and industry leaders, as we talk shop and go in-depth on what it takes to be the best of the best.
Dive into topics like architecture, industry trends, project plans, historical tools, tricks of the trade, and life lessons from more than six decades of experience in the hardwood lumber business.
DiLoreto Construction Builds Quality Homes
Steve Stack:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Studio 3B at Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods. I’m Steve Stack and I’m here with our guests, Joe and Mike DiLoreto of DiLoreto Construction out of East Liverpool, Ohio. We’re going to talk to them about how they’ve witnessed the building industry (both commercial and residential) evolve throughout the years. They have a lot of experience behind them and a unique story in and of itself. So, guys, welcome to Studio 3B.
Mike DiLoreto:
Thanks for having us.
Joe DiLoreto:
Hello, Steve.
Steve Stack:
Are you going to behave today?
Joe DiLoreto:
I’m going to try.
Steve Stack:
All right. Well, we set the guidelines before we went on camera, so try hard.
Joe DiLoreto:
Do I have to live by them?
Steve Stack:
Try hard, okay? I’m excited to have both of you here. We’ve enjoyed having a business relationship and friendship over the years. It’s been fun watching your business grow and develop with the baton being passed. Mike, do you want to take us through it a little bit? Give us a little background about your company.
Mike DiLoreto:
Sure. My dad actually started a company called J & R Builders back in the early seventies. I was pretty young, about 12 years old. It was just a partnership but they grew quite quickly.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah, then one partner lost a little interest.
Mike DiLoreto:
In 1978, he decided to walk away from what was then J & R Builders and create DiLoreto Construction.
Steve Stack:
I didn’t know that.
Mike DiLoreto:
That was my senior year of high school. I graduated and went to Youngstown State for a couple of years. We worked as just the two of us. I’d come home every weekend to help get ahead on the heavy stuff. He would handle everything, but I’d help put trusses up, help frame, do whatever. Then he’d work the rest of the week while I was up at school. That went on for the two to three years I was in college. I also worked every summer. Right after that, I started working full-time. It was fun because we were doing a lot. I mean, we were working 60 to 70 hours a week and I was getting paid by the hour. I still have my pay stubs; I was making like $3.50 an hour at that time.
Joe DiLoreto:
Eight-hour days, only eight-hour days.
Steve Stack:
That’s all you were paying for?
Mike DiLoreto:
No, he was paying me. He was paying me by the hour. Finally he asked, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “This is what I want to do. I want to be a carpenter.” He said, “Do you want to be a partner?” And I said, “Yeah, I’d like to be a partner.” At that point, he made me a full 50% partner. Well, the next week comes and I get my paycheck. I look and it’s cut in half. I said, “What the heck is going on here?” He says, “Welcome, partner.” And my paycheck has never gone up since.
Steve Stack:
You didn’t do that.
Mike DiLoreto:
Oh yeah.
Joe DiLoreto:
He was making the same as I was!
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. But that’s basically how we got started. Back then, we would do some houses and things, but a lot of siding and a lot of roofs. Back in the eighties, it was tough.
Steve Stack:
Oh yeah.
Mike DiLoreto:
It was really lean.
Steve Stack:
There was a big downturn in new housing.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. I remember there was one summer where all we did was roofs the entire time.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah.
Mike DiLoreto:
I’ll tell you what, people talk about not wanting to get up in the morning. That was miserable. Slate tear-offs and everything. But it paid the bills and kept things going. We were always looking for newer, different trends.
Steve Stack:
Just like Baird Brothers, you find something to stay busy with.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah.
Steve Stack:
You both recognize that the remodeling side of the industry is huge. There are guys that make a living strictly doing remodeling, but you have the flexibility for remodeling, new home construction, and mixing in some commercial builds alongside it. You have a nice, broad base.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah. We actually had to build a house on spec before anybody would even talk to us about building a home. You had to prove that you could build a house before they would talk to you.
Steve Stack:
Just to get that credibility.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah. We sold it for what I had in it.
Steve Stack:
And the rest is history.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah.
Steve Stack:
That’s very true, especially during that time. People weren’t building spec houses.
Mike DiLoreto:
You couldn’t afford it.
Steve Stack:
Nobody was sticking their neck out. You went ahead, took the leap and it worked out for you.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah, luckily.
Multifunctional Building and Construction
Steve Stack:
How is your residential, new home construction versus commercial?
Mike DiLoreto:
It’s hard to put a number to it. We can’t say it’s a 60/40, 50% or anything like that. We made a decision long ago that we want to put our heads on our pillows every night. In doing that, we typically work within about a 15 to 20-mile radius. We’ve done that all of our lives. But in order to do that, you have to be able to do anything. We service the greater East Liverpool area and it’s everything from building banks, doctors’ offices, houses, condo developments, whatever.
Joe DiLoreto:
Remodels.
Mike DiLoreto:
Remodels, home makeovers, home offices, mudrooms, laundry rooms, kitchens, bathrooms. If Mrs. Smith calls and needs a light bulb changed, we go change a light bulb. Whatever our area needs, that’s what we do. We are general contractors that specialize in carpentry. I’m not a mason. I’m not a drywall finisher. We’re carpenters by trade. I’m a civil engineering technician and draftsman by schooling, but that’s my schooling. Our real niche is that we are a design-build type of firm.
When it comes to commercial work, I’m not an architect or a registered engineer. Somebody has to stamp the drawing that we do. I do all the leg work, get the floor plans done, the elevations, actually bid it to make sure that the customer can afford it, and then we’ll take it to an engineer or an architect to have it-
Steve Stack:
Get it stamped.
Mike DiLoreto:
Finalized, stamped, and ran through the state. We have a group that we typically deal with all the time. It works out very well.
Steve Stack:
I find it interesting that you’ve been able to survive within a 20-mile radius of East Liverpool. I mean, East Liverpool is not a real big town, right? But there’s a need. You’re like Baird Brothers; we don’t turn our nose up to much of anything. If there’s a need, we’re there.
Mike DiLoreto:
You can’t be a prima donna. You have to take whatever is thrown at you.
Steve Stack:
You used the example of Mrs. Smith needing a light bulb change. You do that because that’s who you are.
Joe DiLoreto:
Oh, yeah.
Steve Stack:
She might not be spending tens of thousands of dollars with you, but that’s who you are and those are your values. That reputation allows you to exist within a 20-mile radius. Mrs. Smith got her light bulb changed, but maybe her son or daughter is building a house next year. Who are they going to come to? They’re going to come to you guys, right? That speaks volumes and I think it’s a good approach to live by. We try to do that here at Baird Brothers. Every day is a workday, and some days are more giving than taking.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. You saying Baird is the same way reminds me of something. Back in the early eighties, we worked out of Joe’s basement. We basically had the workshop that you have here, but in the basement. We would do things down there. Well, it started getting bigger and we needed some space. We wanted a shop. Some friends of ours had warehouse space and so we moved into that, but we didn’t have a shop set up. We didn’t know where to go to figure out what we needed and what we wanted. We ended up coming to Baird. I think it was Dick that helped us out, literally got us in touch with Power Tool. And scoped out-
Steve Stack:
Bobby Blazer.
Mike DiLoreto:
Bobby Blazer, yeah. He basically laid out everything, came down, looked at what we had and showed us what we needed to get. I think he actually ordered most of the stuff for us.
Joe DiLoreto:
Yeah, he did.
Mike DiLoreto:
He didn’t pay for it though.
Joe DiLoreto:
He was close to it.
Steve Stack:
He must have liked you.
Joe DiLoreto:
He’s a good guy.
Mike DiLoreto:
No, really. He came down and laid out the shop, and it’s still that way today. Most of the pieces of equipment, which were all Delta at the time, are still in there. The shop that we have is not what you would call a production shop. It doesn’t have computerized cutting or anything. We have table saws and miter saws.
Steve Stack:
It’s a woodworker shop.
Mike DiLoreto:
It’s a woodworker shop, yes. That’s what we do. We have two guys in there every day working.
Steve Stack:
Really?
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. Every day.
Steve Stack:
Doing everything from-
Mike DiLoreto:
Everything under the sun. Right now we’re building a bar — all the bar cabinets, back, front, everything. We use the shop to support what we do in the field. Like if somebody said, “Hey, we would like some kitchen cabinets built.” We wouldn’t do that. We only do what we need-
Steve Stack:
For the projects you have going on.
Mike DiLoreto:
Exactly. We do buy boxed cabinetry from retailers for some houses because it’s more cost-effective. But what’s great about us is that we can really get customized. Whatever they don’t supply, we can make. That’s what we do.
Steve Stack:
That’s a great asset for you to have.
Mike DiLoreto:
Oh yeah.
Steve Stack:
It takes you to a different level than every other builder in the marketplace.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. We’ve done full bank teller lines. We just finished the whole counter system for an auto parts store. But those are the jobs that we’re doing.
Steve Stack:
Right, that’s interesting. And you’re keeping a couple of guys busy doing that all the time?
Mike DiLoreto:
All the time. Yeah, it’s come a long way from being in his basement. One time we built this gorgeous bar down in the basement that we needed for a job. In the end, we couldn’t get it out of the basement.
Joe DiLoreto:
You had to tell that one, didn’t you?
Mike DiLoreto:
The truth is the truth.
Steve Stack:
You had to be the one with the measuring tape on that job.
Joe DiLoreto:
I probably was.
Mike DiLoreto:
It was a nice-looking bar. We ended up cutting it in half, taking it out and putting it back together again. That was tough. I think that’s what made us get our shop.
Steve Stack:
Well, it’s an appreciation of craftsmanship. We try to set that bar every day as far as what is expected from our product. It’s the same thing with what comes out of your shop. You have control over that. You have control throughout the home building process. I’ll use a very simple example: bookcases and shelving on either side of the fireplace. It’s a no-brainer for you guys, right? You have that available to you. I did not know that you actually ran a little, for lack of a better word, a cabinet shop. But you can do everything in it, you can build mantles.
Mike DiLoreto:
Vinyl windows and natural light are becoming more prevalent in homes. But we don’t order them with extension jambs on them. We get everything from you guys, cut the extension jambs, the sills, do everything. Then we literally trim the whole thing out in the shop. Everything is pre-done, we just take it right out, pop them into the opening, anchor them in and seal it off. Beautiful.
Steve Stack:
Prefab it in the shop, then take it to the job site?
Mike DiLoreto:
Correct. Anything that we can prefab, we prefab and take it out.
Steve Stack:
Oh, sure. You can accomplish a lot of woodworking in the field, but if you’re in a shop setting, your accuracy and quality go up.
Mike DiLoreto:
And speed.
Joe DiLoreto:
Oh yeah.
Mike DiLoreto:
Because everything’s right there.
Steve Stack:
Right. Like you’re saying, you build a one-by-four box of extension jambs, apply one side of casing to it, walk out to the job site, little shim here or there, and boom. You have a beautiful piece done.
Mike DiLoreto:
I would say that we’re general contractors that specialize in carpentry. Taking it even further, I’d say we specialize in finished carpentry. It’s a sign of the times. We’re not running an 18 or 20 man crew as we used to where we did the framing, siding, roofing, anything that had to do with carpentry. We just can’t find help these days. So the guys that we have are excellent. I mean, they’re really good, devoted carpenters. We have three young boys that started last year and they’re doing great. We focus more on finished carpentry because we are getting a little more seasoned. We’re getting away from the things we don’t want to do and instead, doing the things we want to do. Nobody wants to go on the roof, except him.
Steve Stack:
He hasn’t learned yet.
Joe DiLoreto:
You’ve got to see me fall off of one.
Steve Stack:
I’ve done that, I don’t want to do that again.
Mike DiLoreto:
Last year he broke his hip. Because he fell off of a-
Steve Stack:
Off of a ladder.
Mike DiLoreto:
The kicker was that he wouldn’t go get checked. For ten days he had the tool belt on working before he finally let me take him down to get x-rays and they found it was broken. My dad always told me, “Son, if you’re going to be stupid, you better be tough.” Well, guess what? My dad is tough.
Steve Stack:
You’re a tough son of a gun. What do you think, Joe?
Mike DiLoreto:
He’s tough.
Joe DiLoreto:
I feel like somebody’s making a sandwich and I’m the meat.
Mike DiLoreto:
But that’s kind of what we’ve evolved into.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. I like the fact that you said you picked up a couple of new boys that are working out. You guys have paid your dues and come up through the ranks. But for some of these younger kids, there is so much opportunity in the trades.
Mike DiLoreto:
Oh my God, yeah.
Joe DiLoreto:
Oh yeah.
Steve Stack:
Mike, you mentioned getting $3.50 an hour earlier. These kids, if they can show up in the morning and give you eight, nine or ten hours, they can make a darn good living.
Mike DiLoreto:
They’ll make a darn good living, for sure. We’re not paying peanuts.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. Just like you guys starting your business, if those kids spend some time with somebody like you folks and get five to eight years under their belt, there’s opportunity. Do you want to be the boss? Go out and be your own boss. But, you have to have that footing and that experience. They can gain that through someone like you.
Mike DiLoreto:
We’ve done something different this past year. Typically we have framers frame a house up. Then we come in afterward and spend a week doing what we call the “detail framing.” Not just fixing. I don’t want to make it sound like that, because it’s not. It’s the detailed stuff that we need to do for the beams, the box beams, the trim, and whatever has to be done.
Steve Stack:
Blocking for the curtain rods.
Mike DiLoreto:
We spend time doing that stuff ourselves. But this year we had a couple of smaller ranch-style units that were a little easier. We took the new guys out and framed them ourselves so that they could see that process.
Steve Stack:
They benefited from it.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. When I came up, a carpenter was someone that could do everything. Frame, layout, rafters, cut miters, they can figure out everything. The problem these days is that everybody wants to be a specialist. “Oh, I do metal studs.” “Oh, I do framing.” “Oh, I do roofs.” The fact is that a carpenter should be able to do all of that. That’s what we’re trying to show these kids, a little bit of everything. Sure, they’ll find their niche and what they’re better at, but they need to know everything.
Steve Stack:
How many footers did you lay out and frame over the years?
Joe DiLoreto:
Good lord, Steve. God only knows.
Steve Stack:
To Mike’s point, you started there and then you expanded on it.
Joe DiLoreto:
We actually hand dug our footers for a while.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah.
Joe DiLoreto:
I’m serious.
Mike DiLoreto:
We would dump the gravel for the French drain down at the road so that I could wheel it all the way up.
Joe DiLoreto:
I was keeping him in shape for football.
Steve Stack:
You know, there were child labor laws.
Joe DiLoreto:
Not back then.
Mike DiLoreto:
Not in my house. There was no sympathy there.
Steve Stack:
I can just see it. “Hey, Mike, move that pile of dirt over there.” Come in tomorrow, “Mike, move that pile of dirt back over where we had it yesterday.”
Mike DiLoreto:
I think I did okay though.
Interior Design Trends for the New Year
Steve Stack:
What are you seeing these days design-wise? I’m going back to the late seventies, early eighties. Ranches were the popular home type. It was what we used to call the Hollywood casing, three and a quarter inch Hollywood baseboard. It was oak flush hollow core doors, or Birch-
Mike DiLoreto:
Birch flash, yep.
Steve Stack:
Right. That was the era. Then everybody went from ranches to a center entry two-story. You walk in, dining on the left, living room on the right, the kitchen and dining room in one back corner. We went through that home design trend. So not only has the living space changed, floor plan, layouts, and so forth, but what’s going inside of the houses is changing. As far as what we’ve seen with Baird products, it seems like right now we can’t produce enough poplar material. There’s so much painting going on as far as home decor trends. How do you see that coming into 2022? We don’t see that changing anytime soon. We offer all of the wood tones and stain grade species, the red oak, the maple, the cherry, the hickory (hickory being very popular right now). We see staining being used more for feature focal points than the common thread throughout the house. We’re seeing a lot of paint color trends. How about you, Mike?
Mike DiLoreto:
Oh, paint is huge right now. Finger jointed poplar is so great because it’s still wood (it’s pieces put together), but it’s much more stable. So you get a far superior product when you’re painting the finger joint. It’s amazing how things have changed. Back in the eighties or early nineties, the trend was the 1,400 square foot raised ranch house with one window in each room, because that’s all you needed. Now, we’re very seldom looking at anything under 2,800 square feet. It’s up to eight or nine thousand square feet for homes. Rooflines are all over the place, different pitches, the foundations all over.
As I said, we design all of the homes that we build. When people come to us, I ask, “Just look on the internet and show me some pictures.” You’d be surprised, if they bring me three different pictures of homes, it’s funny how you can pick up on their design style just from their popular searches. Very seldom you’ll have two ends of the spectrum. Usually, when they bring you a couple of pictures, you can pretty much tell what they want. Then ask them what they’re looking for. You can tell whether they like minimalism, mid-century modern, or prefer natural materials. Let’s face it, everything is an open floor plan design these days.
Steve Stack:
Oh, it sure is.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. As far as wood products, we’re doing mostly everything painted and hardwood floors. Hardwood floors are back. I can remember my grandparents having hardwood floors and covering them over with carpet. Specifically, we are seeing a lot of hickory. Hickory floors, white oak floors.
Steve Stack:
White oak has been very popular, same with the hickory. And floor covering is not cheap. I don’t care whether you’re talking about carpeting, tile, or hardwood, but the hardwood separates itself a little bit in value.
Mike DiLoreto:
Oh, it’s not just that. It’s such an easy sell. I tell people that when you put down a hardwood floor, they’re always worried about scratching or denting. Do you know what I say? If you scratch or dent a hardwood floor, it’s a character mark. To be honest with you, it adds to it. You can throw a little scratch cover on it, but it adds a patina, a look to it. If you do that to a laminate floor, it’s shot. It’s done. I tell people, it’s one and done. You get ten years down the road and if hardwood flooring starts to look a little bit worn, have Sam the wood floor man come in and re-sand it.
Steve Stack:
Yeah, scuff it up and recoat it.
Mike DiLoreto:
And it looks great.
Steve Stack:
That’s a huge point. People’s taste changes, along with being influenced by interior decorators, new trends, and the paint color of the year. Seven or ten years down the road, you may want to take that light-colored floor and make it a darker color palette. Again, you call Sam. He comes in, sands it, he makes it any color you want. You basically have a brand new hardwood floor, and you’re up and running again.
Home Design Ideas Meet Quality
Mike DiLoreto:
With these homes, I always give people the speech when we’re talking about numbers. I tell them, “What drives the cost of this job? It’s you, Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner. It’s what you want to put in that house, that’s where the big difference is.”
It bothers us sometimes but we’ve got a reputation of being high priced in East Liverpool. That’s what they say, “Oh, you’re high priced,” but that is so far from the truth. Our hourly wages are probably under what a lot of the market is around here. It’s just that we do high-priced work. People see what we’re capable of doing, they see your product and they want it. That’s the difference. There are companies that are mass producers of homes, and I don’t knock that. They’ve got great curb appeal, but they fill a niche that we don’t care to fill. We don’t try to compete with that, we try to complement those new home communities. I think that’s where it’s been nice. We don’t have to build 20 new homes a year. We can get by with one, two, three, four, it doesn’t matter. But each one, it’s ours. It’s part of us.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. With today’s consumers, they come to you and they have decorating ideas. There’s so much available to people today via cell phones, iPads, computers and social media. They come to you and they might have a want list. To your point, “Well, we can do it for this, but your want list says it’s going to be this instead.”
Mike DiLoreto:
We try to give them options. It’s like I said, it’s not that we won’t put down carpeting. It’s just that if you’re asking my opinion, this is where you should go.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. How are the homeowners today when they come to you? Are they more educated than say, a homeowner 20 years ago? As far as their ability to research products and things of that nature. It goes the whole way. There are smart homes.
Mike DiLoreto:
Well, we don’t see smart homes anymore. We’ve kind of quit chasing that. When I say smart home, I’m talking about technology-wise. Because I can remember back when we did the whole house alarm system. You’d open up the door and hear, “Garage door.” The trouble is that a smart home today is pretty stupid three weeks from now because the technology is leading.
Steve Stack:
It’s evolving, yeah.
Mike DiLoreto:
So if people want that, yes. Our electricians handle all of that and take care of it. But I try to steer people back because so much of everything is now WiFi. But smart homes are also energy-efficient homes for sustainability. And yes, everything we do now is two by six walls, higher insulation, and better windows for natural light. But still, I have to laugh. You make a two-by-six wall for insulation value, then fill the whole wall with windows and doors.
Steve Stack:
A little irony. But you bring up an interesting point. Some building products have changed and evolved over the years. Some for the better. Then there are products we could say were better back in the seventies or eighties. We see it with some products that we bring in. You can buy good plywood or you can buy junk plywood, right?
Mike DiLoreto:
Wow. Yeah.
Steve Stack:
You guys have a carpentry background, trimming, cabinet building and stuff. You know that we sell very high-grade, cabinet-grade plywood. Other retailers might be ten or 12 dollars a sheet less, but there’s a reason.
Mike DiLoreto:
The thing is, whether you’re using that cheaper grade plywood or the better plywood, it’s still the same amount of money to put it together. So you’re better off getting the good stuff right now and being done with it. Because it costs the same to cut it, shape it and fit it.
Steve Stack:
How many houses do you have on the books right now?
Mike DiLoreto:
We’re finishing one right now, they’re moving in this weekend. The other one we’re starting to trim. We’re actually waiting on the doors.
Steve Stack:
No.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah, they’re custom hickory.
Steve Stack:
We’ll have to talk to Harry, it’s probably laying up there on his desk. He hasn’t typed it yet.
Mike DiLoreto:
We’re doing that house, starting to trim it out this week. We’re drawing up four other ones right now. So, we still have the winter to try and finish out a couple of homes. I’ll tell you, it’s great right now. We have no outside work right now. Everything we have is inside.
Steve Stack:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. A lot of guys try and accomplish that on-
Mike DiLoreto:
It’s our first time ever.
Steve Stack:
It doesn’t always work out that way. Folks always say, “Well, it’s winter, are you guys slowing down?” I say, “No. Everybody’s inside trimming right now.” That has always been the case this time of year.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah, we’ve got a cool project going right now commercial-wise. It’s the Masonic Temple in East Liverpool, we’re putting a five-story elevator in it. What’s cool about it is that it’s two buildings. It’s the old Godwin Mansion. It was built around 1860 then there was an addition put on the back in 1910. So we’re sending up this elevator shaft and feeding both portions out of this. But inside, we’re trying to restore it back to the way it was. So, it’s requiring some oak, different species of woods, and some nicer doors that we’re going to have you guys make up for us.
Steve Stack:
I know you both have an appreciation for old woodwork.
Joe DiLoreto:
Wow, yeah.
Steve Stack:
Not only the woodwork itself or how it was manufactured, but the care that was given during installation. I remember my father had (and I still have it) an old metal frame miter box with-
Joe DiLoreto:
I still have it.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. I mean, think about how easy we have it now. That 10-inch slide compound is a dream. But that’s why you guys had biceps like that.
Mike DiLoreto:
We have relatives still in Italy, and the name of the little town is called Civitella Alfedena. That’s where my great grandfather was from. Filippo would have been my-
Joe DiLoreto:
Cousin.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. He was Pap’s first cousin. Filippo passed away a few years ago. We still visit his daughter, although we haven’t for two years because of the pandemic. It was so cool because Mauro, her husband, has his own woodworking shop, a full cabinet shop. He has some of Filippo’s old tools. When we went to leave the last time we were there, one of the pieces was missing off of the wall in the shop. He gave it to my dad as a memento of a day gone by and our relatives. That was really cool. So, we’ve got it in our shop, hanging up there with the picture.
Steve Stack:
We were talking appreciation and the miter saw. Imagine showing up on a job site in the morning and the boss handing you a moulding plane and telling you, “I need 200 feet of a five-inch crown moulding. There’s a stack of rough lumber.”
Mike DiLoreto:
That’s the way it was! And it wasn’t just one piece that did it.
Joe DiLoreto:
“I’ll see ya!”
Evolution of Tools Over the Years
Steve Stack:
I wanted to touch on how tools and resources have changed over the years. Being a carpenter was a tough job. Not that it’s easy work today, but it’s a heck of a lot easier than it used to be. Hand a guy a hammer and a 50-pound box of 16 common and say, “Hey, we’re building walls today. Where’s the air compressor?”
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah. One of my first jobs working for him was nailing down the floors. They’d get the plywood set into place and I would spend all day long just pounding nails.
Steve Stack:
Striking lines?
Mike DiLoreto:
Striking lines and pounding nails.
Steve Stack:
You didn’t make him do all that hard work, did you?
Joe DiLoreto:
He got pretty good at it.
Steve Stack:
Yeah, I think so. He had a good teacher.
Joe DiLoreto:
We’d go down in the basement and look up to see how many joists he missed with the nails.
Mike DiLoreto:
Yeah, just a few years ago.
Steve Stack:
Oh, shoot. It’s fun to look back and hear your stories like that. You guys have been coming here for a long, long time. You mentioned an interaction with Dick Baird, one of the founding brothers. As long as I can remember, you guys have been coming in here. We thank you for your support and your loyalty to us. It’s amazing how relationships develop. We’ve been blessed with customers like you. It’s easy doing business when there are no problems. There might be situations, but it’s not a problem. It’s going to get taken care of.
Mike DiLoreto:
Believe it or not, that’s one of our mottos: “Never problems, only solutions.” And it’s the truth. There’s no sense getting all worked up. Just sit back, relax and figure it out.
Steve Stack:
I’ve seen you excited a time or two.
Joe DiLoreto:
Well, that’s my nature. I’m Italian.
Mike DiLoreto:
He’s calm. He’s calm all the time.
Steve Stack:
I can only imagine. I would have paid to see you refereeing basketball games.
Joe DiLoreto:
A lot of people did.
Steve Stack:
I think you found some enjoyment out of tossing fans out of the gymnasium.
Joe DiLoreto:
No, not really. I just didn’t have much use for loudmouths.
Steve Stack:
I think you got a certain amount of enjoyment out of it though.
Mike DiLoreto:
That was his stress reliever.
Joe DiLoreto:
I enjoyed refereeing. I met a lot of nice people.
Steve Stack:
That’s what it’s about. My gosh, life’s too short. Enjoy it. Friends don’t come around very often, and that’s what we consider you guys. Yeah, you’re a business partner, but you’re friends too and we really enjoy that.
Joe DiLoreto:
Why did you look at me and say life is short?
Steve Stack:
You’re my hero, Joe. I can only hope to be as ornery as you.
Joe DiLoreto:
Oh no, you don’t want that. You don’t want that.
Steve Stack:
Oh, shoot. Well guys, I really appreciate you taking the time to come up this afternoon and visit with us. We appreciate you trusting us to be in your building supply chain. We look forward to more homes in 2022 and beyond. I wish continued success to you guys. When you’re out here picking up at will call, you better come up the steps and say hello to Eric and me.
Joe DiLoreto:
I always do, don’t I?
Steve Stack:
Yep, and you always come with a story. We appreciate that.
Mike DiLoreto:
Then you guys crank him up and then send him home to me, so I appreciate that too.
Steve Stack:
You told Eric and me last week that they look for someplace to send you just to get you off the job site these days.
Joe DiLoreto:
That’s what they do.
Steve Stack:
Hey, I think they were paying attention over the years though, Joe.
Joe DiLoreto:
I don’t know.
Quality Home Design, Builds and Products
Steve Stack:
Thank you both so much. Folks, continue to follow us and track these guys down, DiLoreto Construction out in East Liverpool. If nothing else, just have a conversation with them. You can tell they’re both pretty nice guys.
For all you folks listening, thanks for talking shop with Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and wanted to stay up-to-date with the American Hardwood Advisor podcast series, give us a like and subscribe. For more tips, projects, and inspiration, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, read our tweets, or visit bairdbrothers.com. Until next time.
DiLoreto Construction, Inc. is located in East Liverpool, Ohio. They are a home builder servicing the surrounding area on new construction or any general contracting needs. They have a wide range of capabilities, serving homeowners and businesses alike. Whether you want to renovate your master bedroom, design a single-family home, or complete the buildout for your business location, DiLoreto Construction can help.
Contact Information for DiLoreto Construction, Inc.
Address: 16651 St Clair Ave, East Liverpool, OH 43920
Phone: (330) 386-9301
