July 12, 2025 • 31 mins
Dean starts the show talking about the benefits of 'high tea,' and the fact that women are the most involved in DIY projects in the home, than tackles a phone call from a listener about a major kitchen remodel and cabinets
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KF I AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
CAMF I AM six forty and live streaming in HD
everywhere on the iHeart Radio App.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, welcome to home where. Every week we help you
better understand that place where you live. I am Dean Sharp,
the house Whisperer, custom home builder, custom home designer, and
most importantly, today your guide to turning your ordinary house
into an extraordinary home. All right, normally I'm gonna go
(00:40):
around the horn with the team, but today we are
jumping straight to my better half, my design partner, the
co owner, co founder of House Whisper, and of course
you know, my best buddy in all the world, Tina
is here. Welcome home. Oh, come on, don't be coy.
(01:03):
She stared at me like maybe I'm not going to
say anything at all. And of course, in classic Tina form,
even though she is a queen among mothers, truly, instead
of sitting back, she of course is serving her mom
and the other moms in our family. We got something happening.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
We do. We worked really hard yesterday, my brother and
my nieces and my good friend Sarah we all got
together and we put together an English tea.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
An English tea.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You're serving it up today, Hi tea. Sandwich is little
pastries of course.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
The scones, all the high tea stuff. That's like your
mom's that's my mom's thing, that's your mom's idea of heaven.
Heaven is just an eternal high tea all the time.
I love high tea. I had it for the first
time when we went to did.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I didn't realize that was your first time.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I know, right, I was excited because I'm such a
man of the world and you get together almost thirty years.
I not know that you and you and you've done
this with your mom before, but yeah, never, never, just
sitting down being a part of it. And I got
to say, uh so, I have mixed feelings about it.
I mean, it's fancy and it's lovely. It truly is classy, lovely,
(02:28):
and I feel like a barbarian at high Tea.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
And not not. I don't act like a barbarian. You know.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm sitting there, I sip my tea, sip my tea,
have my and when we say sandwiches, let's face it,
these are like two inch square little little triangles of
things there. And that's the real issue. The real issue
is that, you know, Dean should not go to high
Tea hungry because even though like up in Victoria, we
(02:56):
it was all stacked up, but one of those really
it was really pretty big. You know, I forget what
it's called, but but you know those multi layer trays
that they bring out, and it's so fancy and delicious. Okay,
but I swear if you actually weighe the food on
those trays, I could probably you know, easily take down
(03:17):
four of them myself, just just without question. Just that's
just the way.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So anyway, but but it's great, and it's awesome, and
I love that you're doing it, and I love that
you're the kind of person that you would do that.
Uh And I don't know, I just wanted to honor
you this morning with that before we dove into everything else.
And uh, and we're just gonna just generally honor women
this morning. Women are the primary decision makers in the
(03:47):
home improvement segment. Did you know that that the tables
have turned places like big boxes like Home Depot and
Low's will tell you in their own internal statistics that
that women are right about at fifty to fifty with men.
As far as purchases inside those large stores, if it
(04:08):
tilts any direction, it usually tilts in favor of women.
These days, women currently control seven trillion dollars in US spending,
seven trillion dollar. In fact, women today account for eighty
five percent of all purchases and drive seventy eighty percent
of all consumer spending. It's just amazing. Single women. Okay,
(04:32):
I learned this this week. Single women one of the
fastest growing groups of homeowners.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
According to the National Association of Realtors in twenty nineteen,
females comprise seventeen percent of home buyers. That's a huge number,
single female, single females, seventeen percent of home buyers, compared
to their single male counterparts, who accounted for about nine percent.
(04:59):
And that's honestly, that's not tough for me to imagine.
You know, young single women older saying it doesn't even matter, young,
middle aged, older, senior, way, it doesn't matter. It's just
women are more emotionally mature, they're more responsible as a
just as a general group. Let's face it, you get
(05:19):
this big grid on your face, you know it's true
and it's not universally true, but it's generally true. And
then you got guys out there like what but who what?
H So anyway, ninety three percent of women have completed
a DIY project on their home in the last three
or four years. That I believe totally completely right. And
(05:42):
we know for a fact right here on our little
program that over half of our listener base, just a
little over half of our listener base, is female.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It's all about honoring women today, and especially you moms
who have put in the work. The thing about parenting
just in general, and it goes doubly true for moms,
is you could be the greatest one in the universe
and you never actually feel like you got it right,
you know, I mean in that sense of like did
(06:15):
I do that? And I'm not talking about how your
kids turned out, it's just that sense of it is
such a hard job. It is such a hard job,
and the rewards along the way are not the ones
that you actually expected they would be.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I think in general.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So we're here to honor you today, and if we
do this all right, we're gonna bring some light into
your morning, make you feel glad you are here, so
let's get to it. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper. More great stuff on the way. You're listening
to Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer KF I
AM six forty and live streaming in HD everywhere on
(06:55):
the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome to home, where every week
we help you better understand that place where you live.
I am Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. It's an all
calls day. It is it you set the agenda anything
that is going on with your home, whether it be
(07:15):
construction issues, DIY questions, design concerns, anything at all. Here
is the number to reach me, and these lines are
open now. The number to reach me eight three three two.
Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean. You see
it just rolls off the tom. Let's talk to Jonie Jony.
(07:35):
Welcome home.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
We're in the midst of a major kitchen remodel. The
base cabinets are now in and they are inset cabinets,
and they've put the subtops on top of the cabinets.
But there's about a three quarter inch gap betw set
back between the edge of the face frame and the cabinet.
(07:59):
And I'm wondering why they did that or is that
a mistake. We are either going to do an og
edge or a DuPont edge, which I want to ask
you the difference between those two.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Okay, so you haven't you just noticed this. You haven't
had a chance to ask your contractor or your cabinet installed.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
No, I haven't had a chance to ask.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Just to clarify a couple of terms for everybody else
who's listening. So when you do in a cabinet installation,
the cabinet boxes go in, and then once all the
boxes are in place, the base cabinet boxes, plywood is
put on top. It's what we call a subtop, because
that's obviously not the countertop. What goes on top of
the plywood is the stone or the tile or whatever
(08:40):
it is that you got going on. Now you have
in set cabinets, which is very nice, very very old school,
very nice, which is that the doors and drawers do
not extend out from the face frame of the cabinets,
but they actually recess in and flush themselves with the
face frame of the cabinet, so you have no overhanging
(09:02):
projecting doors and drawers on these base cabinets. It's just
one plane coming down the face of the cabinet box.
Of course, you've got knobs and such, but no overhang.
The typical typical countertop overhang for typical cabinets, which is
the cabinet face plus doors and drawers, That typical overhang
(09:24):
is about inch and a quarter to an inch and
a half of the actual stone and or tile overhanging
because the cabinet doors themselves are coming out another three
quarter plus inches, and then you got another half inch
to three quarters of an inch of overhang protecting all
of that. In your case, it won't be overhanging that
much because your inset, but the rule still applies. But
(09:48):
here's where it gets tricky. It all depends on the
configuration of that og edge. If you're doing a double
laminated edge, in other words, instead of just one layer
of stone at about seven eighths of an inch thick
coming out and having its little finished edge, it sounds
like you're planning on you've got a double lamination. In
(10:08):
other words, another piece of stone is going to be
put on the bottom there to make the appearance of
a big, built up thick edge. It all depends on,
you know how, If we're hanging over let's say an inch, okay,
which would be kind of typical three cores of an
inch to an inch of hanging over an inset cabinet face.
(10:32):
If the builder has insight from the stone people that hey,
we need more than just one inch square piece to
laminate there.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
It needs to be deeper.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That may be the reason why the subtop has been
held back a little bit in order to give more
room for the bottom lamination stone to kind of nestle
in to the top. But I will tell you that's
not common at all, and so typically we will just
run the full subtop right over to the face of
(11:08):
the cabinet. So I can't tell you definitively that somebody
did something wrong, but I can tell you you just
got to ask the question to have no one go
any further until that question gets answered, because there is
a bit of a strength sacrifice by holding the subtalk back,
and quite often on once in a blue moon, I
(11:31):
will tell you this, Joni, once in a blue moon,
when we have to do that because of the nature
of the countertop material itself, right, when we have to
provide a larger notch, what we will do is we
will put yet another piece of wood underneath the subtop
that supports that free floating subtop edge and connect to
(11:53):
the front face of the cabinet regardless. Okay, ideally you
want a solid connection to the front cabinet face all
along the front, whether or not the subtop is being
held back or not. I hope we just didn't love
everybody in all of that terminology.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
But that's kind of you didn't.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Lose us at all, no.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
Okay, yeah, yeah, And I have no idea why they
did what they did so and it's the cabinet makers too,
it's not the fall off the stone man.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
So yeah, so just just find out, say, hey, what's
the deal here, and uh and you know they'll they'll
let you know what's going on.
Speaker 7 (12:34):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
And a farmhouse sync should be level with the SUBTP.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
If it's an inset, yeah, if it's an under mount
farmhouse SYNC, then yes, it gets set level with the
subtops so that the stone goes over and just rolls
over the sink.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, I'm going to front.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yes, that's the nature of it. But as far as as.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It being underneath the countertop from the top, yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Okay, Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
You are so very welcome. Thanks for the call in
good luck with all of that. One last thing I'm
going to toss in there. I don't know if y'all
kind of pick that up. But when you typically look
at a stone countertop face, not a lot of people
(13:25):
realize this that you know, the stone slab that comes
from the stone yard is only three quarter well three
get it's more like seven eighths of an inch thick
usually between depending on the kind of stone, it could
be anywhere from seven eights to an inch thick stone
that's not that full, big fat countertop edge that you
(13:45):
see there. What happens is we take that stone and
then we'll take a slice of it off that front
edge and we'll put it up underneath. We'll epoxyate laminated underneath,
and then whatever kind of of nosing of edging that
you want. And there's twenty different kinds of edging that
(14:06):
we can do there. But the idea is that we're
giving the illusion that that stone is closer to two
inches thick, when in reality it's just two pieces. And
the quality of the install of that stone, by the way,
has to do with whether we're hiding the scene. Okay,
any cheaper done countertops, you can look on the face
(14:30):
and you're like, well look and I can see the
line where they glued it together. That's kind of a
fail for us. We never do it that way. We
either miter from the top corner down so that we
have no visible seam on the face, or if it's
like what Jonie was talking about, what's called an og
or a double og edge, the scene can get hidden
(14:51):
in the details of the carving of the fun of
the counterstone.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
There you go. Did that make sense? Am I making
sense to people?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I know it's very technical, but just I know there
are a lot of you out there like, oh, okay,
I get it. Now, run to your kitchen right now
and check out your countertop and decide whether you know
how it rates. When we come back, we'll get to
more of your calls. This is Dean Sharp the House
Whisper on KFI. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
(15:19):
on demand from KFI AM six forty Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper at your service.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Welcome home. I'm glad you have joined us on our
program today.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
We are doing an all calls weekend, so it's an
all calls Sunday back to the phones, Courtney, Well, what
I'm calling about.
Speaker 7 (15:38):
I have a rack home problem that lives next door
to me and is pooping on my property and urinating
and the odor is horrible.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Oh oh geez. And the source is the empty house
next to you, A vacant house next to you.
Speaker 7 (15:55):
Yes, that, plus the neighborhood is full of them. Two
we live next to a forest.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
I got you, I got you. Oh my gosh, Courtney. Okay, so.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
Uh okay, I want to talk about subs. But these raccoons,
they really didn't kill me.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
No, I feel you, I feel you.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Man, Raccoons are so damn smart. That's this is the problem.
They are so dang smart and agile and capable and
uh and I was I would say that. You know,
if you're the only person in the neighborhood who's struggling
with it, that's one thing. You know, you can get
control locked down your trash cans, make sure they don't
have access to all this stuff. But if you've got
a vacant house next to you, uh, then then you
(16:39):
don't have any control over that. And they're and they're
basically you know, now you're just the highway to get
back and forth from from there to the forest and
everything else around you. So I'm going to give you
my this is my best advice. And uh, and I
don't know, honestly, just to be completely honest, whether it's
going to solve the problem, but this is my best advice.
Lots of people will say all sorts of things when
(17:01):
it comes to pests, especially you know those kinds of pasts.
They say, Okay, put blood meal in your garden, you know,
in your garden beds, because it'll keep them away. Or
you can get big jugs of you know, like a
predator urine, which you know sounds just wonderful, right, and
spread that around in your beds because they say, you know,
if they smell like you know, coyote or wolf urine
(17:23):
something like that, or cougar, that that they're going to
stay away. I've seen people put up electric you know,
those little electric wires. You know, raccoons are smart, they
find their way around it. There are ultrasonic things out
there that they sell. I've ever seen them work. They say, oh,
you put this out of frequency. They can't stand it. Yeah, yeah,
like heck, they can't stand it. I've seen them sitting
(17:44):
on top of them at times.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
You know. So here is what has here. Here's my
logic to it.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I don't know if this makes sense to you, Courtney,
but my logic has been, if I actually got up
in the middle of the night and walked out there,
turned on a light with the garden hose in my hand,
I'm pretty sure the I'm pretty sure that the raccoons
are going to take off because I've never I've never
had a raccoon in my yard where I turn the
(18:10):
light on him. Number one, he shocked and surprised that
the lights on all of a sudden, and uh. And
then you know, I get out the nozzle on the
garden hose and I give him a little shower, and
lo and behold he takes off. So the point is this,
what I have found to be very effective and amazingly
less expensive than all that other bs is emotion motion
(18:33):
sensor lights out on the perimeter of the property or
wherever they end up showing up so that any movement
out there throws these lights on for you know, a
few seconds or a minute or so at a time.
That's one thing. But here's the other one. Motion sensor
rain bird. In other words, the motion sensor sprinkler head.
You know, nothing really cool quiet kinds. No the ones
(18:57):
that kind of like do the and spray all over
the place. We had a there's a garden in our
town called Gardens of the World that's kind of a public, open,
foundation driven garden. They built this beautiful Japanese pagoda, and
there's a pond, a koi pond, you know, And first
month being open, they had it stocked with koi, and
(19:18):
within like two weeks the koi are completely gone and
they're scratching their heads and they come to realize these
great blue herons were coming down and you know, they
eat fish, and they were stealing koi out of.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
The koi pond.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Again, what they'd solved the problem with was a motion
activated sprinkler head that kind of went over the koi pond.
And ever since they installed that thing. So if a
heron lands in the water, even in the middle of
the night, they activate the sprinkler head, they get a
face full of water and they take off. I don't
think it's gonna solve every imaginable problem, but I have
(19:52):
seen that technique so effective in keeping past unwanted pests
out of the yard because most of them are nocturnal,
which means they like to operate under cover of darkness.
And no animal that I know of wants a face
full of water unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
And so that's something that you set up and you
don't have to monitor. It takes care of itself. We're
(20:14):
talking about like it's a thirty dollars item at the
hardware store. So if you can find a couple of
places to install those, plus some motion lights activated, then
you can probably reduce the amount of raccoon activity in
your yard, if not eliminated altogether, instead of doing blood
meal and urine and electric shock wires and all that
(20:38):
other stuff. I hope this helps, and next time you call,
we can move on to more productive things other than
raccoon urine. More calls, More calls, Tina, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
Luan, I want to find the best way to get
somebody to come and put an automatic shut off on
the gas. And as you probably know, you go on
the internet and there are like many charlatans advertising their services.
What do I need to be aware of when I
(21:10):
do go on the internet and look for someone that
is reliable that has done it and isn't going to
have the house explode five minutes after he drives away.
I mean, what are the key elements there?
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Really good question.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know, by the way, you're looking for an automatic
gas shut off valve, you're just looking for a plumber.
So you do not need, first of all, some kind
of specialist. In fact, I would not call for a
specialist because that's the kind of area where you start
getting into all of that kind of stuff, like, oh
we special I guarantee you no one out there specializes
(21:49):
in automatic shut off ouves. It's just a plumbing item,
and it's actually, here's the good news. It's a very
relatively simple item. And automatic gas shut off out by
the way everybody.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Is here's here's how it's complex.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
It is.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
It's a brilliant device.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
It is a it is a little device that gets
attached to the incoming gas line into uh well into
the house from the meter. Okay, so you get the
meter and then right next to the meter as the
as the line comes into the house is right next
to the meters where you install this automatic shut off valve.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Uh it just gets installed in that line.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Boom, it takes it should take a qualified plumber all
of an hour to pop one of these suckers in,
so it's not like an all day event. Uh. And
what it does is basically, inside this shut off valve
there is a large, very heavy ball, like a like
a bearing, like a ball bearing up inside and down
(22:53):
below is the flow of gas through the line. That
ball sits there on a little platform that has been
pre engineered. This platform has been pre engineered with a
tiny bit of a cup a recess in it that
nestles that ball in place. I don't quote me on
the size of the earthquake, but I believe, if I'm
(23:14):
not mistaken anything over, I think a five point zero
on the Richter scale, anything five point zero and up
is big enough to knock that ball off of its
little platform. The ball falls down into the chamber and
boom blocks the gas line. There you go, automatic shut
off valve for the gas.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
For the house.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, it's a super simple device. And yeah, and once
it's done, you can go and have it beset really
easily as well. And it's not just gonna accidentally fall
off in the wind or anything like that. But you
bring up a good point, and the good point is
very simply that, yeah, there are a lot of craziness
out there when it comes to contracting and in general. Okay,
(23:58):
so the key is now, we've published this before, we
keep sending it out time after time. But we've got
shows in which we talk about how to find the
right contractor how to vet a contractor I'll just tell
you very quickly, it's about making the calls. It's about
talking to the folks. You can make sure their licensing
is in order. You can do that on the California
State License Board website. And then you want references. You
(24:20):
just want references, and you want recent references like last
week and last month and two months ago, not ten
years ago, when they one job that they did and
the one client they made happy, they still post it
on their website. No, you want to find out from
the person whose house they just left, how to go,
how'd it work out, how's the company, what's the state
of the union today. You get those references, and then
(24:43):
you get pricing, and you get at least three estimates
for anything that you want done, so that you get
a sense of what really is the consensus of the
price of the job. And in your case one it's
going to be easy peasy, So there you go. I
am so glad you joined me this morning. So much
more to come. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper,
(25:03):
Doctor Brown, Add it again.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper. It's time
to go to the phones find out what's going on
with you. Why don't we talk to well, let's just
go right to the top, Karen, Welcome home.
Speaker 9 (25:20):
I live in Los Angeles County and in my backyard,
I have a detached twenty three by twenty garage twenty
three wide, and I want to make an eight hundred
square foot accessory dwelling unitch. So the garage is built
in two thousand and five. Is it going to be
cheaper for me knock down the garage and start all
(25:42):
over again? And just so you know, the washer and
dryer is currently in the garage. Is it going to
be cheaper to knock down the garage and start fresh
and clean with that detach eight hundred square foot unit,
or will it be cheaper to knock out the wall
and extend it to forty wide from twenty three wide?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Okay, here is my answer. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
No, But here are the factors involved. Okay, it may
very well be cheaper to just go with the existing structure,
because you've got an existing structure, right. It's really a
question of how well the garage is built. Is the
garage built, can the garage be brought is it at code?
(26:31):
Can it be brought up to code? Is the slab
on the garage sloped? Are you going to have to
contend with that because it's got a eighth inch per
foot slope on it? Or is it perfectly flat and
ready to become a floor of a dwelling unit. There
are a lot of factors that go into play. Now,
the question of as far as the city is concerned, Okay,
(26:55):
as far as La County is concerned, they're just gonna
put their hands up and say, hey, whatever you want
to do, we're fine with you converting the garage, but
it's going to have to be to code. We're also
fine if you want to knock it down and go
for eight hundred square feet new. Ideally, if it works
with your design and you've got structure there that's worth saving, ideally,
(27:24):
it will probably be the best and least expensive route
to keep it and just build off of it. You know,
I always say this when it comes to room editions
in general. And one of the reasons as a designer
when I come into your home and you're like, you
know what, I just need. We need more space, so
we're going to push out, we need a new master
bedroom pushed out of the back of the house. And
(27:45):
you know, room edition, room edition, room editions. So many
people are talking room edition, and I put a pin
in that at the beginning of our conversation and say, Okay,
are you sure that you need more square foot or
just to improve the flow of your existing home. And
the reason I do that is not because I've got
(28:06):
anything against room editions.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It's just that slabs and roofs are expensive and they're
not the kinds of things that we experience on a
daily basis. So if you've already got one, you've already
got half of the slab that you need. If you
already have half of the roof that you need, why not,
you know, build onto it. So I think, Karen, your
best situation is to figure out what a plan might
(28:30):
look like back there. See if the garage can become
a part of it. Talk to a build or get
a contractor or two over, have them take a look
at the garage and give you their professional eyes on
opinion as to whether the garage is just to you know,
shambles in terms of current code, or whether they're like, no, no, no,
we can work with this relatively easy. And that's just
(28:52):
that's just a whole nother segment of the new build
that you don't have to duplicate.
Speaker 9 (28:58):
Can the city say eight hundred like they had before
the ADU, They had a requirement that, as an example,
a one bedroom must be like, let's say eight hundred
square feet, right, I'm not exactly sure of the numbers,
but let's just say it was a one bedroom. If
I was going to build a brand new place with
(29:19):
the ADU, am I exempt from that. Can I still
turn eight hundred square feet into two bedroom? Or could
they say no, under our rules eight hundred square feet
not is only big enough for a one bedroom?
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Now you can show them. You show them on the
plan where you get two habitable rooms plus you know,
a useful kitchen and bathroom and closet space out of that,
and they are no longer in a position to shut
you down on.
Speaker 9 (29:49):
It, so thank you, sir. And my last question is
on a contractor. Is there a contractor like to contractors
do the plans and contracting or I have to get
an art and a contractor.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Okay, well, okay, a couple of modifications on both of
your both of these answers. Yes, there are contractors that
do design build.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I'm always a little you know, I'm I'm a home
designer and have been a builder for many years, and
as a designer, I'm always a little bit wary of
design build contractors. Not that there aren't some fantastic designers
out there who also build, but a lot of contractors
who call themselves design build are really not going to
give you all your money's worth in the design department,
(30:33):
so just be aware of that. But they are there,
and you certainly should investigate that. You asked the question
about an architect, so just to be clear, yeah, you
can totally hire an architect. But in the state of California,
you don't have to be a licensed architect. You can
be an experienced designer, a licensed art You don't have
(30:54):
to be a licensed architect to build a residential structure
up to three stories in height.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
You design it yourself if you want to.
Speaker 9 (31:02):
Okay, that's very good to enough.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
You don't need a license archite or you can hire
a designer, a decorator, anybody who's got the talent to
get that design just right for you.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Okay, and thank you.
Speaker 9 (31:13):
Questions have a great pay you.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Too, Karen, Thanks for these questions, really really good. You're
listening to Home with Dean Sharp The House Whisper on KFI.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI.
A M six forty
KF I AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
CAMF I AM six forty and live streaming in HD
everywhere on the iHeart Radio App.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, welcome to home where. Every week we help you
better understand that place where you live. I am Dean Sharp,
the house Whisperer, custom home builder, custom home designer, and
most importantly, today your guide to turning your ordinary house
into an extraordinary home. All right, normally I'm gonna go
(00:40):
around the horn with the team, but today we are
jumping straight to my better half, my design partner, the
co owner, co founder of House Whisper, and of course
you know, my best buddy in all the world, Tina
is here. Welcome home. Oh, come on, don't be coy.
(01:03):
She stared at me like maybe I'm not going to
say anything at all. And of course, in classic Tina form,
even though she is a queen among mothers, truly, instead
of sitting back, she of course is serving her mom
and the other moms in our family. We got something happening.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
We do. We worked really hard yesterday, my brother and
my nieces and my good friend Sarah we all got
together and we put together an English tea.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
An English tea.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You're serving it up today, Hi tea. Sandwich is little
pastries of course.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
The scones, all the high tea stuff. That's like your
mom's that's my mom's thing, that's your mom's idea of heaven.
Heaven is just an eternal high tea all the time.
I love high tea. I had it for the first
time when we went to did.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I didn't realize that was your first time.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I know, right, I was excited because I'm such a
man of the world and you get together almost thirty years.
I not know that you and you and you've done
this with your mom before, but yeah, never, never, just
sitting down being a part of it. And I got
to say, uh so, I have mixed feelings about it.
I mean, it's fancy and it's lovely. It truly is classy, lovely,
(02:28):
and I feel like a barbarian at high Tea.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
And not not. I don't act like a barbarian. You know.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm sitting there, I sip my tea, sip my tea,
have my and when we say sandwiches, let's face it,
these are like two inch square little little triangles of
things there. And that's the real issue. The real issue
is that, you know, Dean should not go to high
Tea hungry because even though like up in Victoria, we
(02:56):
it was all stacked up, but one of those really
it was really pretty big. You know, I forget what
it's called, but but you know those multi layer trays
that they bring out, and it's so fancy and delicious. Okay,
but I swear if you actually weighe the food on
those trays, I could probably you know, easily take down
(03:17):
four of them myself, just just without question. Just that's
just the way.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So anyway, but but it's great, and it's awesome, and
I love that you're doing it, and I love that
you're the kind of person that you would do that.
Uh And I don't know, I just wanted to honor
you this morning with that before we dove into everything else.
And uh, and we're just gonna just generally honor women
this morning. Women are the primary decision makers in the
(03:47):
home improvement segment. Did you know that that the tables
have turned places like big boxes like Home Depot and
Low's will tell you in their own internal statistics that
that women are right about at fifty to fifty with men.
As far as purchases inside those large stores, if it
(04:08):
tilts any direction, it usually tilts in favor of women.
These days, women currently control seven trillion dollars in US spending,
seven trillion dollar. In fact, women today account for eighty
five percent of all purchases and drive seventy eighty percent
of all consumer spending. It's just amazing. Single women. Okay,
(04:32):
I learned this this week. Single women one of the
fastest growing groups of homeowners.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
According to the National Association of Realtors in twenty nineteen,
females comprise seventeen percent of home buyers. That's a huge number,
single female, single females, seventeen percent of home buyers, compared
to their single male counterparts, who accounted for about nine percent.
(04:59):
And that's honestly, that's not tough for me to imagine.
You know, young single women older saying it doesn't even matter, young,
middle aged, older, senior, way, it doesn't matter. It's just
women are more emotionally mature, they're more responsible as a
just as a general group. Let's face it, you get
(05:19):
this big grid on your face, you know it's true
and it's not universally true, but it's generally true. And
then you got guys out there like what but who what?
H So anyway, ninety three percent of women have completed
a DIY project on their home in the last three
or four years. That I believe totally completely right. And
(05:42):
we know for a fact right here on our little
program that over half of our listener base, just a
little over half of our listener base, is female.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It's all about honoring women today, and especially you moms
who have put in the work. The thing about parenting
just in general, and it goes doubly true for moms,
is you could be the greatest one in the universe
and you never actually feel like you got it right,
you know, I mean in that sense of like did
(06:15):
I do that? And I'm not talking about how your
kids turned out, it's just that sense of it is
such a hard job. It is such a hard job,
and the rewards along the way are not the ones
that you actually expected they would be.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I think in general.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So we're here to honor you today, and if we
do this all right, we're gonna bring some light into
your morning, make you feel glad you are here, so
let's get to it. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper. More great stuff on the way. You're listening
to Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer KF I
AM six forty and live streaming in HD everywhere on
(06:55):
the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome to home, where every week
we help you better understand that place where you live.
I am Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. It's an all
calls day. It is it you set the agenda anything
that is going on with your home, whether it be
(07:15):
construction issues, DIY questions, design concerns, anything at all. Here
is the number to reach me, and these lines are
open now. The number to reach me eight three three two.
Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean. You see
it just rolls off the tom. Let's talk to Jonie Jony.
(07:35):
Welcome home.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
We're in the midst of a major kitchen remodel. The
base cabinets are now in and they are inset cabinets,
and they've put the subtops on top of the cabinets.
But there's about a three quarter inch gap betw set
back between the edge of the face frame and the cabinet.
(07:59):
And I'm wondering why they did that or is that
a mistake. We are either going to do an og
edge or a DuPont edge, which I want to ask
you the difference between those two.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Okay, so you haven't you just noticed this. You haven't
had a chance to ask your contractor or your cabinet installed.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
No, I haven't had a chance to ask.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Just to clarify a couple of terms for everybody else
who's listening. So when you do in a cabinet installation,
the cabinet boxes go in, and then once all the
boxes are in place, the base cabinet boxes, plywood is
put on top. It's what we call a subtop, because
that's obviously not the countertop. What goes on top of
the plywood is the stone or the tile or whatever
(08:40):
it is that you got going on. Now you have
in set cabinets, which is very nice, very very old school,
very nice, which is that the doors and drawers do
not extend out from the face frame of the cabinets,
but they actually recess in and flush themselves with the
face frame of the cabinet, so you have no overhanging
(09:02):
projecting doors and drawers on these base cabinets. It's just
one plane coming down the face of the cabinet box.
Of course, you've got knobs and such, but no overhang.
The typical typical countertop overhang for typical cabinets, which is
the cabinet face plus doors and drawers, That typical overhang
(09:24):
is about inch and a quarter to an inch and
a half of the actual stone and or tile overhanging
because the cabinet doors themselves are coming out another three
quarter plus inches, and then you got another half inch
to three quarters of an inch of overhang protecting all
of that. In your case, it won't be overhanging that
much because your inset, but the rule still applies. But
(09:48):
here's where it gets tricky. It all depends on the
configuration of that og edge. If you're doing a double
laminated edge, in other words, instead of just one layer
of stone at about seven eighths of an inch thick
coming out and having its little finished edge, it sounds
like you're planning on you've got a double lamination. In
(10:08):
other words, another piece of stone is going to be
put on the bottom there to make the appearance of
a big, built up thick edge. It all depends on,
you know how, If we're hanging over let's say an inch, okay,
which would be kind of typical three cores of an
inch to an inch of hanging over an inset cabinet face.
(10:32):
If the builder has insight from the stone people that hey,
we need more than just one inch square piece to
laminate there.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
It needs to be deeper.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That may be the reason why the subtop has been
held back a little bit in order to give more
room for the bottom lamination stone to kind of nestle
in to the top. But I will tell you that's
not common at all, and so typically we will just
run the full subtop right over to the face of
(11:08):
the cabinet. So I can't tell you definitively that somebody
did something wrong, but I can tell you you just
got to ask the question to have no one go
any further until that question gets answered, because there is
a bit of a strength sacrifice by holding the subtalk back,
and quite often on once in a blue moon, I
(11:31):
will tell you this, Joni, once in a blue moon,
when we have to do that because of the nature
of the countertop material itself, right, when we have to
provide a larger notch, what we will do is we
will put yet another piece of wood underneath the subtop
that supports that free floating subtop edge and connect to
(11:53):
the front face of the cabinet regardless. Okay, ideally you
want a solid connection to the front cabinet face all
along the front, whether or not the subtop is being
held back or not. I hope we just didn't love
everybody in all of that terminology.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
But that's kind of you didn't.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Lose us at all, no.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
Okay, yeah, yeah, And I have no idea why they
did what they did so and it's the cabinet makers too,
it's not the fall off the stone man.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
So yeah, so just just find out, say, hey, what's
the deal here, and uh and you know they'll they'll
let you know what's going on.
Speaker 7 (12:34):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
And a farmhouse sync should be level with the SUBTP.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
If it's an inset, yeah, if it's an under mount
farmhouse SYNC, then yes, it gets set level with the
subtops so that the stone goes over and just rolls
over the sink.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, I'm going to front.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yes, that's the nature of it. But as far as as.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It being underneath the countertop from the top, yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Okay, Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
You are so very welcome. Thanks for the call in
good luck with all of that. One last thing I'm
going to toss in there. I don't know if y'all
kind of pick that up. But when you typically look
at a stone countertop face, not a lot of people
(13:25):
realize this that you know, the stone slab that comes
from the stone yard is only three quarter well three
get it's more like seven eighths of an inch thick
usually between depending on the kind of stone, it could
be anywhere from seven eights to an inch thick stone
that's not that full, big fat countertop edge that you
(13:45):
see there. What happens is we take that stone and
then we'll take a slice of it off that front
edge and we'll put it up underneath. We'll epoxyate laminated underneath,
and then whatever kind of of nosing of edging that
you want. And there's twenty different kinds of edging that
(14:06):
we can do there. But the idea is that we're
giving the illusion that that stone is closer to two
inches thick, when in reality it's just two pieces. And
the quality of the install of that stone, by the way,
has to do with whether we're hiding the scene. Okay,
any cheaper done countertops, you can look on the face
(14:30):
and you're like, well look and I can see the
line where they glued it together. That's kind of a
fail for us. We never do it that way. We
either miter from the top corner down so that we
have no visible seam on the face, or if it's
like what Jonie was talking about, what's called an og
or a double og edge, the scene can get hidden
(14:51):
in the details of the carving of the fun of
the counterstone.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
There you go. Did that make sense? Am I making
sense to people?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I know it's very technical, but just I know there
are a lot of you out there like, oh, okay,
I get it. Now, run to your kitchen right now
and check out your countertop and decide whether you know
how it rates. When we come back, we'll get to
more of your calls. This is Dean Sharp the House
Whisper on KFI. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
(15:19):
on demand from KFI AM six forty Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper at your service.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Welcome home. I'm glad you have joined us on our
program today.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
We are doing an all calls weekend, so it's an
all calls Sunday back to the phones, Courtney, Well, what
I'm calling about.
Speaker 7 (15:38):
I have a rack home problem that lives next door
to me and is pooping on my property and urinating
and the odor is horrible.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Oh oh geez. And the source is the empty house
next to you, A vacant house next to you.
Speaker 7 (15:55):
Yes, that, plus the neighborhood is full of them. Two
we live next to a forest.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
I got you, I got you. Oh my gosh, Courtney. Okay, so.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
Uh okay, I want to talk about subs. But these raccoons,
they really didn't kill me.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
No, I feel you, I feel you.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Man, Raccoons are so damn smart. That's this is the problem.
They are so dang smart and agile and capable and
uh and I was I would say that. You know,
if you're the only person in the neighborhood who's struggling
with it, that's one thing. You know, you can get
control locked down your trash cans, make sure they don't
have access to all this stuff. But if you've got
a vacant house next to you, uh, then then you
(16:39):
don't have any control over that. And they're and they're
basically you know, now you're just the highway to get
back and forth from from there to the forest and
everything else around you. So I'm going to give you
my this is my best advice. And uh, and I
don't know, honestly, just to be completely honest, whether it's
going to solve the problem, but this is my best advice.
Lots of people will say all sorts of things when
(17:01):
it comes to pests, especially you know those kinds of pasts.
They say, Okay, put blood meal in your garden, you know,
in your garden beds, because it'll keep them away. Or
you can get big jugs of you know, like a
predator urine, which you know sounds just wonderful, right, and
spread that around in your beds because they say, you know,
if they smell like you know, coyote or wolf urine
(17:23):
something like that, or cougar, that that they're going to
stay away. I've seen people put up electric you know,
those little electric wires. You know, raccoons are smart, they
find their way around it. There are ultrasonic things out
there that they sell. I've ever seen them work. They say, oh,
you put this out of frequency. They can't stand it. Yeah, yeah,
like heck, they can't stand it. I've seen them sitting
(17:44):
on top of them at times.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
You know. So here is what has here. Here's my
logic to it.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I don't know if this makes sense to you, Courtney,
but my logic has been, if I actually got up
in the middle of the night and walked out there,
turned on a light with the garden hose in my hand,
I'm pretty sure the I'm pretty sure that the raccoons
are going to take off because I've never I've never
had a raccoon in my yard where I turn the
(18:10):
light on him. Number one, he shocked and surprised that
the lights on all of a sudden, and uh. And
then you know, I get out the nozzle on the
garden hose and I give him a little shower, and
lo and behold he takes off. So the point is this,
what I have found to be very effective and amazingly
less expensive than all that other bs is emotion motion
(18:33):
sensor lights out on the perimeter of the property or
wherever they end up showing up so that any movement
out there throws these lights on for you know, a
few seconds or a minute or so at a time.
That's one thing. But here's the other one. Motion sensor
rain bird. In other words, the motion sensor sprinkler head.
You know, nothing really cool quiet kinds. No the ones
(18:57):
that kind of like do the and spray all over
the place. We had a there's a garden in our
town called Gardens of the World that's kind of a public, open,
foundation driven garden. They built this beautiful Japanese pagoda, and
there's a pond, a koi pond, you know, And first
month being open, they had it stocked with koi, and
(19:18):
within like two weeks the koi are completely gone and
they're scratching their heads and they come to realize these
great blue herons were coming down and you know, they
eat fish, and they were stealing koi out of.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
The koi pond.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Again, what they'd solved the problem with was a motion
activated sprinkler head that kind of went over the koi pond.
And ever since they installed that thing. So if a
heron lands in the water, even in the middle of
the night, they activate the sprinkler head, they get a
face full of water and they take off. I don't
think it's gonna solve every imaginable problem, but I have
(19:52):
seen that technique so effective in keeping past unwanted pests
out of the yard because most of them are nocturnal,
which means they like to operate under cover of darkness.
And no animal that I know of wants a face
full of water unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
And so that's something that you set up and you
don't have to monitor. It takes care of itself. We're
(20:14):
talking about like it's a thirty dollars item at the
hardware store. So if you can find a couple of
places to install those, plus some motion lights activated, then
you can probably reduce the amount of raccoon activity in
your yard, if not eliminated altogether, instead of doing blood
meal and urine and electric shock wires and all that
(20:38):
other stuff. I hope this helps, and next time you call,
we can move on to more productive things other than
raccoon urine. More calls, More calls, Tina, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
Luan, I want to find the best way to get
somebody to come and put an automatic shut off on
the gas. And as you probably know, you go on
the internet and there are like many charlatans advertising their services.
What do I need to be aware of when I
(21:10):
do go on the internet and look for someone that
is reliable that has done it and isn't going to
have the house explode five minutes after he drives away.
I mean, what are the key elements there?
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Really good question.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know, by the way, you're looking for an automatic
gas shut off valve, you're just looking for a plumber.
So you do not need, first of all, some kind
of specialist. In fact, I would not call for a
specialist because that's the kind of area where you start
getting into all of that kind of stuff, like, oh
we special I guarantee you no one out there specializes
(21:49):
in automatic shut off ouves. It's just a plumbing item,
and it's actually, here's the good news. It's a very
relatively simple item. And automatic gas shut off out by
the way everybody.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Is here's here's how it's complex.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
It is.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
It's a brilliant device.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
It is a it is a little device that gets
attached to the incoming gas line into uh well into
the house from the meter. Okay, so you get the
meter and then right next to the meter as the
as the line comes into the house is right next
to the meters where you install this automatic shut off valve.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Uh it just gets installed in that line.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Boom, it takes it should take a qualified plumber all
of an hour to pop one of these suckers in,
so it's not like an all day event. Uh. And
what it does is basically, inside this shut off valve
there is a large, very heavy ball, like a like
a bearing, like a ball bearing up inside and down
(22:53):
below is the flow of gas through the line. That
ball sits there on a little platform that has been
pre engineered. This platform has been pre engineered with a
tiny bit of a cup a recess in it that
nestles that ball in place. I don't quote me on
the size of the earthquake, but I believe, if I'm
(23:14):
not mistaken anything over, I think a five point zero
on the Richter scale, anything five point zero and up
is big enough to knock that ball off of its
little platform. The ball falls down into the chamber and
boom blocks the gas line. There you go, automatic shut
off valve for the gas.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
For the house.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, it's a super simple device. And yeah, and once
it's done, you can go and have it beset really
easily as well. And it's not just gonna accidentally fall
off in the wind or anything like that. But you
bring up a good point, and the good point is
very simply that, yeah, there are a lot of craziness
out there when it comes to contracting and in general. Okay,
(23:58):
so the key is now, we've published this before, we
keep sending it out time after time. But we've got
shows in which we talk about how to find the
right contractor how to vet a contractor I'll just tell
you very quickly, it's about making the calls. It's about
talking to the folks. You can make sure their licensing
is in order. You can do that on the California
State License Board website. And then you want references. You
(24:20):
just want references, and you want recent references like last
week and last month and two months ago, not ten
years ago, when they one job that they did and
the one client they made happy, they still post it
on their website. No, you want to find out from
the person whose house they just left, how to go,
how'd it work out, how's the company, what's the state
of the union today. You get those references, and then
(24:43):
you get pricing, and you get at least three estimates
for anything that you want done, so that you get
a sense of what really is the consensus of the
price of the job. And in your case one it's
going to be easy peasy, So there you go. I
am so glad you joined me this morning. So much
more to come. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper,
(25:03):
Doctor Brown, Add it again.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper. It's time
to go to the phones find out what's going on
with you. Why don't we talk to well, let's just
go right to the top, Karen, Welcome home.
Speaker 9 (25:20):
I live in Los Angeles County and in my backyard,
I have a detached twenty three by twenty garage twenty
three wide, and I want to make an eight hundred
square foot accessory dwelling unitch. So the garage is built
in two thousand and five. Is it going to be
cheaper for me knock down the garage and start all
(25:42):
over again? And just so you know, the washer and
dryer is currently in the garage. Is it going to
be cheaper to knock down the garage and start fresh
and clean with that detach eight hundred square foot unit,
or will it be cheaper to knock out the wall
and extend it to forty wide from twenty three wide?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Okay, here is my answer. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
No, But here are the factors involved. Okay, it may
very well be cheaper to just go with the existing structure,
because you've got an existing structure, right. It's really a
question of how well the garage is built. Is the
garage built, can the garage be brought is it at code?
(26:31):
Can it be brought up to code? Is the slab
on the garage sloped? Are you going to have to
contend with that because it's got a eighth inch per
foot slope on it? Or is it perfectly flat and
ready to become a floor of a dwelling unit. There
are a lot of factors that go into play. Now,
the question of as far as the city is concerned, Okay,
(26:55):
as far as La County is concerned, they're just gonna
put their hands up and say, hey, whatever you want
to do, we're fine with you converting the garage, but
it's going to have to be to code. We're also
fine if you want to knock it down and go
for eight hundred square feet new. Ideally, if it works
with your design and you've got structure there that's worth saving, ideally,
(27:24):
it will probably be the best and least expensive route
to keep it and just build off of it. You know,
I always say this when it comes to room editions
in general. And one of the reasons as a designer
when I come into your home and you're like, you
know what, I just need. We need more space, so
we're going to push out, we need a new master
bedroom pushed out of the back of the house. And
(27:45):
you know, room edition, room edition, room editions. So many
people are talking room edition, and I put a pin
in that at the beginning of our conversation and say, Okay,
are you sure that you need more square foot or
just to improve the flow of your existing home. And
the reason I do that is not because I've got
(28:06):
anything against room editions.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It's just that slabs and roofs are expensive and they're
not the kinds of things that we experience on a
daily basis. So if you've already got one, you've already
got half of the slab that you need. If you
already have half of the roof that you need, why not,
you know, build onto it. So I think, Karen, your
best situation is to figure out what a plan might
(28:30):
look like back there. See if the garage can become
a part of it. Talk to a build or get
a contractor or two over, have them take a look
at the garage and give you their professional eyes on
opinion as to whether the garage is just to you know,
shambles in terms of current code, or whether they're like, no, no, no,
we can work with this relatively easy. And that's just
(28:52):
that's just a whole nother segment of the new build
that you don't have to duplicate.
Speaker 9 (28:58):
Can the city say eight hundred like they had before
the ADU, They had a requirement that, as an example,
a one bedroom must be like, let's say eight hundred
square feet, right, I'm not exactly sure of the numbers,
but let's just say it was a one bedroom. If
I was going to build a brand new place with
(29:19):
the ADU, am I exempt from that. Can I still
turn eight hundred square feet into two bedroom? Or could
they say no, under our rules eight hundred square feet
not is only big enough for a one bedroom?
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Now you can show them. You show them on the
plan where you get two habitable rooms plus you know,
a useful kitchen and bathroom and closet space out of that,
and they are no longer in a position to shut
you down on.
Speaker 9 (29:49):
It, so thank you, sir. And my last question is
on a contractor. Is there a contractor like to contractors
do the plans and contracting or I have to get
an art and a contractor.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Okay, well, okay, a couple of modifications on both of
your both of these answers. Yes, there are contractors that
do design build.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I'm always a little you know, I'm I'm a home
designer and have been a builder for many years, and
as a designer, I'm always a little bit wary of
design build contractors. Not that there aren't some fantastic designers
out there who also build, but a lot of contractors
who call themselves design build are really not going to
give you all your money's worth in the design department,
(30:33):
so just be aware of that. But they are there,
and you certainly should investigate that. You asked the question
about an architect, so just to be clear, yeah, you
can totally hire an architect. But in the state of California,
you don't have to be a licensed architect. You can
be an experienced designer, a licensed art You don't have
(30:54):
to be a licensed architect to build a residential structure
up to three stories in height.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
You design it yourself if you want to.
Speaker 9 (31:02):
Okay, that's very good to enough.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
You don't need a license archite or you can hire
a designer, a decorator, anybody who's got the talent to
get that design just right for you.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Okay, and thank you.
Speaker 9 (31:13):
Questions have a great pay you.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Too, Karen, Thanks for these questions, really really good. You're
listening to Home with Dean Sharp The House Whisper on KFI.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI.
A M six forty
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