Mark Mitten  0:03  
Hello, we have a special treat for you today. Paul mapillary, the world's greatest Kitchen Designer with egg sausage, kitchen designer to the stars.

Paul McAlary  0:33  
So welcome to better call Paul. Today we have a special podcast. I'm going to talk to Ed sauce ik one of the designers at mainline kitchen design and the one that I've worked with the longest. Ed and I have worked on and off for 2728 years. Welcome ed to medical, Paul. Thank you. So we first met I think that we figured out it was 2727 and a half years ago. Yep. At one of the first Home Depot's in our area. Yep. You know, I would tell listeners to that a back in the day, you know, 27 years ago, 28 years ago, Home Depot was a very different place,

Ed Sossich  1:15  
but a very good place to get capture at that time.

Paul McAlary  1:18  
It was a good company to work for. If you went to the plumbing department and you ask somebody for help you probably were talking to a master plumber. You know, the salaries for the designers at Home Depot haven't really even changed very much in 27 years now.

Ed Sossich  1:35  
It's funny, he said that I like Mike Zook, I remember Mike was our measure down to Home Depot when we first started there. And he was wanting to talk me measuring because I never went out on measures like really for Grossman's once in a blue moon. He was a master plumber. It just didn't want to get on his knees and do the plumbing anymore. You know, I mean, they were paying him like 30 bucks an hour. Yeah, to work in some department and go and do measures for kitchens every once in a while.

Paul McAlary  2:06  
Yeah. And that's probably what the average Kitchen Designer makes right now at a Home Depot. That's how much they've devalued it. And I know both you and I, after we left, we left that Home Depot. We both ended up at Lowe's. Where that let's say it's 24 years ago, whatever. But you'll dub Mottershead one of the designers there he was making 90 something $1,000 A year as a kitchen designer like $95,000 a year he was the highest paid kitchen designer and all of Lowe's but that's only because he was the highest selling kitchen designer and all of the Home Depot's before he came to Lowe's, but all of us, you know, I know I was making back then 6869.

Ed Sossich  2:51  
And I was working Monday through Friday to five,

Paul McAlary  2:54  
right? So and you know, this is all doesn't exist anymore. So it was a different it was a different time. Where, you know, no designers back yeah, they had real designers and but still most I think most of our goals were to spend some time at Home Depot and then to eventually get to a more prestigious showroom or at least Absolutely, absolutely. But coming from Home Depot wasn't it was a good reference on your kitchen design resume. Well, it

Ed Sossich  3:22  
was funny, because when I came back to what you were talking about when you started there, I remember that perfectly. You're walking the back aisle towards the kitchen of Barbara and you and I ran into each other you told me who you are. And we started talking for a little bit and like within the first 10 minutes. I was like, Wow, this guy's really, this is what we need. And I think it was I forget the store manager, they called me into your office hours. They asked me about you. And I said yeah, I say is the missing link. That's the term not knowing how true that term was. Said he's the missing link. He's what we need in this department. I said, Wait, yeah, he carries a lot of experience. He was a contractor. He goes basic design already. I mean, it's and from there just it just went on and on and on. We just Yeah,

Paul McAlary  4:17  
I mean, we we set all kinds of records, you and I went travels at the different places we worked at that, you know, we would wouldn't be working at the same company for a while then we'd be suddenly working at the same company. And every time we were together, we'd set some kind of if it was a Home Depot, we'd set national records. If it was a Lowe's, we'd set national records. If it was a private company, we were always doing way better than the competition. So and now we get to work together and as people may notice, if they go to your profile on our website, you coined the phrase, you You called us Batman and Robin. Yep. And of course if you Do ask either one of us, we will both claimed to be Batman. But I remember it's funny one time you had a customer that called you up directly from online. As to

Ed Sossich  5:11  
our studio talking to Batman or Robin.

Paul McAlary  5:15  
I think I remember you responded, Well, we like designing your kitchen, and then you tell me. But I thought one of the fun things we could do on this podcast, because I know that we both been doing this for so long, but you've had more interesting customers, because you're a much more gregarious and friendly person than I am so

Ed Sossich  5:38  
bad. So popular opinion? Hmm.

Paul McAlary  5:43  
Well, it's, you know, it's very true. I mean, you know, my claim to fame a lot of the times and some of the places we work that was making the train sort of run on time. But you knew everybody and every place we work that you knew all their backstories is, that's why you always ended up sometimes getting the, you know, a lot of famous customers, because, you know, you're friendly, they would be comfortable with you. So I thought we'd sort of talk about some of the famous people you work with, because I know the funny stories.

Ed Sossich  6:11  
It is it's true, what you said is true. But a lot of that has to do my career. Paul, in the last 30 years, I continually do you notice, from ups and downs, trials and tribulations we have with this company, even, you know, I'm constantly working on myself and I always happen and, you know, be ever Garius and talkative. And it's not always a good thing, as we both know. But it was part of who I became, once I started getting into retail, I'll use that word I don't like that worked for kitchens, but it's retail. A talking to people getting to know people. I always tried to find a connection even to this day, when I go to a person's house, I walk up the driveway, I look at the bumper stickers on the car, they might have a flagging and that I can make a connection to so I go when we have something we could talk about other than their kitchen.

Paul McAlary  7:09  
Marc is looking forward to editing this podcast. Mark is our podcast engineer, and also our delivery manager. But he tells me as the Delivery Manager that, you know, it's not even close that your customers are the ones that talk about you and talk about how much they liked you the most that so you really Genesis, you really generate a personal touch with your customers but tell us

Ed Sossich  7:39  
let's hear the story. First, the first famous person I ever worked with. I was in the business for literally two months, three months. And French Rossi caught my April string says, I got an appointment for he goes you gotta like this one. And I said really a good Yep. And he was a came in and my at the first time he came in, my jaw just dropped like it was Brooke Shields. Father Frank, to explain Brooke Shields is beauty. It's not even comprehensible, how beautiful she was. And her father was a really nice guy.

Paul McAlary  8:19  
You said I think he told me once that she was in Princeton that she was a graduate student. She was a Princeton

Ed Sossich  8:23  
graduate school and the 86 I think she graduated 87 I'm not sure about that. But or maybe an undergrad he wanted to redo the apartment because she was getting ready to graduate that the following year. Met her that time. But I worked with him the whole time. It was weird because I remember being like starstruck. But after a while it just started getting to be easy. And they just they're just regular people. They're just really regular people. And when we went to depot, I think you'll remember when me and Florida lost our baby, right? You remember? Well, they put me in the phone Center. My first big sale the phone center to break sales was Ringling Brothers for over 100 some $1,000 for material and Will Smith's father. Well, he teamed me with Jazzy Jeff they were doing that. That condo down on the river. So they needed kitchen also, on top of redoing the whole floor. So it was over 150,000 hours worth of material. It just landed in my lap. And the store manager at the time was like well, I want you to work with them on the kitchen toe. I say that's fine. You know, he that was that was those South Philly ed. I was 97 that we went to when we went to Plymouth I was flabbergasted by how many famous people walk through that store.

Paul McAlary  9:53  
Right you know that we're I know your design, Charles Barkley's kid Charles Barkley

Ed Sossich  9:59  
his condo him and his wife Maria they live in a condo and gladwyne on the offseason, they like to stay in Philadelphia and and when the basketball season starts and live out in Arizona

Paul McAlary  10:14  
he's we both run into him he's a sort of a local celebrity in the funniest funniest guy in the world. Yeah,

Ed Sossich  10:22  
I haven't. I've worked with his wife most of time. But I'm in his condo one time here he comes through the door and I'm looking at his coffee table, which has glass over it has all awards and pictures. And he has a rating from when he played for the Houston Rockets and went to the championship. I see your minor my my terrific knees I say yeah, I love that loser room. You got in and I said that it's almost as big as the winners ring up your call you guys I guess your pics Sixers fantasy. I said, I love that picture when they retired your number. I said that we'll write that right next to speedy Klaxons, retirement. Yes, Jesus Christ. I said guys, you're always one of my Pharisee you'll remember me like started telling him that that straight told me at the Golf Tour it and he remember right away he started telling me the story after that. Well, stories we've already gone through. This is what I have my restaurant even like my restaurant. I was still doing kitchen designs on the side by him because that's how I learned doing it to scale and I would make a couple 100 hours of design just to make ends meet. And I did a golf tournament if commonwealth and Hatboro and it was a celebrity tour mascot was there Blanco Georgia because he's best friends with little Charles Barkley. So I guess Barkley got him to calm and we came to watch. And yet after golf so we had a buffet out of everything. And I'm watching this little kid the whole time during the watch his kids all over trying to get autographs and he just couldn't stop. You know, I mean, they they had to wait till everybody got out to take the kids out. But as one little kid was just had to tell him like go GA gear wouldn't bother them just was real nice. And I was like why kids even asked for autographs. So we're cleaning up the end of the day. There's the kid again. He goes Mr. Jordan, can you please have an autograph? And Michael Jordan's like, Nah, don't worry. I just got the player hole. And I'm not going to use the language I use. But I was like, Yeah, dude, that's pretty effing. You know, this kid worried about 1000 hours worth of your stuff, right? I see Wait, a day to get your autograph is I don't have to sign every autograph. I said no, I agree with you. If he if you have dinner with your wife, and he came up No, you don't. You don't owe him an autograph. You are Michael Jordan. You know, I mean, you're not like some third grade player. Well, what we got here between us and stuff. It wasn't like we were gonna throw down and often I just get elevated.

Paul McAlary  12:52  
Yeah, I know that. I know that Charles is so good with fans. I have a funny story about about him. One of the restaurants that my wife and I love going to that local church is also one of Charles's favorites. It's called Ryan Christopher's. He told me we used to have we used to have our office lunches at Ryan Christopher's when they did lunch. Brian Christopher's is a BYOB and for people that don't know what a BYOB is. That's bring your own bottle. So they don't serve alcohol there. You have to bring your own wine or you know, whatever you're drinking with you to the restaurant. So my wife and I were sitting on their outside veranda, whatever, by the fence. And here comes down the block comes to walk and Charles Barkley and he has his bottle with him. And they

Ed Sossich  13:38  
just there was like a bottle patrolling or something, I don't know.

Paul McAlary  13:43  
But it coming in the other direction as a mom and two little kids walking down the block. And they meet and when they meet, they meet, essentially just witness patrols is standing essentially over the fence on the sidewalk across from my wife and I are sitting on the other side of the fence in the restaurant. And so the mother says to the boys, she says, Oh my goodness, this is Mr. Charles Barkley. Mr. Barkley, would you say hello to you know, David and Frank or whatever the kids names were and Charles Barkley smiles and he just immediately reaches over the fence and hands my wife the bottle of alcohol that he's carrying, right? And then he kneels down and he talks to the kids and he's so good with them but everything else and he walks around comes into the front of the restaurant and walks back through the porch area whatever and comes back to our table to get the bottle that he gave my wife once I ran into him out on a golf course where we will put with his his created a foursome him and I think another six or player and this is probably 30 years ago or something. Yeah. And it was playing golf with him for his was just hilarious because he is such a Yeah,

Ed Sossich  14:55  
he's he's he then he was really bad. But that was just bad that he was really bad

Paul McAlary  15:03  
or better than me.

Ed Sossich  15:06  
I don't know back then. You weren't that bad back then.

Paul McAlary  15:10  
You're you remember wrong because when I played golf, we both played golf and we both were we would get we will be lucky, I think, to be in the 90s. If the

Ed Sossich  15:21  
day I got married, you played rugby. I hit a team,

Paul McAlary  15:24  
right. So we were. We were both we were both terrible. While you're a great golfer,

Ed Sossich  15:30  
so now there was like a 175. Well,

Paul McAlary  15:35  
he was not he was not any worse. He was no, he was not much better than he was not much worse than I was. That's for sure.

Ed Sossich  15:41  
Yeah, he says, because I was thinking the stones rock often. And he said to be ice and we're here today want to add things I'm trying to get into my weight. So that would be an extreme store. Man. I'll tell you why. That that store had some. They had a lot of slavery come through there. I had a chance to work with David Morse, the actor he played in that show hack that local show where he was also

Paul McAlary  16:10  
in what was the thing with Jodie Foster.

Ed Sossich  16:13  
He was a lot of the thing

Paul McAlary  16:16  
about the life from out of space or whatever. I can't remember contact contact he was he was the father in contact.

Ed Sossich  16:25  
Father contact he was in the ticket negotiator with Kevin Spacey. That was a great movies. He's a great actor. Oh, amazing actor. unassuming. Have you met him in Lowe's, you've never even known as an actor. He dresses worst in people. Like seriously, oh, come in, like rip sweatpants. A hat down over his eye. Not over his eyes, but like not trying to hide who he is. He does a very unassuming person he lives locally always has live locally. Terrence Howard was another one guy that plays an empire worked with him. Me Johnny worked with Patti LaBelle. Oh, wow. Johnny did the kitchen and I did the expediting on that manager on that steering Hawk with a local celebrity who's big into sports he passed away a couple of years ago did his kitchen right over in Wynwood.

Paul McAlary  17:19  
A lot of the people to a lot of the celebrities can be because the main line right in the middle of the main line is Villanova. And that's the practice facility for the city where was where longtime the practice facility for the Sixers. And so a lot of Sixers basketball players would live in that area. If you worked on the main line or anywhere close to the main line. You'd get a lot of Sixers Yeah,

Ed Sossich  17:43  
well guide customers how about Bluebell Bluebell? Awesome a lot athletes, Merrill Reese quoted his kitchen up there did his neighbors and then we quoted his kitchen and we never got it. Because he moved but Ryan Howard lives right in that same developer Romero Reese lives. It's

Paul McAlary  18:04  
interesting. I know, one of my design pet peeves is that or I shouldn't say pet peeve. Since we just did a whole podcast on pet peeves. What am I design things that I'm constantly trying to dissuade customers from doing is people want to customize things they want. Like if they're short, they want to lower the wall cabinets down. If they're tall, they want to raise the base cabinets up. And the problems when you do these things, is that you know you raise the wall cabinets down because you're short. Yeah, the wall cabinets can be a little bit more accessible to you. But then your coffeemaker and your toaster oven and everything else don't really work. You don't really have enough space to port to put something inside the blender. If it's over the countertop. If you raise your base cabinets up. Well, you can't really do that because your your range, your stove, your dishwasher, all that there's so many things, appliances and parts of your kitchen that are really designed to be that universal height, that you'd have so many complications with doing these things that people don't realize. I mean, I worked with Samuel Dallin bear once who was a pleasure to work with and he's seven feet tall.

Ed Sossich  19:18  
You are not Samuel Dalbir Tambo now

Paul McAlary  19:22  
some of them they're not Yeah, yeah, now not become. I think matumbo is very funny, but it was

Ed Sossich  19:30  
I got I got my Tombow in Plymouth Meeting i Okay. Because he told me he was a kitchen technology first.

Paul McAlary  19:36  
I know I worked. I worked with Daniel down there. So he sat me down but I was probably the only person who was seven feet tall. So he's the only one that I you know, even considered. I even asked him do you want to maybe raise your wall cabinets up a little bit or you know, do something to accommodate, you know your height? And he said, funny guy. He said, you know you said no, I'm used to living in your little people's world. So if you change something he goes emphasize that I want my kitchen to be amazing. And I want it to be for the woman I haven't met yet. I said she and she's not going to be an unusual giant. So, you know, he was a very sensible but I know you know, same

Ed Sossich  20:23  
thing for you brought that up because we were talking about Barkley. i Let's go back to that for a second. So when I was working already there kitchen inking, Glen, God gladwyne It's just a galley kitchen. It's a nice size galley buzzer galley kitchen goes to the condo, and she's tall. She's like 510 herself. So he's she said to be, is there any way we can raise these cabinets up a little bit? I said, I thought at one time before where you can build them up. You could build a platform underneath and

Paul McAlary  20:53  
yeah, I mean, that's a unique situation. But even with the Sixers, Jan Peterson, who was the owner of one of our competitors, now Peterson's kitchens, which is a good company, but she's no longer there. Peterson's kitchens is right next to Villanova, which she would get the most basketball players, and they're all tall. And she would dissuade the basketball players from raising up their cabinets by saying, you're going to destroy resale value, and you know, you might be traded next year. So, but yeah, so I mean, we've I think we've talked about some of the more famous people that we both know and have, I think being a kitchen designer, you get to meet all these different people you get to,

Ed Sossich  21:38  
it's the best part of job, the stories and again, that's something I share with my clients. So when I go out, I literally have clients ask me in the past, have you ever work with any famous people? Oh, really? Absolutely. You know, my, my wife's cousin Priscilla owns a Parisian hair salon, right in Wayne, Lancaster Avenue and South Wayne Avenue. And she gets a lot of famous people coming there. And I mean, Jay Wright, is one of them. And that's one of the things like I'll give her her stack of cards. I'm probably gonna go see her today, and give her her stack of cards. And she's gonna refer me to her client.

Paul McAlary  22:19  
Get some more you get some more

Ed Sossich  22:22  
to see take when I work at Villanova. I might comment, like, you know, oh, yeah, my cousin's places right up the street here. You know, I mean, so it works both ways. But yeah, it's, it's something that's fun to talk about. It's definitely fun to talk about.

Paul McAlary  22:38  
Yeah, well, I always the thing I like too is when the people are famous, or they're not famous. When you renovate and change somebody's kitchen, a lot of times you're you can be changing their lives, making their lives a little bit a little bit better, a little bit more organized. You're making their time with their family sometimes better, because they'll be proud of the space that people are now coming over their house to sit in and to enjoy. So, you know, it's one of the reason that I you know, I think we both love our profession, right? You know, what

Ed Sossich  23:13  
I love about my job. I love when people say to me, I can really tell you love what you do. And I hear that I do hear that quite often. I can really tell you love what you do. Because the last thing I do when I leave their house as I give them my cards, and I say here's some of my cards like I was telling you if you go to the places we recommend you get our discounts blah blah blah and I see now I work for you now you could call me anytime night or day I don't care if I don't pick up leave a message but if you pick call me 10 Good chance you're gonna get because I'm watching the game so and people send me I can really tell you love what I do you guys I do I love the stories. I love the connections that I made during this job. And you know the funny thing Paul, the more famous the people the last take a plane oh

Paul McAlary  24:07  
that's totally true. That's totally true. A lot of it's a lot of times the people that just goes because that's very true class man like glass, who is the kitchen designer that made themselves the most accessible to their customers that you and I both know Mottershead I would say Ray Ray was giving his cell phone number

Ed Sossich  24:33  
because that's where I got it from. Got what I do from Ray Gardner right that's why I tell people you could call me anytime I work for you now I want to be with you to lash Googlers in your cabinet. You know so you call me if you can't get Juliet okay get a deport call me. Just call.

Paul McAlary  24:52  
Ray was great. He was such a great desire. And you know, for those of us for those of you you know listening to the podcast. Ray was one of our designers that passed away. He had to retire for health reasons and passed away in 2020. During the first wave of COVID, he was a fun guy and a very good designer. He was

Ed Sossich  25:16  
always he was the best storyteller was just amazing, amazing.

Paul McAlary  25:22  
Well, my wife Julie would say that thing that we really the ray was down at at heart was really a softie. Oh my god, he was over our house. The thing that always touched me the most was just how much he would really love watching the hummingbirds that were in our backyard and outside of our house. I mean, he would just marvel over. We went out my front door. 10 minutes later, I might see him still standing there looking at hummingbirds. He

Ed Sossich  25:51  
loved the animals. His dog was his. Everything, then there's nothing. I remember when his talk I diabetes. I said, What are you going to do? Because his dog was old? His dog was probably like 10 years old, where you have to diabetes. Me I'm thinking you got to put him down. Right. And his family $1,000 a month for his dogs, diabetic medicines. administering it. He just seems a good guy, man. He's really good guy. All right.

Paul McAlary  26:17  
I think at least we made ourselves a little bit more human, maybe a little bit too much human. We can podcast listeners. But that was sort of the goal of this podcast to humanize us a little bit. I think we accomplish that. You know, it was great talking to you. And I will say one thing, being a kitchen designer has gotten way better. Now with Zoom, that, you know, we have to work so much less nights and weekends. Oh, yay. And not even have to go into the office. We can be working now. You know, probably two thirds, or at least two thirds of our appointments aren't in the office anymore.

Ed Sossich  26:58  
I love. I love people call me in Cocke. At night, they're like, they want to do one talk with their designer, like, give me two seconds. I'll jump on I'll call you right back. We'll zoom real quick.

Paul McAlary  27:08  
Yeah, I mean, Zoom has just made our lives so much more convenient and more convenient for customers. And it's so funny, it existed, you know, before COVID. But if it hadn't been for COVID, we would never have ever, ever knew where was where we would never have thought that transitioning to be in two thirds, zoom and 1/3 in the office. And in the show room or whatever is the more efficient way to design kitchens. We were both around for the beginning of the computer tech technology in in 2020 design. And we're both around now for the transition into we've been through every

Ed Sossich  27:45  
phases of this field. We really have. And

Paul McAlary  27:50  
yeah, and our company is is quite cutting edge in the fact that we you know we're an internet presence first and a place you can stop by and really not at all without an appointment. But all right, great talking to you. And we'll edit this up and we'll see what we get.

Ed Sossich  28:07  
When it's up I'll talk to you. Alright, talk to you soon.

Mark Mitten  28:10  
Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally acclaimed Kitchen Designer Paul Macelleria. This podcast is brought to you by bringing cabinetry, high quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices. For more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www dot mainline kitchen design.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai