It Was Like This When We Bought It Part 3 | Hour 3

Dean talks about stone or brick build up on the wall of mantles/fireplaces. 
Dean also mentons damaged fireplaces, and the issues of having too much crown molding, ceiling length and aspirational home décor. Dean talks about the front/entry space of homes and blocked out windows 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app Live with
you every Saturday and Sunday morning, and of course on
this very program. Also the House Whisper podcast that you
can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand. Hundreds of episodes,

(00:25):
all searchable by topic. Your home improvement reference library waiting
for you wherever your favorite podcasts are found. Thanks for
joining us on the program today. Here we are at
the beginning of the third hour of our program today.
What are we talking about? Well, this is part three
of our three part series. It was this way when

(00:46):
we bought it, when you inherit somebody else's mistakes on
the place where you live and how to fix them.
And I want to get right back to that. Just
a quick reminder that we've got. Tina just walked in.
She gave me the look, gave me the eye. She's like,
did you remind them about the holiday home show. She's
very committed to this process. Next week, this very program

(01:08):
from nine to noon next week will be happening live
in front of a live studio audience right here at
the iHeart Studios in Burbank, the home of KFI and
the home of Home. We're gonna be here live. I'm
going to have some very special guests with me as well.
Al Dick Holme has sponsored the whole thing. They're going

(01:29):
to be decorating a seven and a half foot gorgeous
Christmas tree and then we're going to be giving it
away to one of our lucky audience members. Just a
ton of fun, refreshments, fun, It's just a great, great
time to spend together. And I get to spend three
plus hours with you just hanging out doing the show together.
You kind of see how the sausage is made, as

(01:50):
it were. It's a good old time. So if if
you would like to join us, all you have to
do is go to our Instagram or Facebook at Home
with Dean. That's it for both Home with Dean. You'll
find the Holiday Home Show post right at the top
of the page. All you have to do is comment
and say I would love to join you. Enter me

(02:12):
to win a seat, and then we will notify you
via direct message through Instagram and Facebook. And those of
you who have already entered you may have a message
waiting for you. Check your messages on Instagram and Facebook.
You may have a message waiting for you telling you
that you've already won. So today is the final day.
That's why I'm saying this so much. It is the

(02:34):
final day, and so you need to respond to your
message today to let us know to confirm your seat,
or you need to get entered today bare minimum if
you want a chance to win one of the seats
that are left there, you go. Okay, back to the list.
I promised you when we left the topic that we

(02:54):
return and we would talk about fireplaces fireplace. Now. I
did a fire place show just a couple three weeks ago,
so if you want more in depth detail about fireplaces
and such, then run back in the podcast and find
it there. I've done a ton of fireplace shows throughout
the years, this one specifically, though. What we're talking about

(03:17):
here is the problem fireplace. Fireplaces are tricky because they
are by nature kind of a vestigial holdover of an
earlier age, right, And what I mean by that is
that you know, you don't really need your fireplace in
the twenty first century to heat your home. That's what

(03:39):
they were originally all about. You don't need your fireplace
to cook your dinner, all right, But we love fireplaces.
I love fireplaces. I love the esthetic of open fire,
open flame in a home. And I don't want to
get rid of people's fireplaces, except when I want to
get rid of people's fireplaces, and so let me clarify,

(04:00):
I don't want to get rid of your fireplace. But
sometimes the crazy designer comes in and makes a case
for moving a fireplace, or at least getting rid of
that thing on the fireplace or that kind of a thing,
because there are a lot of weird ones out there.
There are. Indeed, are you living with a weird one?
We were just let's see, not yesterday, but the day

(04:21):
before yesterday. We're on a consult with a wonderful new
clients and they have been living for decades with a
fireplace in the living room. Beautiful home, beautiful living with
a fireplace that was just well, how do you describe it?
Just weird weird. Not the fireplace itself, not the firebox

(04:45):
or the chimney outside this normal masonry chimney and beautiful firebox.
But on the inside wall all this stuff going on,
you know, weird angles and weird buildouts. And so here's
lesson one lesson one. If you have a real masonry

(05:09):
fireplace in your home. The lesson one is this, find
where the angled edges of the fire box itself, that's
where the flames are at in there. Find where those
weird angle edges come to an end and transition to
the facing material. Okay, where that comes to an end,
You're going to find nine hundred and ninety nine times

(05:33):
out of a thousand that the end of that firebox
is flush to the main wall that this fireplace is
sitting in. That, my friend, is the end of the
real fireplace, of the structural fireplace and chimney. It does
not intrude into the room any further than the inside

(05:54):
face of the full wall. In most cases, of course,
there's exceptions to every rule, but chances are yours is
not right. That is where it ends, right there, at
the edge of the firebox. Everything after that everything is veneer.

(06:15):
And when I say veneer, I don't mean that it's
fake and little thin material. What I'm saying is that
it's it's a decorative application after that. Okay, So if
you have, for instance, stone build up on the inside
of your wall, or more bricks on the inside of
your wall, or whatever, however the mantle is configured and

(06:36):
all of this is all added stuff. And if that's stuff,
and nine times out of ten, it's that stuff that's
weird and that you just have had to live with
and you've sort of manipulated and fudged and done your
best with. It's that stuff that not unlike the lesson earlier,

(06:57):
learned about hard escape outside and little planter walls made
out of brick out in your yard that you can
just pop out relatively easily. Okay, it's a little bit
of a mess, but you just need to know that
that stuff can come off. It can come off in
a day, I mean literally a day, and you get

(07:17):
the chance to start over when it comes to your fireplace,
start over completely. So that's less than one on your fireplace.
Is just understanding that it's a lot more flexible than
you ever imagine. Now when we come back, we're going
to talk about it in a more serious sense, and

(07:38):
that is, what if it's just something beyond I think
the inside face of our fireplace is really weird and ugly.
What if it's maybe the fireplace shouldn't be there, or
our fireplace is damaged and we never use.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
It you're listening to Home with Dean sharp on Dead
from KFI AM sixty.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
We are talking about the things that you inherited from
the previous owners of your home that are wrong, the
kind of stuff that when you walk me through your house,
you you know you have to make that excuse it
was like this when we bought it. Don't blame us,
don't judge us, Dean, don't judge us. I don't judge you,

(08:25):
and never judge you. Just your house, just the house,
not you. Of course, there's nothing wrong with you anyway.
So I'm right in the middle of one of these items,
and a very important one, a very troublesome one. Fireplaces.
Fireplaces I love, I love fireplaces, but they have caused

(08:49):
so many problems in terms of twenty first century design.
And I don't mean because we're trying to transition to
super contemporary stuff. No, no, no, no, no, I mean
even traditional in maintaining that classic traditional look. Here, here's
the problem with the fireplace. I don't know if you notice,
but they're they're huge, and they're made out of stone

(09:11):
or brick, and they're hard to move, or it seems
like they're they're hard to they're seemingly immovable, and they're
sometimes they look weird. We already address that before the break,
but more often than not, by today's priorities of design,

(09:31):
this is what I mean. A fireplace quite often is
just in a bad location, just a bad location. Okay,
not all. And if you are lucky enough to have
a fireplace in a good location, then please celebrate it,
celebrate it and maximize it in every way possible. But

(09:52):
so what do I mean by a bad location? Well, today,
in today's design prayer and rightly so, we want to
maximize light into a room. We want to maximize your view.
So I want you to have a beautiful backyard, a
beautiful front yard. I want you to have a veritable

(10:12):
garden habitat out there. And then when you're inside the house,
I want you to be able to gaze upon it.
I want it to be part of what you're enjoying.
You've gone to all this trouble to make it what
it is out there, but you still spend most of
your time indoors. So I want you to be able
to take it in now. A fireplace that was built

(10:33):
into a home fifty sixty, seventy or more years ago, fireplaces,
you know, they tend to draw the attention of the
living room towards them. They'res the central item. And very
rarely are they on the outside wall surrounded by windows
so that you can take in the fireplace and the

(10:54):
view at the same time. Quite often they're on an
interior wall and cawing your attention away from the windows.
And so this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
When you sit in your living room to look at
the fireplace and these days, maybe quite possibly the flat
screen TV above it, are you doing so with your

(11:15):
back to the view. That's problematic, I mean I should
say this maybe not problematic is the right word. It's
not ideal. It's not as ideal as being able to
take it in all at once. And of course, now
somebody's saying, Dean, you're really nitpicking. Now you're suggesting that
everybody should move their fireplace. No, of course not. But

(11:38):
if you are planning or really thinking about transitioning a
room and really remodeling, then yeah, guess what. I also
want you to think about the possibility, just the possibility
maybe the fireplace is in this vestigial location where it
used to be, like, oh, look at us make it central,

(12:01):
but by today's priorities, maybe drawing your attention away from
the real show. And if we could move it, if
we could incorporate it and the view at the same time, fantastic.
Maybe the fireplace is literally on the best furniture wall
for viewing the rest of the interior space of your

(12:23):
home or that and the outside as well. So you
understand what I'm saying. I hope that I'm not pooh
pooing this whole idea like everybody should get rid of
their fireplace or move it because they're they're you know,
they're passe, they're done. Not at all, not at all.
It's just the one thing as a designer that I

(12:44):
have the advantage of is that I walk into your
home knowing how it's built. As as a builder as well,
I walk into your home and everything is editable in
my mind, and not everything in your mind is editable. Now,
I'm not talking about budgets, Okay, it's irrelevant. We can
dream and plan and think without having to spend any money.

(13:07):
So my point is we should at least have the conversation,
even if we don't follow through with it. You should
have the conversation and you should dream the dream of
what's possible about any room in your home. So, yeah,
they can be a problem. And certain fireplaces, I will
tell you as the final punctuation to this argument, certain

(13:29):
fireplaces in southern California specifically do not deserve to live.
And what I mean by that is there's a kind
of fireplace out there that is known as a rampant
general fireplace. Okay, that's literally the company that produced them.
It was one of those so called bride ideas coming

(13:53):
out of the sixties into the early seventies. If you
live in southern California in attract development, there's a chance
that you have a rampart General fireplace. Now what are they?
These were pre cast fireplaces and chimneys all in one.
They literally this company, I mean, it's an interesting idea.

(14:14):
They're like, you know what we're going to do for
a major developer. We're going to make the fireplace in
the chimney. It's all poor in place concrete. We're going
to set a mold though, for the outside of it,
so that the chimney looks like it's made out of bricks, right,
but it's not. It's just a brick texture on the
outside of the fireplace. And these things were mass produced

(14:36):
in southern California and they were installed in developments from
let's say early seventy like seventy one, all the way
to nineteen eighty nine. Afterwards, they became so problematic, so
many lawsuits, so many cracks and irreparable repairs on these things.
And that's really the big problem with them, is that

(14:56):
if they crack, if the firebox cracks, if the if
the flu cracks, if the insulating shoulder cracks, there's no
fixing them. There's no fixing them properly, and so the
company's out of business. They're not around anymore because of lawsuits,
and yet the fireplaces are still standing. My in laws

(15:18):
had one attached to their home that Tina grew up in,
and Tina and I participated together in demoing it out
and getting rid of it because it was also cracked
and unusable, unsafe to use because you can't you can't
run a liner up inside them, you can't repair them
like you would a regular masonry fireplace. Most homeowners who

(15:41):
have them don't even realize they have one because on
the outside they look like brick, but to the untrained
eye they just assume they have a masonry fireplace outside,
when in reality they have this rampart fireplace. So how
can you identify it? Well, Number one, it's going to
be like an off white color unless it's been painted,

(16:02):
and you would assume that it looks like it's been painted.
It looks like bricks that have been painted sort of
off white. It hasn't been painted. That's actually the color
of the concrete that was used, a special kind of
concrete that was used. It's a calcium illuminate cement that
was used, so it's off white. It's got a heavy

(16:23):
brick texture, more texture than a normal brick fireplace, okay,
or a brick chimney like I mean, the bricks and
then the grout lines go way in and usually the
chimney itself very tall and skinny compared to the base,
like skinnier than you would expect most fireplace chimneys to be.

(16:44):
That's kind of a dead giveaway for a rampart tilt
up fireplace. The it was literally standing there before they
built the walls for your house. They tied the walls
to it. Anyway, I don't want to go exhaust the point,
but the point is on our list of things problems
you've inherited when you bought the house. Fireplaces can get

(17:07):
in the way sometimes of the optimal design for the
twenty first century lifestyle lived in your home. You should
not overlook them as a possibility, because honestly, a regular
masonry fireplace, again designed by demolition, does not take that
much to get rid of it, and then to install

(17:28):
a much more modular one in another location in the
same room a lot of options these days. Don't rule
it out. At least have the conversation and at bare minimum,
understand that the face of that fireplace can change a lot.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper. Thanks for
joining us on our fine little program. Today we are
finishing up part three of our three part series that
we've entitled it was this way when we bought it.
The mistakes, the errors, the flubs that you inherited from
previous homeowners or maybe just from the builder themselves when

(18:14):
you bought your home, and most importantly, what to do
about them, how to get them fixed. What else is
on our magical list of weird terrible stuff that has
happened to your home. Is your home suffering from post
traumatic design disorder? It's quite possible that it is. Let's

(18:37):
see what else. How about this one? This is very
practical one. Too much molding above, not enough molding below.
What does that mean? Well, if you've listened to the
show long enough, you probably know what I'm about to say.
And if you haven't, well listen up. Because when it
comes to homes with average old eight foot ceilings, and

(19:03):
I've got nothing against them, I live in one myself.
An eight foot ceiling by today's standards, not a high ceiling.
The standard, by the way, for new homes is nine feet,
which is lovely. And you know, if you can vault
and go taller, great, But if you don't. If you don't,
if you can't, if you've got an eight foot ceiling,

(19:24):
here's what you don't do. You don't overwhelm an eight
foot tall ceiling with reminders of how low the ceiling is.
And what is the number one reminder, Well, probably one
or two. Number one would be hanging a large light
fixture down in the middle of a room that's already

(19:47):
just at eight feet and now the light fixture is
hanging even lower not a good idea in your bedroom,
ceiling fan over the bed. You know, it's it's always acceptable,
or I should say more ple to hang a light
fixture over an object where you can't walk, like a
dining room table. It's always fine for the chandelier to

(20:09):
come lower. But if the table wasn't there, you know,
you might hit your head on it. So the same
with a bed. If you've got a pendant or a
little chandelier or a ceiling fan over your bed, okay,
but just no, even then, even then, something hanging down
from an eight foot ceiling will make the room feel smaller,

(20:30):
just will, just will. The other thing that is a
constant reminder of how low the ceiling is in a
room is if we've put a bunch of crown molding
and stuff up against the top. And I get it.
This falls in the category that I'm kind of using
this segment four of aspirational decor. Aspirational decor is when

(20:53):
you try and decorate something in a way that says,
I really really always wanted to live in a bigger,
fancier house than this. And so what you're doing is
you're taking some of the elements from bigger, fancier houses,
shoving them into your smaller space. And I'm just sorry

(21:15):
to tell you it doesn't work. It doesn't fit, it
doesn't give you the payoff that you were hoping for.
Crown molding draws attention to itself, rightly, so it's beautiful.
And so to put crownd molding at the top of
an eight foot ceiling, especially a larger ground molding, what
you're literally doing is you're drawing attention to the top

(21:36):
of the wall. Now, if your wall is fourteen feet tall,
not only do you get to show off your ground molding,
but you're drawing attention to the fact that your wall
is fourteen feet tall. If your wall's just eight feet tall,
that's not something we're trying to overemphasize. If we want
a room to feel as tall and roomy as possible,

(21:57):
then we want to reduce the amount of molding that's
going on up high. I rarely, if ever, agree to
crown molding on an eight foot ceiling. I just don't.
There are better ways of using Now, don't run off
and say Dean doesn't believe in putting molding in small

(22:18):
rooms and houses. It's not true. I actually want your baseboard,
which is very likely only maybe three inches tall if
you're lucky from the builder. I want that baseboard to
be two or three times that size. In an eight
foot room, seven inch baseboard, no problem. I'm all for
the bigger baseboards down at the floor. This actually makes

(22:39):
the room feel larger, makes the room feel more substantial.
So the lesson is as I said it at first,
and now you understand what I mean. Too much molding above,
not enough molding below, too big of a crown, molding
up at the ceiling, not enough baseboard down below. So
the good news about this is pull it off. You

(23:01):
can pull it off. If you're really thinking about remodeling
a room. We're not talking about structural stuff. We're talking
about stuff. There are applicats, essentially, they can be removed
and you can change the whole vibe of the space. Okay,
along those lines of aspirational decor style elements, Okay that

(23:24):
the house just can't justify. I have a certain in
law who asked me years and years ago, who's always
wanted to live in a castle, big manor house. This
is my mother in law, and I love her to pieces.
She asked me years ago, Dean, we want to do

(23:47):
a major remodel on the house. You're going to be
the one to do it. Can you transform my house
into a castle? And my answer was very simple, Yes
I can, and I will not, because number one, you
live in a what is essentially in nineteen early nineteen

(24:09):
seventies ranch style Brady Bunch house. That house is not
easily turning into a castle. Number Two, you are surrounded
in a lovely neighborhood of the same houses. Your neighbors
will hate you. They will hate you if we do
such a thing. And number three, castles do not sit

(24:32):
twenty feet away from sidewalks in suburban neighborhoods. They do not.
And so what we did instead was we made this
a gorgeous, upscale English cottage. And she ended up being
very very happy with the results, but not a castle.
I wish I was around to give that advice to

(24:53):
so many other homeowners in our town and all across
southern California, because you know, you can call it gaudy,
you can call it misplaced. I call it aspirational decor.
And it never works, and so nothing says I'm desperately
insecure about my house and really wanna be something else,

(25:15):
like a small house with pedestals and lions out in
front of it. Yes, I live right around the corner
from one. Uh little ranch house and big steps out
front at the mailbox and lions like like it was

(25:35):
the New York Metropolitan Library that where like like it
was you know, the A Rockefeller Residence in in uh,
you know, in in Providence, Rhode Island. Right, Uh, just no, no,
just no, all right.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
No.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
I want you to embrace your home for what it is,
and I want you to bring it to the level
that it can and should be brought to any home.
Any home can be extraordinary, gorgeous, cozy, warm, okay, but

(26:18):
not every home can be jaw dropping and awe inspiring.
Just not. A cottage will never be awe inspiring. It's
a cottage I live in. One will never be awe inspiring.
And if you live in a small home and people's

(26:39):
jaws drop, it's probably because something wrong has happened and
you've tried to superimpose onto it something that doesn't belong there.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Okay, all right, you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Here we are reaching the end of another three hours
together on this lovely, lovely southern California autumn Sunday morning.
I am so glad you've been with us today. We're
not done yet, though we are approaching the end of
our list, our three part series entitled it was this

(27:21):
way when we bought it. Inheriting somebody Else's mistakes on
your home and how to fix them, We've covered so
many things along the way. I just got a few
more little honorable mentions before we are off and out
the door. Along the spirit of what I was just

(27:41):
saying of aspirational design, the idea of like, you know,
really trying to put elements onto your house that just
don't belong on a house like yours, you know, kind
of showing your inner want to be somewhere else attitude
kind of leaking through. And I get that, I get that.

(28:02):
I just want you to resist that temptation and I
want you to make the most of the house that
you have. Okay, along those lines have got to be
we can't avoid mentioning the out of character or off
character front door. Okay, the front door, the entry portal,
and this one is this is a toughie because you

(28:24):
may have a very expensive, really lovely front door that
has been there as a part of the house when
you bought it. Right, maybe it's solid oak, echine, three
quarters solid oak front door with sidelights, and there's fancy glass,
and there's all sorts of stuff. And this happens all
the time. People they realize what's time for a new

(28:47):
front door, and they head out to the to the
door place near them. There's all these big, fancy, gorgeous doors,
door catalogs, and what they lose sight of is is
what exactly matches up with their home. Okay, does this
door even work? Do you need a wood stained door

(29:11):
on the front of your home or is it best
for your heart for your door to be painted paint
gray door, maybe even a cool, really cool standout color.
This kind of stuff. So just to just to make
sure I hit that on the list. Okay. One of
the things that is an issue that a lot of
people have inherited are weird front doors that just don't

(29:35):
match up with the design and flow of the house.
I've seen it so many times that we've got a
kind of a contemporary home and it's got a door
that looks colonial, just downright colonial. On the front teens
nodding like, oh, how many times have we seen that?
So it's something to think about, it's something to consider,
it's something to evaluate. And again, you know what, you

(29:57):
might be in the enviable position where you agree and
you're like, yeah, we should change out that front door.
And guess what, the right door for your house way
less expensive than the one that's there now. Okay, quite
quite possible, very very possible, if it's overconstrued along the way.
All right, what else do I have on the list here?

(30:19):
Blocked off windows meaning that there was a window there,
and you know, maybe maybe if the room was done
right and you don't need that window any longer. Fine,
but here's my point. If I can tell from the
inside or from the outside that there used to be
a window there because the wall's a little bumpy, or

(30:41):
we can see the patch, then yeah, that's a no go.
That's a no go. Then we need to get it fixed. Okay,
we need to get it fixed and do it right
or put the window back quite often the case. Right,
So don't accept that, don't accept that kind of finish
for your That's literally an issue of somebody rushing through

(31:04):
a thing, changing it out and not taking the time
to get it right. And here's the last thing. I'll
leave you with this because it's a kind of the
culmination of this one thought. I have a very very
simple rule when it comes to remodeling, when it comes
to room editions, when it comes to any alteration on

(31:25):
your home, it is the rule to judge them all
by And it's very simply when you're done, when it's
all said and done. If somebody like myself who has
never been to your home before, can walk through your
home and see that something has been done, then it

(31:47):
has fallen below the bar. That's a fail. It's a fail,
all right. That includes the stuff that at the very
beginning of our list of this series, things like the
room edition that just seems like it's in the wrong place.
And people are going to be polite, I mean, hopefully
people are going to be polite. But if anybody's ever
walked in your home and said, oh, you know, that's

(32:09):
an that's a I see you've added onto the house.
How how how can they see that that you've added
onto the house unless what has been added on doesn't
exactly fit with the rest of the house. So our
rule for remodeling and room editions and all of that
kind of stuff. Any structural and or artifice changed to

(32:33):
the house. Is that when it's said and done, somebody
who's never been there before should arrive at the house
and never give a second thought to the fact that
this is how it was built on day one. This
is just, of course, it's right. Everything is integrated, everything belongs,
everything has the right roof over it, Every wall is
where it should be. That's our goal. That is proof

(32:57):
of the right kind of remodel. And if your home
has inherited some elements that has fallen short, then now
you know where to focus to get your daily experience
of your home. And you know all of this advice.
This is not so that you know you can show
off your house better to other people. This is so
that the home that you live in is a full

(33:19):
experience for you. That's what I'm about every single week
that we are here. All right, here is my final
thought for you today. It's simply simply this. It's just
a reminder number one that it's a gorgeous day and
that you need to get out into it and make
some hay while the sun is shining. As it were,

(33:40):
but also one final reminder, because it's important that right
here next weekend, we are going to be doing our
annual legendary live audience holiday home show right here at
the iHeart Studios in Burbank, and you are invited. How
all you have to do is go to our Instagram

(34:03):
and our Facebook page home will deem bind the holiday
post and just comment, hey, I would love to enter
to win a seat, and you're entered to win the seat,
and then keep checking, Keep checking today, tomorrow and the
next day. Keep checking your messages because we're going to
direct message you on Facebook and Instagram to let you

(34:25):
know if you wont And those of you who have
entered previously, you got to check your messages because we've
got a few of you out there who've won seats
and who have not confirmed it, and we're going to
give those seats to somebody else. If you don't get
back to us, Today is the last day to enter.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Do it.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
You're going to have a great time. We're going to
have just a blast, and I am so looking forward
to next weekend. I hope you are too. Until then,
get out there in this beautiful day and get busy
building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see you next week.

(35:05):
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app