This week on the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show, we interview Chastity Baysa–Chun of American Floor and Home. We’ll talk about how American Floor and Home can be your one-stop shop for home remodeling.
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Who is Chastity Baysa–Chun?
Chastity Baysa–Chun was born and raised in Maui and currently resides in Makakilo. She took up Marketing at the University of Hawaii in West Oahu. She is currently a Client Advisor for American Floor & Home.
American Floor & Home is your One-stop shop for all your remodeling needs. Their professional project managers make shopping easy by helping you to select the right product to fit your lifestyle, and their professional in-house installers will do the job right to your complete satisfaction.
To reach Chastity you may contact her in the following ways:
Phone: 808.832.2043
Email: chastityb@
Website: https://www.
Social media: https://www.instagram.
Interview Transcription
ATTILIO:
photographic memory was born and raised in Mali currently resides in Makakilo. She took up marketing at the University of Hawaii in West Oahu.
ADRIENNE:
She is currently a client advisor for American flooring home. Please welcome our guest chastity Beisa. Chad. Welcome. Welcome chastity.
CHASTITY:
Hey there. Thanks for having me. So happy to be here with you guys.
ATTILIO:
Yeah, so you’re gonna go
ADRIENNE:
one thing that we left out to that she’s also a co owner. Oh, yeah. This American flooring home
ATTILIO:
she’s the she’s boss woman. She actually has these custom license plates. It says boss woman on it.
CHASTITY:
Yes, licensee. I also have a nameplate on my desk.
ATTILIO:
In Your name, your it says right on the above her door. The buck stops here.
CHASTITY:
Yeah. Exactly.
ATTILIO:
And you can bring those dollars because then she will use those dollars to get some lunch. So let’s talk about the the company. Yeah, American floor and home. That’s like it’s like literally you guys should be like American soup to nuts. Because you guys do everything we do. restaurant that wouldn’t be like, for stuff and we never know. Yeah. So American flooring home. Tell us the history. How long has this company been around?
CHASTITY:
Yeah, so we’ve been around since 1974. Our founder, Mr. David or Rita actually founded it under the name The carpet shop. So I know a lot of people still remember us as the carpet shop. Yeah, so we’re going to be reaching our 50th anniversary in a couple of years. So that’s really exciting for us. So we’ve been around since 1974. Just recently, since last year, May 2020. When we went from American carpet one, two American flooring home now. So we got our general contractor’s license. And we’ve just expanded we’re now doing Kitchen and Bath remodeling. That goes from like painting to like, getting your kitchen gutting your bathroom redoing everything. So yeah, it’s really exciting.
ATTILIO:
Even rubber floors.
CHASTITY:
Yes, we did. Jim.
ATTILIO:
We use jokey one time we had to do from Hawaii Pacific property managers like he said, you want to maintain the value of your your rental properties, just rubber make everything rubber, rubber walls, rubber countertops, rubber floors. Then again, after the move out, you just come in with on big giant holes and holes, the whole unit down. And the next person can come over.
CHASTITY:
Oh my goodness. Can you imagine? Yeah.
ATTILIO:
That would be but anyway, the interesting concepts that or Adrian, you had a question?
ADRIENNE:
Well, I mean, I just wanted to make a comment about the the floors and the technology that you guys use to, you know, help the clients visualize and actually see like, what will it look like? So let’s talk a little bit about that special tool you have on your website? Yeah,
CHASTITY:
yes. So we’re proud to say that we’ve actually incorporated this about a couple of years now. And what it is, is basically when you go onto our website, and you want to see a hard surface flooring, you’re not sure which color you like which direction you want to go in, what it might look like in your home. So there’s a tool that we call rumble. And when you go into our website, and you click on waterproof flooring, it’ll pull up all of our luxury vinyl flooring. And from there, it’ll say, like see this in your room. When you click on that, it’ll bring you to this power it says upload your photo, or you can use one of those already created, like layouts. But if you upload your area, so if you have a bedroom or a kitchen, click on that upload your picture, choose the flooring that you want, you can actually see what it would look like in your home, it’ll go under your furniture, all of that so it’ll give you a better idea if you actually like that color or if you even like that style. So it’s really amazing it’s actually helped a lot of our clients choose if they really liked that color or if they wanted to try something else or if they liked the direction
ATTILIO:
you know radio maybe it was television for the mind. So here’s the here’s a description just imagine you know you guys have this feature it’s actually reduced the divorce rate by at least 20% to surface rotate surface because you know maybe your honey bunny wants it to go horizontal but then you’re like, Oh, but I like I’m going vertical. Well you guys can argue in the showroom.
CHASTITY:
Go away.
ATTILIO:
duke it out and you can just hit that button instead of being instead of it turning into an divorce because I wanted it this way horizontal but I wanted it vertical. You hit this button and it rotates the way the planks are on the flooring, right? They’re like magic.
CHASTITY:
It is magic. Yeah.
ADRIENNE:
And this is and this is probably one of the reasons why they have like over 800 reviews on their company I’ve star yeah
CHASTITY:
Thank you. Yes, we’re so proud of that. I mean, it’s one of the small reasons.
ATTILIO:
Well, we’ve said it before you pull up in the parking lot. And you’re the guy who might be sitting in a parking lot. I want to talk to the boss. He’s like, You got them. Yeah. And they’re all in. Everybody’s all in.
CHASTITY:
Everyone’s all in. And that’s we’re so proud of that fact that Mr. Vita actually sold it to his employees, you know, and
ATTILIO:
to him as a whole, as a business owner to do that. He’s, yeah, that’s, he could have cashed out the big baller house in Vegas with a yacht and doing videos and stuff. But getting back to the people that helped him build it, he did it to 74.
CHASTITY:
Yes. And that was really important to him. So we were so grateful for him to share his company with us. And like all of us, as you said, the guy who’s sweeping the parking lot, you know, our warehouse team, are designers, everyone in here is all in it for one big, one big, like view, we’re just here together, trying to just bring quality products to our clients bring the best service to our clients, you know, so the culture in our company is really amazing.
ATTILIO:
Yeah, and the technology
ADRIENNE:
is really amazing. All the different styles of flooring and cabinetry and just everything that you guys have for your industry. There. It’s in the warehouse, not on backorder.
CHASTITY:
Not except for cabinets. But yeah, cuz we actually, it’s all custom made. And they made in the USA, yeah. So we get that delivered from the mainland, which is really nice. We’ve worked with them for a very long time. So all of our, all of the manufacturers that we work with, we have a great relationship with them. So if we ever need anything, they’re always there to help us out. Because, yeah, we’re just there to take care of each other. And we’ve been with them for so long. So it’s really nice.
ADRIENNE:
So for that chassis for the cabinets, what is the typical turnaround time, since we’re, you know, they’re being made in the mainland and then shipped to Hawaii? What is what is that?
CHASTITY:
So now with everything just being a little backed up, it’s where it went from four to six weeks to eight to 10 weeks. So double the time, but still not so bad. Because by that time, our team is already out anyways, by two months for our construction team. So while we finalize everything, your order, we’ll put that in and we, you know, we can actually work with the client schedule things going on, as soon as we see that the cabinets are on their way. That’s when we start, like production. Yeah, so that way it’s seamless. For American foreign home, once we start to project we don’t want to stop and come back like a year later. That’s, we want it to just be seamless for the for the client because it’s it’s disruptive. You know, it’s we’re coming into your home or tearing it apart. We don’t want you to feel misplaced. We want you to feel like this is just momentarily a moment, just a moment in getting your home the way you want it to be. So it’s very seamless,
ADRIENNE:
instead of living in like a construction zone.
ATTILIO:
Yeah, exactly. I just want to comment to our you know, we we so we like we livestream the recording of the show, which is what we’re doing right now and so we have it on the on the social media and there I pause it on you guys video, there’s like a whole picture like a company logo shot. And you can tell this is like good kind history for you guys company because I see one guy he’s got in the front world. He’s wearing some Chuck Taylors. I see a lot of mullets, lots of I see a lot of big hair, big hair. You know, it almost looks like a happy hour at rumors. Back in the day, even rumors is gone. Rumors is gone. But you guys are still here. We’re
CHASTITY:
still here. Not going anywhere. Yeah. And you know, a lot of those. Actually, I want to say a few those guys who are wearing Chuck T. They’re still here. They are still here, which is amazing. I love hearing their stories and introducing them to our clients like hey, this is our estimator. guys been here for since the beginning.
ATTILIO:
Why? You know, I heard you know, we COVID People wasn’t getting haircuts so that might be coming back to this girl you know, cuz that’s it business in the front, but we’re in
ADRIENNE:
the back. So So chastity, I know that you guys had started this, this new program. You guys are always very innovative with how you operate your business. Can you talk to our listeners about these? The Home Shopping option? How does that work? What is that?
CHASTITY:
Okay, so shop at home. So back in 2020 before COVID even started we our management team was just like, hey, let’s just try something. Let’s just see how shoppers home comes comes into play. So we had one gentleman whose name is Shawn he’s one of our owners. They are pioneer of shop at home so basically he has a van already filled with samples. And if you don’t want to or aren’t able to come into the showroom, we’ll be more than happy to have Shawn come and assist you show you samples, take measurements of your home. So basically everything is being done at your home at your place. So it’s been doing really amazing. And now we have for from that very short amount of time we’ve expanded to four Shop at Home bands.
ATTILIO:
You know, I want to say Shawn is a true success story. You know, originally when you started working with him, he lived in this van down by Kelly stream. Now he has his own home, he leaves the band at at American floor and he goes home in his regular car. He’s pretty good looking guy. So you know, your eyes if you let him come to your house and show you the floor samples. But you guys are Yeah, you know. But the other thing too, on the serious side is that we talked about it earlier. You see it on the computer, you see it at the showroom, but nothing like having the sample planks laying inside the bathroom or the kitchen with the lighting of your home. Exactly. That avoids a lot of arguments.
CHASTITY:
It does. And it really, it really opens up your eyes literally, to see if you like it, we always encourage our clients anyways to bring home samples to see it. And within 24 hours, the natural lighting the lights when you turn it on at night, you know, do you love it? Do you like it? A lot of the times people come back and say Oh, I didn’t like it as much at home.
ATTILIO:
Yeah, yeah. Well, you see that? Maybe you’ve been home sheltering little bit too much. You missing some social interaction. Send Sean Oh, Woody samples?
CHASTITY:
Yep. Then you can have like an interaction?
ATTILIO:
Yeah. That’s what social interaction with the home the home.
ADRIENNE:
So how far in advance? Do you need to schedule these home? shoppings? Are they available? pretty regularly? Or is it like, a week or so out?
CHASTITY:
Right now, we are pretty open now that we have four of our shopping team. Yeah. So they are pretty available. They do come out between Monday through Saturday, between 10am to 4pm. The nice thing is, there’s some times who were so can’t be there until about five or six. And our team is very flexible. Yes. And accommodating our clients. So it’s yeah, we’re we’re here for you in here to just make everything seamless. Just
ATTILIO:
make sure if it’s, you know, late in the evening, you make sure you have one Zippy surf pack for them. But the, that’s interesting, because you got what is it as a local company, you guys are innovative, like a big, bigger, larger company that we expect to see. And if you think about it, I’d say which ones but when I go on to those bigger ones, it’s like, it’s hard to find somebody that’s gonna last, you know, you go there you go there one month, and then your stuff comes in and might even be that person not even working there anymore. So a lot of transition and nothing wrong with that. But you know, when you’re spending this kind of money, I mean, real estate in Hawaii is expensive. Our homes are cost planning money. They do. So here’s the thing, I listen to our listeners, how many times we have clients, we come in and say, oh, you should do this, do that. And then they do all of that to prepare the home for sale. And they’re like, we should have done this when we moved. do that though? Go visit you guys. Right? Yeah, yeah. And
ADRIENNE:
you guys have like a design team, you have experts to help kind of plan and and get this all figured out? How does how does that work? Does that cost extra noise.
CHASTITY:
Our design team is free consultation. So you come in sure the split you’re looking for. If it’s just for your flooring, you’re going to consult with a client advisor like myself, if it’s for and that’s actually where we start, you start with us. And then if it’s for your remodel, then we will pair you off with a designer. And our designers are really amazing. One of them has, has experienced with the architect firm, two of them have actually own their own business in specializing cabinets are in countertops. So we have a lot of experience in the field. And they just have a lot of knowledge. So which is great. And then we go from there, we come out to your home, take a look at it, they bring it the drawings, you know and then our general construction manager has owned his own business as well. So it’s a really nice and now we’re just all under one umbrella altogether, right from starting home. So you’re going to get a lot of experience coming out there to your home seeing what we can and cannot do and bringing that vision to life.
ATTILIO:
Yeah, yeah. I was also commenting on the video you guys have you have the younger son is in there with you and he’s wearing like a mask that has this too coming off it into this apparatus around his neck. I was wondering, was he going to be an extra on Bubba Fett? You know, various. Sky
CHASTITY:
is something that we actually all of us have here and we all use it especially because so many COVID came into play. Yeah, we invested into air sanitizers for the showroom. Nice. And so this is one of the safest showrooms. We have. We clean it every two hours. We sanitize. We have air sanitizers running. Even at our own desks in our offices, we have air sanitizers going. So for that he has on it’s an actual HEPA filter. So it filters basically 25 square feet around him or us, whoever’s wearing it. Yeah, it filters, whatever air we’re breathing, and it actually helps to, well, I’m talking to clients, and you just feel winded, especially wearing a mask. This helps you feel like cooler and just a lot more energized. You don’t feel like Oh, I’m just
ATTILIO:
I think, I think when people walk in walk in first, when they come to say hello, you should say, Luke, I am your father. I will use our flooring use the flooring, so
ADRIENNE:
it’s so fast to your American flooring home. Is there anything that your company doesn’t do? Yeah.
CHASTITY:
Just your finishing touches such as Ceiling Fans Lighting. For our plumbing and electrician team. We are We don’t actually have an electrician or plumbing team. But we do work with people we have trusted for a very long time. So it’s not like we just call up someone and say hey, are you busy today? Can you check on this home? It’s like these are people we trust and we’ve worked with for a very long time so we have a relationship with them. But those are things that we just don’t do finishing touches electrician and plumbing. But we do have we work with a plumbing team we work with electrician team you know so that way you don’t have to go look for one
ATTILIO:
I think you’re just like us the reason why we have you guys as experts we trust as we’ve done the research we want to make sure and I think you you’re a you guys are in a perfect alignment with us if we’re going to refer our clients to you or somebody that we trust their experience with you is a reflection upon us just like that plumber and electricians experience with your client is a reflection upon you so it’s going to be something that you’re going to it’s going to be well thought out and checked out and you’re not hiring brought about a plumber evenings and weekends and just cash only right but anyway, I think people have that peace of mind that they can come in and you guys are locally owned company employee locally owned employee owned company been around since 1974. You guys have a lot of more more warehouse under one roof. A lot more options, more options and you design team unless you’re a ball and you got plenty homes you only got the one home so go all out and put some good quality stuff in there. And yeah, we will tell you as Realtors it will help in the resale the quality of your improvements to your home
ADRIENNE:
and it will also help like just your everyday living its quality of life. Yeah, you feel great about the space that you’re you’re living in Yeah, of
CHASTITY:
course. So and that’s how it should be right
ATTILIO:
so in case we have a proclamation from the governor
Unknown Speaker
oh just like to make an announcement that if you remodeled your home you need to enjoy it and stay home this weekend
CHASTITY:
and then progress in
ATTILIO:
but sorry, governor just as good as it gets with my impersonation. I’m not rich little they’ll be on his campaign. voiceovers. Anyway. So anything else Adrian for chastity?
ADRIENNE:
No chastity, was there anything that we should have touched on? But we didn’t?
CHASTITY:
Yeah, well, you didn’t mention about getting your Home Depot and feeling happy about it, you know, and all that. Like for our team to our installation is very different from anyone else. We actually sanitize your floor when we put on your new flooring and we actually have our air sanitizers going in there. So yeah, so whenever we pull up your own floor you don’t have whatever has been sitting there for 2030 years just air and just being there for you to breathe and later on. They will start
ATTILIO:
to be like John Travolta the Bubble Boy Yeah, no.
CHASTITY:
Sorry, you can leave your bubble any other
ATTILIO:
bubble and probably gonna clean up the place and make up give them better air quality after you guys install with all of that that you do. Exactly. You know, that was a whole different experience. Before I knew you guys have my carpet replaced I don’t want full on sippy zip pack underneath the carpet in the paddy No, I don’t play. I don’t play with a fork. And when smashed passion orange Castle I’m like what the heck you construction workers? I’m not gonna say who built my home. It was brand new. But I don’t think you guys are leaving, you know, play benches underneath the patio. Have the carpeting they just installed?
CHASTITY:
Definitely not. We would not want to do that. And we get compliments all the time from our clients saying that our team, always we use the home clean, like, wow, like they don’t leave, you don’t leave any trash behind. We don’t we keep it clean every day we’re done for the day, you know, we have to return the next day to continue to work. It’s like, we keep it clean. So that way you can still live in your home. Yeah, we don’t want to disrupt your life.
ATTILIO:
And I think how they leave the construction site or the remodel work area, at the end of the day is a reflection of the quality of work that they’re doing while they’re working.
CHASTITY:
Exactly. Thank you. Yeah, I think so
ATTILIO:
too. Yeah. Especially in Hawaii. You know, we take our shoes off and, and everything is all nice and neat. You know, especially the first of the year. Right? That’s a big Asian cultural influence we have in Hawaii, you gotta clean the house. Yes. Yeah, my mom, man, every I think it was January 2, we pulling everything out of the kitchen cabinets. I’m like, Oh, I didn’t know we had that salad bowl, avocado green salad bowl back there. It was all crusty. We pulled it out and had to clean it. But and wipe everything down. I think that’s a big thing in Hawaii. So the fact that your team does that and has that level of respect of cleanliness is something that makes local people feel comfortable.
CHASTITY:
Yeah. That’s always our keys. Just making people feel good about everything you know, and feeling happy. We want to make sure that when we leave your home, and close up and do everything you need that you’re you can be sitting in your couch, sitting at your dining room table and being like, Oh, this is home. I love it.
ATTILIO:
Yeah, yeah. So no stress. All right, yeah.
ADRIENNE:
Well, thank you, Chasni, for all of the helpful information on home remodeling, and for teaching us more about American flooring home. And our listeners can go to your guy’s website or what give you a call directly what’s the best number for them to get ahold of you?
CHASTITY:
So to get a hold of us, you can call us at 88832 2000 That’s when and then DoD will actually hook you up to our shop at home team as well. Okay, yeah, so we can, that’s our main office as well. 8838832 2000 or go on our website. There’s a chat function there that’ll lead you to one of our client advisors to
ATTILIO:
Well, it’s, uh, you know, you at home cooked up this weekend, go visit their guys’s showroom. It’s a lot cheaper than the movies with less expensive samples. Yeah, you know, and do the dream building and execute on it people. We only got one life to live man have a nice inside of your house, you know? That so? Alright.
ADRIENNE:
Thank you chastity.
CHASTITY:
Thank you both so much. Have a wonderful day.
ADRIENNE:
Thank you. Bye.
ATTILIO:
All right, how can we get a hold of their team again, in case we forgot. We saw it
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