Kitchen Design, Home & Reinvention: Building a Life You Love with Marvin W. Towler

Summary

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Episode: Kitchen Design, Home & Reinvention: Building a Life You Love with Marvin W. Tyler

Date: August 7, 2026
Guest: Marvin W. Tyler (Dream Kitchen Imagineer, Founder—Marvin Kitchen and Bath Cabinetry, Author—Plan the Perfect Kitchen)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the intersection of kitchen design, personal reinvention, and the meaning of home. Host Lisa Lacy speaks with Marvin W. Tyler, veteran kitchen imagineer and author, about how our living spaces—especially kitchens—reflect our deepest values, histories, and aspirations. The conversation flows from practical design tips to poignant reflections on family legacy, personal growth, and the courage to drop the masks we wear.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Does a "Kitchen Imagineer" Do? (02:13–04:56)

• Marvin’s Role:
  Marvin describes his approach as “selling the unseen”—helping clients articulate their visions and turn them into reality through 2D plans that he then visualizes in 3D.
• Listening to Clients:
  Marvin emphasizes drawing out clients’ true desires, using a detailed kitchen questionnaire to get beyond surface wishes.
  • “If you can tell me what you want, I can draw what you want.” (02:42)
  • “The questions…are really not for me. The questions…are for them.” (04:04)

2. Helping People Discover What They Want (04:59–09:47)

• Inspiration Sources:
  Formerly magazine clippings, now digital platforms like Houzz and (hesitantly) Pinterest or AI-generated images (“did your job just become more complicated?” 06:03).
• Everyone Knows What They Want:
  Marvin disputes the idea that clients don’t know what they want:
  • “They always know what they want. Whether they want to tell you is a different story.” (07:23)
  • It’s about having people “admit [their] favorite thing” and building on it.

3. The Importance of a Solid Plan (11:06–15:19)

• Planning as Essential:
  Starting a remodel without a plan is “like building a house without a blueprint.”
  • “You could build a house without a blueprint, but you know how it’s going to turn out is a whole…” (11:30)
• Budgeting:
  The plan exposes true costs for flooring, cabinets, appliances, plumbing, electrical, etc., and helps avoid the pain of running out of money mid-project.
• Accounting for Overage:
  “You’re supposed to plan to go 20 over budget. Automatically. So people say, oh, that’s not going to happen. That’s going to happen.” (14:12–14:21)
• Rule of Thumb:
  "You should invest 10 to 15% of the value of your house [in the kitchen], because you're never going to get that money back if you do more than that." (15:33–15:54)

4. The Kitchen as Heart of the Home (16:19–20:42)

• Sensory Significance:
  Marvin relates how the kitchen activates the senses, builds connections, and acts as the space “where we say I love you.” (16:42)
• Personal Story:
  Marvin recounts his upbringing in a family of masons, the smell of his father’s boots, and a formative summer helping build a pool. His father’s death at 18 left things unsaid—a thread he weaves into how he approaches design and life.
  • “I never, I don’t believe I ever told the man I loved him.” (20:42)

5. Mentorship and Self-Discovery (21:47–23:05)

• Crucial Mentorship:
  An architect mentor guided Marvin and persistently asked, “What do you want to do with your life?”—a question that drove Marvin to craft a sense of purpose.
• Advice:
  Lisa underscores the power of having mentors in one’s life and the necessity of seeking them out.

6. Balancing Dreams, Budgets, and Personalization (23:26–26:12)

• Navigating Aspirations vs. Reality:
  Marvin observes the kitchen can be designed for $40K or $300K—luxury is not about cost, but about personalization and making “something you love.”
  • “Everybody deserves some accessibility to luxury. Luxury…falls in the category of personalization.” (24:52–25:20)

7. Reinvention & Making Hard Choices (27:29–32:12)

• Letting Go of Old Paths:
  Both Marvin and Lisa recount making big pivots for practical reasons (art to architecture, acting to corporate education).
• Impact of Economic Cycles:
  Marvin describes architecture as a “cyclical” industry—“first to get hit by the economy, last to recover”—requiring frequent reinvention and adaptability.
• Staying Resilient:
  The lesson: Don’t panic, keep adapting, and say “yes” to new opportunities.
  • “There are people making money during every economy. So…the idea is sort of like not to panic.” (33:15)

8. Vulnerability & Family Healing (36:09–40:52)

• On Performing/Surviving:
  Marvin openly shares that he’s still working on “dropping the mask” he wears in life and work.
  • “I don’t think I’ve dropped the mask yet.…Part of me doing this thing live is part of me, you know, dropping the mask.” (36:34–37:17)
• Parent–Child Conversations:
  He speaks about admitting past failures to his adult daughter as a necessary conversation for healing and growth.
  • “…Me admitting to her that I failed her miserably.…I need to redeem myself.” (38:52–39:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Uncovering Preferences:
  “Pick the one that you love, and then you’re building on top of that.” (10:03)
• On Planning:
  “The dream doesn’t come true. It’s the plan that comes true.” (11:30)
• On Overbudgeting:
  “You’re supposed to plan to go 20 over budget. Automatically.…I’ve been doing this 30 years. It’s gonna happen.” (14:12–14:28)
• On Kitchens and Love:
  “The Kitchen is the heart of the home. Because I…feel it’s the place where we say I love you.” (16:42)
• On Accessibility of Luxury:
  “Luxury…falls in the category of personalization…everybody deserves [it].” (25:20)
• On Dropping the Mask:
  “I have yet—I’m working on dropping the mask...” (36:34)
• On Parent–Child Relationships:
  “There’s a certain level of conversations…we sort of have to admit, sort of like admitting our mistakes…” (39:41)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:33–02:13: Intro to Marvin and his philosophy
• 02:13–04:56: The role of a kitchen imagineer and drawing out client wishes
• 07:23–09:47: Uncovering what people really want in their kitchen
• 11:06–12:56: The perils of starting a remodel without a solid plan
• 14:12–14:28: Why overages always happen—budgeting for reality
• 16:19–20:42: The kitchen as the emotional center of home, personal anecdotes
• 21:47–23:05: Mentorship and life’s tough questions
• 24:52–26:12: Customization, luxury, and making spaces truly yours
• 27:29–32:12: Reinventing oneself—education, career pivots, economic impacts
• 36:09–37:17: Vulnerability, authenticity, working on dropping personal armor
• 38:52–40:09: Admitting mistakes to children, seeking redemption and connection

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Tone & Language

The conversation is candid, warm, sometimes humorous, and deeply reflective. Both Lisa and Marvin blend practical advice with heartfelt storytelling, inviting listeners to consider not only their physical spaces but also their personal journeys toward authenticity and belonging. The episode closes with a challenge to listeners: examine the roles and performances in your own life—and consider what freedom might come from letting them go.

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Connect with Marvin W. Tyler

• Website: www.perfectkitchentv.com
• Book Forthcoming: Plan the Perfect Kitchen

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Reflection Prompt (from Lisa)

“What are you performing right now just to survive? And what might dropping that role, mask, or performance do to change or improve your life?” (41:00)

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For anyone seeking insight into both kitchen design and the art of reinventing one’s life, this episode serves up both with style, humor, and heart.

Transcript

[Lisa Lacey]

Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir, Notes from a Certified Mad Woman. Welcome to the Edge.

Hey. Hey, my friends. Welcome back to an episode of Notes from the Edge. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations where we should have been having all along. Guess what? You're not talking about it, but we're gonna. And today's guest is Marvin W. Tyler. He is a dream kitchen imagineer, architectural interiors and millwork professional, and the founder of Marvin Kitchen and Bath Cabinetry. For more than 30 years, he has worked with architectural, building and custom cabinetry industries. He has designed hundreds of homes, remodels, kitchens, combining practical knowledge of construction with creativity that's required to build spaces that are not only functional but beautiful to improve your life. He works with homeowners, residential builders, contractor, contractors, architects, interior designers, real estate investors to help them move complex projects forward with clarity and less cost. That is so important right now. And he considers far more than just placement of cabinets, which is why he's a guest here today. He examines the relationship between everything and. And believes that everybody deserves a kitchen that has a good design that actually begins way before the construction. And he is the author of the upcoming book. We love new books in here. Plan the perfect kitchen. Marvin, welcome to Notes from the Edge. How are you today, my friend?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Happy to be here, miss Lisa.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Good. Good.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah. So I love this. You called, call yourself a kitchen imagineer, which is so fantastic and so creative, but what does that. What does that mean to you? And how did you end up in a place where you realized, wow, you know what? Having a beautiful, not only functional, but beautiful kitchen in your home really matters to make people happier and have more joyous lives. When did that realization come to you?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Well, I hyphenated with dream kitchen imagineer because I'm selling the unseen, and the unseen begins with what the customer wants, you know, for their house. So I usually tell people, if you can tell me what you want, I can draw what you want. So I don't visualize things. I've been drawing for so long that I. I do not visualize things unless I see it in 2D. When I draw in the flat 2D, I visualize the 3D. So there's a process like carpenters and contractors, whatever they visualize in 3D, they can, like, take a piece of wood and start building. Because they see. I don't see anything in 3D. I see it, I don't see it in 3D till I see it in plan.

[Lisa Lacey]

And until you're told somebody's idea, you take their idea into 3D and then visualize it in 3D and then eventually it becomes a reality.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So my job is to peel out of them, make them feel comfortable enough to tell me what they want. Yeah, so there's the tell me what you want version, and then there's the version where I actually send them a kitchen design evaluation form.

[Lisa Lacey]

Oh, that's smart.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I call it a kitchen design evaluation form. I call it a kitchen questionnaire. But all it is is a seven page sheet of question questions. Yeah, so the questions, the crescents, are really not for me. The questions for us are for them. So when they fill out those questions and there's no right or wrong answers, it's just what you like, what you prefer. What's your wish list? And essentially it's a bunch of multiple choice and checkboxes. So my, my request is fill out the questionnaire. There's no right or wrong answers. Just tell me what your wish list is. And when they go through the list and I get it back, I pretty much, I pretty much know, you know, what they want. So once upon a time, in the beginning, when there were magazines like Good

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Housekeeping and you could clip them, right?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

It would say, I would say, well, go to the bookstore and get, you know, half a dozen magazines. Flip through the magazine and pull out the pictures that you like. If you pull out the pictures you like, what happens is there's a pattern that develops on what their eye. And the preference ends up being it may be colors, it may be shapes, you know, whatever it is, their eye is going to be attracted to certain things. So you give me a list of things that your eye is attracted to, then I know, and I can draw it. So now we don't have magazines anymore. And now it's like, go to Pinterest, which I don't really like, but it's also go to Houzz, because there's a lot of pictures on Houzz. H, O, U Z Z. And then now, like, you know, you know, my last kitchen, I had a customer who was doing the AI thing where she was going to AI and she was sending me these pictures of. She was like, marvin, I want my kitchen to look like this photo. And I'm like, well, what is it? She's like, it's AI And I'm like,

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

did your job just become more complicated?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

More complicated? I'm like.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I'm like, this isn't real.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Show me the picture. And I'm like, do you know. Like, do you know what this picture says that you're gonna get? And. Or. Or. Or some other customer showed me a picture, and I'm like. And I go, well, I know why you like that picture, but it's like, you can't afford. You can't afford that picture.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's out of our budget.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

But it's sort of like. But they like.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Let's go back to the questionnaire, friends.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I know. I know. My feeling. I was so annoyed with the AI Thing. I was like, this is, like, ridiculous. But she kept doing it. Oh, my gosh. I was just getting pissed off at her because she was like, marvin, take a look at this.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I'm like, I can't do that. Well, Marvin, what I. You know, we snort laugh out here all the time. What I love about the.

[Lisa Lacey]

The idea of a questionnaire is, you know what?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

A lot of times we don't know what we want. I have. You run into a lot.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I disagree. I disagree with that.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, do you?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Okay, tell me why always know what they want? Whether they want to tell you what they want is a different story.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay, explain that. Elaborate.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

That's sort of like. Like, if someone say, hey, you know, what color should I pick? It's like, what's your favorite color?

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah, okay. My favorite color is teal. I know that right off top of my head. Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So that's your favorite color.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So it's as simple as them admitting you know what their favorite thing is to actually build on it.

[Lisa Lacey]

So our favorites.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Yeah, exactly. Everybody has their favorites.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So in the kitchen, there's the flooring. There's the countertop. There's the. Oh, sorry about that.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You're good. You're good. Actually, let me put mine on silent, too. That reminds me. All right, here we go. Okay, we're good.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Sorry about that.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Okay. You didn't have to throw it away. Your AI customer. Okay, so my favorite.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I feel. I feel people do know what they want.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

All right.

[Lisa Lacey]

You were talking about floors, though. There's floors, so.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Yes. So in the kitchen, there's. There's a couple of big areas. You got your floor, you got your countertop. You got your cabinets. Okay, so there's like, three big ones, and then you have your wall, you know, of course. So it doesn't matter to me. My request to the customer is find the floor. That you liked.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Or find the color that you liked for the cabinets. Find the countertop that you like. It doesn't matter which one you like. It's usually. It's usually. Find the one that you're in love with. Oh, find the one that you're in love with. You may be in love with the floor. You may be in love with a particular cabinet style or color. You may be in love with the granite that you can see. You may be.

[Lisa Lacey]

It would be floors.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I'm a thing.

[Lisa Lacey]

I have a thing about floors.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah.

[Lisa Lacey]

I would be more focused on the floors than anything. Do you find that. That a lot of your clients are like, I'm. I. The cabinets don't matter, but I. I really need these floors this way.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

No, it's different for. It's different for everybody.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So my thing is, you pick the one that you love. In a sense, you're building on the. You know, my selection is kind of organic. You build on them. You pick the one that you love, and then you're building on top of that.

[Lisa Lacey]

I got it. I got. So if I said I'm. I. I need this. This floor because I'm in love with this floor, then we would build from there.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Exactly.

[Lisa Lacey]

Love it.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Exactly.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Love it. So it's not.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

You know, I don't consider my. I don't consider myself a decorator. I'm not a decorator. I. I don't even consider myself interior designer. But I concentrate on the. The function. The function and the layout of the kitchen. My position is that it's the homeowners. It's their home. It's their style, it's their design. It's their selection and process. So my feeling is the homeowner's desire. The homeowner is making the selections.

[Lisa Lacey]

But aren't you the guide?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You're kind of.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Yes, exactly. But they are still the ones making this selection. Exactly.

[Lisa Lacey]

I love that. I love that. A kitchen imagineer guide. That's so cool.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's so cool.

[Lisa Lacey]

So, all right, you. Your philosophy is that beginning a kitchen renovation without a plan.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That sounds terrifying, actually.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Correct.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Is like building a house without a blueprint at all.

[Lisa Lacey]

So what's the most expensive or painful mistake that people can make when they rush into remodeling without a plan or somebody to guide them through the process?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Okay. So everybody has theirs. You know, so. So people end up having the dream of whether it's the kitchen, the house, or whatever. So they have the dream, but the dream doesn't come true. It's the Plan that comes true. So the reason why I say building a kitchen without a plan is like building a house. Like you could build a house without a blueprint, but you know how it's going to turn out is a whole, you know.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah, that would. That would be a little sketchy, I think. I mean, it might fall down.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So the reason why you need it for the kitchen is because that kitchen plan is going to save you from the costly part of making a mistake.

[Lisa Lacey]

When it comes to your budget, that makes total sense.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

It's the budget. The plan gives you the budget.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So you have a plan, and from that plan you can calculate how much flooring square foot, how much. What's the square footage of flooring, how's the flooring going to cost? You know, the cabinet for the layout, for the cabinets, you know what the cabinet going to cost. You're getting the square footage of the granite for the countertop, so you know how much the granite is going to cost. You're drawing the plans of the walls. If you're doing interior model or an expansion, whatever, you know how much the construction is going to cost.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

And then you have your, you know, you have your plumbing. You know, if plumbing is going to get moved. You see the plumbing, the electrical, essentially you're provided with electrical plan.

[Lisa Lacey]

There's so many pieces, too.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So there's. All right, there's all these. There's all these pieces of the kitchen, Plumbing, electrical, the construction, the installation, the hardware, the fixtures, the appliances. So all of those parts of the puzzle. So of course, the most expensive ones are the ones that you can't do without. You can't do without the cabinets, you can't do without appliances. So those eat up a large part of the budget. A person has a budget, but the plan gives you the budget so that you can know how much you need to spend or can spend or can't spend. So the hard part, that the most painful thing is starting a project and then realize you don't have the budget, you don't got the money to finish it.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So then you're stuck with, like, you

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

know, have a kitchen. You just put everything on your island because you ain't got no cabinets.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Exactly.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Lots of hands on the island. There they go.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay, I love.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So in the construction world, everybody says, oh, you know, plan for, you know, 20%. You're supposed to plan for like, 20 overage.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Like, say you got a budget and you're doing construction, you're supposed. You're supposed to plan to go 20 over budget.

[Lisa Lacey]

Just automatically.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Automatically. So people say, oh, that's not going to happen. That's going to happen. But you know it's gonna happen.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You're like, I've been doing this 30 years. It's gonna happen.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Especially on the remodeling side. You're gonna, you're gonna, you're, you're going to find some old plumbing, you're going to find some termite damage, you're going to find some layers of flooring you didn't plan on. You're going to find your electricals old and like all your electrical new and tab or whatever, and you got to pull all the electrical out.

[Lisa Lacey]

There are some unexpected things. Yes, correct.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

But the same is true if you're doing new construction. It's like, oh, I got a 3,000 square foot house and I know what I'm going to put in it. But then once you start building it, once you start building even that new construction is sort of like, you sort of want more.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You're like, I like this $500 thing better than this $100 thing.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

You're sort of like wanting things.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I like this $2,000 faucet handle.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

You sort of like, want things, and so, you know, it, it ends up

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

fall in love with them. Right?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Exactly.

[Lisa Lacey]

Fall in love with them. I love it. I love, I think, the budget.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So, so technically, in, in the, in the, in the, in the kitchen world, they say that you should invest, you know, say like 10, 10 to 15% of the value of your house.

[Lisa Lacey]

Okay.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Is what you should be putting into the kitchen, because you're never going to get that money back if you do more than that.

[Lisa Lacey]

Gotcha.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So that's a starting, that's a starting point for the budget.

[Lisa Lacey]

I love that. You know that going in. And then once you have the plan, you. You have the budget, then it's just a matter of creating it. Right.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

It's sort of like reverse engineering then. So once you have the plan, you can reverse engineer from your budget backwards.

[Lisa Lacey]

I love that. I love that.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

To make sure you're going to hit your budget.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

You know, then you can make adjustments along the way.

[Lisa Lacey]

You know what you're talking about. Well, listen, you call the kitchen the heart of the home. So after designing so many of them, what have you learned about that? The kitchen is the heart of the home. And the connection between our physical environments, our relationships, and the way we experience our everyday lives in our homes, which are supposed to be our safe spaces. Right?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Yes. So as the Kitchen is the heart of the home. Because I. I feel it's the place where we say I love you. Oh, it's the place where you say I love you at, so.

[Lisa Lacey]

Oh, it is for different people, for

[Marvin W. Tyler]

different people, it's going to mean different things. So what does a home mean to you? Is it. Is it a place? Is it a feeling? Maybe it's a person. It's the place where you feel safe, you feel warm, you feel happy. Technically, what I found is I found it from a book that I, you know, somebody wrote about, about, you know, what is the home and what does the home mean? So essentially, like in this book, it described it as using the five senses to. For different people to describe. With the home, you're going to taste. There's things you taste in the home. There's things that you smell in the home. There's things that you feel in the home.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

There's.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

There's things that you hear in the home. So for all the fine senses, there's different things for different people, it's going to mean different things for everybody. It's different how we want to make, you know, the home feel for ourselves. And. Yeah, so the problem is sometimes. Sometimes we go through life and we don't find the time to say, I love you too. The people that we are supposed to make time for it. So because of that, it makes me think of the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little Boy blue and the man in the moon. When you coming home, son? I don't know when, but we'll get together then, dad. We're going to have a good time then. Cats in the Cradle is narrated by a man who becomes a father who's too busy to find time for his son. And then he realizes that his son has grown up to be just like him. So sometimes, you know, time goes by, relationship grows, relationship change. And sometimes we don't find the time to say I love you. So I learned that I learned a little too late. I learned a little too late because I am a ditch digger, son. My father was a construction mason, laborer. And my grandfather was a mason. And the boys that he raised, he made them work in the sand pits making concrete.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Hard work.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So it was hard work. And they said he was. He was a hard man. But my uncles all told me that it was a hard way to make a buck.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So none of them actually wanted to pursue it. But, you know, my father did stay in construction. And maybe it was the smell of his boots when he came home from Work that I, you know, used to take off his boots. And sometimes it was the, or was the summer when I was like 9 or 10 years old when him and my Uncle Marvy were building an in ground swimming pool in my Uncle Marvy's backyard. So he took me to Long Branch with him and I mixed concrete, buttered block and saw them actually build this in ground swimming pool and out of the ground.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So that was sort of like my introduction and a work ethic of the work ethic and patience and craft that's

[Lisa Lacey]

needed and what becomes created from nothing.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

To, to build a house out of nothing. However, you know, my father died when I was 18. He was 50 years, 58 years old. And so, yeah, I realized I never, I never, I don't believe I ever told the man I loved him. I don't believe I ever did. So that happened at a time when I thought I was going to have an opportunity to make him proud. Because I had started work at a community college. I had was taking drafting classes. Of course, like, the goal was to go to architectural school, but like I had started and I thought that that was going to be the chance that I got to make him proud. But he wasn't there anymore to make him proud, so. So that was sort of like

[Lisa Lacey]

a

[Marvin W. Tyler]

hard part or time in my life, but. But it also transitioned me into eventually meeting a guy, an architect that I mentored with. He was a local architect, and he looked at me say, look, Marvin, look like you have potential and I'll teach you how to draw.

[Lisa Lacey]

Wow.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

And so he, he taught me how to draw.

[Lisa Lacey]

We all need mentors, my friends. I'm a big fan, Marvin, of telling all of our friends out there listening, get a mentor. Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So it was that man, you know, that man kept asking me, so, Marvin, like, so what do you want to do with your life? And, and, and I used to say to him, like, I, I, I, I don't know. But 30 days later, a month later, he pulled me in his office, hey, hey, Martin, what are you going to do with your life? And he.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Did he keep asking you till you finally came up with something?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I finally came up with something.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But because tell me how he did that, because that's what I'm doing with my daughter right now. I'm like, what are you gonna do with your life, kiddo?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

He would do, he would either pull me in the office, he would, we'd be driving to a job that we had to measure. So I'd be sitting just like shotgun in the car. And that was his. Oh, yeah, like, I couldn't escape.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

He's like, now we're gonna. Okay, so that's the trick. I get her trapped in the car, and then I'm like, what are you gonna do with your life? We're going on a five hour road trip. We're gonna figure it out. I love that.

[Lisa Lacey]

I love.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Of course the universal answer is I don't know.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Universal answer is I don't know. She's working on it. She's working on it. Well, that's.

[Lisa Lacey]

I love that your work sits at the intersection of, you've got the technical knowledge, the construction. Creativity though, right? You're so creative and then human behavior. So, so in what you've done with your life, how do you balance a client's dream?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You were talking about budgets earlier. Like, I'd be like, hey, I want this hundred thousand dollar kitchen when we

[Lisa Lacey]

got a, you know, $40,000 budget. So how, how did, how did you learn to. Because I'm assuming this was all learned over three decades of working hard work and many, many thousands of clients you must have had over that three decades. How do you balance that?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Like, I want $100,000 kitchen when they

[Lisa Lacey]

got a $40,000 budget.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Well, well, that's just it. Like, so when it comes to kitchens like the, in the, in the, in the kitchen world, the cabinet world, I say the cabinet side of the world, there's, you can do it, you can do a kitchen for 40,000, but you can also do that same kitchen for, you know, 300,000. So in the, in the cabinet world, you have your, you know, you have your, you have your stock and you have your semi custom, then you have your custom, but then you have like the world of, of luxury custom.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, I don't even know there was a luxury custom.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

There is a whole world of luxury custom. It's a very big role of fancy custom, you know, But I also feel that everybody deserves some accessibility to luxury. Like luxury. I got, like, I don't feel that luxury is the thing that you just have to spend money on. Luxury sort of falls in the category of personalization.

[Lisa Lacey]

Are you in love with it?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Personalization of the home that makes it luxury? It's just not how much you, it's not just the rich and famous that, you know, get to go out and buy, you know, 300,000, you know, 300, $400,000 kitchens that get to have luxury. Like, everybody can have a little bit. That's why I said it starts with, you know, pick out something that you love and then you build on that so everybody can get a little bit of that. But I think the kitchen is enough of a space that can be personalized for every family. Every family deserves to have the kitchen personalized for their. Their lifestyle, their taste, their design, their wants. So, fine, it's not, you know, $300,000 version, but, you know, you got.

[Lisa Lacey]

You've got some things you love and you give them a little bit of luxury. I love that.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Exactly.

[Lisa Lacey]

Luxury, custom. I love that. I love that. So, Marvin, what after. After 30 years, three decades doing this in the field, what have you had to reinvent and release and. And reclaim? And I'm assuming a lot of work had to be done. And just be mindful, my. My second memoir is 30 years of letters that I have from my father that I didn't open until after he died. And he was, yeah, he was this big, badass, scary biker dude, and he really wasn't that. And I discovered it in these letters after he had passed. So I see you today. It's an interesting experience to discover a human after they've already gone. But I feel like we have a relationship in spirit today. But so I see you today. I see you.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So, yeah, even my father was a big, badass bearded man that, you know, we were terrified. We were terrified.

[Lisa Lacey]

I had to tiptoe him out

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

because he's got a temper. Yeah, I get it. I get it.

[Lisa Lacey]

So what part of you had to be reinvented and over.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Okay, so.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Of your career?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So do it. We'll do it early on. Reinvention. We do an early on reinvention. Do it a later. So you know how, like, when you go into high school and you got your four years and they tell you to pick your courses that you want?

[Lisa Lacey]

Yep.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So, like, so I was like, going into ninth grade, I took a look at the curriculum, I took a look at my four years, and I picked out all my classes that I was going to have for the entire four years. So I was good at art, so I wanted to do art. So I picked out all my classes. I'm in the first day of school in the ninth grade, and I'm sitting there in the art class, and I realize I didn't have another elective to take. Drafting. So because I didn't have another elective, there was just no, there was no space there. But I was good at art. I was really good artist, and I wanted to do art. But I looked at a choice. It was like, am I going to do art or am I going to do architecture. And I was like, well, I'm not going to make a living at art. I sort of made a choice like, well, they're not going to make a living at art. Maybe I can make a living at architecture. I'll become a draftsman. So the goal at least was I didn't know where I was going to go to college, but the goal was at least to get out of high school and to be able to get an entry level position.

[Lisa Lacey]

Support yourself.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Yeah, support myself. So. So I. So I. That day I had to get out of the. I had to go to my counselor and get out of my arc class. Oh, and you exactly, exactly had to get out of my art class. And then I was looking for like the practical side. Like in high school. I'm looking for like the practical side. He's like, what am I going to do in it? So I even took. In my 11th grade, I took vocational and I literally took construction trades.

[Lisa Lacey]

Wow.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

It was a two year program. Construction trades. And I was like, okay, you know, do construction trades and learn. And learn plumbing. I'm going to learn electrical and learn framing and get out of school and whatever. But then in the 12th grade, I didn't have enough electives. I didn't even have. I didn't have enough electives to take vocational in my senior year. So I had to drop the second year of vocational so that I could take history. I had to take a history class.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, my gosh. So far, but I've got it. Okay, I'll make this story fast, but you'll relate to this. So I. I went to school for

[Lisa Lacey]

acting, full scholarship performance, and had just signed with the top agent in Atlanta and wow. I went on a cruise by myself and met a guy that lived five minutes from me in Georgia. Weird Caribbean cruise. The guy that lived five minutes for me, his name was, we'll call him Big John. And when we got back, I started hanging out with big John and Big John's roommate. And Big John's roommate's like, I'm going

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

to Alaska for six months. Do you want to come backpacking with

[Lisa Lacey]

me and drive the Alaska highway?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah, I knew, you know, I just

[Lisa Lacey]

had signed a best agent in Atlanta,

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

had a good corporate gig, but I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go to Alaska for six months. So I dropped everything. And I'm just gonna say we spent a lot of time in the tent together. Kind of boring. So I got knock on the way to Alaska. So I get home and I'm like, well, Crap. I was like, do I be an unemployed actress or do I go into my corporate gig? And so thus, here we are 30 years later, and that's how I ended up in corporate education. But yeah, I had to make the same choice. I was like, okay, kid to support. He stayed in Alaska, by the way. He was like, I don't want any of this. I said, okay, bye, see ya. I'll take care of it. And he came to Georgia and for about three months we tried to live together. We were like, oh, no, this ain't gonna work. So we were, we were always just friends and separated. And Charlie was always used to going to both homes, so, yeah, it ended up working out. But I see you, my friend. We have very similar, stranger parallel stories. So.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So the deal was when I met my architecture mentor, dude, what he said to me was, look, this job is cyclical. Like, what do you mean by cyclical? It's like we're the first to get hit by the economy.

[Lisa Lacey]

Oh, yeah, aren't you?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Or the last to recover from the economy.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

And so like in the end, it was like a 10 year cycle.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

It is.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

It ends up being a 10 year cycle. So it's sort of like. So like over the years it's sort of been like, you know, like the first cycle I hit was like in like 93 when there was. There was like a savings and loan crash. I don't know whether it was just in Jersey or all across the country, but everybody in architecture lost their jobs.

[Lisa Lacey]

Oh, that's scary.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

They lost their jobs. What I started doing then was like freelancing. But then like, you know, 08 was another time when there was the crash that was so. So no matter. So the economy does affect, you know, like what we do and how we reinvent ourselves, whatever. But the thing is, you know, like, there's people that make money during any. Every economy. Yeah, there are people making money during the economy. So it's sort of like the idea is sort of like not to panic.

[Lisa Lacey]

I love that. Don't panic. You know, you get through it. You got through it, right? In an industry that is normally crashing

[Marvin W. Tyler]

first, so there's their investors, there's an investor slash contractor that, you know, I did some work with and I, I was talking to him this past weekend and he was saying that, like, when it comes to real estate, so he invests in a lot of real estate. So he's like, I've never seen. He's like, no matter what the economy does, up and down, whatever, he goes, I've never seen the rent go down.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

It doesn't go down, does it? We're gonna be nice and take a thousand bucks off your rent this month.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah, that doesn't happen.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Rent is always going up. I never matter.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

We had to move my kid out of the city. Yeah. It keeps going up. It's like every year she resigns. I'm like, we gotta move you because this will get ridiculous. So. Yes. Yeah. Rent never goes down. Rent never goes down.

[Lisa Lacey]

But what I love is that you didn't panic. You freelanced, you made it work. You know, And I think some of that. That's amazing work ethic that you learned from your father. We figure it out. Right? We say yes, especially to opportunities. Right. And then we figure it out as we go.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Correct.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah. So my friends out there, you know, if an opportunity presents itself to you. When I. When I first got into some of my corporate education, I didn't even know

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

what the acronym meant. I was like, yep, I can do that. This is before, like, Internet times. Like, guys, seriously, like, I was figuring this stuff out without the Internet.

[Lisa Lacey]

So say yes to any opportunity. That is a sole yes for you that's presented to you. But yeah, the. The work ethic we got from our. Our folks pays off hard. Work ethic is. Is where it's at and so worth it. And so, Marvin, if people are looking to have a. A beautiful kitchen, no matter what their budget is, from somebody who's going to imagineer it, how can they reach you?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So I can be reached at www.perfectkitchentv.com

[Lisa Lacey]

okay, so easy, guys. And we're gonna put the link where it's clickable right down at the bottom of this episode. You don't even have to write it down. But yeah, guys, reach out. Reach out to Marvin because one, he knows his stuff.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Two, he's funny as heck.

[Lisa Lacey]

Three, he's gonna give you a little bit of luxury no matter what your budget is. And I think he would be a blast to work with. So reach out to him for the kitchen that you fall in love with, because it can be the heart of a home if that's where your vibe is. So, Marvin, we always close out with a couple of questions. You ready for them?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Okay.

[Lisa Lacey]

All right, here we go. First question. In your own life, what did you perform in order to survive? And what did. Yeah. What did dropping that role, mask, or performance do for your life?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I don't think I've dropped the mask yet.

[Lisa Lacey]

Ah, okay.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

And not dropping it has affected my life. So

[Lisa Lacey]

I've got some armor I'm working on dropping.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So part of me doing this thing live is part of me, you know,

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That sounds good.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Part of me.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

He was scared to death when we started. He was like, wait, are we live on this?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Dropping the mask, Dropping the armor?

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah, we put it up.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So I have yet. I'm. I'm working on dropping the mask. I've become very conscious over the last couple months. I've become very conscious of the mask that I've put on. So much. So, so much. It's been. It's only been. It's only been a couple months that my.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I'm like, I'm. Grab the mask and go on podcasts.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I said to somebody on LinkedIn, I said to somebody on LinkedIn yesterday that I've been on LinkedIn for 20 years, And I just posted my first article. Two months.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Oh, my God. I didn't even know. I've been around for 20 years. Marvin, where have you been? Good. I love it. Be invisible. Show up and be seen, man. You are. You are just a wonderful, beautiful human being. So we need more of you. So we need more artists. 20 years. That's too long.

[Lisa Lacey]

That's too long.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

That's ridiculous. All right, Marvin, last question. What do you feel like we need

[Lisa Lacey]

to be having more conversations about that that we're not talking about?

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So. I've been having a couple of those conversations recently.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

With my daughter. My daughter's 20 years old, and part of the conversations that I needed to have with her revolve around me admitting to her that I failed her miserably.

[Lisa Lacey]

That's a tough one, but so necessary.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

So I need to put myself in a position where, you know, since I need to redeem myself, you know, for my daughter, you know, my daughter's sake. So there's certain. You know, there's a certain level of conversations, sort of like maybe with our children that we sort of have to admit, sort of like admitting our mistakes kind of thing, you know?

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah. In my recovery, I had to. Luckily, I still had my daughter for three years in the house when I found recovery. But I. I definitely had to make amends to her, and I saved for

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

her therapy fund as well as her college fund. So I was like, I'm sorry, kiddo. Here's money for your therapy.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

I'm just too much. Exactly.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Like, I really messed that up. Sorry. Sorry, kiddo. But you know what the beautiful thing

[Lisa Lacey]

is we have reconciled and we have.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

We. We are.

[Lisa Lacey]

We are friends.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

We are friends now. Except when she needs something from mama. She only calls me mom. We're from the south, right? So she only called. She didn't even call me mama when she was a kid. Now she's for. She's like, mama. I almost want to hang up the phone, though, Marvin. Every time the word mama comes out of her mouth, I know she's gonna need time, money, or energy from me.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Come on, mama. I'm gonna call you mama.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

It's just gonna make me hang up on you. So. Yeah. But.

[Lisa Lacey]

Yeah, Marvin, thank you. And you know what? Friends out there, remember, remember this. Marvin has reminded us of it today. Remember to tell not only your children, but tell each other that. That you love them. Don't leave that out. And maybe do it in the kitchen. And if you're not liking your kitchen, you reach out to Marvin. All right, friends, and I'm going to ask the same question from you, too, you listeners out there. What are you performing right now just to survive? And what might dropping that role, mask, or performance do to change or improve your life? I'm Lisa Lacey with our guest, Marvin. And when you find that answer, we will see you at the edge. Marvin, thank you so much, my friend.

[Marvin W. Tyler]

Thank you, Miss Lisa.