Matthew Van Eyk is Transforming Outdoor Spaces: Every Backyard Tells a Story

Matthew Van Eyk's journey from a teenage worker fixing driveways to founding Oakscapes reveals how passion and technical knowledge can transform an industry. Starting at just 15, Matthew learned the craft by seeing what went wrong in poorly installed hardscapes – knowledge that would later become the foundation of his business philosophy.

After college and experience with large construction companies, Matthew launched Oakscapes with a simple yet powerful mission: to create outdoor spaces that homeowners fall in love with, built on uncompromising quality standards. His approach combines technical precision with aesthetic vision, addressing the unique challenges of Florida's landscape.

The conversation dives deep into the critical aspects of hardscape installation that most homeowners never consider. Matthew explains how proper drainage – a significant challenge in Florida's flat terrain – can make or break an outdoor project. His use of lime rock base instead of recycled concrete allows water percolation, preventing the pooling issues that plague many installations. This technical knowledge, combined with an understanding of material strengths and applications, sets Oakscapes apart in a crowded market.

We explore the evolution of outdoor materials, from traditional pavers to the growing popularity of porcelain with its impressive 30,000 PSF strength rating compared to traditional pavers' 6,000-9,000 PSF. Matthew guides us through when to use which materials – recommending pavers for driveways due to their interlocking strength while explaining why porcelain has become the premium choice for patios and pool decks.

What truly shines through is Matthew's vision of creating a comprehensive exterior design company, a "one-stop shop" that eliminates the finger-pointing and disconnected results that come from using multiple contractors. This holistic approach ensures cohesive, beautiful outdoor spaces that actually function as intended – spaces that become the selling point of homes throughout South Florida.

Whether you're planning your own outdoor project or simply appreciate the craftsmanship behind beautiful spaces, this conversation offers valuable insights into what makes truly exceptional outdoor design. Ready to transform your outdoor living area? The expertise shared here might just be your first step toward creating the backyard of your dreams.

Transcript

Introduction to iDesign Lab Podcast

Voice Over 0:00

This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design. Curator of interiors, furnishings and lifestyles. Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott, idesign Lab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends. Idesign Lab provides industry insight, discussing the latest trends, styles and everything in between to better help you style your life, through advice from trendsetters, designers, influencers, innovators, fabricators and manufacturers, as well as personal stories that inspire, motivate and excite. And join us on this elevated, informative and lively journey into the world of all things design.

Voice Over 0:50

Today, we're excited to have Matthew Van Eyck, the owner of Oakscapes, as our guest. Oakscapes is a premier paver and landscape design company that specializes in high-end residential design solutions, from crafting beautiful driveways and installing lush turf for your backyard garden to building the perfect paver patio. Matthew and his team at Oakscapes are passionate about helping clients fall in love with their homes by offering a comprehensive range of landscape and design services. Matthew prides himself on Oakscapes' reputation for excellence, always putting client satisfaction at the forefront. Join us as we dive into the world of high-end outdoor design the art of transforming outdoor spaces and the secrets behind building lasting client relationships. Welcome, matthew.

Tiffany Woolley 1:35

Welcome to the iDesign Lab podcast. Today we have Matthew Van Eyck with us and we spend a lot of time talking about design and mostly about interior detailing. So today I'm excited to dive into exterior with you, but we want to start and tell us about who you are and your amazing company, oakscapes.

Matthew Van Eyk 1:59

Thank you very much. Yeah, matthew Van Eyck, with Oakscapes. I started the company about two years ago now. I started doing pavers when I was 15. 15?

Scott Woolley 2:12

Yeah.

Matthew Van Eyk 2:13

Was your father doing it? No, no, my parents bought a coulter home. Okay, what's a coulter home? It's like a big company, like a GL yeah, it's like a gl home or like a morrison or something like that, right, um, and so they bought, like a brand new culture, home in a community and um, you have your one year warranty. You know, with most of these builders right, and the driveway was done terribly, uh, so which we see quite a bit yeah, no kidding, no kidding.

Matthew Van Eyk 2:45

And so I started. My parents, like you know, went through the whole spiel of trying to get the warranty to fix it and whatnot. So they had their paper guy come out and fix it and so he was working and you know we always like working outside my brothers and I and my dad. So he's like, hey, do you need any workers outside? My brothers and I and my dad. So he's like, hey, do you guys, do you need any workers? And this guy was like I don't know 50 or something, and you know, kind of like one of those good old boys like yeah, a little bit, a little bit kind of like a hippie, kind of kind of funny.

Matthew Van Eyk 3:18

Um, he's like sure. So I was. I was 15 or 16, and my brother's 14. And so we started working for this guy.

Scott Woolley 3:27

Oh, you started working for the guy yeah.

Matthew Van Eyk 3:29

Really yeah. So we were both in high school and we'd work whenever we had times off. We were homeschooled.

Tiffany Woolley 3:36

You were. Yeah, I didn't know that. I want to dive back into that.

Matthew Van Eyk 3:38

Okay, yeah, so we could kind of like work when he needed us to work.

Scott Woolley 3:43

you know he wasn't he didn't like that, Not just on your house, but on the house.

Matthew Van Eyk 3:46

No, no, no yeah yeah, so we started working all over for Coulter Homes and Coulter was building a lot up in Stewart at that time so he had like four communities for Coulter he would do repairs on. And then we, you know, was it driveways, driveways, patios, walkways? Yeah, mostly. You know, especially pool decks. The pavers around pools always sink because they're not back graded correctly. So we did a lot of pool decks.

Matthew Van Eyk 4:14

And we were like we were young so we, just like when we were hot and tired, we'd jump in the swimming pool and stuff.

Scott Woolley 4:21

At someone's house.

Matthew Van Eyk 4:23

Yeah, it wasn't the most reputable in the world.

Scott Woolley 4:27

So that's how you got started. That's like a funny story. That was hysterical, I mean so many people that we sit here and talk to. They went to college, they planned this, but you kind of just maybe fell into it yeah, literally, literally, literally so you learned the craft from this guy who was kind of a hippie.

Matthew Van Eyk 4:46

Yeah, he was a little bit of a hippie. He was Brazilian, so he would.

Scott Woolley 4:49

But I have to ask a question because we know your work, and your work is impeccable. It's really really well done, Thank you. Was this guy the same kind of high quality that you?

Matthew Van Eyk 4:59

were Not quite so much.

Tiffany Woolley 5:01

But you learned about probably what not to do.

Matthew Van Eyk 5:04

Yeah, we learned not what to do, and then we learned you know, when you do so many repairs, you know what.

Tiffany Woolley 5:09

Is the problem?

Matthew Van Eyk 5:10

Yeah, causes problems, so that helped us out a lot, so my brother and I did that for three or four years.

Falling Into the Paver Business

Tiffany Woolley 5:18

That's a long time at that age.

Matthew Van Eyk 5:20

Yeah, a long time yeah, and we were making $10 an hour, right, which we thought was gold, right, right, you know everyone else was doing, you know, hourly at Publix or whatever, making $6 or $7.

Scott Woolley 5:35

But it's hard work. You carry bricks, oh yeah, so do you.

Tiffany Woolley 5:37

You carry papers For sure.

Matthew Van Eyk 5:45

But this guy, I mean, we didn't know, but he was making a lot of money off of us. Oh, that's so, but yeah, so I did that. Then I went to college. I worked for a couple big gcs. I worked for ranger construction, which is like a big commercial um civil construction company. Then I worked for a gc and boca. We did a lot of commercial renovations, which was a lot of fun. But we work for national companies so what was all this work?

Scott Woolley 6:10

exterior, outdoor, no hardscapes, so interior, too, no.

Matthew Van Eyk 6:14

So for ranger it was civil construction, so you know you're doing. You know, we built bridges, roads to 95.

Tiffany Woolley 6:22

Wow.

Matthew Van Eyk 6:23

So, like big construction, that was a lot of fun.

Tiffany Woolley 6:30

But it was I don't know. I don't like big corporate environments. I know you spent so much time right going through all the red tape. Yeah, so much time, I agree, so much waste.

Matthew Van Eyk 6:35

I mean it was really cool, like the Hood Road Bridge in Palm Beach Gardens up here, like I was on that construction project and it was. It was a blast, but it's just, yeah, a lot of big, big corporations not a big fan of it.

Matthew Van Eyk 6:53

So then I went to the gc in boca mds builders, which I loved a lot um, and they're excellent, the owner's excellent, my boss was excellent, so we had a lot of. I enjoyed it a lot there. But we work for national clients, so we work for Verizon and T-Mobile and those kind of companies Contracts. Yeah, great contracts, but we worked in the southeast, so I was the estimator and project manager for some and you just don't get to see your projects.

Scott Woolley 7:26

Finished.

Matthew Van Eyk 7:27

Yeah, you know, they're in the middle of nowhere, Alabama or Mississippi, or you know, up north Florida. So you like, you know you get to see pictures in your building. Yeah, you don't get to see, you don't get to make a relationship with your contractors and whatnot. So I decided to quit there and then start Oakscapes.

Tiffany Woolley 7:46

But I love that you knew that at a young age that you wanted to have a niche and you wanted to build something more.

Matthew Van Eyk 7:52

Oh yeah, I always wanted to start a company. You definitely have the entrepreneurial spirit.

Scott Woolley 7:56

Yeah thank you. So you jump out of sort of corporate world into your own business. So now you're designing and creating your own business.

Tiffany Woolley 8:06

Yeah, your own brand. What?

Scott Woolley 8:07

made your pick doing outside, or, or you know, hardscapes as I call it, yeah, compared to doing something else in construction, or um, I knew it well, uh-huh, and I was good at it.

Matthew Van Eyk 8:21

I am good at it, right, um Right, and you're in Florida, you want to go outdoors? You know that's why people come to Florida.

Tiffany Woolley 8:28

Isn't that the truth?

Matthew Van Eyk 8:29

You spend so much time on your pool deck and your patio and you know you can build and create designs that people love and they spend a lot of time at, and then, especially with the outdoors and especially with primarily residential construction, you get to have a relationship with these people and you know they just appreciate you and love your work and you know, word of mouth, yeah, word of mouth.

Matthew Van Eyk 8:53

But I just like love working with people. So that's, that's the, uh, the main reason. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, my brother, actually he ended up. He. He owns a paper company up in Stewart as well.

Scott Woolley 9:05

Really. So you're both kind of doing the same thing, is it like?

Tiffany Woolley 9:09

a sister or like a sister, I would call it a sister company. No, we're a brother company.

Matthew Van Eyk 9:14

We consider doing that, but it was just better, I think, just to do our separate. We might merge eventually, very cool.

Voice Over 9:21

But, he's been doing it for like six years now.

Matthew Van Eyk 9:24

So yeah, so it was eventually um, but he's been doing it for like six years now. So yeah, so it is.

Scott Woolley 9:26

I mean all from yeah, a guy that's in your driveway yeah yeah that is so funny.

Tiffany Woolley 9:34

Do you know where that guy is today?

Matthew Van Eyk 9:36

oh yeah, he's still up in stewart. He's still doing the same old thing.

Tiffany Woolley 9:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah so what made you choose south florida?

Matthew Van Eyk 9:45

obviously stewart's kind of not south florida, but yeah, so, to focus, my dad's a pastor, and so he's he. I was born in canada, then he went to school in california and then he was called to be a pastor up in vero and then he transferred to stewart, um. So that's what brought us toero, and then he transferred to Stewart, so that's what brought us to Florida, and then I went to school at. Fvu for engineering. Oh wow, and so that's how I came down here.

Tiffany Woolley 10:12

Yep.

Matthew Van Eyk 10:13

And I've lived here for eight years or something like that and met my wife, got married here and her family's close by.

Tiffany Woolley 10:22

Right here, yeah, aw.

Scott Woolley 10:24

So it's literally the american dream yeah exactly, I love that so you jump into and create oakscapes. How did the name come about? Well, because designing, creating a name can.

Matthew Van Eyk 10:35

Yeah, that's, it's challenging, so van eyck means from the oaks in dutch okay and so I didn't want to like last name correct. I didn't want to use my last name, just in case you know, someone ever sells it, or something yeah, um, but I still wanted to incorporate that. So, and we want to do. You know, landscaping and hardscapes and whatnot? So I thought it was a nice merging of the two it really is that's.

Tiffany Woolley 11:02

I love that.

Matthew Van Eyk 11:03

Yeah, it's kind of fun.

Tiffany Woolley 11:04

It took a while yeah.

Scott Woolley 11:08

So how difficult is it to go into a business like this and find your first client? Yeah, it's.

Matthew Van Eyk 11:16

I mean, it was a challenge, you know, I expected, anticipated, you know being, you know, rather slow for the first six months a year or whatnot.

Scott Woolley 11:29

um, but I mean, did you have a client?

Tiffany Woolley 11:34

or pound the pavement, literally knock on door. Yeah.

Scott Woolley 11:38

I did. Did you have a client to start with, going, okay, I've got a client, now I'm going to start this business because I've got some income coming in? So you basically decide you're going to start this company. You have no new business. You create a name and now you've got to go find a client.

Matthew Van Eyk 11:55

Yeah, yeah, that's challenging. Yeah, it's very challenging.

Scott Woolley 12:00

How did?

Matthew Van Eyk 12:00

you overcome that. It was. You know, I tried a lot of things and as you do it, you learn and modify and figure out what works.

Scott Woolley 12:11

But what were some of the first things that you did? Was it putting a website together, putting an ad?

Matthew Van Eyk 12:16

Yeah, so I did a lot of that background work before I quit my other company.

Scott Woolley 12:21

Okay.

Matthew Van Eyk 12:21

So I just did it at nights, you know, and on Fridays, and I take a Friday off here and there just to prepare for this right um. So I had, you know, my website up, I had, you know, all my estimating templates and everything you know in check, you know, um, and then I had a marketing company ready to go.

Scott Woolley 12:42

Okay, so as soon as I so you, hired a company to help you in the market, correct? So all of this is what we consider designing your life? Yeah, so you're designing and putting together a plan to launch a new business? Yes, sir, and it's. There's a story behind every one of these, and how people do it. Yeah.

Tiffany Woolley 13:00

So how did your values and, obviously, being homeschooled and what you learned shape the value and the principles to what Oakscapes is now and will grow into?

Matthew Van Eyk 13:12

Yeah, that's a good question.

Tiffany Woolley 13:13

I mean the name says a lot about the value.

Matthew Van Eyk 13:16

Thank you, you know, I worked in construction in Florida a long time and there's a lot of poor contractors or subpar contractors. As you know we've yeah, we've dealt with them Right and we still deal with them. And so you know I always wanted to and you know my principles is to stand above everyone and do the best work you can, and so in our projects we try to stand by all the premier installation guidelines, the ICPI, which is the International Interlocking Paver Association, so there's national regulations for these things that aren't necessarily implemented but, they're suggested by guys who've been doing favors for years, so we try to do the best.

Tiffany Woolley 14:12

I didn't even realize that.

Matthew Van Eyk 14:14

Yeah, so we try to adhere to that.

Tiffany Woolley 14:18

Is that changing constantly, or is that something that's kind of tried and true?

Matthew Van Eyk 14:22

I mean it is changing a little bit in regards to like trivertine and marble and porcelain and how you install all those things. You know pavers have been around for like 150 years, so it's that really hasn't changed too, much. You know. There's, like you know, new designs for your edge restraints and whatnot, but it's pretty minimal designs for your edge restraints and whatnot, but it's pretty minimal. Um and so, and so you know, just to you know, do good work, be a step ahead of everyone and, you know, communicate well.

Matthew Van Eyk 14:53

You know, I don't want to come back in a year or five years and someone be like, oh, this driveway looks terrible right um, you know, I want to be there for someone who could live in a house for 20 years and the driveway still looks great or the patio looks beautiful.

Tiffany Woolley 15:06

Right right.

Scott Woolley 15:08

So the projects that you're approaching in a new client are most new clients have a plan and you're kind of following what they want to do, or are you kind of leading them on the design process?

Matthew Van Eyk 15:24

Yeah, it's probably about 50-50.

Scott Woolley 15:29

Half of them have an idea of what they want to do, but do they have the stuff picked out?

Matthew Van Eyk 15:35

No, very few have what they have picked out.

From Corporate to Entrepreneurship

Scott Woolley 15:40

So you're helping them in picking it out. Correct If you're not working with an a?

Matthew Van Eyk 15:45

interior designer, correct, correct, yeah. So you know, most people have like an idea of what they want you know, maybe not the exact shape and whatnot, or you know the the material necessarily. So you know then we go through what their budget is.

Tiffany Woolley 16:01

I was gonna going to say that would depict a lot right what the functionality is for it.

Matthew Van Eyk 16:06

You know if it's. You know if they have little kids there. If they have, you know their grandparents walking around what's the safest thing for them to use, and then, obviously, their price point.

Scott Woolley 16:17

So you brought up budget. Do you try to get out of people what their budget is?

Matthew Van Eyk 16:22

Because most people don't want to express a budget, yeah, so I pretty much always try to get it out. Most people don't want to.

Scott Woolley 16:32

Right, which is a hindrance that people don't realize. We talk about that a lot.

Matthew Van Eyk 16:36

Yeah, that's a big thing and you know, especially with material selection, your budget plays heavily into that.

Scott Woolley 16:43

Right construction.

Matthew Van Eyk 16:48

Um, your budget plays heavily into that right. Um. So you know, and budget's hard, especially if you're just doing a patio just by itself without doing a whole redesign. You know people don't really know what the pricing is, or you know what to expect and since covid everything shot up, so you know they think it's still five dollars a square foot when the standard now is eight dollars a square foot or what have you?

Matthew Van Eyk 17:08

um, so, yeah, budget it's. It's difficult to get people to do that and, yeah, people aren't really anticipating like how much it's a big cost?

Tiffany Woolley 17:19

yeah, and it will, because it covers a lot of area it covers a whole lot. So what is a standard Like? Do you base like budget on the price point of the house, of the real estate value?

Matthew Van Eyk 17:33

No, not really Just for like consistency, it's mostly just based off of materials and then the project at hand the project at hand, if it's, you know, depends on where the home is you offer slightly different materials and whatnot Based on the value of the home or the area. But you know I still try to not just make standard assumptions and, just you know, give everyone all the options and then say you know, papers are going to be your cheapest, travertine and marbles a little bit higher than your porcelain is the most expensive I know.

Tiffany Woolley 18:09

and people automatically think now porcelain's, like you know, oh, it should be less expensive. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

Matthew Van Eyk 18:14

They think it's like cheap.

Tiffany Woolley 18:17

Right and it's the opposite.

Matthew Van Eyk 18:20

Yeah, the material manufacturing for outdoor porcelain is quite expensive.

Tiffany Woolley 18:24

It is.

Scott Woolley 18:28

So kind of what we're talking about. When I say hardscapes, it's really you handle everything that's exterior of the house, from driveways, patios, walkways, planters Correct, yeah retaining walls.

Matthew Van Eyk 18:39

Retaining walls. All those steps, whatever has to be.

Scott Woolley 18:43

Grass, artificial grass, correct yeah, pool design.

Matthew Van Eyk 18:47

Yeah, usually pool design. We, you know we work with you guys on some things.

Tiffany Woolley 18:52

Right.

Matthew Van Eyk 18:53

And then there's a good pool contractor I work with. So you know, usually I just let them handle the pool design for that, and then we construct the hardscape design based off of the pool design.

Tiffany Woolley 19:06

Pool design.

Matthew Van Eyk 19:07

Yeah, because, like a pool, is usually the focus point, you know, of a patio.

Tiffany Woolley 19:13

Right.

Matthew Van Eyk 19:14

So it's good to hem out their design and what they want, and then you know work around that.

Scott Woolley 19:21

Right know, work, work around that, right, yeah, so I see there's a lot more that's put into backyards than a lot of other places around the country because, people are spending so much more time oh yeah in their backyard. Oh yeah, you know, hanging out entertaining, jumping in the pool yeah so it's from an aesthetic point and a value standpoint of a home.

Matthew Van Eyk 19:43

Yeah, for sure. And even if you're planning on selling your house in five years or three years or whatnot, you're not going to lose that money if you put in a pool deck or a patio or whatnot.

Tiffany Woolley 19:56

It comes back.

Matthew Van Eyk 19:57

Yeah, it definitely comes back there's no doubt there's value yeah. I mean a lot of patios are the selling points for houses. These days you know, especially here in Florida. You know they could be like oh you know, the house needs some work, but it has a beautiful backyard. Exactly, you're right, and that's what catches people's attention. Right, that's so true.

Tiffany Woolley 20:16

That's so true. So how do you balance the technical aspects of the outdoor, like drainage, in line with materials? And one thing I think about in design a lot is the undercover patio being seamless with a pool deck Like those are not necessarily seamless, but part of all the design. And meanwhile sometimes undercover patio you're using slab versus paver. It could be sand set like. How do we, how do you go about all those variables?

Matthew Van Eyk 20:51

that's a hard question. Yeah, it's. It's a little bit challenging, especially in florida, because usually if you have like an undercover patio, especially if it's enclosed, it's already done.

Tiffany Woolley 21:08

Yes, Often, you know and people.

Matthew Van Eyk 21:10

you know people typically start with the inside of their house and then do the outside of their house and they don't usually like what do you say Coordinate the two? Yeah, yeah, have a cohesive design.

Tiffany Woolley 21:21

My favorite word yeah, have a cohesive design which you like.

Matthew Van Eyk 21:22

Saying yeah, my favorite word, yeah, and so that's always challenging, because you know people don't want to pay for the materials twice, right, and then say, you know this matches the inside. But whatever you put, you know, if you like white stone and you put you know a beige or you know a tan in here, it doesn't match. So that's always a little bit challenging, it doesn't match. So that's always a little bit challenging and so it would be helpful to, you know, have people think a little bit of what the whole design is the interior and exterior.

Scott Woolley 21:59

I think one of the things that Tiffany was also kind of alluding to was is that it's not just putting in a patio, you're for sure. You're taking into account drainage? Yeah, Like she mentioned.

Matthew Van Eyk 22:05

Yeah that's always very difficult. You know, I worked in North Carolina for a year, where you have a lot of hills. Hills, yeah, so it's easy to get rid of water, Right, you know very easy, and you know the properties are larger.

Voice Over 22:21

They just slope down.

Matthew Van Eyk 22:22

Yeah, it just slopes down into the creek there and you don't got to worry about it. In Florida we don't have that and by law all the water, that, all the rainwater on your property has to be retained on your property.

Scott Woolley 22:38

Correct Can't roll off to someone else's.

Matthew Van Eyk 22:39

Correct. So that's one of the teaching aspects in in when you're dealing with homeowners we just slip it right to the edge and it's not my property and you got to, you know, say no, that's not the proper way to do things. You know. You can't just put pavers right to your fence line. If you don't, you know, put a drain in there and put the water somewhere else.

Scott Woolley 23:01

Right.

Matthew Van Eyk 23:03

So that's always a struggle.

Tiffany Woolley 23:05

Well and drainage can hinder your installation as well, can't it, I mean.

Matthew Van Eyk 23:14

Yeah Well, and drainage can hinder your installation as well, can't it? Yeah, so drainage in Florida is very challenging to work with, and so we're very mindful of it. We try to make sure that all the water drains either to the front of your property or put a French drain in. Those are additional costs that people don't appreciate, so it's hard to sell people on that because oh, this other guy.

Scott Woolley 23:33

People don't think about that when they're redoing the backyard, because we've run into projects where we're going and we're redoing the interior of a house. The back of the house looks beautiful. It was recently done, but the people are saying we've got this problem that when it pours the water is collecting on this one side of our pool

Scott Woolley 23:52

right near our back door and it sits there for like it will take a day for it to go away. What do we do about that? And then we look and who did your backyard? They didn't properly pitch. They pitched it the wrong way, where the water's rolling towards the house and puddling.

The Technical Side of Outdoor Design

Matthew Van Eyk 24:09

So there's two big issues with that in Florida. Either they didn't pitch it the right way or they didn't consider where the water would pool and install the correct drainage. And then the other big issue is in Florida is that everyone or not everyone many contractors use recycled concrete as their base material.

Voice Over 24:32

And what's the?

Matthew Van Eyk 24:33

difference. So you're supposed to use like a lime rock base or something similar to that that lets water percolate through. So when we do our installs, we do three to four. For a patio, we do three to four inches of lime rock, Then you have your DOT bedding sand and then you have your pavers on top. All those materials let water percolate through.

Matthew Van Eyk 24:58

And so you don't have sitting water. You know you still install your drains. You know if you have excessive rain or whatnot, but you know just simple rain. This lets water percolate through Recycled concrete.

Tiffany Woolley 25:10

Does rain this lets water percolate through recycled concrete does not let any water is it less expensive recycled car less and is it like, like I was thinking of it this way too is it like not a natural, is it kind of a synthetic, correct, correct correct.

Matthew Van Eyk 25:24

So you know there's. You know, on some jobs it's it's okay to work with to some degree, but for the large majority of jobs it's not the best. So that's a struggle with bidding projects. You've got to educate the people and say we use the correct materials that are helpful for you, helpful for water, med know, helpful for water mediation, you know helpful for what the state requires. Um, not just. You know what's cheapest and what we can do the fastest.

Matthew Van Eyk 26:00

Um, so those are. Yeah, so you know like. So the the best way to explain it is um, if you put recycled concrete in recycled concrete in a bottle of water and shake the bottle of water there's so much micro powder in there that the whole water bottle is discolored for like an hour or two. The material that we use when you shake it. It sits there in five minutes.

Matthew Van Eyk 26:31

Material that we use when you shake it, it sits there in five minutes it all sinks down and it doesn't have the micro plastics or not like the micro concrete in it that inhibits the water to percolate through.

Scott Woolley 26:38

Yeah, interesting yeah, so are you seeing, or is there currently, any kind of trends in your industry that seem to be like the hot thing that people are doing now, or yeah, people are really interested in porcelain, porcelain, very, very interested in porcelain.

Matthew Van Eyk 26:57

Um, and then there was shell shocked or price shocked correct.

Tiffany Woolley 27:01

Well, in most of the porcelain, the, the, I feel like the drive of the design is because they're big pieces.

Matthew Van Eyk 27:07

Correct, exactly, you're exactly right. The large format is attractive to people and if you do marble or travertine, the biggest you can really go is like 24 by 16 inch, and porcelain you can go much, much larger.

Scott Woolley 27:23

Why is that?

Matthew Van Eyk 27:25

Just because.

Scott Woolley 27:26

Is it the strength of the material?

Matthew Van Eyk 27:27

Yeah, so like marble and travertine is a natural stone, so you're kind of stuck with the strength of the material, correct? Yeah, so like marble and travertine is a natural stone, so you're kind of stuck with the strength of material. Porcelain is a pressed and cooked concrete. I mean clay. So it's a lot. It's far stronger, like a concrete. Paver is about 6,000 to 9,000 pounds per square foot. Your travertine is like 5,000 and your porcelain is like 30,000. Oh geez so it's much, much, much stronger.

Tiffany Woolley 27:59

And you still have to.

Matthew Van Eyk 28:00

It's still recommended to install it on like a slab first, versus Depends on the size the larger sizes they always recommend putting on a slab. If you're doing it on a driveway, you can do it on the largest we suggest doing for sand set is, uh, two feet by three feet. Um, if you get bigger than that, the, the piece is just so big it almost tends to want to rock Right, which would, yeah, which doesn't look good and it'd probably crack easier. Yeah, correct the long term.

Matthew Van Eyk 28:39

So you can do like 24 by 36 pretty well. On sand we do a method called dry packing, and so when you put your base rock down, you have your bedding layer of sand and we mix a concrete aggregate with our sand and so it almost makes it like a thin layer of concrete that really locks all the material together and helps any tilting or anything or unlevelness. So that helps a lot, especially on the larger format ones.

Scott Woolley 29:12

So there's a technical aspect to doing what you do. Oh yeah, significantly.

Tiffany Woolley 29:16

Well, there's your engineering background. Yeah, exactly Do you and your brother share like stories or like hey, I found this product.

Matthew Van Eyk 29:25

Oh, all the time, all the time, and yeah, and then you know, like all construction, you always have struggles on your job, so we always go through that.

Scott Woolley 29:35

So, jobs, is there a particular or is there one job that comes to mind that was like your favorite, or the job that you really loved or are most proud of? Yeah, anything special that you can tell us about that? You, yeah, I mean, I did my neighbor's job.

Matthew Van Eyk 29:53

Um, I love doing that. My next door neighbor, they uh, they moved in about three or four years ago and they had us, you know, someone flipped the house and did like a poor patio job right so you know, we became friends, and so they're telling me what they wanted to do, and they didn't really know I did this, yet I was like, oh, I'd be happy to do it for you.

Tiffany Woolley 30:13

Right, right, I'm heading that way.

Matthew Van Eyk 30:15

Yeah, so we redid their whole back patio, we put in an outdoor kitchen, we put like an accent wall in with their TVs, because they love watching football on Sundays, and we put a whole bar in the kitchen. And so I love that because it looks beautiful, but I also get to use it all the time I was going to say you get to visit it, your handiwork, yeah.

Matthew Van Eyk 30:37

So that was a lot of fun, you know, and they, you know they love it and appreciate it and it turned out beautiful. So that's probably the favorite job I've done so far.

Tiffany Woolley 30:47

So back a little bit to the entrepreneurial spirit would, when you were getting your feet wet and starting, was it mainly word-of-mouth? Or I mean when you hear of that like special job they're your best.

Matthew Van Eyk 31:01

Yeah, I mean that's for any like good qualified lead word-of-mouth is the best you know. Working in construction for a number of years, you know I had some contacts already, um in the residential market, uh, so I had a few contacts and then, um your marketing when you're starting out is I? I didn't know, I've never done marketing before.

Scott Woolley 31:25

So so is it internet marketing? Is it yeah?

Matthew Van Eyk 31:28

so google ads right primarily, uh, so trying to figure out that. So the google ads leads initially, as we're learning, like weren't great, other than we do a lot of repair work, paper repair work, for you know, trees up lifting roots in your driveway patio, a lot of pavers sunk around your pool edge, so the Google ads were great for that, and we still get a lot of work out of that. And so I did a lot of that work because I could do it myself and it was, you know, low overhead and you know most of it's a day or less work, so it gave me time to do other things. You know larger projects. Just, you know most of it's a day or less work um, so it was it gave me time to do other things.

Matthew Van Eyk 32:16

You know, larger projects, just, you know, take time and energy, um, but I yeah and planning, but I had the time to uh go around and do all these jobs, so, uh, that that that was very, very beneficial and helped me. You know, kind of get off the ground and and as you do these repairs, people appreciate a lot and you know, save your card and you know they have a friend who's doing a pool deck or patio, like hey, I know a guy who did a great job yeah, so that was that was a good way of just getting my name out to quite a few people.

Tiffany Woolley 32:44

So what does your team look like today? Team look like today.

Matthew Van Eyk 32:47

So right now it's myself and my crew. It's primarily a three-man crew. We pick up one or two guys, you know, for larger scale projects. My crew leader is far better at pavers than me.

Tiffany Woolley 33:05

Really yeah, wow.

Matthew Van Eyk 33:07

Yeah, yeah, he's the best. Yeah, I love him a lot. We work great together.

Scott Woolley 33:12

How did you find him?

Matthew Van Eyk 33:14

I drove around a lot looking at paper jobs Really yeah and looking at crews, so I found him doing a job, and you know he's doing an excellent, excellent job. And he showed me some other jobs and when you're doing this long enough, you can quickly see what is good and what is good and what is bad. So then you know he's. He started out just doing a job for me here and there, and I mean I love his work a lot. It's it's better than what I would do or what I could do you know, not for repairs, but you know driveway installs and pool installs and whatnot.

Matthew Van Eyk 33:59

So yeah, so he's great. I love him a lot.

Tiffany Woolley 34:01

And then that gives you more time to pursue the entrepreneurial side of building a bigger brand, which I know you're in the process of evolving right now, which I think is very exciting and much needed which is, you know more, incorporating the whole outdoor experience.

Matthew Van Eyk 34:19

Exactly.

Tiffany Woolley 34:20

So tell us your philosophy on where that's going.

Materials, Trends, and Quality Standards

Matthew Van Eyk 34:24

Yeah, so we, we are starting to. I wanted to just begin doing pavers because I knew the business aspect of it, the install aspect of it, but I didn't. You know, I've never owned a company or run a company, so I wanted just to start, you know, somewhat on a smaller scale and learn how to do it well put in your yeah, and put in your processes you know of how to schedule, how to budget a job and whatnot, and you know figure out how to do that all well, and then the goal, the final goal which we're building into right now is is being a complete exterior modification to the house.

Tiffany Woolley 35:10

Yeah, thank you very so you know from your.

Matthew Van Eyk 35:12

You know your hardscapes to your landscaping, to your lighting, your irrigation. Uh, the goal is to really just be a one-stop shop so homeowners and clients don't have to call three or four contractors and you know, deal with all of them I agree, you can just call one contractor and get everything done.

Tiffany Woolley 35:30

And that really back to my favorite cohesive word. But not only does the design look cohesive in that regard, but also you eliminate your risk, I feel like oh yeah, tremendously For clients, otherwise you just end up with a blame game. And he didn't. Or he's late, or she's late.

Matthew Van Eyk 35:46

Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, I mean later she's. Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, yeah. I mean there's the aggravation and a lot of pointing fingers and then you know, on any project you're gonna, you know there's little things you're you're bound to miss yeah you know, obviously you, you minimize those to extent that you can. But when you work with just one company to do all the work, then you, they're responsible for it and it's not like, oh, I didn't know that was in, or it wasn't budget mining correct and it or it wasn't you know, you know, you know.

Matthew Van Eyk 36:17

I didn't know we had to remove this tree. I thought this demo guy was going to remove this tree like little things, like that it's so I mean and you. So you just it's easier to price it, it's easier for the homeowner just to work with one contractor instead of four and scheduling, so it just makes everything a lot smoother.

Scott Woolley 36:36

So in all these facets of what you're doing. How do you stay on top of what's new or what's coming out, or is there shows that you go to conventions?

Matthew Van Eyk 36:46

There's a couple. I've been quite busy so I haven't done a ton of them yet. Um, I'm working on, you know, hiring someone to do a lot of the running around for me, to give me more time to do that. But you know, working with you guys, um, you know you guys stay on top of everything. So you know you. You know you tell me what's new oftentimes.

Matthew Van Eyk 37:09

And then you know all my material suppliers. They always stay, you know on top of what's new, yeah for sure, and what's selling a lot, and you know what's working, what's not working. So they, you know, just being in construction, everyone communicates a lot, so that helps. And in construction, everyone communicates a lot, so that helps.

Tiffany Woolley 37:30

Is there certain vendors that you choose to purchase the materials from like as a regular go-to?

Matthew Van Eyk 37:38

Yeah, definitely so. For porcelain, which is most popular, I only supply from one company called Hardscapescom.

Scott Woolley 37:46

So porcelain is most popular now. Correct, compared to your typical thick paver, that most driveways or backyards For a driveway.

Matthew Van Eyk 37:57

Just to step back, for a driveway we always suggest pavers, because they're called interlocking pavers, because the strength of the paver is in the the surface area of the one paver touching another, and so when you have cars driving and pushing on them, especially like when you turn quickly into a driveway, that's a lot of force on those pavers, um, and so porcelain and even marble or travertine, you know they, they're larger pieces, so you have less surface area between the pavers, um, and they're usually a lot thinner, so they tend to fail on a driveway. On a patio, you don't have that issue. So on a driveway, unless you're putting concrete down, and then you know mud setting um porcelain or marble or something on top of it, we try to always suggest doing a paver driveway, not on patios because you're just walking on it.

Matthew Van Eyk 38:56

But for porcelain, yeah, we only supply from hardscapescom. They got an office in Boca and then one in Jupiter or showroom. The reason we only use them is because they have the friction go factor on the top of their pavers. So it's a rough surface like a paver would be, but it has the beauty and elegance of like a porcelain tile. And so why I like that? First, like a marble or travertine is especially on pool decks where you have water it tends to get a little slick, but the porcelain is, since they have this rough surface, it's a lot, it's a lot safer and it's beautiful. I think it's. You know, I like the more modern look, so it's very beautiful, and so that's why we supply from them exclusively For your marble and travertine. There's, you know it's all imported from Italy, right? Not Italy, turkey, excuse me. And so you know it's more of the quality control on your suppliers, you know, not necessarily the material itself but a lot.

Matthew Van Eyk 40:18

Yeah, color variation correct yeah, so I primarily use sinai marble and tile down in pompano, um. They're excellent to work with. If you ever have to do an addition or an extension, they make sure you're pulling from the same lot that you already used and they're, in my opinion, their material is more consistent than some of the bigger contractors or distributors that go for volume. I mean, they still move a lot of material, but you know I prefer them and they're they're much easier to work with.

Tiffany Woolley 40:54

Is there any sort of warranty that goes hand in hand with the work or the product at all, or?

Matthew Van Eyk 41:01

For the material, yeah, yeah. So for marble and travertine not really, because it's a natural stone, so it's not really the, since they're not manufacturing it. There's not a lot of warranty on that On any job. It's good to see if your contractor can give you 20 or 30 extra square feet, if you have the space to keep it, just for you know any issues or if something gets discolored, especially like your, your marbles, your lighter materials tend to always, you know they're porous. Yeah, they're very porous yeah they're very porous.

Matthew Van Eyk 41:43

your porcelain and your pavers definitely have have a warranty on them. Yep, huh, yep. And then we, most contractors only do a one year warranty on their work. We include a five year warranty on our work just because we believe we're installing it correctly.

Tiffany Woolley 42:01

So yeah, so obviously your company Oakscapes has an impeccable reputation and how do you, like you mentioned before, like there is sometimes design changes that come up mid-process or mid-installation, or how do you kind of mitigate any of your risks or communications with the client when those things with the client when those things, yeah, it's good to just be open up front instead of.

Matthew Van Eyk 42:32

You know you can always get caught doing the work and not getting paid for the work. So it's always good just to communicate. Well, if someone wants something different and it's, you know, minimal, you know you kind of just eat the cost.

Matthew Van Eyk 42:47

Just, you know you don't want to be a hassle to your clients but, like on a larger change orders, it's always good to make sure they know what they want and know that it wasn't initially included and just communicate like if you're going to do this, you know it's going to cost this much more because it's different material or more material or you know many variations.

Matthew Van Eyk 43:13

But, that's in my opinion. It's just better to you know present what the cost difference, if there is a cost difference up front, and then you know move forward from there, instead of you know saying, oh, we did this work because you said we're going to do it, instead of you know verifying so, and then you know your, your, your clients, not caught off off guard and say, oh, I didn't know what that was going to cost more. You know that happens, can happen. So yeah, that makes life a lot smoother for for both, both parties.

Tiffany Woolley 43:44

And like within this, like ecological. Is there any of that that you come across like? Oh we people.

Scott Woolley 43:51

Do you have any clients or customers or people that are you know? Is this all echo friendly?

Tiffany Woolley 43:56

or like is this, you know, not coming?

Matthew Van Eyk 43:59

in the environment. Yeah, surprisingly not a ton of that um shocker yeah, there's not a, not a ton of that every now and then, um, primarily with artificial turf. Um, people are kind of get shifty about that just because it's it heats up a lot correct um, it's hot, it gets very hot and um and so people are worried about, like plastic, you know, getting in their soil, or plastic getting in their dog or their kids or whatnot. That's like that aspect.

Tiffany Woolley 44:39

Oh yeah, and does that happen? I'm sure we're all microplastic to death.

Matthew Van Eyk 44:45

Yeah, I mean I don't think any more than drinking a water bottle, Right? Yeah, I mean that's not really an issue Like for pets and stuff. I mean, you know there's pet-friendly turf.

Tiffany Woolley 44:58

Yeah.

Matthew Van Eyk 45:00

That only means it's more porous, right? That lets you know the urine or stuff flow through better it's not like it's really safer than than the other ones right um, so yeah, the only, the only eco-friendly is really only an artificial turf.

Matthew Van Eyk 45:18

Um, you know, if people are doing it, we, you know, try to suggest. You know, do it under a pergola. Or you know, do it under a tree where there's more shade. You know if you're going to have your kids playing on it and whatnot. If not, it doesn't really matter. You know, most of the time you don't go out when it's 90 degrees outside.

Scott Woolley 45:34

You go out in the evening. We love artificial turf. Oh, me too. I love it. It's the best.

Tiffany Woolley 45:43

Well, it's so clean. Yeah it. With so many trees, it just the grass doesn't grow.

Matthew Van Eyk 45:48

Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, no, I love artificial turf a lot. You know, I love mixing and matching it with pavers. I do too. I think it looks beautiful, I do too, yeah.

Tiffany Woolley 45:58

So running a successful business involves lots of moving parts. We kind of touched on that. But how do you balance the creative part with all the technical moving part?

Matthew Van Eyk 46:08

yeah, so I'm not extremely creative, sadly enough. I wish I was more creative. Um, you know, if, if someone has an idea of what to do, I can execute execute it very well and, you know, modify it to improve it, but I'm not like the most creative person myself, um, so I, you know, rely on designers like, like you guys, to assist with that. We've had a good relationship oh yeah, terrific.

Scott Woolley 46:39

I love that standpoint.

Matthew Van Eyk 46:40

Yeah, we do too yeah, um, and so you know, especially like on larger projects where you know you have a whole patio or a whole backyard or a whole exterior remodel I heavily rely on people who have the design aspect. I wish I did, but I don't have a terrific one.

Scott Woolley 47:01

Well, we rely on people like yourself, right?

Tiffany Woolley 47:04

Who can execute our designs in a flawless install?

Scott Woolley 47:09

Yeah and I think what's even more important that we talk about is that people that we partner with that we bring on that when the client's coming to us going. Oh my God, I love this guy, matthew, that you have doing my backyard. He's just like great, I mean, that's a good that's you want to hear that with like every vendor for sure and everyone that you're working with you want the client to feel that way, no doubt in the process, no doubt because that's like we've said a number of times the word of mouth comes in over and over.

Tiffany Woolley 47:40

Then for sure, for sure yeah I know, and even as we're sitting here and I'm hearing all these like technical things that I don't think about as much. I'm like as that one driveway we have, you know, in the works right now where we're like mixing the materials and we're doing a design in there. I was like I think only you can do that, yeah, yeah.

Scott Woolley 48:03

So last question for you yes, sir so last question for you, yes, sir, for someone who's listening, thinking that they want to get into, you know, the exterior hardscape business, the landscape business. What advice would you give them? What? What would you say to someone?

Matthew Van Eyk 48:20

I'd say, if I'd say, work for someone for three, four, five years before doing it, um, you know, and like at my last company, you know, when I was hired I told the owners I wanted to start a company eventually I didn't know when, um, so my old boss was, was very kind, he knew I wanted to do that and so he kind of brought me in on more of the business aspect of it than just you know my job, um, and you know how to work with clients, what jobs you pursue, or pursue more than other ones. So I'd say that's probably the best, the best approach so you're living the american dream and I consider to be the american dream.

Scott Woolley 49:06

Dream is that you fell into a business. You loved and liked the business, you learned a lot about that business and other aspects of construction and then one day you decided I'm going to go do this on my own. Yes, sir, you know it's a big risk to quit a job that you're working for a corporation.

Matthew Van Eyk 49:24

Yes, sir, and then go.

Scott Woolley 49:25

I'm going to start this business. I have no clients, no one's ever heard of me, no one knows that I'm doing this.

Matthew Van Eyk 49:31

And I had one kid and one on the way.

Tiffany Woolley 49:35

You had a child on the way. That was perfect timing, oh yeah.

Matthew Van Eyk 49:38

I got my third one on the way now. No, but it just proves that.

Scott Woolley 49:42

I mean if you put your heart behind it. Oh, I mean if you put your heart behind it, no matter what you're looking to do possibilities can happen.

Tiffany Woolley 49:49

With faith and hard work right.

Matthew Van Eyk 49:51

A lot of hours, no doubt.

Tiffany Woolley 49:53

No doubt about that.

Matthew Van Eyk 49:55

But it's very rewarding.

Scott Woolley 49:57

That's wonderful Well we appreciate your time and spending with us today. Thanks for having me and having you on the iDesign Lab.

Matthew Van Eyk 50:04

Yeah thanks.

Tiffany Woolley 50:06

And as we wrap up, we have a couple quick little questions, yeah, okay so what's your I mean you have little children and obviously one on the way what's your favorite? Like vacation, like hotel vacate, like I mean when?

Matthew Van Eyk 50:19

you guys want to get away and um my wife and I is it what's the coolest, or maybe design, or I mean my favorite vacation right now with kids, um is my wife and I. We go like for four or five days to an all-inclusive resort. We usually do it every year and you just sit there and don't talk a lot and don't do a lot.

Scott Woolley 50:44

You can sleep a lot are there any favorites that like uh, cool or well done.

Matthew Van Eyk 50:50

Yeah, probably the our favorite one was the sanctuary in dominican republic cool uh, that was yeah, that was was. That one was terrific and the service there was amazing, yeah amazing. Yeah, that was that was. That was probably the best one so far. Yeah, my family and my wife's family lives close, so it's not like we do a lot of vacations with family, just because we see them, you know once a week or twice a week?

Matthew Van Eyk 51:20

That's good, Every other day that's wonderful. And then you know, I have a lot of cousins. My dad's one of seven. My dad's one of seven.

Tiffany Woolley 51:28

My mom's one of six.

Matthew Van Eyk 51:29

Wow, how fun. And so, like most vacations right now are just, you know, Families. Yeah, I go in a family and you know it's our kids are, you know, two and a half and one and a half and one on the way, so it's not like you can do a whole lot with them. Right, so most lot with them right.

Tiffany Woolley 51:48

so most of it's just you know hanging out with other people, kids, yeah, hoping they play together, exactly like that's what I say. It's like having built-in babysitting exactly like he's gonna go other place go to like a restaurant where they can walk around and yeah, so so restaurant.

Scott Woolley 51:57

Is there any really cool restaurant that comes to mind? Um, we like to try to focus, like and think about design.

Tiffany Woolley 52:06

Or you walk in or I even say even lack of design, because sometimes, like barefoot and the behind, I mean who knows?

Scott Woolley 52:12

yeah, yeah, yeah we did a podcast recently about ugly design oh, that's kind of cool. You know, you don't realize, you don't think about it, but there's a lot of ugly design around us.

Voice Over 52:21

Oh, there's no doubt a lot of time.

Scott Woolley 52:22

We laugh about it and don't even really think about it like why did someone design you know that like crocs, you know like?

Matthew Van Eyk 52:29

oh yeah, those are.

Scott Woolley 52:29

You know, there's no doubt the christ, the ugly christmas sweaters, that people, you know, people throw parties yeah, I have not been to one, but there's like you know, restaurant because, because it's like restaurant, something that most people go to every so you know regularly, or yeah, yeah, uh, favorite restaurant design, or lack of design, or or experience, or even experience, because there's a the design and creating the experience.

Matthew Van Eyk 52:59

Yeah, we have a good friend who has like three qualifications the ambience, the food and the music I know live music is fun too yeah, I'm not a fan of live music oh that's my wife is so I put up with it every now and then I don't like it at a restaurant.

Tiffany Woolley 53:15

It's too loud. I like to talk. Yeah, I like talking.

Matthew Van Eyk 53:18

I don't want to maybe if it's someone I don't know great, um, but yeah not, I don't like it just most of the time at restaurants. Um, probably elizabeth is in west palm beach.

Tiffany Woolley 53:34

Yeah, that's such a cute atmosphere I love that and you can.

Matthew Van Eyk 53:37

We usually always sit outside and you can look at all the big boats yeah, that's probably our favorite. There's another good, a really nice one. It's called yacht in west palm beach. I'm at fort lauderdale, oh, it's kind of like it's, it's it's in a, it's in a marina, um, and it's like mostly service to the boats, boats, but it's a very nice restaurant. It's right on the on the river there oh fun great good eating. When I worked down there, we used to go for lunch there all the time. It's a really nice place.

Closing Thoughts and Vacation Spots

Tiffany Woolley 54:13

Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us today.

Matthew Van Eyk 54:16

Yeah, thanks for having me, I appreciate it yes thanks, yeah, certainly.

Voice Over 54:20

All right iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW Group production in association with the Five Star and TW Interiors. To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW Interiors, please visit twinteriorscom.