Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
house Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I Am
Dean Sharp, the house Whisper, Custom home Builder, custom home Designer,
and your guide every week to better understand that place
where you live. Today on the show, I am sharing
with you my twenty twenty five house Whisper Holiday gift Guide.
(00:23):
If you've got one of those buildy, creative, crafty diier
home improvement kind of people in your list of loved ones,
you're not going to want to miss this list. We've
got it up on our social media. A link to it,
a link to the pdf, a downloadable pdf. You can
actually look at it on social media, or you can
(00:45):
download it with live links to the places where at
least one place in each case where you can actually
order and or purchase these items. Great list this year
got back to kind of our found for the list,
mostly tools, some other things thrown in along the way
of value, but really really well curated stuff. If I
(01:10):
do say so, MYSEO, We're going to get back to
that list in just a bit, but we got a
couple of things ahead of returning to the list. Number
one I'm going to finish telling you about the Stall House,
the famous architectural Stall House in the Hollywood Hills up
above La looking out all south, all across Los Angeles,
from the ocean to the mountains, and deep into Orange
(01:32):
County on clear days, beautiful view. Historic home built in
the late nineteen fifties, purchased a very very modest lot,
all hillside lot, almost impossible to build lot according to
most architects at the time, but the Stalls. A middle
class family found a young architect with a lot of
(01:57):
creative drive who was willing to say yes, and built
what has become one of the most iconic modernist homes
of the mid century Modernist era. The Stall Home two
thousand square feet, just a little bit over two thousand
square feet, pretty much all glass and steel, unbelievable views.
You should look it up and just catch a glimpse,
(02:19):
at least of the one black and white photo that
made it most famous for the time, with two women
from the definitely from the fifties sitting in the corner
overlooking all of Los Angeles. By the way, that corner
where the women are sitting. People who tour the house
they want to sit exactly in those same positions and
have their same photo taken the same way. And that
(02:41):
is actually where the Stall family puts their Christmas tree
every year. The house is still owned by the Stall family.
Now Mom and Dad are gone, but the kids still
own the house. And now because of circumstances, they've reached
the conclusion that it's time for them who passed the
house on. And so what has happened that was so
(03:03):
historic that made it into the news This last week,
the Stall House, for the first time since it was built,
is up for sale. It is now for sale for
twenty five million dollars. Twenty five million dollars. Now, there
are no comps for this because there's nothing to compare
the Stall House too, because it is it is both
(03:25):
artistic and brilliant and historic and amazing, all of these things.
You know what I'm saying. They're going to get it.
They're going to get something close to it at least,
or somebody's going to get into a bidding war with
it and they'll get more for it. A thirty seven
thousand dollars investment in the late nineteen fifties now twenty
five million dollars. But what I look at it from
(03:48):
my perspective, And the reason I share it with you
is because this is not some mega mansion built by
some multimillionaire that you know you would expect, you know
you should ooh and awe at it. The Stall House
is creativity over cost. The Stall House was a middle
class family buying a very small, practically unbuildable lot. But
(04:12):
mister Stall he had a vision and he wasn't willing
to compromise his vision. He wanted to have a view unobstructed,
and he held his guns and he stuck to it,
and he got it, built a house that became home
for him and his family for the entire period of
(04:32):
their marriage and the generations beyond. This is the kind
of thing that can happen when you take an ordinary
family who have an uncompromising vision for an extraordinary home
and it becomes something truly truly special. So I just
wanted to share that with you because it's a living
example and also, you know what, keep it in the
(04:54):
family for a couple generations.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
You can make twenty five million bucks.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
No that's probably not the case, but in their case,
big risk ended up with a big payoff for them.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Okay, now here we are.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
We've got a couple of minutes left in this segment,
and we've also got a couple of calls on the board.
I want to take those calls. It is time to
take calls. I want to take those calls, and then
we will return to our house. Whisper Holiday Gift Guide.
The number to reach me by the way eight three
to three two. Ask Dean eight three to three the
numeral two ask Dean. The phone lines are open.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Let me start just by knocking on the door and
talking to Olivia. Hey, Olivia, welcome home, Olivia. Are you
with us? Okay, I've lost Olivia for the moment. I'm
gonna pop you on hold. Let's talk to Gary. Hey, Gary,
welcome home.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
By the way, I love listening to and it's nice
that you're on both Toto AM six and KFI at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
This one.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I'm down in San Diego. I listened to you down there.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Oh great, yeah, thank you. Well, how can I help
you plan?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Well? I was playing on my garage and I found
something here. It is a piece of craftsman history. It's
a one hour seven point two vault charger for craftsman tools.
And see the tool I have. I have one of
the little small cordless lights that I like. I'd like
to use for working on our cars, but the battery
(06:22):
is so depleted I can't even charge it anymore. It
just it just dives. And I've been looking for the
seven point two vault batteries and I can't find them anywhere.
Can you think of anybody that would make like either
a reproduction or maybe is there any kind of a
way to adapt like a me Cato or a DeWalt
or something like that to a seven point two craftsman
a cordless charger?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And then in my life, you know what, give me
a couple of minutes to think about that, and I'll
let you know. I'm not an electrical engineer, but give
me a moment of pause. And it's just convenient that
we're up against a break, so I will pop you on.
I will give it some thought, and when we return,
we'll figure out if I can figure it out. Thanks
(07:05):
Garry for your call. You hang tight, buddy, everybody hang tight.
Let's take a quick break and then more of your calls.
Your Home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Hey, don't forget to follow us on social media. We're
on all the usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x Home
with Dean that's not very hard to remember, is it
Home with Dean, same handle for all of them. Get
on there, click us, follow us. That's where you find
out all the new exciting stuff that's going on with us.
(07:40):
And there's a lot of new exciting stuff coming up
in twenty twenty six you're not gonna want to miss
as well. Today, there's exciting stuff there. Because it is
the home of the house Whisper Holiday Gift Guide. You
will find that post. You're also going to find an
adorable post on Instagram of me and my granddaughter Olivia
putting together our alder Chris miss Tree also very helpful
(08:02):
and cute. Uh and uh yeah. The Holiday Gift Guide,
the links are there. You'll be able to view it
online or you can download it. And it is a
pdf full of live links so that you can actually
go to the places, uh that are selling this stuff
for the prices that we are claiming they're selling them for.
And Tina tells me over the weekend some of those
(08:23):
prices have changed and are even lower now.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
See how my voice goes up when I get excited. Uh? Anyway,
so there we go. We're gonna get back to the
Gift Guide just a bit. Bud's mid show, which means
I'm taking calls, and I had Gary on the line.
Gary's on hold. Gary, You're not on hold?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Are you still there? Bud?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I'm still here. And Dane, I'm looking. I've been looking
on abay right now while I've been on hold with you,
and unfortunately I can't find you kind to replace the batteries.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Okay, we got so you've been looking on You've been
looking at eBay for crafts in seven point two power
tool batteries, right, Okay, I can't, I think, Well, I
mean you only know. I mean they're there. I mean
I've got a whole page of them. I don't know
if they're the configuration that you want, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
But.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Configurations, yeah, yeah, all right. So eBay was one of
the ones I was going to suggest you because I'm
staring at some right now. But write this down, because
here are the other two choices for you, Okay, locally
here in southern California, Battery World in Alhambra. Okay, Battery
World in Alhambra. They actually rebuild batteries. Okay, so if
(09:43):
you can get your old casing to them, they can
get you. They can get it rock and roll, and
that's what I am told. Okay, so give them a call.
Battery World, Battery World Center in Alhambra. And the one
that was actually a listener that actually called in to
help you out. They literally reached out to us and said, hey,
he should try Battery World. So I'm telling you to
try that. The one I was going to give you though.
(10:03):
All Right, a little bit of shipping involved here, but
this has been a go to for me in years past.
M t O mt O Battery m t O. Now
they're in Pennsylvania. Okay, they're in Pennsylvania, but they've got
a website, mto battery dot Com. You go to their
website and they will set you up for you can
(10:26):
contact them, you can verify it ahead of time, but
they can set you up for shipping back and forth
because they take problem cases from all over the country.
But these guys, they are brilliant. We've actually upgraded some
tools with them in the past. Okay for batteries that
have failed and tools that are no longer being you know,
batteries that are no longer being manufactured by the major manufacturers,
(10:49):
and they're basically just battery engineers, and they will replace
the guts and renew those batteries for it. They'll rebuild
that battery for you, send it back to you in
its original casing, and boom back into the tool it goes,
and you got a brand new battery to continue that
life of that tool forward. That's what I got for you, buddy, Gary,
(11:10):
Thanks for the call. Very unique call. That's why we
take him. Uh and uh awesome. All right, So do
I have time to get going on another one here?
Let's talk to Joe. Hey, Joe, welcome home.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Hey, thank you. Higgy. My my son moved his business
to a was was formerly an mechanic and it had
lots of grease and some paint and some resins, and
he had somebody come in grind it. They did it
with a six inch wheel and it left strations on
you know, in his passes, and then he sealed it.
(11:46):
But we were hoping to sustain it prior to ceiling.
Can we still stay it over the ceial?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
It's I mean, if they didn't seal it, if they
sealed it as well as they ground it, maybe, yeah,
exactly exactly, because the yeah, it should not have been
using the six inch grinder on the concrete. Okay, so
let me let me let's back up and let's just
talk about doing it the right way for a second. Okay,
(12:13):
First of all, we take a mild acid mixture okay,
muratic acid, very very mild mix of muratic acid, and
we wash over all the concrete. That will and we
let it set, and then we rinse it and we
rinse it and we rinse it. That will knock out
the ceiler. Okay, we should be able that should degrade
(12:35):
the seiler, open up the porosity of the concrete again.
Then then, uh, the proper thing to do is run
down to the big box store like the rental department
of home depot or your local rental yard and actually
rent for one day. Actually it's only going to take
you like two to three hours an actual concrete resurfacer.
(12:56):
And these things are brilliant. I mean I've talked about
them before. We're living in the golden age of tool rentals,
and this is a resurfacing disc that sits level and
plane across the concrete. Anybody could resurface their garage slab
on their own with one of these things. Okay, I
hear the music tuning me out here, So I got
(13:17):
to finish this up, Joe. On the other side of
the break, I will finish my details of how to
come back from this bad concrete job and disdain it
up and make it all beautiful. We'll talk about it
on the other side. Your Home with Dean Sharp the
House Whispers.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Transform your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. We do
it every week. I'm glad that you've tuned in. It's
a pleasure to have you on the show with me.
We are doing our holiday gift guide today. We're going
to get back to it in just a bit, but
middle of the show we always set everything aside for calls.
For your calls. I've got Joe on hold. He had
a question about was it a garage slab or a dry.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Way Joe, basically a garage. It was a mechanics.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Garage, mechanic's garage. A lot of grease, a lot of oil,
a lot of stuff. They tried to clean it up.
Somebody tried to clean it up. They took a six
inch disc, scandered it. You grind out some problem areas.
It left marks behind. Then they sealed it, and now
they want to stain it to cover it up. But
now it's got sealer on it. So I just wanted
to address it the right way. And that was number one.
(14:27):
Like I said before the break, some a mild acid,
let it sit, led it to eat through the sealer
to open up the porosity again so that the new
stain will actually work. Because a freshly sealed slab if
they sealed it properly, which there you know, they didn't
grind it properly, so maybe they didn't seal it property,
but the sealers still going to do its job. So
(14:48):
I want to knock that sealer out, open up the
porosity of the cement, and then instead of getting on
your hands and knees with a six inch grinder and
leaving marks behind, what we want to do is uniform
address the entire surface of the slab. Now that may
seem like a monumental job, but it's really not. It's
really a trip down to the rental yard picking up
(15:10):
one of these new fangled concrete resurfacing machines that are
designed for anybody to use, bring it on home and
and unload it. It's gonna work like a floor polisher.
Nobody's on their hands and knees, nobody's breaking their back.
It is self propelled. It's gonna scoot all around. The
nice thing is it's got a great, big diamond disc
(15:32):
that always lays a flat across the surface of the cement,
so it does not leave gouge marks or disc marks
or anything like that. Within the course of two hours,
tops you can resurface an entire garage floor with this,
And I mean you, I mean just, I mean Grandma
can resurface a garage floor. She knows what she's doing there.
(15:55):
She follows the instructions with this. Leave it bright, shiny
and new. If there's any grease spots or anything left remaining,
it doesn't sound like there are, but if there were
a little bit of pressure washer or some tri sodium phosphate.
But the point is the resurfacer just does. I mean,
we have transformed really really bad looking slabs in a
garage down to pristine slabs and then yeah, if we're
(16:19):
gonna keep using it. Practically speaking, I love the idea
of staining the garage. So after you've done that rinsing, rinsing, rinsing,
getting all the dust everything out of that garage slab,
and then here's the key. There's only one big key.
You let it dry. I mean you let it dry
out completely. Because a wet sponge, which is what a
(16:40):
concrete is, it's basically a stone sponge. A wet sponge
will not absorb any more liquid. And what we want
is what we want this stain that we put down
to be absorbed in fully, and then we want the
sealer to be absorbed in fully. So we want that
garage slab clean and dry, subsurface dry.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Then when you stain it makes sense. Yeah, when you
stain it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
After you stain it, you want it to dry again,
clean and dry before the seiler goes down, and then
the ceiler will penetrate in beautifully and everything will be great.
And the way I like to stain a garage floor,
I always recommend it stain is not paint. It will
always be taken unevenly into any surface, whether you're doing
wood or concrete or stone, whatever the case. So I
(17:28):
like the idea of like a darker stain that the
plan is to put it down kind of modeled so
that it's darker in some areas, it's kind of swoshy.
It's light, it's dark, it's light, it's dark. It'll make
the whole floor. The ununiformity of that will make the
whole floor very uniform in that kind of motif, and
(17:48):
it'll hide future oil stains and issues and dirt better
than just one color. But expecting like one color palette
of stain to go across an entire piece of con
concrete that size is an unrealistic expectation. So better to
just model it all up again though in between every phase,
(18:09):
let it dry and then reseal it, and you're off
to the races and it shouldn't have to wrestle with
it anymore.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Do you what do you figure for seiler? Like a
five eleven impregnating.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Or yeah, yeah, miracle if five to eleven is great?
And I you know, I personally don't like surface sealers
on concrete. I like penetrating sealers because the surface seilers
they leave a gloss behind, there's moisture in the concrete.
There always will be. It'll always want to push it
off from the backside. It'll always make it yellow, It'll
always make it crack eventually. So I prefer a penetrating
(18:42):
sealer that just sinks down below the level, does the job,
but doesn't actually put a sheen of any kind on
the concrete.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
That makes sense, That makes sense. Thank you for your help.
Can I ask you a little follow up on something
you just talked about on the battery guys?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Super quick? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Was that MTA mto mt oh mt oh?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
And will they do any bike batteries as well?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Do you think you know what?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I'm not sure, but I know they're in the battery
rebuilding business, so I wouldn't surprise me if they did.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
All right, I'll look it up. But thank you for
your time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
You're so welcome, Joe. Thanks for the call, Bud. All right,
where are we at? Where are we at?
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
We got a little bit of time. We got a
couple of minutes to slip another one in here. Let's
talk to Olivia. Do I have Olivia back?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (19:31):
You do, Olivia.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
It's so good to hear from you. How can I
help Okay, I have two questions.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
My first one is why does the toilet mold over
on the inside. I can't seem to get it to
go away.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Bathrooms are a very high humid area, humidity, the darkness
inside the toilet bowl. If there's any way that you
can increase the fresh air flow and the drying of
the air inside the bathroom, nine times out of ten,
the mold that ends up developing inside a bathroom around
a toilet has to do with the fact that it's
(20:09):
a damp, dark, humid place, and so we want to
get back to see the moist air out of there,
and with the moist air the mold will go.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Okay, that works, I can try that. My second question
is I've lived in this house since two thousand and one,
and when you come through the garage, we have a
washer and dryer, and then after that I have a
bunch of cabinets, and no matter what landen or anything
(20:41):
I put in there, it all smells.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Moldy inside the cabinets inside the garage.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
No, you come from the garage into the house and
then you have a washer and dryer and there's cabinet
in there, and nothing smells in that one. Then you
come pass that in towards the house. It's like a hallway,
tight bunch of cabinets and I put all the linen
towels stuff in there, and it always smells like mold.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
It sounds like you might have the same situation in
there again, moist air and a place for that air
to hide. So the best way to deal with that, Olivia,
is to clear out everything out of those cabinets. Get
it all out of there, clear out that room. Spray
those cabinets down with a mixture of water and bleach
to knock out any mold that might be taking place there. Okay, whatsoever,
(21:33):
I'm assuming now that there's no leaks in the walls,
that there's no pipes, you know, with water running in
the walls creating a bigger problem than that. We're assuming
this is just surface stuff. But we got to find
a way, even if it's putting a little fan in
that area to dry the air, to move the air
through there. Okay, get rid of the mold. Knock it
out with a mixture, just like you would do with
(21:56):
your laundry, with a mixture of bleach and water. Dry
thoroughly before you put anything back in. If it's embedded
in the paint, you might have to do a little
bit of painting as well, but usually the bleach in
the water work just fine. Give it a restart. Mold
is tenacious. Once it's there and it's going, it's going
(22:16):
to try and keep going as long as you give
it the conditions for it to go. So if we
can clear up the air, dry it out, and also
get rid of all the mold that's in there, because mold,
once the air is dry and warm, it won't just
it won't just die. It'll go dormant until it gets
moist agains. That's why we got to kill it all
(22:36):
to begin with. Wipe it clean, new, fresh start, Olivia.
Thank you for your call. Everybody, thank you for your call.
Let's get back to the Gift Guide. We'll do it
right after this. Break your Home with Dean Sharp the
House Whisperfud.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Sometimes the things that happen to change homes happen from
the people who are living inside them with your own
two hands. It's a kind of a rare breed these days,
but they're out there and they're around. And if you
have one of those people in your life, then today's
very apropos because I'm sharing with you our twenty twenty
five House Whisper Holiday gift Guide, one that is aimed
(23:18):
exclusively towards the di wire, the home improvement aficionado in
your life. And it is time to return and get
back to that list. I've been jonesing to do it,
and so let's let me just check make sure that
I didn't skip any Yep, there we go. All right,
(23:38):
let us continue. Now, this in today's day and age,
will qualify as a stocking stuffer, a very You better
have an extra large hook for this item, heavy duty
hook for your stocking. This is the kind of thing
that you know that the burglar who breaks in to
steal your Christmas presents will find very unusual in a stocking. Nevertheless,
(24:02):
it is the Edward Tools wonder bar, a utility pride bar. Okay,
I got a few of these in the list here,
not pride bars, but a few little stocking stuffer items
that are items that are under twenty dollars. Everybody who
does stuff around their house will eventually need a pride bar.
And if you need a pride bar. There is no
(24:23):
better little pride bar to have than a wonder bar. Okay,
wonder bar. It's a brand name. It's been out for
quite a while. It is just the perfect tool prying, scraping, lifting, pulling.
It's wide, it's flat, it's flexible, it is super strong.
It has got all the right curves going on it
(24:44):
to cantilever and to leverage your way through pulling out nails,
separating boards from each other, so on and so forth,
and nice. The best thing about it it's fifteen inches long.
It's twelve bucks. It's well worth it, but it is,
you know, it is a chunk of steel. So maybe
(25:05):
not put it in the stocking. That maybe the the
wisest move, but technically it's a stocking stuffer.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Now this one.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You're not gonna be able this stuff into a stocking.
But I talk about this. This has made it, i think,
on every single holiday gift guide list ever. Why because
it also makes it into every one of my home
DIY shows where I talk about your essential tools to
have around the house. Okay, and that is a bucket
boss bucket tool organizer. Can you remember the you know,
(25:37):
the classic image of the handy person or the carpenter
or whoever the plumber the classic is got there. They're
carrying this wooden toolbox.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
It's a long tray, and it's got a dowel, long
dowel for a handle running along the top, and there
are tools sticking out of it. That's the classic toolbox.
Now these days, you go into the big box store
or the hardware store and you'll find every manner of
a very very high tech tool organization storage system. Lockable plastic,
(26:11):
you know, heavy duty, you know, impact resistant stuff, dost proof,
on and on and on, all great stuff. Definitely geared
toward pros Okay, and I'll tell you why, because those
things are a designed the classic toolbox that has a
lockable top, latchable top. It's designed to travel, Okay. It's
designed to yeah, like throw it in the back of
(26:32):
the truck so if it tips over, it won't spill
out all over the place. It keeps everything in place
because it travels in the back of a truck or
a van from job site to job site. That's really
a pro oriented tool organization system. Now, I'm not saying
that this isn't I'm simply saying this the concept years
(26:54):
and years ago when somebody figured out to take one
of those big five gallon buckets and actually design a
Cordura canvas inset that holds, in a well organized manner
all bunches of tools around the outside edge and on
the inside, and also uses the bucket itself for storage
(27:14):
of materials like nails or screws or whatever's going on.
Transforming a five gallon bucket into a beautifully organized toolbox
in the spirit of those old style toolboxes, those open top,
old styled toolboxes. It is a brilliant idea. And why
do I say it's brilliant for your house, Because at
(27:35):
the end of the day, when you're doing a little
project and it's not in the garage, it's over there,
it's in that bathroom, it's in the backyard, whatever, what
you really need for that project to do it successfully
is you don't need a bunch of locking toolboxes and
all of that kind of stuff. What you need is
you need a staging area for the tools that you
need for that project. And so I'm suggesting that the
(27:57):
bucket boss stays empty most of the time. It sits
there in the corner waiting for today's project. And then
you load it up with the appropriate tools, and you
throw in the appropriate screws or paintbrushes or whatever the
case may be, and you can very easily just carry
it on over to exactly where you're sitting or standing
or kneeling to get today's project done. It's brilliant stuff.
(28:20):
It's seventeen dollars and it will change the di wire's life.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Who you give it to?
Speaker 1 (28:27):
The bucket Boss from the Bucketeer from Bucket Boss, seventeen
dollars all right. More from the House Whisper Holiday Gift Guide.
When we return your Home with Dean Sharp.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The House Whisperer.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
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