Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listeningto Dean Sharp The house Whisper on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. I amDean Sharp, the house Whisper, custom
home Builder, custom home Designer,and most importantly today, your guide to
turning your ordinary house into something trulyextraordinary. Hey, we're taking part two
(00:22):
of what I started yesterday in ourprevious episode, and that is I got
a list here in springtime of afew things that you really should know about
your house that you probably don't know. Some of them are construction oriented,
some of them are legal Schmiegel stuffwhen it goes to working with the contractors,
(00:45):
others purely design oriented things. Itis a POPERI just a random assembly
of important things for you to know. I try and put lists together at
least once a year, and todayis the day. Hey. Part of
that list was yesterday, not ahuge part of it, though, because
I got to tell you I endedup taking some fantastic calls yesterday and I
(01:07):
could not pull myself away. Weagain will be taking calls today as we
do. Let me give you thenumber right now, because the phone lines
are open, the number to reachme about anything that you want to talk
about regarding your home, construction,design, diy stuff, landscape, springtime,
(01:27):
yard stuff, interior decor anything regardingyour home. Give me a call.
We'll put our heads together, we'llfigure it out. The number to
reach me eight three three two askDean. It's just that easy. Eight
three three to ask Dean A threethree the numeral two ask Dean. Phone
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lines are open right now, andnow's a great time to give us a
call. You'll talk to a producer, Richie, and he'll tell you everything
you need to know. Pop youinto the queue. You can listen to
the sho show while you wait,and we'll be going to the phones as
always, you know, in justa little bit. All right, the
team is here. We'll do ourcalls, we'll do our show. If
(02:10):
we do it all right, we'regonna bring some light into your morning,
make you feel glad that you werehere as well. Brandon Bowles on the
board, Good morning, Brandon,Good morning being. How are you doing
today? Let's see I did nottell brand Brandon's gonna be with us now
for a while doing our board onSunday mornings, which is great to have
(02:30):
you, Bud. Just know I'malways reaching out to you. In the
morning, so have the mic nearby. That's the way it works. Everybody
gets to say hello, how's itgoing going all right? All right?
Sounds good? Producer Richie not nearMike as always, just avoiding them at
all costs. But he is busyright now on the phones. I can
(02:53):
see it happening, and I cansee the phone board lighting up. Now
is your chance give him a call? He's ready for you. Three three
two, ask Dean Ashley Johnson atthe news desk. Good morning, Ashley,
Good morning. How you doing,Bud? I'm good. How about
yourself? We're good. Actually I'vebeen up like way too long today already,
(03:14):
but all right, I should sayfor a Sunday morning, I got
up way earlier than than I neededto. But it was a good thing.
I'm fully awake, ready to roll. It is a beautiful spring day
out there. And uh, andI'm hoping you're not going to bring us
too much death and devastation in thenews today. You know. I try
not to, you know, butyou know that's happening. I have to
(03:36):
report it. You gotta do it, you gotta do it. Well,
it's glad to have you a board, baby. Thanks all right, sitting
across the table from me. Thereshe is, does what are you doing
to your mic? You just literallyhit it. You just popped that.
All right, Okay, my betterhalf, my design partner, my best
buddy in all the world, Tinais here. Welcome home. How you
(04:00):
doing it? I'm good? Yeah? What you look like? You are
sitting on some info. I'm readingthis really good book and I had to
put it down because the show isstarting. You literally came into a studio
with it playing on your phone.I'm like, you know, you can't
have that playing. We're gonna beable to hear that book. It's a
(04:20):
good book. What book is it? Just let everyone know. It's called
Night Road by Kristin Hannah. Okay, and she wrote a book that I
just read called The Women. Ohso good, so so good, And
so now I'm reading this other bookand it's really good as well. All
right, what's this one about?The Women? By the way, are
about the about amazing what do youcall it? Historical fiction, but really
(04:45):
accurate historical fiction about the role ofwomen, specifically nurses in Vietnam, which
is just amazing, amazing book.So what's this one about? Summarize?
Don't give it away, Give itaway. You know. It starts out
seeming like a cute, little teenagelove story, but it's actually just building
to something dramatic that happens and howeveryone has to cope with that, all
(05:12):
right, not unlike our lives together? Ah, all right, sounds good.
All right, let's get to it, shall we. Excuse me.
I'm just going to dive right in, because, like I said yesterday,
I ended up taking I think Itook one call for three segments yesterday.
I've never done that before, butit was so relevant and the information was
(05:36):
so pertinent to everybody. Sometimes youjust sense that and you know, like,
no, we got to ride thisout because these are like it was
drainage questions, really important stuff.Anyway, we talked about some legal stuff.
Where am I at in the list? Okay, how about this one.
I'll just upset everybody right off thebat. All right, great idea?
(05:56):
Yeah? Yeah. So you know, if you are a fan of
the show, you know or youthink you know, that Dean hates recessed
can lighting. I don't. Ido not, all right, But I
am a designer who happens to knowfor a fact this is not my opinion
it is a fact the recess canlighting gets used too much and in all
(06:20):
the wrong places. Okay, Sohere's just one simple thing. If you
happen to be getting ready you're doinga remodel, or maybe you're planning on
putting some lighting in a room,or maybe you're redoing the kitchen right now,
here is something that you probably don'tknow and you need to know.
(06:41):
Laying out recessed lighting in a neatgrid on your ceiling really really doesn't matter
at all at all. Okay,I know, I know some of you
think, well, wait, shouldn'tyou look up? And you're electrician certainly
is pushing this all right, Andthis is why I'm letting you know this.
(07:03):
Gun you look up, and wouldn'tit be right to just have those
canlights like nicely balanced? Like okay, I have my kitchen is kind of
just this lovely rectangle, and soshouldn't the lights just follow like three on
this side and three on that side, perfectly balanced in a lovely rectangle grid
on the ceiling. Hey, youknow what if it just so happens that
(07:26):
that's the way they fall, fine, I'm not complaining about it. But
what I'm telling you is that's notthe priority. Ever. The last time,
the first and last time anybody isgoing to care about whether your recess
canlights in your ceiling are laid outin a perfect grid. Is the day
that you say to your electrician,lay those out in a perfect grid.
(07:48):
That's it. No one else caresever again, ever again. Okay,
we got to break ourselves of thismyth. Recess can lighting in there layout
on the ceiling is an important thingin terms of visuals. A recess can
light its whole purpose is to bethe kind of light fixture that doesn't draw
(08:11):
attention to itself. It just doesits job and otherwise it goes away.
It's the light that's important, notthe fixture. That's why it's sunk in
into the ceiling. Okay, Sothe lighting in your kitchen, let's say,
since I was talking about kitchen,the lighting in your kitchen, the
way those lights light the kitchen,that's what's important. Where the light falls.
(08:33):
I don't care if it makes agrid or a perfect little pattern or
a lovely line or anything like that. What I care about is how the
light hits what it's supposed to belighting. So there's your first tip of
the day. That recess lighting ina neat grid really doesn't matter. Now
(08:54):
are there exceptions to this? Okay, so you're running some recess can lights
down the middle of the hallway,Listen, if you're trying to hit them
in the middle of the hallway,get them in the middle, all right,
so it doesn't make you feel weirdgoing down. Otherwise you can push
some to the left and some tothe right. I don't care. The
point of the matter is what's importantis the light, not the can or
(09:16):
the hole in the ceiling. Trustme on this, Please, trust me
on this. I know of whatI speak. All right, I got
more pearls for you. You hangtight. We will get back to this
list. You're listening to Home withDean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six
forty. I am here to helpyou take your home to the next level.
(09:37):
It just doesn't matter. The principlesof good construction, good home stewardship,
good design, they're all the same. They just need to be applied
according to where you are. Andtoday what we're doing is we're doing part
two of a two part series thisweekend, as we so often do.
Today we're talking about a a listof things that are important things you might
(10:05):
not know about your house, aboutyour project, about the process of doing
your project, their design things,their construction things, all sorts of stuff,
pearls of wisdom. You can justcall it that if you want.
UH and UH I want to moveforward. Also coming up in just a
bit, we're going to be goingto the phones. As we do.
Let me give you that number onceagain. We have room on the callboard
(10:28):
for you. UH. Producer Richie'sstanding by, he's ready, he's bored
and ready. We got some callsup, but you know we could use
some more. So why don't yougo ahead and get that question put out
there and you and I will figureit out together. Eight three three two
ask Dean A three three the numeralto ask dean A three three to ask
(10:50):
Dean, you see, just toask Dan. All right, that's coming
up in just a bit. Whereare we at? Where you know?
I'm just gonna stick with electricity rightnow because I've got a little clump of
electrical items. Here's something that youmay or may not know, but you
probably don't. You can now havea three way switch anywhere in your house
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going anywhere three way, four way, five way, doesn't matter, without
rewiring your house, without doing anything. In fact, if you're handy enough,
without an electrician involved at all.Because we live in the twenty first
century and the company Loutron. Lutronhas a series of switches or a system
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of switches that are called Cassetta,the Cassetta system c A s TT.
I think it's two t's a CassetteCassetta, the Cassetta system by Loutron.
It is not something you have tosearch far and wide. You can find
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it in the electrical aisle at yourlocal big box store. It's sitting there
at There are Cassetta components, componentscomponents at home depot and other places,
your ace hardware, your local hardwarestores. You can find them. And
the cool thing about it is isthat it's a blue tooth. Yeah,
that's actually putting it, that's reducingit. It's a proprietary radio frequency system.
(12:26):
It works brilliantly, okay. Andwhat it does it works off of
a single master switch and then slaveswitches that communicate with that master switch.
So here's how it works. Let'ssay you've got your one switch for the
light that controls I don't know,whatever, the chandelier in the dining room,
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and you want that to be ableto control it from both doorways into
the dining room. Okay, butyou weren't wired that way. And wiring
hardwiring a three way switch. That'sa whole thing. I mean, it's
a whole thing. So what youdo is you would remove that single pole
switch. That's what we call aswitch that just is on and off and
just controls one element by itself,single pole. You would remove that switch
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with the screwdriver of course, turnoff your breaker and all of that kind
of stuff, and you would replaceit with the master Cassetta switch. Okay,
that master switch now works the sameway. It's gonna do the same
thing. Okay. It also hasa dimmer function, which if yours isn't
dimmed right now, that's a coolthing too. But the master switch not
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only does it control it's saying,but for as many other of these little
slave switches, they respond to ona radio frequency to the master switch.
You can then place these other slaveswitches anywhere else you want in the room.
Literally, you could have one asa remote control independently that you can
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hold in your hand and set ona coffee table or set anywhere. Okay,
But that little remote actually is aboutdecorus switch size, and it pops
into a tiny little frame. Youdon't need to put a box in the
wall because there's no wiring behind it. Yes, it runs off of a
battery, but that battery lasts solong you're not gonna worry about that.
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You really aren't. It's going tolast a long, long, long,
long time because it's doing very verylittle work. But essentially what happens is
since the slave switch also communicates withthe master switch, and the master switch
controls the light, then even whenyou hit the on and off on the
slave switch, it sends the messageto the master and the master still does
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the work. So you understand whatI'm saying. Three way, four way,
five way, however many ways youwant. We have set up entire
homes on the Cassetta system at timesand they work beautifully. Now, if
you do a whole home and youwant real complex switching, you can control
some lights from the other room.In order to do that, there's also
(14:58):
a hub that ties into the interwebsystem of your house, because you need
that hub as a repeater for thesignal. But the point is we're in
the twenty first century, and thesethings can be done. Let's say you've
got a weird thing in a bathroomwhere you've got a pocket door, and
you know, because a pocket door, notoriously, we can't put a light
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switch in the pocket because it wouldblock the door closing or opening. Here
we go, Cassett a slave switchright there, mounted on the surface of
the drywall. And no, itdoesn't look like anything other than a normal
switch. It's that thin. Whenit mounts, it just looks like a
regular switch mounted on the wall.You could put it anywhere. You could
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literally put a foam sticky tape onthe back and mount a switch right on
your bathroom mirror if you wanted to. That's how amazing these things are.
So not a sponsor of the showwould be great if they were Loutron Cassetta
Systems. Look them up if youare thinking about that kind of situation.
It is worth a peak. Notthe cheapest switches in the world, but
(16:03):
compared to rewiring your house, nocomparison. All right, so much more
to come. We've got more foryou. You're listening to Home with Dean
Sharp on demand from KFI AM sixforty. Hey, You're home with Dean
Sharp the house whisper. Thanks forjoining us on the program this morning.
It is here in southern California,turning out to be a beautiful spring day.
(16:30):
Little rain last night, and nowthe clouds have parted, sun is
breaking through, perfect sunlight. Ohmy gosh, it's just gorgeous. I
hope you have plans to get outin it today, and we certainly do
and we're gonna do it. Youcan come with us if you want.
You want to come with us.I'm not telling you where we're going,
but you could come with us anyway. Just think about it, just think,
(16:51):
consider it. All right, weare doing a Oh by the way,
coming up after the next news break, we're going to be going to
the phone, So just letting youknow. The phone lines are open.
Eight three three two. Ask Deaneight three three two. Ask Dean eight
three to three the numeral two,ask Dean. That's what you do.
(17:12):
Just spell it right out on yourphone. Anything you want to talk about
regarding your home construction, DIY design, Yes, please, any and all
of the above, whatever's going onwith your home, give me a call.
We'll put our heads together, we'llfigure it out. And there are
no stupid questions, only stupid hosts. That's how it works. All right,
(17:36):
back to our list. I'm justhanding out pearls of wisdom this morning
about your home. The title ofthe show is important Things you might not
know about your home, but youshould. And so let's get back to
it, all right. I gotone more electrical thing for you. We
were doing two or three electrical things. This is just a little forecast.
(17:59):
Okay, if you'd like to seethe future, right, I'm going to
give you your chance to see thefuture. The next big thing in recessed
lighting is trimless can lights. Trimlesscan lights. Now, this takes a
(18:25):
little bit more planning, a littlebit more forethought. They are not the
cheapest things out on the market rightnow, but they're out there. They're
out there. Now. Here's theproblem. You're not going to find them
at the moment at the big boxstore, right you need to. You
can find them online. You canorder them from a number of different sources
online. You can also find themat your local electrical and lighting supply house.
(18:51):
But you won't find them at thebig boxes yet. Why because the
demand, the public demand is notthere yet, but it will. What
is a trimless recessed can light.It is the ultimate expression, the ultimate
evolution of what a recessed can lightshould be, and that is simply a
hole in the ceiling. Right now, you've got a can light. There
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are two components to a can light. One is the housing. That's what
goes up into the ceiling. That'swhat is behind the dry wall up there
built in. There are remodel versionsof that that you can slide in after
the fact, and then there arethe new construction versions which need to be
mounted and braced off before you drywallin the first place. Either way,
(19:37):
there is a housing up there.That's what gets wired into the wiring and
so on. And when it's justthe housing sitting there without anything else on
it, you look up and yousee the edge of this thin little metal
edge, and then you can seewhere the light snaps in and connects the
socket and all of that kind ofstuff. That is the housing. In
(20:00):
addition to that, the part thateverybody looks at, the part that contains
the light itself, is what wecall the trim. The trim mounts onto
the housing. It covers the areawhere the dry wall ends and the housing
begins. Because that's a rough unfinishededge, so it covers over that.
It's a trim, little trim.Some of them in the old days were
(20:22):
big and wide, like you couldsee them from halfway across the room.
Smaller, less obtrusive trims are mypreference, as small as possible. And
then the trim usually has a bafflemounted to it that kind of controls glare.
It's a black baffle, it's awhite baffle, it's a hazy kind
of chrome brushed chrome baffle. Orit's a directional trim. You hear me
(20:45):
talk about that all the time,with a gimbal so that the light can
actually be directed in a specific direction. That's the trim. Okay, the
housing. Every major brand of recessCan lights comes with a house and then
has a trim. The trims canbe interchanged, right, But here's the
thing. If you know how touse a recess can light, if you
(21:07):
know what you're going to use itfor, you don't need to interchange the
trim. You just know it's goingto be this kind of a trim,
and knowing that it allows you topurchase a trimless can, which means that
the trim is integrated into the housing, and it is the kind of trim
that hides behind the drywall. Sowhat happens is your drywall ceiling or your
(21:32):
plaster ceiling comes across, it actuallyhits the trim as if it was a
piece of drywall tape, and allyou end up with is a clean,
finished, beautiful hole in the drywallwith the light up above. It's what
everybody dreamed about when the idea ofa recess can light was first developed.
(21:57):
Was just a hole in the ceiling, Okay, nothing more, nothing sitting
on the surface of the dry wall, nothing unnecessarily drawing attention to imagine,
just the painted ceiling hitting that holeand then heading up towards the light inside.
Right. And there are various trimsand all sorts of flexibility with it.
(22:18):
But I'm just saying this, myfriends, this is the future,
the next big thing in recess lighting. Why because the message that I have
preached to you from day one here, that I was already talking to you
about earlier in the show, thatmessage is beginning to take hold, and
that is there are two kinds oflights in the world for your house.
(22:40):
Only two. Okay, listen tome. There's only two kinds of lights.
There are lights that draw that lighta room and draw attention to themselves,
like lamps and chandeliers. They're partof your decor, okay. And
then there are other lights whose wholejob it is to light up a thing
and not draw attention to themselves.And that's what a recess can light is
(23:02):
supposed to be. It is supposedto be something a source of light that
you don't actually look up and focuson. That's why putting them in a
grid on your ceiling isn't really important. Nobody's looking up there anyway, Okay,
nobody needs to be looking up there. And these are the most beautiful
expression of that. So if you'restill not kind of grasping in your head
what I'm trying to paint the pictureof, just go on the interweb and
(23:26):
look it up trimless recessed can light. You'll see, You'll see the images
will just pop right before you andyou'll say, oh, oh yeah,
oh yeah. I can see whyDean would say that this is like the
most beautiful expression of a recess light. I recommend them to all of our
clients now as the standard can light, and we only default to the old
(23:51):
guys. If there is some specificreason too. Otherwise, this is what
we do for our clients. It'snot what every con tractor, builder or
designer or architect does for their client. But I'm just saying this. This
is beautiful. So there you go. Now you have seen the future,
(24:11):
all right. The other part aboutthe future is we're going to the phones.
The number to reach me eight threethree to ask me. You're listening
to Home with Dean Sharp on demandfrom KFI AM six forty here in southern
California. I hope wherever you are, spring is showing up as much as
it is for us right here rightnow, because it is gorgeous out there.
(24:36):
We are just spending the morning talkingabout you know, a list that
I put together of things that youmight and probably don't know about your home
that you should. Some are construction, some are designed, some are technical
legal things. It's a mishmash ofall sorts of things. A pope WHOI
of pearls of wisdom for you.We did some yesterday as well in the
(24:59):
previous episod. If you're a podcastlistener, and so our previous episode and
this one together along with calls andguess what it's time to go back to
the phones and take calls this morning, so let's do it. I want
to talk to Robert. Hey,Robert, welcome home. Eating had a
(25:22):
question. We've been in our housesince ninety seven, so quite a while.
And when we first moved in,we had this fireplace we live in,
like a track home in southern California, so it was kind of dilapidated
and didn't work very well. Soat the time, not knowing, you
know, being first time homeowners,we kind of just drywalled over it and
(25:47):
trend it out real nice and kindof forgot about it. We're going to
be selling our house in the nextprobably five to seven years, so we
want to try to get that backoperational before we sell the home, because
I would imagine that would be,you know, something that you would need
to do. So just need alittle bit of direction on what we should
(26:08):
do should I mean, the insertthat was in it was kind of falling
apart, So do we put asealed unit in it? Or what are
our options? Okay? All right? Uh, all right. So when
you say the insert that was init was kind of falling apart, what
does that? Uh? What doesthat mean? Well, it had some
like ceramic plates like on the sidesand on the back m hm. And
(26:32):
they were kind of falling, theywere kind of falling over. So one
of the reasons we didn't use itis because, you know, we were
afraid that the fire was you know, going to get past those and we
just didn't have the money at thetime to uh to replace everything, right
right, Okay, I got you. And when you say it wasn't working,
well, that was your concern.It wasn't that it wasn't drawing nicely
(26:52):
or anything like that. It's justlike, oh, that's the you know,
we were afraid to use it becauseof that situation. Yeah. And
and and when we grew you know, we had a traditional fireplace and it
put out a lot of heat.This thing just I don't think it was
designed to put out heat. Ithink it was more designed just to look
nice. Okay, all right,Okay, Well here's the thing. It
(27:14):
sounds to me like you've got what'sclassically in southern California, especially homes built
you know in that era, aprefabricated fireplace. Now, what does that
mean? A prefab fireplace is thinkof it as an appliance more than a
traditional fireplace, not in the sensethat it doesn't put out heat or that
(27:37):
you can't have a nice, bigfire in it, but in the sense
that instead of a gigantic masonry boxlike you were talking about, you grew
up with a traditional masonry fireplace builtout of bricks, not portable, they
can't be moved, you know,that kind of thing with a big old
brick chimney going up the side ofthe house. This instead is a sheet
(28:00):
metal box. It's a sheet metalbox where the if you were to strip
all the wall away and actually removethis box from the wall unit it is
it's probably it weighs less than agas dryer. Okay, it is not
a heavy thing. But that sheetmetal box has a firebox in it the
(28:22):
firebox area, and instead of abrick which making up the firebox, it
has those panels. Those panels arewhat we call refractory panels. Okay,
the refractory panels. Sometimes they're well, they're often stamped to look like brick,
where they've got some kind of brickpattern on them, but they are
(28:42):
essentially kind of a you know,a concretious ceramic kind of panel, and
often they in a neglected fireplace theyclip into place on the backside of the
three walls of the back and theside walls of a firebox. And often
(29:02):
in a neglected fireplace, those panels, the clips have been ignored, they've
fallen forward, they're loose, ormore often than not, they're cracked.
Okay, And if they are crackedand falling off the face or the side
of the fireplace, you were rightnot to put a fire in there to
use them, because those refractory panelsare the heat absorption panels that are keeping
(29:26):
the fire under control and keeping thatfireplace safe. The good news is this,
the internet is full of companies thatwill make replacement panels. Now.
Back in the day, if youknew the brand of this fireplace, if
it was a Majestic or this orthat Napoleon, I mean, if we
(29:48):
knew who made the fireplace, thenyou could call the manufacturer and say,
hey, I've got this model offireplace and the refractory panels are shot.
I need new ones. And theywould Still most manufacturers still make panels to
service even their twenty thirty year oldfireplaces at this point, but these days
(30:08):
not always easy to find the manufacturers. Sometimes the manufacturer's tag or model number
is not obvious anywhere, which isa good thing because I like a prefab
fireplace to end up looking like afully real one like the one in my
own home, so which is botha wood burning and a gas and some
prefab fireplaces are only gas, someare both, okay, just so you
(30:30):
know. So the point is this, you can go online and find replacement
refractory panels companies that do just that, and all they're going to do is
ask you to measure the panels thatyou've got and they will send out new
replacements. And then as far asthe clips, the clips are super easy
whether or they're usually just little sheetmetal clips with a metal screw holding them
(30:53):
in place. So you can evencome up with that kind of stuff at
the hardware store in order to holdthem in place. But the clips are
probably there. They just need tobe realigned and fixed and all that kind
of stuff. So the good newsis, Robert, that you can rehab
that unit, get it cleared out, get it opened up again, trim
(31:17):
it out nicely with a hearth,and you know, whatever kind of venar
you want on the side. Youcan bring it back to its glory and
make it fully functional. Again,have gas running into it with a nice
gas log set. It will.It will throw heat into the room,
Okay, it will. It maynot be great heat, but it will
mine massively, heats our entire family. And it all depends on the manufacturer
(31:41):
and the style and the size andthat whole thing. But they can be
done. And tell you what,hang tight. After the break, I
will for those who haven't heard,I'll give you the one secret about making
every fireplace, any fireplace, gorgeousso it never looks dirty again. We'll
talk about that right after the break. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the
(32:04):
House Whisper on KFI. This hasbeen Home with Dean Sharp, the House
Whisper. Tune into the live broadcaston KFI Am six forty every Saturday morning
from six to eight Pacific time andevery Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific
time, or anytime on demand onthe iHeartRadio app