December 14, 2024 • 31 mins
Dean covers the right way to buy/fill up a home with new furniture. Dean explains the differences between a couch and a sofa. Dean breaks down the amount spent on furniture in America and the waste of furniture. Dean says to ask questions when furniture shopping. Dean says to do window shopping, to expand your knowledge of the quality. Plus, advices a caller on building a curb less shower on a second floor of a home.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
App KFI AM six forty live streaming in HD everywhere
on the iHeart Radio App.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, welcome to home. I'm Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
I design custom homes, I build custom homes, and I
am your guide to better understanding that place where you live. Today,
on the show, we're going to talk about the right
way to shop for and buy furniture for your home.
(00:42):
It's an important thing, you know. We spend a lot
of time and money investing into our homes, remodeling our homes,
and then right at the end, a lot of people,
I would say most people end up filling their home
with the stuff that they really don't know much about. Well,
that's all gonna change this morning, I promise you. And
(01:06):
of course you know we're gonna be taking your calls
as well. When it comes to calls, anything you want
to talk about regarding your home, design, construction, DIY questions,
whatever the case may be. You set the agenda with calls,
and you know you always get a warm reception from
us as we go. We'll put our heads together and
(01:27):
we will figure out whatever about your home that you's
got you scratching your head. The number to reach me.
The phone lines are open now eight three three two.
Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two. Ask Dean
eight three three to ask Dean. All right, let me
introduce our awesome team. Sam Zea on the board. Good morning, Sam,
(01:50):
Good morning Dean. How you doing. I am doing well.
I'm doing well. Oh, there's are not so oh. We
got a laser guy. Laser guy is in the studio.
Audience to deal with him. No lasers in the studio.
You were instructed not to bring lasers into the studio.
That's all I'm saying. What was that. It's better than
(02:14):
the crying baby. Oh heck yeah, way better. In fact,
if I have a laser and the crying baby starts,
you know, that's when I shoot it at Well, okay,
never mind. Richie Kincaro, our fabulous producer, is already taking
calls nowhere near Mike, but he is with us as always.
(02:34):
And as I said, the phone lines are open. And
of course, my buddy Eileen Gonzalez in the news room.
How you doing, Eileen, Good morning, Dean, Happy Saturday.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
To you.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I know, it's a chilly one.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
It is. I know even well it's always cold in
the studio, but yeah, outside it's cold.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah. We we just spent I'm gonna confess that we
took like four was it four days? We took four
days and we just reran up to more O Bay,
Central coastal California, one of our favorite little driving trips,
just to get away, take a little break. We went
up there, we did a little antiquing, did a little shopping,
(03:14):
and we hit the Cambria or Cumbria I'm told is
the way to pronounce it, like your Thurst and hell.
The Cumbria Christmas Market. Oh, it was awesome. It was awesome.
Booths like three million lights. If you have a chance
to get up there and check it out. It's kind
(03:36):
of modeled after an authentic German Christmas market. And I
got to tell you, I thought, yeah, okay, well yeah
we'll go. It's a thing, let's go, let's do it. Wow,
it was really really fun. I mean it exceeded my expectations.
And they've got a Christmas store there, Cambria Pine's Lodge,
the nursery connected to the lodge, has a Christmas store
(03:58):
kind of like, kind of like that is a Christmas
store all year round. But anyway, it was awesome. It
was a great time, great great time. Thanks to everybody
who showed us such a great time up in the
Morril Bay area. Just love it. Sitting across the table
from me, talk about a great time. Wait is that
(04:22):
grab your mic? I got it. If you're looking for
a good time. My better half, my design partner, my
best buddy in all the world, Tina is here. Welcome home,
Welcome home. It kind of drifted, it did. You were drifting.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
But that light show in Cambria Pine's Lodge was amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Have some coffee. You don't have a voice right now,
I don't have a voice. I think there's the first
time talked on morning. But no, it was fantastic. The
lights were beautiful, they were There were a lot more
than we thought. Highly recommend if you really want to
feel in the Christmas spirit, I tell you that it'll
put you right there. It does. And the food was
good too. Food was good. The market was great. Everybody
(05:16):
was in a good mood. Thank God. All right, y'all,
why don't we dive in furniture buying? It's tricky, and
you know, well, I'll get into this after the news.
But the thing about furniture that I'm happy about, it
would appear, it would appear as if the American buying
(05:40):
process right now is shifting back towards long term thinking
with furniture instead of what the period that we're coming
out of that I called disposable furniture buying. They don't
have much use for that whatsoever. But the question is,
when you are investing in a beautiful piece of furniture
for your now beautiful home that you've remodeled or redecorated,
(06:05):
how do you know that you're getting something that really
is quality? What are we looking for? What questions need
to be asked? What are the facets of quality furniture,
the kind of furniture potentially that could be passed down
to the kids or the grandkids, or what have you?
All of that and more. Yet, one of the greatest
(06:31):
Christmas songs ever written, I want to hip hop and
that version it has to be that version, Sam, you
nailed it right on the nose, all right, Kfi Dean
Sharp the house whisper. You know, it doesn't matter whether
your home is a condo or a cottage or a castle. Yes, yes,
I alliterated a B. I am here to help you
(06:52):
take it to the next level. That is the point,
especially on today's program, because we're talking about what we
put into our homes, aka furniture. I want to help
you understand how to shop for and buy furniture and
do it better so that no regrets down the road
(07:14):
and no wasting of the money either. Also going to
be going to the phones as we do. The number
to reach me eight three three two Ask Dean eight
three three the numeral to ask Dean. The phone lines
are open now. Richie is standing by ready to take
your call. He'll tell you everything you need to know.
Pop you into the queue, and who knows, put our
(07:35):
heads together, you and I, and we'll figure out what's
got you scratching your head about your home. All right,
let us start with just a little bit of furniture
quizziness here to help break the ice. Here's a question,
are you ready for this? Rugs, carpets, curtains, draperies, lamps, art,
(08:01):
pictures hanging on the wall. These are not furniture. If
that's the case, what are they do? We know? What?
What does all of that that I just mentioned fall
into the category of the answer to the question is furnishings.
Those are furnishings, not furniture. Okay, I'll give you one more.
(08:25):
That was that was? Was it an easy one? Was
that easy?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
No?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
What's the difference between a sofa, a couch and a davenport?
While a davenport, I'll tell you what the difference is.
If you're if you're sitting on a davenport, you live
in the olden days. That's what the difference is. No,
but I hear it all the time, couch sofa? What's correct? Well, honestly,
I'm gonna cut you some slack here. Let me just
(08:52):
can we just live in the real world. I really
don't care what you call that thing that you sit
on in your living room. I really don't. But but
because there are decorators out there and designers who are
like what no, no, no, pretending like they've got refined taste. Anyway,
here's the truth. Couch is a French It comes from French,
(09:16):
from French, from France, comes from France's It's a piece
of furniture. You'd be surprised with no arms used for
you know, lying back. So in other words. What you
think of as a chase, okay, is technically you know,
the like a psychiatrists couch. Okay, you don't lay down
(09:39):
on a psychiatrist's sofa. Well you might, but that would
be inappropriate. The psychiatrist has a couch, right, and so
it's much more like a shade. It's made for not sleeping,
but lying down, not bed, but lying down. A sofa
is a long, a pulse sert seat, usually with arms
(10:02):
and with a back. So yeah. Most of the time,
the right word to use is sofa. And as a
result of the popularity of sofas that were made by
ah Davenport and Company in Massachusetts in the early nineteen hundreds,
especially in the Midwest. I had Midwestern parents, they always
(10:26):
referred to this to the sofa in the living room
as the Davenport because of the popularity of this one
single furniture company in the like yeah, it's one of
those things where the brand name becomes synonymous with the
object itself, like Kleenex or coke or something like that.
So yeah. In the early nineteen hundreds, ah Davenport was
(10:50):
killing it in the sofa business to the point where
it became like, oh, I don't have a sofa. I
have a davin. Oh so yeah, it became synonymous with
that in and around the Midwest and the Great Lakes region.
So let's just call it a sofa. But I will
(11:14):
not yell at you if you call it a couch.
That's the point, Okay, how much money do you spend on?
How much money do we as Americans spend on furniture
and betting sales? You gotta throw betting in there, because
betting is furniture as well. In the US, we are
looking somewhere in the area right now of about of
(11:37):
one hundred and seventeen billion dollars or you know, about
four hundred dollars per American per year in furniture sales.
That's a lot of money. The furniture market is pretty huge.
And here is my concern. How much furniture is thrown
(11:59):
away in the United States every year? Right around twelve
million tons of furniture. Okay, only a very small percentage
of which is recycled, doe to the diversity of materials
that are found in most furniture. Okay, So the point
is this. The point is we need to learn how
(12:21):
to buy good furniture and what are the questions that
you ask and asking questions? And I'm just going to
tell you right now, the very first and maybe most
important piece of advice I'm going to give you all
morning is this. If you are not planning on going
out to a furniture store or shop and asking questions
(12:42):
you yourself, asking proactively questions, then you have no business
shopping for furniture period. Okay, because the key is you
asking the right questions. There are only a handful of
furniture shops out there that are going to take you
by the hand and are so proud, by the way,
(13:04):
this is a great sign of good furniture. But they're
so proud of how their furniture is made that they're
going to show you an exploded view of it. They're
going to turn it upside down and show you exactly
why you should buy their furniture as opposed to anybody else.
They're going to show you their massive warranty. They're going
to show you all the reasons why that's few and
(13:25):
far between. Your typical especially your what I call your
big box furniture stores. They're getting furniture from all over
the place, overseas. Maybe some of it is us made. Maybe,
But the point is this, and I'm not challenging the
quality one way or the other. I'm just simply saying
they are picking up furniture for as inexpensively as they
(13:48):
can and selling it to you for as much as
they can, and they're going to show you a couple
of you know, buying points, but they're not going to
be ready for a barrage of questions about the guts
of this furniture. And that, my friend, is what you
need to be doing. You're listening to Home with Dean
(14:09):
Sharp on demand from KFI A M six forty, KFI
AM six forty live streaming in HD everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app Dean Sharp the house whisper thanks for joining
us on the program. We're gonna be going to the
phones right after the next news break. By the way,
(14:31):
so now is your chance give me a call eight
three three to ask Dean. Is the number eight three
three the numeral to ask Dean? A three three to
ask Dean. It's just that simple, all right, Let's get
back to the right way to buy furniture. If if
(14:51):
you are an a student, you have already drilled this
into your brain for the day. The right way to
buy furniture is to add ask the right questions, absolutely
without question. That is the number one rule. Now here
are some other very very important things. I say this
a lot, and I will go to my grave telling you,
(15:14):
telling my clients, anybody who wants to know this truth.
Window shopping, my friend, window shopping and dreaming is free,
absolutely free. And window shopping and dreaming is something that
I want you to do. If you are a furniture shopper,
(15:37):
if you are out there looking for a piece of furniture,
Now what do I mean by that. I'm specifically speaking
to you y'all who are thinking, well, all right, it's
time to go to get a piece of furniture. I
already know the furniture store we should shop at, because
you know so, I'm using my e or voice because
(16:00):
because that's probably the furniture we can afford. And so
you limit by that attitude, you limit your thinking as
to what the possibilities are for the furniture that you
want to fill that space with. Now, I'm not saying
that by window shopping big and dreaming big that you're
(16:23):
going to end up spending billions of dollars when you
hadn't intended to. That's not the point. The point is
I want you to get your eyes on truly quality furniture,
and by opening up your window shopping spectrum to be
(16:45):
much larger and broader, you will very very likely encounter
far better quality furniture, feel, construction, design, all of the above.
And you know, will it boost your attitude? Absolutely? Will
it boost your understanding and your knowledge. That's what's critical.
(17:05):
That's what's critical. So less than number two I guess
for today, other than asking the right questions, is knowing
that window shopping and dreaming absolutely free. And by recognizing, really, really,
really what a great piece of furniture is, you'll find
(17:27):
inevitably a really good piece of furniture in your price range.
And you're like, well, how does that work, Dean, That
doesn't make sense to me. No, no, no, There is
well made furniture out there for reasonable prices. There is, okay,
and it's very likely sitting very near or even in
(17:48):
the same space with the cheap stuff that you don't
want to take home with you. The question is simply
do you know how to recognize it? I'll give you this,
ok So, here's the first metaphor that pops into my head.
This is the first analogy. I don't know if you
enjoy an occasional glass of wine and or are a
(18:11):
wine connoisseur, but every wine connoisseur, and this is on
my mind because we enjoyed some really nice wine last
night for dinner. Every wine connoisseur will tell you that
there is definitely a cutoff point in quality for wine
as far as like the price that you pay for
a bottle of wine. There really is a cutoff point.
(18:31):
But there are some wines out there. Once you've tasted
let's say, okay, I'll just throw out a number. Once
you've tasted a one hundred dollars bottle of wine that's
worth worth one hundred dollars, I mean really worth it,
and you're like, whoa, whoa, that's good wine, and you
(18:52):
start to identify the aspects of it. You are now
ready to find the twenty five dollars bottle of wine
out there that is really truly outstanding and holds its own.
And that's what I'm talking about, because they exist, right right, Tina.
They exist. That's her favorite price range. That's not junk. Now,
(19:15):
there is junk in that twenty five dollars range, okay,
twenty five to thirty dollars for a bottle of wine.
But there are some outstanding wines, very drinkable, very proud
wines in that range. And the same holds true for
just about any home furnishing. It's really true. You can
(19:36):
find you can find for reasonable prices furniture that is
far better quality than its price reflects, Okay, without having
to buy the you know, the gold plated ultra expensive pieces.
But I want you to learn what goes into those
(19:57):
pieces so that you can recognize when and a value
piece comes along and you're like, look, but but it
has solid o construction and it has doal joints, and
so I don't think they realize what they've got here.
And then you end up taking home something for the
right price that's going to last you years and years
(20:19):
and years. That's the idea, Okay. So window shopping is free,
dreaming is free. Do it as a way of expanding
your education. And especially I'm just telling you this right now,
the higher end shops that you walk into, as you
start to ask the questions about the quality of the furniture,
(20:40):
you're going to get an education from those salespeople because
they are proud to tell you why their stuff is
as expensive as it is. They're trying to justify as
expensive as it is, and they'll tell you all about it.
And you can get a great education on furniture buying
just by starting at higher end shops and then take
(21:02):
that knowledge and you know, find the diamond in the rough.
All right, I've got so much more to share with you.
When we come back, though, I'm going to go to
the phones. We'll take a call or two. How does
that sound great? Campie, Keean Sharp the house whisper, Welcome home.
(21:22):
We are talking about the right way to buy furniture
for your home today. We're going to get back to
that in just a bit. But as is our custom,
now is the time to go to the phones, Richie,
which is the who's the very first caller today? I
rarely do this, but occasionally, you know what, you just
(21:43):
decide to reward somebody. Diane, It's Diane. All right, Hey Diane,
welcome home.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Well, Hi Jean and Tina. Wow, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
I I believe I was first anyway.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
So we are remodeling a bathroom on the second floor
and like you p pote, we want a Curbliss shower.
We currently have this from four contractors.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Two of them just said they can't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And one specifically said because it's you have to cut
floor joyce. Another included in the bid mentioned hot mopping,
but I didn't have any other information on how and
I didn't know. We talked to the fourth one who
said he could do it using these Shlooter Curdy shower
system and no hot mopping.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And said he wouldn't have to cut floor joist. Because
now we need to ask that question by this point,
so the question just is what is the right way
to do this on the second floor?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Okay, that is an excellent question, an excellent question. Now
all right, let me did I hear you right? The
guy who talked about the Schlooter system said he would
not have to cut floor joyce.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Correct, that's what he said.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Huh. I wonder what he's got him, uh, you know,
planned up his sleeve. Okay, So here is the thing.
When it comes to putting a Curbliss shower in where
there was none before. The whole point is that you're
(23:25):
taking the shower pan with the slope of the shower
pan towards the drain, whatever whatever that drain configuration may be,
and we are sloping that at you know, at roughly
at an eighth of an inch, ideally a quarter of
an inch per foot, but anywhere in that zone, we
are sloping the floor of that shower towards the drain.
(23:49):
And we need room to do that. And in a
in a standard traditional shower, that's all being built on
top of the floor, on top of the slab or
on top of the floor joys and then there's a
build up hence the curb that retains the whole thing. Now,
if we are going to put that down into the
(24:10):
floor so that it's curbless, and we're not going to
raise up the tile line in the bathroom, you know,
unreasonably high, and so that there's a big old step
up or threshold when you walk into the bathroom from
the hallway, then we've got to get down into the
floor a bit. Now. So the answer to the question
(24:32):
of can it be done is almost well, yeah, it's
always yes. It's always yes. And I say that so
that everybody understands that the answer to every question of
can we do this to our house? I mean nearly
everyone I've ever been asked, The answer is always yes.
It's just a question of is it worth it, what's
(24:53):
it going to cost to do it in this situation.
So I will tell you this. I've heard claim before.
I've never witnessed a slope a properly sloped shower, smooter system,
or else. And that's that's kind of a side note here,
so I'll get back to that in a second. I've
never heard of a properly sloped curbless shower that does
(25:17):
not actually dig into the floor below it. Okay, whether
it's a slab that we have to chip out and
create a recess in, or whether it is a second
floor or just a first floor, raised foundation kind of
house in which we have to notch into the floor choice,
but notching into the floor joist is not the end
(25:39):
of the world as long as and here's the key.
The person I need you, I need you to talk
to is a structural engineer. Okay. Uh, Contractors. Contractors are great,
no problem, all right, They've all got and I'm not
saying that you haven't got some, you know, some decent
perspectives on it. But you've got a floor joist system
(26:02):
there on the second floor. I don't know how big
your floor joysts are. I'm going to assume there's something
like two. They're at least two by eight. They might
be two by ten, two by twelve floor choice up there,
but they have been engineered to do the job that
they're doing at the height that they are at. And
if we notch into them, then in that little section
we are compromising that strength. Now that's engineered for a
(26:28):
single joist every let's say, sixteen inches or so, to
be so tall and have so much deflection and bear
so much weight down on it. So if we were
to notch down in two inches, and by the way,
there are absolutely curblish shower systems that only require a
two inch notch. Okay, if we were to notch down
(26:50):
into them a couple of inches, then we have turned,
you know, let's say a two by twelve right into
a two by ten floor joye, and not just compromise
that area, but whatever else that floor joist is doing,
its whole length has been weakened a little bit. Okay,
that is not the end of the world, though necessarily,
(27:13):
because that floor joist could be strengthened by having, for instance,
what we call sistering, which means another joist placed next
to it and essentially thickening the joye. Since it's losing
stiffness in height, we can add the stiffness back in
width and still get the clearance. So the point is this,
(27:37):
I don't make those decisions on a job site, even
though I have a heck of a lot of experience,
and I usually eyeball a situation and say, well, it's
gonna probably take this in this Despite all of that,
despite all of my expertise in this area, I never
cross over the line and pretend to be an engineer.
(27:59):
This is what a structural engineer is. Four. This is
because the calculations, the load, all of that, and above
all things, we want your house to be safe. We
want the Kerblas shower in the upstairs bathroom to be
a benefit to everything the bathroom and not compromise the house.
So setting aside the contractors is a simple call to
(28:23):
a local a structural engineer, and you're gonna invest a
little bit of money in them. You're gonna invest at
least a couple three hundred dollars to have them come
out and give you a console in your home so
that they can look, they can evaluate the location of
the bathroom, the orientation of the choice, and make a
calculation and a recommendation, because yes, it has to be
(28:47):
done under permit, and yes, the city's going to want
to know how those joys are being strengthened. And it
sounds like a whole big thing. It really is not
as big of a thing as it sounds like. But
I am saying this. Start you start with a structural engineer, okay,
because that the structural engineer is the one who tells
(29:09):
essentially not verbally, but you know, is the one who's
telling us builders what it is we need to build, okay,
or I should say this. The designer tells the builder
what it is that we're building. The structural engineer tells
the builder how it has to be done, okay, and
(29:29):
then the builder executes that plan. Right. A builder is
not a designer and a builder is not an engineer.
It is a collaboration of these three trades, these three
fields that make every house what it is supposed to be.
And so there are a lot of other answers or
(29:50):
questions regarding your curbla shower, what system to use for waterproofing.
I don't want you to get caught up in that
right now, all right, don't worry about hot versus vinyl
versus PVC liner versus the shlooter system. That's all about
waterproofing of the pan. That once we know we can
do the curblish hower, we can talk about that. That's
(30:11):
no big deal. Okay, you got a lot of options,
But the first, foremost and most important question for you,
Diane is can this be done in this location cost
effectively so that it doesn't compromise the house. And again
it's a little bit of investment to have a structural
(30:32):
engineer come out and do just that. Look at us,
We've talked and I'm overtime, Diane. Thank you for your call.
That is the way to go, Veta structural engineer, have
them come out, have them give you advice, don't do
it the other way around, and everything will turn out
a okay, I promise. And if you're any other questions
(30:52):
about that, then give me a call back. All right,
y'all when we return more of your calls. You are
listening to Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer on KFI. You're
listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI.
A M six forty
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
App KFI AM six forty live streaming in HD everywhere
on the iHeart Radio App.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, welcome to home. I'm Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
I design custom homes, I build custom homes, and I
am your guide to better understanding that place where you live. Today,
on the show, we're going to talk about the right
way to shop for and buy furniture for your home.
(00:42):
It's an important thing, you know. We spend a lot
of time and money investing into our homes, remodeling our homes,
and then right at the end, a lot of people,
I would say most people end up filling their home
with the stuff that they really don't know much about. Well,
that's all gonna change this morning, I promise you. And
(01:06):
of course you know we're gonna be taking your calls
as well. When it comes to calls, anything you want
to talk about regarding your home, design, construction, DIY questions,
whatever the case may be. You set the agenda with calls,
and you know you always get a warm reception from
us as we go. We'll put our heads together and
(01:27):
we will figure out whatever about your home that you's
got you scratching your head. The number to reach me.
The phone lines are open now eight three three two.
Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two. Ask Dean
eight three three to ask Dean. All right, let me
introduce our awesome team. Sam Zea on the board. Good morning, Sam,
(01:50):
Good morning Dean. How you doing. I am doing well.
I'm doing well. Oh, there's are not so oh. We
got a laser guy. Laser guy is in the studio.
Audience to deal with him. No lasers in the studio.
You were instructed not to bring lasers into the studio.
That's all I'm saying. What was that. It's better than
(02:14):
the crying baby. Oh heck yeah, way better. In fact,
if I have a laser and the crying baby starts,
you know, that's when I shoot it at Well, okay,
never mind. Richie Kincaro, our fabulous producer, is already taking
calls nowhere near Mike, but he is with us as always.
(02:34):
And as I said, the phone lines are open. And
of course, my buddy Eileen Gonzalez in the news room.
How you doing, Eileen, Good morning, Dean, Happy Saturday.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
To you.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I know, it's a chilly one.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
It is. I know even well it's always cold in
the studio, but yeah, outside it's cold.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah. We we just spent I'm gonna confess that we
took like four was it four days? We took four
days and we just reran up to more O Bay,
Central coastal California, one of our favorite little driving trips,
just to get away, take a little break. We went
up there, we did a little antiquing, did a little shopping,
(03:14):
and we hit the Cambria or Cumbria I'm told is
the way to pronounce it, like your Thurst and hell.
The Cumbria Christmas Market. Oh, it was awesome. It was awesome.
Booths like three million lights. If you have a chance
to get up there and check it out. It's kind
(03:36):
of modeled after an authentic German Christmas market. And I
got to tell you, I thought, yeah, okay, well yeah
we'll go. It's a thing, let's go, let's do it. Wow,
it was really really fun. I mean it exceeded my expectations.
And they've got a Christmas store there, Cambria Pine's Lodge,
the nursery connected to the lodge, has a Christmas store
(03:58):
kind of like, kind of like that is a Christmas
store all year round. But anyway, it was awesome. It
was a great time, great great time. Thanks to everybody
who showed us such a great time up in the
Morril Bay area. Just love it. Sitting across the table
from me, talk about a great time. Wait is that
(04:22):
grab your mic? I got it. If you're looking for
a good time. My better half, my design partner, my
best buddy in all the world, Tina is here. Welcome home,
Welcome home. It kind of drifted, it did. You were drifting.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
But that light show in Cambria Pine's Lodge was amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Have some coffee. You don't have a voice right now,
I don't have a voice. I think there's the first
time talked on morning. But no, it was fantastic. The
lights were beautiful, they were There were a lot more
than we thought. Highly recommend if you really want to
feel in the Christmas spirit, I tell you that it'll
put you right there. It does. And the food was
good too. Food was good. The market was great. Everybody
(05:16):
was in a good mood. Thank God. All right, y'all,
why don't we dive in furniture buying? It's tricky, and
you know, well, I'll get into this after the news.
But the thing about furniture that I'm happy about, it
would appear, it would appear as if the American buying
(05:40):
process right now is shifting back towards long term thinking
with furniture instead of what the period that we're coming
out of that I called disposable furniture buying. They don't
have much use for that whatsoever. But the question is,
when you are investing in a beautiful piece of furniture
for your now beautiful home that you've remodeled or redecorated,
(06:05):
how do you know that you're getting something that really
is quality? What are we looking for? What questions need
to be asked? What are the facets of quality furniture,
the kind of furniture potentially that could be passed down
to the kids or the grandkids, or what have you?
All of that and more. Yet, one of the greatest
(06:31):
Christmas songs ever written, I want to hip hop and
that version it has to be that version, Sam, you
nailed it right on the nose, all right, Kfi Dean
Sharp the house whisper. You know, it doesn't matter whether
your home is a condo or a cottage or a castle. Yes, yes,
I alliterated a B. I am here to help you
(06:52):
take it to the next level. That is the point,
especially on today's program, because we're talking about what we
put into our homes, aka furniture. I want to help
you understand how to shop for and buy furniture and
do it better so that no regrets down the road
(07:14):
and no wasting of the money either. Also going to
be going to the phones as we do. The number
to reach me eight three three two Ask Dean eight
three three the numeral to ask Dean. The phone lines
are open now. Richie is standing by ready to take
your call. He'll tell you everything you need to know.
Pop you into the queue, and who knows, put our
(07:35):
heads together, you and I, and we'll figure out what's
got you scratching your head about your home. All right,
let us start with just a little bit of furniture
quizziness here to help break the ice. Here's a question,
are you ready for this? Rugs, carpets, curtains, draperies, lamps, art,
(08:01):
pictures hanging on the wall. These are not furniture. If
that's the case, what are they do? We know? What?
What does all of that that I just mentioned fall
into the category of the answer to the question is furnishings.
Those are furnishings, not furniture. Okay, I'll give you one more.
(08:25):
That was that was? Was it an easy one? Was
that easy?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
No?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
What's the difference between a sofa, a couch and a davenport?
While a davenport, I'll tell you what the difference is.
If you're if you're sitting on a davenport, you live
in the olden days. That's what the difference is. No,
but I hear it all the time, couch sofa? What's correct? Well, honestly,
I'm gonna cut you some slack here. Let me just
(08:52):
can we just live in the real world. I really
don't care what you call that thing that you sit
on in your living room. I really don't. But but
because there are decorators out there and designers who are
like what no, no, no, pretending like they've got refined taste. Anyway,
here's the truth. Couch is a French It comes from French,
(09:16):
from French, from France, comes from France's It's a piece
of furniture. You'd be surprised with no arms used for
you know, lying back. So in other words. What you
think of as a chase, okay, is technically you know,
the like a psychiatrists couch. Okay, you don't lay down
(09:39):
on a psychiatrist's sofa. Well you might, but that would
be inappropriate. The psychiatrist has a couch, right, and so
it's much more like a shade. It's made for not sleeping,
but lying down, not bed, but lying down. A sofa
is a long, a pulse sert seat, usually with arms
(10:02):
and with a back. So yeah. Most of the time,
the right word to use is sofa. And as a
result of the popularity of sofas that were made by
ah Davenport and Company in Massachusetts in the early nineteen hundreds,
especially in the Midwest. I had Midwestern parents, they always
(10:26):
referred to this to the sofa in the living room
as the Davenport because of the popularity of this one
single furniture company in the like yeah, it's one of
those things where the brand name becomes synonymous with the
object itself, like Kleenex or coke or something like that.
So yeah. In the early nineteen hundreds, ah Davenport was
(10:50):
killing it in the sofa business to the point where
it became like, oh, I don't have a sofa. I
have a davin. Oh so yeah, it became synonymous with
that in and around the Midwest and the Great Lakes region.
So let's just call it a sofa. But I will
(11:14):
not yell at you if you call it a couch.
That's the point, Okay, how much money do you spend on?
How much money do we as Americans spend on furniture
and betting sales? You gotta throw betting in there, because
betting is furniture as well. In the US, we are
looking somewhere in the area right now of about of
(11:37):
one hundred and seventeen billion dollars or you know, about
four hundred dollars per American per year in furniture sales.
That's a lot of money. The furniture market is pretty huge.
And here is my concern. How much furniture is thrown
(11:59):
away in the United States every year? Right around twelve
million tons of furniture. Okay, only a very small percentage
of which is recycled, doe to the diversity of materials
that are found in most furniture. Okay, So the point
is this. The point is we need to learn how
(12:21):
to buy good furniture and what are the questions that
you ask and asking questions? And I'm just going to
tell you right now, the very first and maybe most
important piece of advice I'm going to give you all
morning is this. If you are not planning on going
out to a furniture store or shop and asking questions
(12:42):
you yourself, asking proactively questions, then you have no business
shopping for furniture period. Okay, because the key is you
asking the right questions. There are only a handful of
furniture shops out there that are going to take you
by the hand and are so proud, by the way,
(13:04):
this is a great sign of good furniture. But they're
so proud of how their furniture is made that they're
going to show you an exploded view of it. They're
going to turn it upside down and show you exactly
why you should buy their furniture as opposed to anybody else.
They're going to show you their massive warranty. They're going
to show you all the reasons why that's few and
(13:25):
far between. Your typical especially your what I call your
big box furniture stores. They're getting furniture from all over
the place, overseas. Maybe some of it is us made. Maybe,
But the point is this, and I'm not challenging the
quality one way or the other. I'm just simply saying
they are picking up furniture for as inexpensively as they
(13:48):
can and selling it to you for as much as
they can, and they're going to show you a couple
of you know, buying points, but they're not going to
be ready for a barrage of questions about the guts
of this furniture. And that, my friend, is what you
need to be doing. You're listening to Home with Dean
(14:09):
Sharp on demand from KFI A M six forty, KFI
AM six forty live streaming in HD everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app Dean Sharp the house whisper thanks for joining
us on the program. We're gonna be going to the
phones right after the next news break. By the way,
(14:31):
so now is your chance give me a call eight
three three to ask Dean. Is the number eight three
three the numeral to ask Dean? A three three to
ask Dean. It's just that simple, all right, Let's get
back to the right way to buy furniture. If if
(14:51):
you are an a student, you have already drilled this
into your brain for the day. The right way to
buy furniture is to add ask the right questions, absolutely
without question. That is the number one rule. Now here
are some other very very important things. I say this
a lot, and I will go to my grave telling you,
(15:14):
telling my clients, anybody who wants to know this truth.
Window shopping, my friend, window shopping and dreaming is free,
absolutely free. And window shopping and dreaming is something that
I want you to do. If you are a furniture shopper,
(15:37):
if you are out there looking for a piece of furniture,
Now what do I mean by that. I'm specifically speaking
to you y'all who are thinking, well, all right, it's
time to go to get a piece of furniture. I
already know the furniture store we should shop at, because
you know so, I'm using my e or voice because
(16:00):
because that's probably the furniture we can afford. And so
you limit by that attitude, you limit your thinking as
to what the possibilities are for the furniture that you
want to fill that space with. Now, I'm not saying
that by window shopping big and dreaming big that you're
(16:23):
going to end up spending billions of dollars when you
hadn't intended to. That's not the point. The point is
I want you to get your eyes on truly quality furniture,
and by opening up your window shopping spectrum to be
(16:45):
much larger and broader, you will very very likely encounter
far better quality furniture, feel, construction, design, all of the above.
And you know, will it boost your attitude? Absolutely? Will
it boost your understanding and your knowledge. That's what's critical.
(17:05):
That's what's critical. So less than number two I guess
for today, other than asking the right questions, is knowing
that window shopping and dreaming absolutely free. And by recognizing, really, really,
really what a great piece of furniture is, you'll find
(17:27):
inevitably a really good piece of furniture in your price range.
And you're like, well, how does that work, Dean, That
doesn't make sense to me. No, no, no, There is
well made furniture out there for reasonable prices. There is, okay,
and it's very likely sitting very near or even in
(17:48):
the same space with the cheap stuff that you don't
want to take home with you. The question is simply
do you know how to recognize it? I'll give you this,
ok So, here's the first metaphor that pops into my head.
This is the first analogy. I don't know if you
enjoy an occasional glass of wine and or are a
(18:11):
wine connoisseur, but every wine connoisseur, and this is on
my mind because we enjoyed some really nice wine last
night for dinner. Every wine connoisseur will tell you that
there is definitely a cutoff point in quality for wine
as far as like the price that you pay for
a bottle of wine. There really is a cutoff point.
(18:31):
But there are some wines out there. Once you've tasted
let's say, okay, I'll just throw out a number. Once
you've tasted a one hundred dollars bottle of wine that's
worth worth one hundred dollars, I mean really worth it,
and you're like, whoa, whoa, that's good wine, and you
(18:52):
start to identify the aspects of it. You are now
ready to find the twenty five dollars bottle of wine
out there that is really truly outstanding and holds its own.
And that's what I'm talking about, because they exist, right right, Tina.
They exist. That's her favorite price range. That's not junk. Now,
(19:15):
there is junk in that twenty five dollars range, okay,
twenty five to thirty dollars for a bottle of wine.
But there are some outstanding wines, very drinkable, very proud
wines in that range. And the same holds true for
just about any home furnishing. It's really true. You can
(19:36):
find you can find for reasonable prices furniture that is
far better quality than its price reflects, Okay, without having
to buy the you know, the gold plated ultra expensive pieces.
But I want you to learn what goes into those
(19:57):
pieces so that you can recognize when and a value
piece comes along and you're like, look, but but it
has solid o construction and it has doal joints, and
so I don't think they realize what they've got here.
And then you end up taking home something for the
right price that's going to last you years and years
(20:19):
and years. That's the idea, Okay. So window shopping is free,
dreaming is free. Do it as a way of expanding
your education. And especially I'm just telling you this right now,
the higher end shops that you walk into, as you
start to ask the questions about the quality of the furniture,
(20:40):
you're going to get an education from those salespeople because
they are proud to tell you why their stuff is
as expensive as it is. They're trying to justify as
expensive as it is, and they'll tell you all about it.
And you can get a great education on furniture buying
just by starting at higher end shops and then take
(21:02):
that knowledge and you know, find the diamond in the rough.
All right, I've got so much more to share with you.
When we come back, though, I'm going to go to
the phones. We'll take a call or two. How does
that sound great? Campie, Keean Sharp the house whisper, Welcome home.
(21:22):
We are talking about the right way to buy furniture
for your home today. We're going to get back to
that in just a bit. But as is our custom,
now is the time to go to the phones, Richie,
which is the who's the very first caller today? I
rarely do this, but occasionally, you know what, you just
(21:43):
decide to reward somebody. Diane, It's Diane. All right, Hey Diane,
welcome home.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Well, Hi Jean and Tina. Wow, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
I I believe I was first anyway.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
So we are remodeling a bathroom on the second floor
and like you p pote, we want a Curbliss shower.
We currently have this from four contractors.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Two of them just said they can't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And one specifically said because it's you have to cut
floor joyce. Another included in the bid mentioned hot mopping,
but I didn't have any other information on how and
I didn't know. We talked to the fourth one who
said he could do it using these Shlooter Curdy shower
system and no hot mopping.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And said he wouldn't have to cut floor joist. Because
now we need to ask that question by this point,
so the question just is what is the right way
to do this on the second floor?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Okay, that is an excellent question, an excellent question. Now
all right, let me did I hear you right? The
guy who talked about the Schlooter system said he would
not have to cut floor joyce.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Correct, that's what he said.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Huh. I wonder what he's got him, uh, you know,
planned up his sleeve. Okay, So here is the thing.
When it comes to putting a Curbliss shower in where
there was none before. The whole point is that you're
(23:25):
taking the shower pan with the slope of the shower
pan towards the drain, whatever whatever that drain configuration may be,
and we are sloping that at you know, at roughly
at an eighth of an inch, ideally a quarter of
an inch per foot, but anywhere in that zone, we
are sloping the floor of that shower towards the drain.
(23:49):
And we need room to do that. And in a
in a standard traditional shower, that's all being built on
top of the floor, on top of the slab or
on top of the floor joys and then there's a
build up hence the curb that retains the whole thing. Now,
if we are going to put that down into the
(24:10):
floor so that it's curbless, and we're not going to
raise up the tile line in the bathroom, you know,
unreasonably high, and so that there's a big old step
up or threshold when you walk into the bathroom from
the hallway, then we've got to get down into the
floor a bit. Now. So the answer to the question
(24:32):
of can it be done is almost well, yeah, it's
always yes. It's always yes. And I say that so
that everybody understands that the answer to every question of
can we do this to our house? I mean nearly
everyone I've ever been asked, The answer is always yes.
It's just a question of is it worth it, what's
(24:53):
it going to cost to do it in this situation.
So I will tell you this. I've heard claim before.
I've never witnessed a slope a properly sloped shower, smooter system,
or else. And that's that's kind of a side note here,
so I'll get back to that in a second. I've
never heard of a properly sloped curbless shower that does
(25:17):
not actually dig into the floor below it. Okay, whether
it's a slab that we have to chip out and
create a recess in, or whether it is a second
floor or just a first floor, raised foundation kind of
house in which we have to notch into the floor choice,
but notching into the floor joist is not the end
(25:39):
of the world as long as and here's the key.
The person I need you, I need you to talk
to is a structural engineer. Okay. Uh, Contractors. Contractors are great,
no problem, all right, They've all got and I'm not
saying that you haven't got some, you know, some decent
perspectives on it. But you've got a floor joist system
(26:02):
there on the second floor. I don't know how big
your floor joysts are. I'm going to assume there's something
like two. They're at least two by eight. They might
be two by ten, two by twelve floor choice up there,
but they have been engineered to do the job that
they're doing at the height that they are at. And
if we notch into them, then in that little section
we are compromising that strength. Now that's engineered for a
(26:28):
single joist every let's say, sixteen inches or so, to
be so tall and have so much deflection and bear
so much weight down on it. So if we were
to notch down in two inches, and by the way,
there are absolutely curblish shower systems that only require a
two inch notch. Okay, if we were to notch down
(26:50):
into them a couple of inches, then we have turned,
you know, let's say a two by twelve right into
a two by ten floor joye, and not just compromise
that area, but whatever else that floor joist is doing,
its whole length has been weakened a little bit. Okay,
that is not the end of the world, though necessarily,
(27:13):
because that floor joist could be strengthened by having, for instance,
what we call sistering, which means another joist placed next
to it and essentially thickening the joye. Since it's losing
stiffness in height, we can add the stiffness back in
width and still get the clearance. So the point is this,
(27:37):
I don't make those decisions on a job site, even
though I have a heck of a lot of experience,
and I usually eyeball a situation and say, well, it's
gonna probably take this in this Despite all of that,
despite all of my expertise in this area, I never
cross over the line and pretend to be an engineer.
(27:59):
This is what a structural engineer is. Four. This is
because the calculations, the load, all of that, and above
all things, we want your house to be safe. We
want the Kerblas shower in the upstairs bathroom to be
a benefit to everything the bathroom and not compromise the house.
So setting aside the contractors is a simple call to
(28:23):
a local a structural engineer, and you're gonna invest a
little bit of money in them. You're gonna invest at
least a couple three hundred dollars to have them come
out and give you a console in your home so
that they can look, they can evaluate the location of
the bathroom, the orientation of the choice, and make a
calculation and a recommendation, because yes, it has to be
(28:47):
done under permit, and yes, the city's going to want
to know how those joys are being strengthened. And it
sounds like a whole big thing. It really is not
as big of a thing as it sounds like. But
I am saying this. Start you start with a structural engineer, okay,
because that the structural engineer is the one who tells
(29:09):
essentially not verbally, but you know, is the one who's
telling us builders what it is we need to build, okay,
or I should say this. The designer tells the builder
what it is that we're building. The structural engineer tells
the builder how it has to be done, okay, and
(29:29):
then the builder executes that plan. Right. A builder is
not a designer and a builder is not an engineer.
It is a collaboration of these three trades, these three
fields that make every house what it is supposed to be.
And so there are a lot of other answers or
(29:50):
questions regarding your curbla shower, what system to use for waterproofing.
I don't want you to get caught up in that
right now, all right, don't worry about hot versus vinyl
versus PVC liner versus the shlooter system. That's all about
waterproofing of the pan. That once we know we can
do the curblish hower, we can talk about that. That's
(30:11):
no big deal. Okay, you got a lot of options,
But the first, foremost and most important question for you,
Diane is can this be done in this location cost
effectively so that it doesn't compromise the house. And again
it's a little bit of investment to have a structural
(30:32):
engineer come out and do just that. Look at us,
We've talked and I'm overtime, Diane. Thank you for your call.
That is the way to go, Veta structural engineer, have
them come out, have them give you advice, don't do
it the other way around, and everything will turn out
a okay, I promise. And if you're any other questions
(30:52):
about that, then give me a call back. All right,
y'all when we return more of your calls. You are
listening to Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer on KFI. You're
listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI.
A M six forty
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