April 20, 2025 • 33 mins
Dean Sharp continues the makeover magic by taking listener calls on everything from staining outdoor surfaces and cleaning dishwasher lines to choosing the right tree for backyard firepit shade. He shares practical advice on long-lasting finishes, explains how an air gap works, and discusses safe digging practices with a reminder to call 811 before any outdoor project. Plus, Dean makes a case for the humble—but stylish—shower curtain as part of your bathroom refresh.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
house Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey
follow us on social media. We are on all the
usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x. Home with Dean is
the handle for them all. Home with Dean And if
(00:22):
your home is in need of some personal house Whisperer attention,
you can always book an in home design consult with
me and the tea. Just go to house Whisperer dot Design,
house Whisper dot design for more information or to fill
out a request for such a thing. We do it,
we do, we love it, happy to help as always,
(00:43):
which is why I am here with you live every
Saturday and Sunday morning. And here we are in the
twentieth of April, Easter Sunday morning, and we're talking about makeovers.
We're going to return to that conversation very shortly, but
it's top of the hour, which means it's time to
let you set the agenda for the show. I'm going
to go to the phones, and I want to talk
(01:04):
to John. Hey, John, welcome home.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hello Dean.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
How are you today? I am well, how are you sir?
How can I.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Help doing good. I have some dad looking cement, my patio,
my sidewalks, down on the side of my house, even
the front porch. I don't like the look of the cement,
and I was thinking about staining it. I got a
quote for staining everything, including some papers in the back,
(01:35):
some pebble in the back well, one about three quarter
inch rock around the pavers. And I like the wet look.
But then the guy said, you know, I asked him
how long it would last and the river. I'm out
in Riverside, so you know, it gets hot and a
sunbeats down in the backyard mainly, and he said about
(01:57):
two years. And it's an investment. You know, it's three
thousand to do everything. So I wanted to hear your
opinion on the wet look versus a colored stain versus
not doing it at all.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, gotcha? So all right, let me I'm gonna draw
some lines to to just to make sure you've been
informed fully and everybody else listening can kind of understand
the process if when it comes to rehabbing an old cement.
I'm a big fan of stain because it's it's something
(02:34):
that can be done if you can embrace the vibe
of the look that you're going to get from it.
A good stain job, it's going to darken the concrete.
It's going to model the concrete model m O T
L ED is that right, modeled country? Okay. In other words,
(02:55):
it's going to be an uneven color. It's going to
be uneven if but unevenness can be worked into the vibe. Okay.
If you had a situation where the concrete was going
to just beautifully stain all one color, then you probably
don't have unattractive concrete to begin with. So the whole
idea is that getting a kind of a naturalistic, relaxed,
(03:18):
modeled look, and a good staining company knows exactly how
to do that and make it look fantastic. And the
reason I'm in favor of stain stain versus what stain
versus all the cost of tearing it all out, or
stain versus the cost of a coating on the surface
that never works out. So people are like, well, what
(03:39):
kind of paint should I put on my concrete? And
my answer is always, if you can avoid it, no
paint on your concrete at all. And that's because concrete
is a synthetic stone. It's porous, it's soaking up moisture
from underneath. Moisture in the concrete is going to eventually
push off from underneath, push off whatever sealed surface you
(04:01):
set up on top of that cement. It's gonna push
it off eventually. It's going to fail eventually, I guaran
darantee it. So here's the thing. Stain is a is
something that soaks into the concrete and doesn't sit on
the surface, and so the effective stain is it's never
(04:22):
gonna flake, It's never gonna get pushed off. It's going
to last. I'm talking about the color. Now, will it
eventually depending on the quality of the stain and how
UV resistant the stain is, will it eventually kind of
bleach out and fade and light, Yes, it will. Will
it do it uniformly? Yeah, it pretty much will. And
(04:43):
so eventually stained concrete most people get around to restaining
it again. But we're not talking about a couple of
years from now. We might talk about a decade or
a two from now, depending So but here's where I'm
gonna split the hair, because this is what I think
I heard when you said you like the wet look Okay,
(05:05):
let me be really clear. I got to get real
technical here. Okay. There are stone enhancing treatments that are
that say that they are wet look okay, and there
are stone enhancing treatments that are color enhancing. Okay. Now
(05:26):
what is the difference. Let's just take a look at
two things happen. When you take a hose and you
spray a rock right with a hose, two things happen. One,
the rock is enhanced. The color in the rock is
enhanced by that water. It darkens and it riches, It enriches,
(05:47):
and like all the all the character of that stone
suddenly pops forward. Right. That's the first thing that happens.
The second thing that happens is the surface of the
rock is gliss because of the water that's sitting on
the surface. There's a shiny glisten. I mean like what, Yeah,
you look at and you're like wet. That is the
(06:08):
difference between a product that says color enhancing and wet look.
I for the same reason that I just explained to you,
I stay away from, and I urge people to stay
away from in extreme heat and sunny environments, the wet
(06:30):
look product because the wet look. Product not only darkens
and enriches your concrete or stone, but it leaves a
surface glaze. Ah surface glaze, and guess what that falls
right back into the category of something that water underneath
or in the stone will eventually push off. And that
(06:51):
is what I suspect the guy you were talking to
is saying, Hey, it's only going to last a couple
of years. The wet look with the shiny surface is
only going to last a couple of years before it
starts to peel from the back. But a stone enhancing
a color enhancing, all that does is it digs into
(07:12):
the stone. It doesn't leave a shiny, wet look on
the top, but it does accomplish the first part of
what water does, which is deepen and enriched the color
of the stone, and that will not get pushed off
by water inside the rock. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yes, it does. That's great. Do you have a brand
name that you prefer over one or the other or
just let a guy that doesn't pick whether he likes
to use.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Well, I like to. I like to let experts pick
what they like to use. But I also want to
see him. In other words, I want to I don't
want to just say to the staining guy, yeah, just
go for it, man, No, tell me what the product
are you using. And then I do a little research
on it on the side and I find out, oh,
this guy's using literally the cheapest stuff out there, or
(07:59):
he he's using the best of the best. So you know,
I always check up on contractors to make sure what
they're doing and what they're using. But you know, let
him make his recommendations because there's probably a reason he's
using it that way. Okay, that's great, all right, buddy
gool much. You are very very welcome, my friend, and
(08:21):
good luck with getting that concrete looking great again, bringing
it back to life. Yeah, guys, don't put shiny surface
ceiling stuff on exterior stone and concrete unless your plan
is a year or two from now doing it all
over again. Surface ceiling products on porous materials that sit
outside are going to flake and crack and peel. They
(08:45):
just are the end. Okay, more of your calls when
we return.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Good Easter Sunday morning to you. Thanks for joining us
on the program. I appreciate you and I am honored
to be talking to you about your home this morning,
like we do every Sunday morning. Right now, we are
taking calls and then we're going to continue our conversation
about a few bits of makeover magic for your home.
(09:20):
If you're holding back on your budget but you still
want to make some big changes, hang with us. I'm
going to be cruising through some items and some ideas
of how you can make some relatively big changes in
your home for relatively small cost outlay, which a lot
of us are thinking about doing right now. But right
now we are going to the phones, as is our custom,
(09:41):
and I want to talk to Susie. Hey, Susie, welcome.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Home, Good morning, Dean. I have a very simple and
boring question, but oh no, I'm never boring. This is
a boring question. So we have a dishwasher. He's connected
to the garbage disposal'll all be, and I'm always smelling
this rotten smell from the garbage disposal, even though I,
(10:04):
you know, run the garbage disposal, and so I'm totally blind.
I've called you before. I stuck my finger down there
and I see where the water's coming in from the dishwasher,
and it's full of gunk. So I pulled some of
it out, but obviously I can't really get on there
to pull it all out. So the dishwasher is about
ten years old, but my husband's lips here twenty and
(10:28):
that's never been cleaned out.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Okay, so what do I do?
Speaker 4 (10:33):
I thought of vinegar, but I thought i'd better call
you first.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Okay, Well, you can always try vinegar, because vinegar is
a mild ascetic acid, and vinegar is one of those
things that you know, if it sits in a line
long enough up against a clog, it can eat its
way through and kind of loosen stuff up. Okay, but
you know you're not going to be able to clean
it out from inside the garbage disposal. However, that dishwasher
(11:00):
line is connected to the side of the garbage disposal
with one of two things. Either a pressure clamp what
we call a spring clamp, which is just a pressurized
spring that has a couple of tabs sticking out from it.
That's designed that if you grab that with a like
a large pair of pliers, and you grab each tab
(11:21):
on each side of the pliers and squeeze it, you'll
open up that spring clamp. You'll be able to pull
the hose off from the side of the garbage disposal
and have full access to the little the little port
going into the garbage disposal and full access to clean
out the hose as well. It's either that or it's
attached to the garbage disposal with a hose clamp, which
(11:43):
is even easier, which is one of these bands that
has a screwdriver or a hex nut fitting at the top,
and you simply unloosen that. It'll come unlose and you
can pull the hose off and as a result, you
can get to whatever is unked up down at the
garbage disposal line. So that is super easy. You should
(12:06):
probably have like a you know, clear out the bottom
of the cabinet and have like a bucket or a
pan down there, because you know, if you clear out
that there may be some standing water that wants to
drip out. You don't want to mess up the inside
of your cabinet. But I will also tell you this
that is there any problem with the dishwasher draining. I'll
ask you that question. Okay, so the dishwasher is draining
(12:29):
just fine? Yes, okay, so stuff is getting through. It
just sounds like you've got some gucks. So the other
thing is up on top of your sink, next to
your faucet. There's a there's you know, normally what looks
like a little stainless steel cylinder sitting up there. That
is called the air gap. Okay, the air gap can
(12:50):
also be cleaned by you. You can grab that stainless
steel cover, it's just a cover, it's just slid on,
and pull it off. You might have to spin it
a little little bit to loosen it up, especially if
it hasn't been touched in twenty years, but you can,
with your hand and just a little bit of effort,
slide that thing back and spin it back and forth
until it loosens up. You can pull that off, and
(13:11):
what you're gonna find underneath is a weird plastic assembly.
And right at the top of that weird plastic assembly
is a little top piece that is connected with a
couple of tabs you can pull. You squeeze those tabs
and pull it out and it will expose the tops
of the two lines. One is the drain line coming
from the dishwasher, and the other is the drain line
(13:34):
heading down towards the garbage disposal That gives you access
to both ends of that garbage disposal hose so that
you can get that thing cleared out completely. There's a
chance there's a really good chance there might be guck
up at the top of that partially blocking that line
as well. It's just a good idea to occasionally do
this every few years. It doesn't have to be like
(13:57):
a six month thing. Just every few years, or when
you see something starting to act up and you're starting
to get the weird smell, go ahead and clean it out.
But it really is accessible and uh and pretty easy
to do.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Well, thank you. I know that my dishwasher is draining,
but it probably is not draining as fast as it
should be. But I just not how many and I
don't put I'm not one of those that puts my
my dishes in the dishwasher full of gunk. I rinse
them off, so I've been very careful about that. I've
looked in the trap and it's clean, it's not doesn't
have any garbage in it, but that I've sure pulled
out a lot of gunk with my fingers. I thought, oh,
(14:32):
there's work on comes from there. I better call Dean.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, call Dean for the gunk and the boring question.
Actually it's a really good question. And and Susie, I
gotta tell you there's a there are one thousands, five
thousand people right now who are like you. See, I
told you we should do that. So thank you very
much for your question. And uh, and just know, just
peace of mind. If you understand those two components, you
(14:58):
can get it all cleaned out. Everything's going to be
working spick and span for you. Just find and by
the way, once you get it all done, stuff, maybe
have sitting down in the garbage disposal too long. Run
to the hardware store and get a couple of garbage
disposal deodorizer pellets that you can run some water and
grind up in there and it'll clear out any residual odor.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I've been pouring a little bit of Life Style concentrate
in there because everyone so it's like, whoa, yeah, I
can't take it. And it's all it's not all the time.
It's just everyone's like it's the garbage disposal.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
All right.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
You are so welcome. Happy Easter, and uh, and good
luck on your dishwasher project. She's so nice. All right, y'all?
Should we do okay, I should all right, I'm gonna
We're gonna go to the phones one more time before
we get back to our conversation because we've got callers
who just need to talk and I need to talk
(15:54):
to you, so more of your calls when we return.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You're listening to Home with Dean show on demand from
KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
You are Home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper. Thanks
for joining us on the program today. It's a beautiful
spring day, beautiful easter Sunday morning here in southern California,
and we are talking about your home. Going to get
back to our topic on makeovers and the creative ideas
of how to make big changes in the house on
(16:26):
small budgets. But right now still taking calls. I want
to go back to the phones. I want to talk
to Arnold. Hey, Arnold, welcome home.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Thank you very much for taking my call. I love
listening to your show, and you've inspired me to do
something in my backyard.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Oh what's that?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
To make a fire pit and a huge tree in
the summertime to shade it good?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Oh, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
Yes, So basically I'm wondering I live in alpine and
it gets down to thirty degrees in the winter. And
I know you have a gorgeous ash tree in your backyard.
Would that work in alpine?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Oh? Okay, now you're calling on my instant botanist inside,
and you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm
not I don't want to. I don't have time to
look it up right now, but I do. I do
know this, my friend. I know that there are absolutely big,
beautiful trees that will in fact work for you. Okay,
(17:35):
I don't think that. I don't think. I think the
ash will probably do just fine. You know, it's you
don't expect it to thrive in thirty degree weather. No
tree thrives in thirty degree weather. They all kind of
go into their torpor, They go into their slow growth mode. That,
by the way, everybody is what tree rings are. It's
(17:56):
not bark. When you cut across the tree and you
see a dark ring and a light ring, and a
dark ring and a light ring, that's every light and
dark ring represents a year of growth because the dark
ring is slow growth, very dense, very slowly growing wood,
and then the light ring is all of that spring
and summer growth where the tree just like boom, goes out.
(18:20):
So there are lots and lots of big, beautiful feature
trees that are going to do fine surviving a thirty
degree winter or regular thirty degree temperatures and then just
burst out and thrive during the spring and summer. Just
do your research, talk to local experts on trees for
(18:41):
your area, and I'm sure arnold you're going to find it.
But yeah, you've kind of tapped beyond my instant tree
knowledge to know exactly which ones are going to be
best for you. But I would do the same thing
that I'm suggesting that you do, which is just dive in,
do the research, and find it. As far as the
fire pit goes, by the way, any questions about.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
That, Yes, the only gas line the fire pit's going
to be about sixty feet from my house. The closest
gas line is in my kitchen, which is behind my stove. No,
I'm wondering, would they have to like drill a whole
bunch of holes through all the cabinets.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
No, no, no, no, we got to come here's the
news on the gas line. We got to come right
off the meter. Oh, right off the meter for that one.
We're not going to be drawing. We're not going to
be drawn because here's the thing. Two reasons why. Number one,
we don't want to mess up the house and anything
(19:40):
going on there. And two, all of the gas lines
in the house have already branched out to their appliances
at their optimal size, and so you know, it's a
half inch gas line behind the stove. Half inch gas
line is the tiniest, little, littlest, most minute fire pit
feed And I would never recommend any buddy feed fuel
(20:01):
a fire pit with a half inch gas line. If
you've just got a portable one, you know, with the
little propane tank. That's that's basically what we're talking about there,
as far as the equivalent of a half inch gas
line a fire pit out away from your home that
you really want to be able to blaze and to
keep you warm. And okay, understand this is my theory
on fire pits. When I build a fire pit for
(20:23):
myself or any of our clients, the idea is a
fire pit. You know, maybe it's not going to keep
you warm on you know, when it's twenty degrees outside
in a blizzard, that's fine, nobody's doing that. But on
a cool night that drops into the forties. You know,
a fire should keep you warm, and to do that,
(20:44):
you're gonna need to run a minimum three quarter inch line.
Most likely, my recommendation is a one inch line out there.
And yeah, now it's not gonna it's it's not It
doesn't need to sound intimidating, it's not going to blow
out a bunch of gas, and it's not going to
be any more expensive really than just running a half
(21:06):
inch line out there. But you need to run it
from the meter. You run a nice size line out there,
because here's the thing, my friend, to have a nice
burn on a nice size fire pit. I don't know
if you've noticed this, but natural gas is it's pressurized,
but it's the minimal. It's the least pressurized substance running
(21:29):
through our homes. In other words, water is running through
your house at anywhere from sixty to eighty pounds per
square inch of pressure. That's a lot of pressure. So
if you bust a if you were to undo something
and just have an open pipe and turn on your
water supply, there's no way you're gonna be able to
put your hand or your finger over that pipe and
(21:51):
stop it. Because it's just coming out at such high pressure.
A gas line is usually running between five and maybe
a lie pounds per square inch of pressure. And I'm
not suggesting anybody do this. I'm just saying, if, if you,
because I've had to do this occasionally. We've got like
we've we detached a stove and it's sitting out in
(22:12):
the middle of the kitchen floor and somebody bumped the
gas line, and or we've taken off the valve and
somebody actually bumps the gas line to turn it back on.
I'm like, hey, turn off the gas And in the meantime,
I just put my thumb over the end of the
pipe and I block it. I stop it. It just
stops because it's very very low pressure. So what that
means is it's not high pressure coming through the gas line.
(22:36):
So if you want a nice, big, healthy flame that's
going to keep you warm on a cool night, you
need volume. When you don't have pressure, you need volume.
And so as a result, instead of a one half
inch line running out there a you know, three quarter
inch line, which is almost fifty percent more, and a
(22:58):
one inch line which is like three times more than
a half inch line. That's what you want for your
fire pit, and you will not be disappointed by that.
Believe me. You'll thank me for that advice later.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
All right, gee, thank thank you very much for all
the information.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
You're very welcome, Arnold. And by the way, before you
run that gas line out there, call uh call dig Alert.
Call eight one one, and I think that number is
con it may not be DIGG Alert in your area,
but call eight one one just to make sure that
they'll notify all of the utilities, anybody who might have
(23:35):
had something in your yard, under your property anywhere. They'll
take three days to come out. It's all free and
they'll come out and they'll mark stuff with flags, because
I don't want you to trench in a gas line
through your backyard and hitting something, you know, major, or
cutting across cables or anything else that might be buried there.
Always call them first, get everything marked before you dig.
(23:59):
Call before you did. And the number is eight one
one here in southern Califoria. I think it's the same
number across the entire state, but it may not be
dig Alert per se. Anyway, call eight one to one
and get everything marked off, all right, y'all when we return.
You see that's why we take calls. Everybody learns when
we come back, let's talk about some more makeover magic
(24:21):
for your home.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Hey, I just got a text from my buddy Andy Wells,
who has been a leader among the Dig Alert and
dig a Call before You dig community, been a director
of that program, and he just confirmed to me in
the text. He's like, Yeah, eight one one is a
universal nationwide number, just like nine to one one is.
(24:54):
Eight one one is universal nationwide, regardless of what the
local program is called in southern California and you hear
it's called dig Alert in other places it's called other things,
but nationwide. So if you are going to dig anything, uh,
you're gonna dig a trench anywhere on your property, you
call eight one one and you alert them to the
(25:16):
fact that you would like to dig a trench, uh,
and they are going to contact all of the relevant utilities.
They've got the maps and everything that anybody. Everybody, every
everybody from from from petroleum companies that have lines running
under your property, to the power company to the cable
company to telecommunication lines and everything. Everybody will all get contacted.
(25:41):
They'll all check their maps. They have to. It's their job,
it's their agreement. And uh, they will send out a
rep I believe within two or three days. And uh
and uh they'll send out a rep. And they'll just
put flags, just saying, hey, well now we're just here
in response to your you know, your dig alert, call
this fla hear how deep where the lines are so
(26:03):
that you don't have to hit them and cause major
problems when you dig your trench. It's that simple, and
it's free and you should absolutely always do it. Thanks, Andy,
appreciate it. And you know what, also, I love I
love that industry professionals listen to the show and appreciate
what we're doing here. That should give you a level
of confidence as well. We have a lot of contractors, engineers, architects,
(26:27):
industry professionals in every imaginable way who enjoy listening to
the show because they know I'm not jerking you around,
telling you the honest truth about things, and hopefully it
makes a big difference. All right, let's get back to
makeover stuff. I want to get out of the bathroom,
but before I do, I'm going to suggest two things Okay,
(26:48):
one of them going to be highly controversial. Ready are
you ready? This is this controversial? As I get you
may have an old shower door that you desperately want
to replace because you hate the way that thing looks.
It's got the big old brass or silver track running across,
and it's got the wavy glass, and it's all gunked up,
(27:09):
and it looks like it was, you know, put in
there in nineteen sixty four. I get it. And yeah, yeah,
So here's the thing you're thinking. I'd love to have
one of those new sleek shower surrounds and new glass,
but that's gonna cost me like two thousand or more
dollars to do, and you'd be probably right about that.
(27:33):
How about this? How about removing all of that garbage
that's there right now, patching up the walls, and then
putting in a curtain rod. Now, don't don't stop, don't
don't get upset with me, because I know what you're saying. Really, Dean, really,
(27:53):
that's about as low class as it gets, right, A
curtain a rod, A shower curtain. Why I want to
have some shiny vinyl shower curtain with ducks and you know,
flowers that look like they used to decorate the dating
game show in my bathroom. I want to take it
another way. That's not what I'm talking about. And if
that's what you think your only option is these days,
(28:14):
you need to get out there and take another look.
I would suggest I. By the way, I am a
lover of shower curtains, okay, and I'll tell you why.
Number One, they don't have to be classless. Okay. The
shower curtains that I love to install whenever possible are
ceiling mount tracks. Ceiling mount so now there's no rod
(28:36):
going across obscuring your view. And ceiling mount tracks with
little ball bearings and hooks in them. And then the
curtains that hang from those can just be white fabric
based curtains, fabric based, vinyl embedded, fabric based. And so
you buy two curtains, the curtains are custom they hang
(28:56):
down just the right amount. You buy two curtains, run
a curtain for a while on the hooks. If it
starts to get a little grody on you at the
bottom and you're like it's starting to show with you.
After a couple of months of hanging there, you pull
it off. Throw it into the washing machine, put the
replacement up, and then fold this one when it's done.
And you're always just rotating them on and off. It's classy,
(29:20):
it's fabric. It's just a drape hanging there in the corner.
But here is the thing that I love about shower curtains,
and I know you're not going to be able to
disagree with me on this one. The thing I love
about shower curtains is there's a lot of money spent
on the tile and or stone work or whatever is
(29:41):
going on inside that shower, a lot of it. And
then we spend all this money on that, and then
we put a glass door in front of it, and yeah,
we can see through the glass, but we don't get
the full impact of that. And if you have a
smaller bathroom, a glass door, even as full all transparent
as it may be, is still a divider. It's still
(30:03):
a surface barrier that says, hey, you're stuck in this space.
That thing is over there, and it makes a small
bathroom even smaller. Why I love a shower curtain. It
can be ugie, It can hang elegantly like a drapery
without any funky, weird patterns, or shine or sheen to it.
(30:25):
And when you pull that shower curtain back, there's nothing
in the way and you get to absorb the volume
of the shower space visually, psychologically, emotionally that belongs to
the main space of the bathroom that you're in. Shower
curtains make small bathrooms feel as large as they can
(30:48):
feel because all of that volume and the visual of
all the tile work is all there with you in
the space. Even when you're standing in front of the
vanity or sitting on the toilet doesn't matter. All of
that's available to you because you haven't walled off the bathroom.
That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. You have
to decide whether that works for you. But give it
(31:10):
some thought, because you do not have to live with
those old, grody shower doors, nor do you have to
replace them with you know, bank account breaking new glass.
Maybe the answer for you is something as simple as
a ceiling mount shower curtain track. Give it some thought,
(31:31):
Give it some thought. Used to be, back when I
started doing this to Holmes, this kind of thing actually
didn't technically exist for homeowners. You know. Tina likes to
pat me on the back. She's like, you're always doing
things like several years ahead of the trend, and so
as a result, we had to get really creative. When
I first wanted to do this in a home, I
(31:51):
had to call a hospital curtain company, because you know
hospital curtains, they're attached to the ceiling and they drape
down and fabric I had to call a hospital curtain
company to have this kind of made. But nowadays, guess what.
You go ahead, just google the ceiling mount shower curtain track.
(32:11):
You will find there are companies that now do it
just for you and just for your home, and they're
glorious and they're easy, and it could make a big difference.
All right. The last thing for the bathroom before we
get out of it and move to the rest of
the house is the paint. No bathroom these days has
to put up with super shiny, reflective paint. We want
(32:34):
Matt Finish, no sheen or low sheen paint and rich
colors in a bathroom and to make it feel as
sumptuous as any other room in the house. And thanks
to companies like Benjamin Moore, whose Aura bath and Spa
paint is both Matt Finish and completely water and steam
(32:57):
and moisture resistant. You can simply re paint your bathroom
and bring its textural quality up to you to exceed
the decorator's bar. Just use the right paint. Yeah, you
can get rid of all that shiny stuff out of
the bathroom and really make it rich and sumptuous and warm.
(33:17):
There you go, all right. When we come back, we'll
move from the bathroom to some other spaces and we
will keep revealing our makeover magic. Your Home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper on KFI. This has been Home with
Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast
on KFI Am six forty every Saturday morning from six
(33:38):
to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning from nine
to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the
iHeart Radio app
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
house Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey
follow us on social media. We are on all the
usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x. Home with Dean is
the handle for them all. Home with Dean And if
(00:22):
your home is in need of some personal house Whisperer attention,
you can always book an in home design consult with
me and the tea. Just go to house Whisperer dot Design,
house Whisper dot design for more information or to fill
out a request for such a thing. We do it,
we do, we love it, happy to help as always,
(00:43):
which is why I am here with you live every
Saturday and Sunday morning. And here we are in the
twentieth of April, Easter Sunday morning, and we're talking about makeovers.
We're going to return to that conversation very shortly, but
it's top of the hour, which means it's time to
let you set the agenda for the show. I'm going
to go to the phones, and I want to talk
(01:04):
to John. Hey, John, welcome home.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hello Dean.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
How are you today? I am well, how are you sir?
How can I.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Help doing good. I have some dad looking cement, my patio,
my sidewalks, down on the side of my house, even
the front porch. I don't like the look of the cement,
and I was thinking about staining it. I got a
quote for staining everything, including some papers in the back,
(01:35):
some pebble in the back well, one about three quarter
inch rock around the pavers. And I like the wet look.
But then the guy said, you know, I asked him
how long it would last and the river. I'm out
in Riverside, so you know, it gets hot and a
sunbeats down in the backyard mainly, and he said about
(01:57):
two years. And it's an investment. You know, it's three
thousand to do everything. So I wanted to hear your
opinion on the wet look versus a colored stain versus
not doing it at all.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, gotcha? So all right, let me I'm gonna draw
some lines to to just to make sure you've been
informed fully and everybody else listening can kind of understand
the process if when it comes to rehabbing an old cement.
I'm a big fan of stain because it's it's something
(02:34):
that can be done if you can embrace the vibe
of the look that you're going to get from it.
A good stain job, it's going to darken the concrete.
It's going to model the concrete model m O T
L ED is that right, modeled country? Okay. In other words,
(02:55):
it's going to be an uneven color. It's going to
be uneven if but unevenness can be worked into the vibe. Okay.
If you had a situation where the concrete was going
to just beautifully stain all one color, then you probably
don't have unattractive concrete to begin with. So the whole
idea is that getting a kind of a naturalistic, relaxed,
(03:18):
modeled look, and a good staining company knows exactly how
to do that and make it look fantastic. And the
reason I'm in favor of stain stain versus what stain
versus all the cost of tearing it all out, or
stain versus the cost of a coating on the surface
that never works out. So people are like, well, what
(03:39):
kind of paint should I put on my concrete? And
my answer is always, if you can avoid it, no
paint on your concrete at all. And that's because concrete
is a synthetic stone. It's porous, it's soaking up moisture
from underneath. Moisture in the concrete is going to eventually
push off from underneath, push off whatever sealed surface you
(04:01):
set up on top of that cement. It's gonna push
it off eventually. It's going to fail eventually, I guaran
darantee it. So here's the thing. Stain is a is
something that soaks into the concrete and doesn't sit on
the surface, and so the effective stain is it's never
(04:22):
gonna flake, It's never gonna get pushed off. It's going
to last. I'm talking about the color. Now, will it
eventually depending on the quality of the stain and how
UV resistant the stain is, will it eventually kind of
bleach out and fade and light, Yes, it will. Will
it do it uniformly? Yeah, it pretty much will. And
(04:43):
so eventually stained concrete most people get around to restaining
it again. But we're not talking about a couple of
years from now. We might talk about a decade or
a two from now, depending So but here's where I'm
gonna split the hair, because this is what I think
I heard when you said you like the wet look Okay,
(05:05):
let me be really clear. I got to get real
technical here. Okay. There are stone enhancing treatments that are
that say that they are wet look okay, and there
are stone enhancing treatments that are color enhancing. Okay. Now
(05:26):
what is the difference. Let's just take a look at
two things happen. When you take a hose and you
spray a rock right with a hose, two things happen. One,
the rock is enhanced. The color in the rock is
enhanced by that water. It darkens and it riches, It enriches,
(05:47):
and like all the all the character of that stone
suddenly pops forward. Right. That's the first thing that happens.
The second thing that happens is the surface of the
rock is gliss because of the water that's sitting on
the surface. There's a shiny glisten. I mean like what, Yeah,
you look at and you're like wet. That is the
(06:08):
difference between a product that says color enhancing and wet look.
I for the same reason that I just explained to you,
I stay away from, and I urge people to stay
away from in extreme heat and sunny environments, the wet
(06:30):
look product because the wet look. Product not only darkens
and enriches your concrete or stone, but it leaves a
surface glaze. Ah surface glaze, and guess what that falls
right back into the category of something that water underneath
or in the stone will eventually push off. And that
(06:51):
is what I suspect the guy you were talking to
is saying, Hey, it's only going to last a couple
of years. The wet look with the shiny surface is
only going to last a couple of years before it
starts to peel from the back. But a stone enhancing
a color enhancing, all that does is it digs into
(07:12):
the stone. It doesn't leave a shiny, wet look on
the top, but it does accomplish the first part of
what water does, which is deepen and enriched the color
of the stone, and that will not get pushed off
by water inside the rock. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yes, it does. That's great. Do you have a brand
name that you prefer over one or the other or
just let a guy that doesn't pick whether he likes
to use.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Well, I like to. I like to let experts pick
what they like to use. But I also want to
see him. In other words, I want to I don't
want to just say to the staining guy, yeah, just
go for it, man, No, tell me what the product
are you using. And then I do a little research
on it on the side and I find out, oh,
this guy's using literally the cheapest stuff out there, or
(07:59):
he he's using the best of the best. So you know,
I always check up on contractors to make sure what
they're doing and what they're using. But you know, let
him make his recommendations because there's probably a reason he's
using it that way. Okay, that's great, all right, buddy
gool much. You are very very welcome, my friend, and
(08:21):
good luck with getting that concrete looking great again, bringing
it back to life. Yeah, guys, don't put shiny surface
ceiling stuff on exterior stone and concrete unless your plan
is a year or two from now doing it all
over again. Surface ceiling products on porous materials that sit
outside are going to flake and crack and peel. They
(08:45):
just are the end. Okay, more of your calls when
we return.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Good Easter Sunday morning to you. Thanks for joining us
on the program. I appreciate you and I am honored
to be talking to you about your home this morning,
like we do every Sunday morning. Right now, we are
taking calls and then we're going to continue our conversation
about a few bits of makeover magic for your home.
(09:20):
If you're holding back on your budget but you still
want to make some big changes, hang with us. I'm
going to be cruising through some items and some ideas
of how you can make some relatively big changes in
your home for relatively small cost outlay, which a lot
of us are thinking about doing right now. But right
now we are going to the phones, as is our custom,
(09:41):
and I want to talk to Susie. Hey, Susie, welcome.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Home, Good morning, Dean. I have a very simple and
boring question, but oh no, I'm never boring. This is
a boring question. So we have a dishwasher. He's connected
to the garbage disposal'll all be, and I'm always smelling
this rotten smell from the garbage disposal, even though I,
(10:04):
you know, run the garbage disposal, and so I'm totally blind.
I've called you before. I stuck my finger down there
and I see where the water's coming in from the dishwasher,
and it's full of gunk. So I pulled some of
it out, but obviously I can't really get on there
to pull it all out. So the dishwasher is about
ten years old, but my husband's lips here twenty and
(10:28):
that's never been cleaned out.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Okay, so what do I do?
Speaker 4 (10:33):
I thought of vinegar, but I thought i'd better call
you first.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Okay, Well, you can always try vinegar, because vinegar is
a mild ascetic acid, and vinegar is one of those
things that you know, if it sits in a line
long enough up against a clog, it can eat its
way through and kind of loosen stuff up. Okay, but
you know you're not going to be able to clean
it out from inside the garbage disposal. However, that dishwasher
(11:00):
line is connected to the side of the garbage disposal
with one of two things. Either a pressure clamp what
we call a spring clamp, which is just a pressurized
spring that has a couple of tabs sticking out from it.
That's designed that if you grab that with a like
a large pair of pliers, and you grab each tab
(11:21):
on each side of the pliers and squeeze it, you'll
open up that spring clamp. You'll be able to pull
the hose off from the side of the garbage disposal
and have full access to the little the little port
going into the garbage disposal and full access to clean
out the hose as well. It's either that or it's
attached to the garbage disposal with a hose clamp, which
(11:43):
is even easier, which is one of these bands that
has a screwdriver or a hex nut fitting at the top,
and you simply unloosen that. It'll come unlose and you
can pull the hose off and as a result, you
can get to whatever is unked up down at the
garbage disposal line. So that is super easy. You should
(12:06):
probably have like a you know, clear out the bottom
of the cabinet and have like a bucket or a
pan down there, because you know, if you clear out
that there may be some standing water that wants to
drip out. You don't want to mess up the inside
of your cabinet. But I will also tell you this
that is there any problem with the dishwasher draining. I'll
ask you that question. Okay, so the dishwasher is draining
(12:29):
just fine? Yes, okay, so stuff is getting through. It
just sounds like you've got some gucks. So the other
thing is up on top of your sink, next to
your faucet. There's a there's you know, normally what looks
like a little stainless steel cylinder sitting up there. That
is called the air gap. Okay, the air gap can
(12:50):
also be cleaned by you. You can grab that stainless
steel cover, it's just a cover, it's just slid on,
and pull it off. You might have to spin it
a little little bit to loosen it up, especially if
it hasn't been touched in twenty years, but you can,
with your hand and just a little bit of effort,
slide that thing back and spin it back and forth
until it loosens up. You can pull that off, and
(13:11):
what you're gonna find underneath is a weird plastic assembly.
And right at the top of that weird plastic assembly
is a little top piece that is connected with a
couple of tabs you can pull. You squeeze those tabs
and pull it out and it will expose the tops
of the two lines. One is the drain line coming
from the dishwasher, and the other is the drain line
(13:34):
heading down towards the garbage disposal That gives you access
to both ends of that garbage disposal hose so that
you can get that thing cleared out completely. There's a
chance there's a really good chance there might be guck
up at the top of that partially blocking that line
as well. It's just a good idea to occasionally do
this every few years. It doesn't have to be like
(13:57):
a six month thing. Just every few years, or when
you see something starting to act up and you're starting
to get the weird smell, go ahead and clean it out.
But it really is accessible and uh and pretty easy
to do.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Well, thank you. I know that my dishwasher is draining,
but it probably is not draining as fast as it
should be. But I just not how many and I
don't put I'm not one of those that puts my
my dishes in the dishwasher full of gunk. I rinse
them off, so I've been very careful about that. I've
looked in the trap and it's clean, it's not doesn't
have any garbage in it, but that I've sure pulled
out a lot of gunk with my fingers. I thought, oh,
(14:32):
there's work on comes from there. I better call Dean.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, call Dean for the gunk and the boring question.
Actually it's a really good question. And and Susie, I
gotta tell you there's a there are one thousands, five
thousand people right now who are like you. See, I
told you we should do that. So thank you very
much for your question. And uh, and just know, just
peace of mind. If you understand those two components, you
(14:58):
can get it all cleaned out. Everything's going to be
working spick and span for you. Just find and by
the way, once you get it all done, stuff, maybe
have sitting down in the garbage disposal too long. Run
to the hardware store and get a couple of garbage
disposal deodorizer pellets that you can run some water and
grind up in there and it'll clear out any residual odor.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I've been pouring a little bit of Life Style concentrate
in there because everyone so it's like, whoa, yeah, I
can't take it. And it's all it's not all the time.
It's just everyone's like it's the garbage disposal.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
All right.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
You are so welcome. Happy Easter, and uh, and good
luck on your dishwasher project. She's so nice. All right, y'all?
Should we do okay, I should all right, I'm gonna
We're gonna go to the phones one more time before
we get back to our conversation because we've got callers
who just need to talk and I need to talk
(15:54):
to you, so more of your calls when we return.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You're listening to Home with Dean show on demand from
KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
You are Home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper. Thanks
for joining us on the program today. It's a beautiful
spring day, beautiful easter Sunday morning here in southern California,
and we are talking about your home. Going to get
back to our topic on makeovers and the creative ideas
of how to make big changes in the house on
(16:26):
small budgets. But right now still taking calls. I want
to go back to the phones. I want to talk
to Arnold. Hey, Arnold, welcome home.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Thank you very much for taking my call. I love
listening to your show, and you've inspired me to do
something in my backyard.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Oh what's that?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
To make a fire pit and a huge tree in
the summertime to shade it good?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Oh, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
Yes, So basically I'm wondering I live in alpine and
it gets down to thirty degrees in the winter. And
I know you have a gorgeous ash tree in your backyard.
Would that work in alpine?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Oh? Okay, now you're calling on my instant botanist inside,
and you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm
not I don't want to. I don't have time to
look it up right now, but I do. I do
know this, my friend. I know that there are absolutely big,
beautiful trees that will in fact work for you. Okay,
(17:35):
I don't think that. I don't think. I think the
ash will probably do just fine. You know, it's you
don't expect it to thrive in thirty degree weather. No
tree thrives in thirty degree weather. They all kind of
go into their torpor, They go into their slow growth mode. That,
by the way, everybody is what tree rings are. It's
(17:56):
not bark. When you cut across the tree and you
see a dark ring and a light ring, and a
dark ring and a light ring, that's every light and
dark ring represents a year of growth because the dark
ring is slow growth, very dense, very slowly growing wood,
and then the light ring is all of that spring
and summer growth where the tree just like boom, goes out.
(18:20):
So there are lots and lots of big, beautiful feature
trees that are going to do fine surviving a thirty
degree winter or regular thirty degree temperatures and then just
burst out and thrive during the spring and summer. Just
do your research, talk to local experts on trees for
(18:41):
your area, and I'm sure arnold you're going to find it.
But yeah, you've kind of tapped beyond my instant tree
knowledge to know exactly which ones are going to be
best for you. But I would do the same thing
that I'm suggesting that you do, which is just dive in,
do the research, and find it. As far as the
fire pit goes, by the way, any questions about.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
That, Yes, the only gas line the fire pit's going
to be about sixty feet from my house. The closest
gas line is in my kitchen, which is behind my stove. No,
I'm wondering, would they have to like drill a whole
bunch of holes through all the cabinets.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
No, no, no, no, we got to come here's the
news on the gas line. We got to come right
off the meter. Oh, right off the meter for that one.
We're not going to be drawing. We're not going to
be drawn because here's the thing. Two reasons why. Number one,
we don't want to mess up the house and anything
(19:40):
going on there. And two, all of the gas lines
in the house have already branched out to their appliances
at their optimal size, and so you know, it's a
half inch gas line behind the stove. Half inch gas
line is the tiniest, little, littlest, most minute fire pit
feed And I would never recommend any buddy feed fuel
(20:01):
a fire pit with a half inch gas line. If
you've just got a portable one, you know, with the
little propane tank. That's that's basically what we're talking about there,
as far as the equivalent of a half inch gas
line a fire pit out away from your home that
you really want to be able to blaze and to
keep you warm. And okay, understand this is my theory
on fire pits. When I build a fire pit for
(20:23):
myself or any of our clients, the idea is a
fire pit. You know, maybe it's not going to keep
you warm on you know, when it's twenty degrees outside
in a blizzard, that's fine, nobody's doing that. But on
a cool night that drops into the forties. You know,
a fire should keep you warm, and to do that,
(20:44):
you're gonna need to run a minimum three quarter inch line.
Most likely, my recommendation is a one inch line out there.
And yeah, now it's not gonna it's it's not It
doesn't need to sound intimidating, it's not going to blow
out a bunch of gas, and it's not going to
be any more expensive really than just running a half
(21:06):
inch line out there. But you need to run it
from the meter. You run a nice size line out there,
because here's the thing, my friend, to have a nice
burn on a nice size fire pit. I don't know
if you've noticed this, but natural gas is it's pressurized,
but it's the minimal. It's the least pressurized substance running
(21:29):
through our homes. In other words, water is running through
your house at anywhere from sixty to eighty pounds per
square inch of pressure. That's a lot of pressure. So
if you bust a if you were to undo something
and just have an open pipe and turn on your
water supply, there's no way you're gonna be able to
put your hand or your finger over that pipe and
(21:51):
stop it. Because it's just coming out at such high pressure.
A gas line is usually running between five and maybe
a lie pounds per square inch of pressure. And I'm
not suggesting anybody do this. I'm just saying, if, if you,
because I've had to do this occasionally. We've got like
we've we detached a stove and it's sitting out in
(22:12):
the middle of the kitchen floor and somebody bumped the
gas line, and or we've taken off the valve and
somebody actually bumps the gas line to turn it back on.
I'm like, hey, turn off the gas And in the meantime,
I just put my thumb over the end of the
pipe and I block it. I stop it. It just
stops because it's very very low pressure. So what that
means is it's not high pressure coming through the gas line.
(22:36):
So if you want a nice, big, healthy flame that's
going to keep you warm on a cool night, you
need volume. When you don't have pressure, you need volume.
And so as a result, instead of a one half
inch line running out there a you know, three quarter
inch line, which is almost fifty percent more, and a
(22:58):
one inch line which is like three times more than
a half inch line. That's what you want for your
fire pit, and you will not be disappointed by that.
Believe me. You'll thank me for that advice later.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
All right, gee, thank thank you very much for all
the information.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
You're very welcome, Arnold. And by the way, before you
run that gas line out there, call uh call dig Alert.
Call eight one one, and I think that number is
con it may not be DIGG Alert in your area,
but call eight one one just to make sure that
they'll notify all of the utilities, anybody who might have
(23:35):
had something in your yard, under your property anywhere. They'll
take three days to come out. It's all free and
they'll come out and they'll mark stuff with flags, because
I don't want you to trench in a gas line
through your backyard and hitting something, you know, major, or
cutting across cables or anything else that might be buried there.
Always call them first, get everything marked before you dig.
(23:59):
Call before you did. And the number is eight one
one here in southern Califoria. I think it's the same
number across the entire state, but it may not be
dig Alert per se. Anyway, call eight one to one
and get everything marked off, all right, y'all when we return.
You see that's why we take calls. Everybody learns when
we come back, let's talk about some more makeover magic
(24:21):
for your home.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Hey, I just got a text from my buddy Andy Wells,
who has been a leader among the Dig Alert and
dig a Call before You dig community, been a director
of that program, and he just confirmed to me in
the text. He's like, Yeah, eight one one is a
universal nationwide number, just like nine to one one is.
(24:54):
Eight one one is universal nationwide, regardless of what the
local program is called in southern California and you hear
it's called dig Alert in other places it's called other things,
but nationwide. So if you are going to dig anything, uh,
you're gonna dig a trench anywhere on your property, you
call eight one one and you alert them to the
(25:16):
fact that you would like to dig a trench, uh,
and they are going to contact all of the relevant utilities.
They've got the maps and everything that anybody. Everybody, every
everybody from from from petroleum companies that have lines running
under your property, to the power company to the cable
company to telecommunication lines and everything. Everybody will all get contacted.
(25:41):
They'll all check their maps. They have to. It's their job,
it's their agreement. And uh, they will send out a
rep I believe within two or three days. And uh
and uh they'll send out a rep. And they'll just
put flags, just saying, hey, well now we're just here
in response to your you know, your dig alert, call
this fla hear how deep where the lines are so
(26:03):
that you don't have to hit them and cause major
problems when you dig your trench. It's that simple, and
it's free and you should absolutely always do it. Thanks, Andy,
appreciate it. And you know what, also, I love I
love that industry professionals listen to the show and appreciate
what we're doing here. That should give you a level
of confidence as well. We have a lot of contractors, engineers, architects,
(26:27):
industry professionals in every imaginable way who enjoy listening to
the show because they know I'm not jerking you around,
telling you the honest truth about things, and hopefully it
makes a big difference. All right, let's get back to
makeover stuff. I want to get out of the bathroom,
but before I do, I'm going to suggest two things Okay,
(26:48):
one of them going to be highly controversial. Ready are
you ready? This is this controversial? As I get you
may have an old shower door that you desperately want
to replace because you hate the way that thing looks.
It's got the big old brass or silver track running across,
and it's got the wavy glass, and it's all gunked up,
(27:09):
and it looks like it was, you know, put in
there in nineteen sixty four. I get it. And yeah, yeah,
So here's the thing you're thinking. I'd love to have
one of those new sleek shower surrounds and new glass,
but that's gonna cost me like two thousand or more
dollars to do, and you'd be probably right about that.
(27:33):
How about this? How about removing all of that garbage
that's there right now, patching up the walls, and then
putting in a curtain rod. Now, don't don't stop, don't
don't get upset with me, because I know what you're saying. Really, Dean, really,
(27:53):
that's about as low class as it gets, right, A
curtain a rod, A shower curtain. Why I want to
have some shiny vinyl shower curtain with ducks and you know,
flowers that look like they used to decorate the dating
game show in my bathroom. I want to take it
another way. That's not what I'm talking about. And if
that's what you think your only option is these days,
(28:14):
you need to get out there and take another look.
I would suggest I. By the way, I am a
lover of shower curtains, okay, and I'll tell you why.
Number One, they don't have to be classless. Okay. The
shower curtains that I love to install whenever possible are
ceiling mount tracks. Ceiling mount so now there's no rod
(28:36):
going across obscuring your view. And ceiling mount tracks with
little ball bearings and hooks in them. And then the
curtains that hang from those can just be white fabric
based curtains, fabric based, vinyl embedded, fabric based. And so
you buy two curtains, the curtains are custom they hang
(28:56):
down just the right amount. You buy two curtains, run
a curtain for a while on the hooks. If it
starts to get a little grody on you at the
bottom and you're like it's starting to show with you.
After a couple of months of hanging there, you pull
it off. Throw it into the washing machine, put the
replacement up, and then fold this one when it's done.
And you're always just rotating them on and off. It's classy,
(29:20):
it's fabric. It's just a drape hanging there in the corner.
But here is the thing that I love about shower curtains,
and I know you're not going to be able to
disagree with me on this one. The thing I love
about shower curtains is there's a lot of money spent
on the tile and or stone work or whatever is
(29:41):
going on inside that shower, a lot of it. And
then we spend all this money on that, and then
we put a glass door in front of it, and yeah,
we can see through the glass, but we don't get
the full impact of that. And if you have a
smaller bathroom, a glass door, even as full all transparent
as it may be, is still a divider. It's still
(30:03):
a surface barrier that says, hey, you're stuck in this space.
That thing is over there, and it makes a small
bathroom even smaller. Why I love a shower curtain. It
can be ugie, It can hang elegantly like a drapery
without any funky, weird patterns, or shine or sheen to it.
(30:25):
And when you pull that shower curtain back, there's nothing
in the way and you get to absorb the volume
of the shower space visually, psychologically, emotionally that belongs to
the main space of the bathroom that you're in. Shower
curtains make small bathrooms feel as large as they can
(30:48):
feel because all of that volume and the visual of
all the tile work is all there with you in
the space. Even when you're standing in front of the
vanity or sitting on the toilet doesn't matter. All of
that's available to you because you haven't walled off the bathroom.
That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. You have
to decide whether that works for you. But give it
(31:10):
some thought, because you do not have to live with
those old, grody shower doors, nor do you have to
replace them with you know, bank account breaking new glass.
Maybe the answer for you is something as simple as
a ceiling mount shower curtain track. Give it some thought,
(31:31):
Give it some thought. Used to be, back when I
started doing this to Holmes, this kind of thing actually
didn't technically exist for homeowners. You know. Tina likes to
pat me on the back. She's like, you're always doing
things like several years ahead of the trend, and so
as a result, we had to get really creative. When
I first wanted to do this in a home, I
(31:51):
had to call a hospital curtain company, because you know
hospital curtains, they're attached to the ceiling and they drape
down and fabric I had to call a hospital curtain
company to have this kind of made. But nowadays, guess what.
You go ahead, just google the ceiling mount shower curtain track.
(32:11):
You will find there are companies that now do it
just for you and just for your home, and they're
glorious and they're easy, and it could make a big difference.
All right. The last thing for the bathroom before we
get out of it and move to the rest of
the house is the paint. No bathroom these days has
to put up with super shiny, reflective paint. We want
(32:34):
Matt Finish, no sheen or low sheen paint and rich
colors in a bathroom and to make it feel as
sumptuous as any other room in the house. And thanks
to companies like Benjamin Moore, whose Aura bath and Spa
paint is both Matt Finish and completely water and steam
(32:57):
and moisture resistant. You can simply re paint your bathroom
and bring its textural quality up to you to exceed
the decorator's bar. Just use the right paint. Yeah, you
can get rid of all that shiny stuff out of
the bathroom and really make it rich and sumptuous and warm.
(33:17):
There you go, all right. When we come back, we'll
move from the bathroom to some other spaces and we
will keep revealing our makeover magic. Your Home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper on KFI. This has been Home with
Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast
on KFI Am six forty every Saturday morning from six
(33:38):
to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning from nine
to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the
iHeart Radio app
Home with Dean Sharp News
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com