December 15, 2024 • 30 mins
In Hour 1 of Vintage, Antique, Retro, Nostalgia, Dean dives into the world of nostalgic design, breaking down the differences between antiques, vintage items, and retro pieces. He explores the emotional impact of these styles, sharing how they can reflect personal stories and values. With practical insights and thoughtful advice, Dean unpacks the allure of nostalgic design and its role in creating a home that feels truly unique and meaningful. Plus, he opens up the lines to take listener questions on all things home-related.
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. I'm
Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer. I design homes, I build
custom homes, and I am your guide to better understanding
that place where you live. Today on the show, we're
(00:23):
keeping in the theme of yeah, I think where everybody's
heads and kind of hearts are at around December ish,
you know, there's a lot of nostalgia floating through the air.
There's a lot of decorating on people's minds, and so
we're staying in that decorating flow, the decor flow this weekend.
Not Christmas decorating, not holiday, just decor. Yesterday, our previous
(00:46):
podcast episode, we discussed furniture furniture buying, and I talked
to you about the right way to go about buying furniture. Today,
we're going to talk about demystifying, antiquing and vintage and retro.
What the hell do these words mean and what are
(01:06):
you looking for and what should you expect Everything that
falls under the umbrella of what I call nostalgic design, antique, vintage, retro,
and so on and so forth. That is where we're
going today. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Stay with me, and you're going to learn quite a
bit today because I'm always handing out the pearls, always
(01:30):
just giving you the pearls of wisdom that are useful
to you when you go about to trying to make
your home something truly extraordinary. And of course we're going
to be taking your calls as we always do it.
When it comes to calls, goes without saying that you
get to set the agenda. I'm talking retro, vintage and
antiquing today. You can call me about anything that's got
(01:54):
you scratching your head about your home, construction issue, design problem,
landscape into your exterior, anything at all DIY concerns, anything
that's got you in a quandary. Give me a call,
we'll put our heads together and we'll figure it out.
Here's the number eight three three two. Ask Dean A
(02:15):
three three. The numeral two ask Dean A three three
to ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. Producer
Matt standing by ready to take your calls. He'll tell
you everything you need to know. Pop you into the
queue and you can listen to the show while you wait.
There you go, all right. Speaking of producer Matt, let
me introduce the rest of our awesome team. Elmer is
(02:37):
on the board. Good morning, sir, Good morning Jane. Hey,
I'm good, all right. Hey O. I believe Elma and
I were having a very deep conversation just about life,
life before the show started. So we're both in that.
(02:58):
We're both in that place where it's like, you know, yeah,
the show goes on. Here we are, we're getting it done.
Producer Matt, like I said, standing by to take your
calls nowhere near a microphone right now. But he's off
doing what he does and doing it well. Eileen Gonzalez
at the news desk, Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean.
(03:18):
How's it going. It's good, It's good. I'd be lying
if I if I told you that I wasn't a
little tired this morning. But I think it's just I
think it's adrenaline letdown is what it is, more than
anything else. You know. We got away for a few
days here in the middle of the week. We went
up to one of our favorite places in California here
(03:41):
and just jumped in the car and went up with
some friends to Central Coastal California, you know, like Passel
Roblos and and more O Bay and just that while
Area Loso Sos and we went up to Cumbria. I
always use I grew up calling it Cambria, and now
I feel like I'm like Thurston half when I say Cumbria.
(04:02):
But I was told that that's the proper way to
pronounce it. So all right, anyway, it's so cool up
there right now. It was very festive. And then we
came home and yesterday was sort of relaxing after the
show and so and then all of a sudden, I
start getting tired, and I'm like, oh, well, maybe it's
just the letdown after the trip. Or sometimes you need
(04:22):
a vacation after a vacation nic, you know what, to
unwind it home. Damn right, my friend, there it is
right there. So that's what today is. Today. When we're
done with the show, it will be a vacation after
our vacation, and then tomorrow a vacation after our vacation's vacation.
I'm just gonna keep it rolling anyway, Eileen. Awesome as
(04:45):
always to have you here, sitting across the table from me.
Sitting across the table from me, sitting across the table
from me. Oh, just staring up in this space. My
better half, the co owner, co founder of House Whisper,
(05:06):
my co designer, my best friend in all the world,
Tina is here.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Welcome home.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
There you go. Now you can return to whatever it
is that you were doing.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know what I'm doing is I am doing a
crash holiday shopping.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I'm behind. This is weird.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I usually have all my shopping done and probably all
my stuff wrapped way before.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, well you know, feel free to do it while
I'm doing the show.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Here this morning.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Free.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I was sitting by the.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
No no, no, no, no no, I'll do the work.
You just do that. I'll look up for your affirmation,
and you'll be staring into that screen and I'll just
look away again. Small tear drops from the eye.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Now I have seen you.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Now, sorry everyone if you don't get a Christmas present,
because I need to take care of d Oh.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
My gosh, now the guilt comes. Good lord, All right, y'all,
let's start talking about I'm going to start right off
the bat with explaining to you where the divisions are
between if there are any, are there? Yes, there are
between antique vintage retro and nostalgia, nostalgic. We will do
(06:21):
it right after.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Here to help you take your home to the next level.
Happy to do it. We have an emergency in the studio.
By the way, I just want to announce this. This chair,
this chair, the piston on this desk chair. What are
you laughing at? Why are you laughing at me?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Because you keep shrinking.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
The piston on this chair is I don't know it's
leaking or something. But because I set it up at
their level, at the right level, and even now I
can literally feel it moving, I think no, So I'm
gonna I end up. You know, I start out segment
as an adult, and I end up as like a
six year old sitting by sitting in a big chair.
(07:15):
All right, I'm just saying, wait a second, I got
to adjust it. All right, I'm tall again, just for
a moment. All right, let's talk about vintage, antique, retro
and nostalgic. How do you when you go for this
kind of decor and you're looking for pieces like this,
(07:36):
how do you tell the difference between the two. What
are the line, where are the lines. I like my
mom's definition of vintage and antique, and she's absolutely one
hundred percent right. Her definition is vintage is, you know,
somewhat affordable, and antique is unbelievably expensive. And so when
(07:59):
something gets labeled antique, just know that, you know, you
got you gotta write a big check for it. And
she's right about that. She's right. However, there there actually
are within the industry some a little bit harder lines
of definition between the two. And here it is, right.
And by the way, when you hear me say this,
(08:21):
don't ever let anybody call you an antique again, all right, never. Never.
Antique within the decorating and designed industry is something that's
one hundred years old or older. All right. You got
to hit the hundred year mark for something to be antique. Okay,
(08:41):
so there you go. And obviously you know when something
is approaching it, then you know these are somewhat arbitrary
and uh, and things get a little fuzzy, you know,
around the boundary, around the threshold from one to the other.
But generally speaking, antique is one hundred year old or old,
which means I am not antique. However, unfortunately, yes, I
(09:06):
am vintage, because everybody's vintage. I'm assuming. I'm assuming there
are no teenagers listening to the show, or not many,
and so although we have a lot of young adults
who listen to the show. But guess what vintage. Okay,
it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt some of you. Vintage
in most definitions, right, there's some debate about it, but
(09:29):
in most definitions, vintage is anything twenty years old to
ninety nine, twenty to ninety nine. What do you say, No,
I didn't make it up, Tina, your vintage. I know
(09:50):
your vintage.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I was born in the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
That's true. We're from the nineteen hundreds. I anyway, vintage
is twenty years old now obviously on the twenty end,
you know. But here's the thing. This is true. Right
if you're let's say you're you know, you're. I'm gonna
touch on this at the end of the show too.
But you know, let's say you're you're twenty eight years old.
You're twenty eight years old, and you feel like you're
(10:14):
in the prime of your youth. But you know, to
a thirteen year old, you are old. You are old,
and out of it. And so that's what I'm saying.
You get twenty years in between the thing, it starts
to lean towards the vintage side of things. So I'm
guaranteed everybody who's listening right now is probably vintage as
(10:36):
far as people go. Here's the thing that is surprising
to a lot of folks. Retro. Okay, retro is a
tricky one, and I'll tell you why, because most things
that are retro, in fact, technically retro is actually new.
Something that is retro is by definition a new product,
(11:01):
a new thing that is styled to point back to
a previous era. Okay, so here's the thing. So you
go to you if you're out, you know, looking for
a pair of nineteen seventies genes, you have two choices.
You can get yourself to a thrift store right and
(11:22):
maybe find a pair of use the word properly vintage
nineteen seventies genes, meaning yeah, made in the seventies and
still in good enough shape to wear. Or you can
dial up one of ten thousand clothing websites online that
(11:43):
make retro nineteen seventies ish esque genes and they're brand new.
They're brand new, but they look like you know that thing.
So that's the idea. And when it comes to home
elements furnishings especially, a perfect example this would be appliances
companies like Smeg. No I did not cough something up.
(12:09):
That's the name of a retro appliance company, Smeg. They're brilliant,
they're beautiful. They make an entire line of appliances that
look very mid century, nineteen fifties esque in the colors,
the shapes, Socide, but they're brand new, brand new, high tech.
Smeg also Big Chill, Big Chill, especially for refrigerators, obviously
(12:31):
by the name of the company. So these are not
old appliances. These are brand new appliances that would have
looked perfectly brand new in a nineteen fifties kitchen. So
antique one hundred years old or older, vintage twenty to
ninety nine years old, and retro actually new but styled
(12:54):
to point back to a previous era. Now, all three
of theseies fall under one umbrella of nostalgic design, nostalgia,
and we're going to talk a little bit about that
right after.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on Demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Dean sharp the house, whisper here with you on this crisp, cool,
sunny southern California Sunday morning. Here right in the middle
of the month December fifty. Is it the fifteenth? It's
the fifteenth of December, smack dab in the middle of them.
That means it's ten days still Christmas. Don't panic, Tina.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
This is why I was panic shopping this morning.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Don't panic. Just embrace it. Just embrace You're like, ah,
still ten days still Christmas.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I see. Well, well, don't get caught up in all
this materialism. Just breathe it in. Let's do it now.
Just breathe. There you go, well done. Oh, Eileen, Eileen,
do you have your head? Uh? I was going to say,
I have a drone story. Oh yeah, did you see that?
(14:12):
That that may or may not calm people's thinking. And
I wonder about this because it wasn't that long ago
when we were spotting drones, like for four days straight
in our backyard. I would walk out and I'm like,
what does that sound? And I'm looking up and like
there's a drone. Who's who's doing that drone? You know,
(14:35):
you feel so violated when they're grone hovering over your yard, right,
So it took me a couple of days to figure out,
but I kind of noticed the timing and the pattern
of it, and I realized I walked around. We we
have a kind of a corner house, so I walked
her out front around the corner and here is a
guy from California Edison, uh, operating that drone and UH
(14:59):
and I to him and he's like, oh yeah, he said.
I said, you guys didn't send out notice about this.
He's like, no, we didn't, but technically, you know, we're
allowed to have the airspace over the the easement over
the power lines. He's like, but you know, with all
the recent fires all over southern California, cal Edison is
inspecting their power lines and especially the residential ones to
(15:21):
make sure that there aren't trees growing over and touching
lines and any and they're using drones. They start out
by using helicopters, but they're now using drones. So you
might be in a neighborhood where you see drones all
of a sudden for two or three days and you're like,
what is going on there? And for us, it was
Edison just inspecting power lines, which I thought, all right,
(15:43):
that's you know, that's fine. I'd rather actually have a
drone doing its thing than maybe a helicopter over my
house for an hour. So there you go. It's possible.
It's all I'm saying. It's possible or aliens. It's one
of the two.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I like that choice.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I'm going for either meaninglessly safe or tremendously meaningfully terrifying.
So there's no middle ground. Aliens you don't know very good. Yeah,
they could be. They could be aliens inspecting the power lines. Also,
I'm just saying, okay, I should move on to actual content.
(16:20):
I promised I would talk to you about nostalgia, because
nostalgic design or nostalgia is really the umbrella category for
everything that is a period design, everything that is a
theme of the past, okay, which is most architecture and
most design. Because there's only a very slim category of
(16:45):
current contemporary, and I don't really buy it's only contemporary.
I don't. I don't buy into futuristic design because that's
just not true. Nobody's designing futuristic design because as far
as we know, no architects are designers are time traveling
into the future, and we all know how futuristic design
(17:05):
turns out. It's kind of you know, if we were
to believe futuristic design when we were all kids, then
right about now, we would all be wearing those silver
shiny suits because that's how all people in the future dressed.
So yeah, it's contemporary design that means today, what we're
doing with today, and then everything including modern modernist is
(17:30):
now this period, you know, locked mid century of the
twentieth century. So anyway, nostalgia drives all of this, antiques,
vintage items, retro design. The word nostalgia, if you didn't know,
means a sentimental yearning for the past that evokes feelings
(17:51):
of pleasure with occasional notes sounds like I'm sizzling a dish,
pleasure with occasional notes of sad. It's true. In fact,
the word itself, the word nostalgias, derived from ancient Greek,
the word nostos meaning return and like in time and
(18:14):
algos meaning pain okay, And it was first coined and
started being used even though it has Greek origins, in
the design world about three hundred years ago. So this
idea of nostalgia, it is those fond memories nostalgia is
a powerful human emotion, right, and it can be Yeah,
(18:35):
it can be unhealthy if you get lost in the past,
if you get trapped in the past. But nostalgia usually,
and it's surprisingly that there have been major studies done
on nostalgia, nostalgia usually produces really healthy benefits, psychological and
(18:57):
emotionally healthy benefits. Excuse me. It creates a determined hopefulness
about creating the future. And you would think why looking back,
because it's kind of that like, we did it once,
we can do this again kind of thing. It creates
motivation to resolve interpersonal issues and rekindle relationships and reconnect
(19:22):
with old friends and reprioritize important things. Nostalgia in design
and decor can be a way of clarifying and embracing
personal values rooted in lessons of the past. And I'm
not talking about I'm not talking about political stuff. I'm
(19:43):
not talking about like, well, yeah, you know that's the
way when things work great, That's not what I'm talking about.
But I am talking about looking back at things from
the past, things like craftsmanship, passion, patience, simplicity, a simpler life, right,
(20:04):
a higher quality of life, contentment, engagement, wisdom, whatever you
want to call it, that kind of they don't make
them like they used to, So guess what, we're going
to start that again right now. And then the whole
idea of like those who don't learn from history are
doomed to repeat, and so nostalgia has locked up inside
(20:26):
of it, all of that kind of stuff, all of
these personal values that you can declare through design and
decor that you know, these things are important to me,
These things are important to me. Therefore, these are the
items that we have, the pieces or the facets of
our home that harken back to a time when dot
(20:49):
dot dot and then you just fill in the blank
from your own personal story. So they're way again as
all things of designing and defining a personal story. Okay,
and I think this. I think any design theme rooted
in the past brings emotional comfort, the comfort of being
(21:10):
a kind of a known quantity, right because the future
is unknown, the present is confusing. The past, you know,
we like the past because it feels more settled. It's past,
it's it's knowable, it's comforting, and it's dependable because it
doesn't have any more surprises for us. Right there, it is, right,
And so there is a sense of rootedness to that,
(21:32):
like I like this because guess what, I'm sort of
just embracing the idea that some things aren't gonna change,
some things are just set the way they are, and
I like it this way. So that is what is
driving And now that felt a little bit, you know
ethereal that all that, But you got to understand when
we're reaching for this massive, massive section of design and decor, antiques,
(21:58):
vintage items, retro items, got to understand what lies at
the root of it all, and it is nostalgia. It
is the nostalgic effect that these elements have upon our
human brains and upon human beings that we are all right.
So now the question is what do you do with
(22:22):
an antique or a vintage item? Right, I'm not talking
about retro because we know it's brand new, But if
you're shopping for vintage or antique, then you're going to
find those things in various states, various conditions, various states
of repair or disrepair or preservation. And the lesson is
(22:43):
going to be what we do two antique inventioned items
vintage items depends on what we plan to do with them. Okay,
what we do to them has everything to do with
what we plan to do with them. And there's about
five categories of things that you might do with them.
We'll talk about it all.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Forty Welcome home, Hey, coming up kids, next segment, right
after the next news break, we're going to the phones.
We got a few calls on the board. We've got
room for you. Eight three three two. Ask Dean A
three to three the numeral two ask Dean eight three
(23:32):
three to ask Dean. We'll be hitting the phones right
after our next break. So gifts a call now. Producer
Matt standing by anything you want to talk about regarding
your home design, construction, DIY, inside, outside, all around, anything
at all that's got you scratching your head, give me
(23:52):
a call. We'll put our heads together, we'll figure it out.
We will all right back to antique, vintage, retro, nostalgic design.
Kind of trying to demystify this for you today, for
those of you, and I know there are a lot
of you who are thinking in terms of, yeah, that's
kind of my bag and I've always wanted to acquire
(24:17):
these items, find places for them, integrate them well into
our home, all of that. So now the question is
what do you do to these items? Because, as I
said right before the break, you know, you go out
shopping for antiques and vintage items, and this is probably
more likely that you find a vintage item in disrepair
(24:40):
than an antique, because the longer something hangs around and
is handed around from person to person, the more antique
it gets, the higher the chance is that somebody along
the way has restored it, or preserved it or what
have you. A lot of vintage stuff that's just it's
(25:03):
showing its age, showing weathering, may be broken in part,
may be in need of refinishing, all of that kind
of stuff. So the question is do you just treat
it all the same? Is that going to be the plan?
And my answer to that is no, what you do
to an antique or a vintage item depends on what
(25:25):
you plan to do with them. Okay, now what does
that mean? Well, there are let's say five or six
I'm gonna look at my notes here, I think, yeah, six,
I've got six categories of things that you generally do
with it. Okay, so we're going to preserve an antique
(25:49):
or a vintage item, if it's already in the shape
that we want it to be in, Tina, catch me
on this. We're going to restore it. Okay, that's a
whole nother category. Now we're going to bring it back, Okay.
Restoration means that our aim is to bring it back
as close to its new state as possible, or we're
(26:12):
gonna remodel it, Okay, depending on you know, whether or
not we are how we plan to use it. So
there's three things that we do too. Antique advenage items, preserve,
restore or remodel them depending on three things we plan
to do with them, and that would be we're gonna
(26:34):
display them, We're going to reuse them. Okay. Now, if
you're going to reuse, meaning you're gonna put it back
into service, Okay, that's a whole another as you can imagine.
You know, that's a whole nother ballgame. Right. So, here
is a vintage or an antique foot driven singer sewing machine, right,
(26:57):
beautiful black, right, it's got all And if the plan
is to display it, then maybe you choose to leave
it in its state of aged decay as it were,
or maybe you want to really restore it to its
(27:19):
beauty superficially. So maybe you're gonna, you know, do your
best to just clean it all of the bare stainless
steel parts. You just get them looking shiny and new,
and you're gonna do your best with the paint work,
maybe even a little bit of touch up if necessary.
But if you're not planning to reuse it, then you
(27:39):
don't have to get into the mechanism and worry about
whether the mechanism is functional or not, or whether it's slipping,
or you know, whether the fabric foot is grabbing properly
or all of that. That's a whole other level. So
it's one level to display an item, it's another level
of demand if you plan to reuse an item, or
(28:03):
it's a whole another approach to the item if you
plan to repurpose it, okay, And I would say that
the vast majority, well, I would say from my experience,
the majority of antique and vintage pieces get a repurposed okay.
(28:23):
Next to that, they would be displayed and the smallest
category would be fully restored and reused. And what do
I mean by repurpose? Repurposing is very simple to understand
repurposing means, well, I'll give you an example. We have
a ten gallon galvanized milk can in our home. Okay,
(28:48):
it's one of those milk cans, you know. It stands
like twenty four inches tall, and it harkens back to
yester year of from a dairy. I mean, this is
not a thing you keep in your fridge. This is
the big milk hands coming straight from the dairy. And
the reason is our daughter in law's family used to
own the dairy. They're from Fremont, Ohio, and their family heritage,
(29:11):
her dad's family heritage was the you know, the owners
and operators of Linders Dairy. And so what Tina and
I did We found an old online. We found an
old example of Linder's dairy labels, and we recreated the label. Bought,
you know, a ten gallon milk can and put the
(29:35):
label on the milk can. And now the milk can
holds a potted plant on top of it. Right, it's
not holding milk. It is repurposed to be on display
and also doing another thing. And so that's repurposing.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
It's like, oh, well, I bought this beautiful bowl and
now I'm going to put a succulent in it or
something like that. So you get what I'm saying, all right,
There's so much more to discuss here, details and tips
on how to do each one of these things. We're
going to return to it, but first, after the break,
we're going to be going to the phones. The number
to reach me eight three three two. Ask Dean A
(30:11):
three three the numeral two, Ask Dean. You're listening to
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 to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning
from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand
(30:32):
on the iHeartRadio app
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. I'm
Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer. I design homes, I build
custom homes, and I am your guide to better understanding
that place where you live. Today on the show, we're
(00:23):
keeping in the theme of yeah, I think where everybody's
heads and kind of hearts are at around December ish,
you know, there's a lot of nostalgia floating through the air.
There's a lot of decorating on people's minds, and so
we're staying in that decorating flow, the decor flow this weekend.
Not Christmas decorating, not holiday, just decor. Yesterday, our previous
(00:46):
podcast episode, we discussed furniture furniture buying, and I talked
to you about the right way to go about buying furniture. Today,
we're going to talk about demystifying, antiquing and vintage and retro.
What the hell do these words mean and what are
(01:06):
you looking for and what should you expect Everything that
falls under the umbrella of what I call nostalgic design, antique, vintage, retro,
and so on and so forth. That is where we're
going today. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Stay with me, and you're going to learn quite a
bit today because I'm always handing out the pearls, always
(01:30):
just giving you the pearls of wisdom that are useful
to you when you go about to trying to make
your home something truly extraordinary. And of course we're going
to be taking your calls as we always do it.
When it comes to calls, goes without saying that you
get to set the agenda. I'm talking retro, vintage and
antiquing today. You can call me about anything that's got
(01:54):
you scratching your head about your home, construction issue, design problem,
landscape into your exterior, anything at all DIY concerns, anything
that's got you in a quandary. Give me a call,
we'll put our heads together and we'll figure it out.
Here's the number eight three three two. Ask Dean A
(02:15):
three three. The numeral two ask Dean A three three
to ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. Producer
Matt standing by ready to take your calls. He'll tell
you everything you need to know. Pop you into the
queue and you can listen to the show while you wait.
There you go, all right. Speaking of producer Matt, let
me introduce the rest of our awesome team. Elmer is
(02:37):
on the board. Good morning, sir, Good morning Jane. Hey,
I'm good, all right. Hey O. I believe Elma and
I were having a very deep conversation just about life,
life before the show started. So we're both in that.
(02:58):
We're both in that place where it's like, you know, yeah,
the show goes on. Here we are, we're getting it done.
Producer Matt, like I said, standing by to take your
calls nowhere near a microphone right now. But he's off
doing what he does and doing it well. Eileen Gonzalez
at the news desk, Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean.
(03:18):
How's it going. It's good, It's good. I'd be lying
if I if I told you that I wasn't a
little tired this morning. But I think it's just I
think it's adrenaline letdown is what it is, more than
anything else. You know. We got away for a few
days here in the middle of the week. We went
up to one of our favorite places in California here
(03:41):
and just jumped in the car and went up with
some friends to Central Coastal California, you know, like Passel
Roblos and and more O Bay and just that while
Area Loso Sos and we went up to Cumbria. I
always use I grew up calling it Cambria, and now
I feel like I'm like Thurston half when I say Cumbria.
(04:02):
But I was told that that's the proper way to
pronounce it. So all right, anyway, it's so cool up
there right now. It was very festive. And then we
came home and yesterday was sort of relaxing after the
show and so and then all of a sudden, I
start getting tired, and I'm like, oh, well, maybe it's
just the letdown after the trip. Or sometimes you need
(04:22):
a vacation after a vacation nic, you know what, to
unwind it home. Damn right, my friend, there it is
right there. So that's what today is. Today. When we're
done with the show, it will be a vacation after
our vacation, and then tomorrow a vacation after our vacation's vacation.
I'm just gonna keep it rolling anyway, Eileen. Awesome as
(04:45):
always to have you here, sitting across the table from me.
Sitting across the table from me, sitting across the table
from me. Oh, just staring up in this space. My
better half, the co owner, co founder of House Whisper,
(05:06):
my co designer, my best friend in all the world,
Tina is here.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Welcome home.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
There you go. Now you can return to whatever it
is that you were doing.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know what I'm doing is I am doing a
crash holiday shopping.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I'm behind. This is weird.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I usually have all my shopping done and probably all
my stuff wrapped way before.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, well you know, feel free to do it while
I'm doing the show.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Here this morning.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Free.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I was sitting by the.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
No no, no, no, no no, I'll do the work.
You just do that. I'll look up for your affirmation,
and you'll be staring into that screen and I'll just
look away again. Small tear drops from the eye.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Now I have seen you.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Now, sorry everyone if you don't get a Christmas present,
because I need to take care of d Oh.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
My gosh, now the guilt comes. Good lord, All right, y'all,
let's start talking about I'm going to start right off
the bat with explaining to you where the divisions are
between if there are any, are there? Yes, there are
between antique vintage retro and nostalgia, nostalgic. We will do
(06:21):
it right after.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Here to help you take your home to the next level.
Happy to do it. We have an emergency in the studio.
By the way, I just want to announce this. This chair,
this chair, the piston on this desk chair. What are
you laughing at? Why are you laughing at me?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Because you keep shrinking.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
The piston on this chair is I don't know it's
leaking or something. But because I set it up at
their level, at the right level, and even now I
can literally feel it moving, I think no, So I'm
gonna I end up. You know, I start out segment
as an adult, and I end up as like a
six year old sitting by sitting in a big chair.
(07:15):
All right, I'm just saying, wait a second, I got
to adjust it. All right, I'm tall again, just for
a moment. All right, let's talk about vintage, antique, retro
and nostalgic. How do you when you go for this
kind of decor and you're looking for pieces like this,
(07:36):
how do you tell the difference between the two. What
are the line, where are the lines. I like my
mom's definition of vintage and antique, and she's absolutely one
hundred percent right. Her definition is vintage is, you know,
somewhat affordable, and antique is unbelievably expensive. And so when
(07:59):
something gets labeled antique, just know that, you know, you
got you gotta write a big check for it. And
she's right about that. She's right. However, there there actually
are within the industry some a little bit harder lines
of definition between the two. And here it is, right.
And by the way, when you hear me say this,
(08:21):
don't ever let anybody call you an antique again, all right, never. Never.
Antique within the decorating and designed industry is something that's
one hundred years old or older. All right. You got
to hit the hundred year mark for something to be antique. Okay,
(08:41):
so there you go. And obviously you know when something
is approaching it, then you know these are somewhat arbitrary
and uh, and things get a little fuzzy, you know,
around the boundary, around the threshold from one to the other.
But generally speaking, antique is one hundred year old or old,
which means I am not antique. However, unfortunately, yes, I
(09:06):
am vintage, because everybody's vintage. I'm assuming. I'm assuming there
are no teenagers listening to the show, or not many,
and so although we have a lot of young adults
who listen to the show. But guess what vintage. Okay,
it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt some of you. Vintage
in most definitions, right, there's some debate about it, but
(09:29):
in most definitions, vintage is anything twenty years old to
ninety nine, twenty to ninety nine. What do you say, No,
I didn't make it up, Tina, your vintage. I know
(09:50):
your vintage.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I was born in the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
That's true. We're from the nineteen hundreds. I anyway, vintage
is twenty years old now obviously on the twenty end,
you know. But here's the thing. This is true. Right
if you're let's say you're you know, you're. I'm gonna
touch on this at the end of the show too.
But you know, let's say you're you're twenty eight years old.
You're twenty eight years old, and you feel like you're
(10:14):
in the prime of your youth. But you know, to
a thirteen year old, you are old. You are old,
and out of it. And so that's what I'm saying.
You get twenty years in between the thing, it starts
to lean towards the vintage side of things. So I'm
guaranteed everybody who's listening right now is probably vintage as
(10:36):
far as people go. Here's the thing that is surprising
to a lot of folks. Retro. Okay, retro is a
tricky one, and I'll tell you why, because most things
that are retro, in fact, technically retro is actually new.
Something that is retro is by definition a new product,
(11:01):
a new thing that is styled to point back to
a previous era. Okay, so here's the thing. So you
go to you if you're out, you know, looking for
a pair of nineteen seventies genes, you have two choices.
You can get yourself to a thrift store right and
(11:22):
maybe find a pair of use the word properly vintage
nineteen seventies genes, meaning yeah, made in the seventies and
still in good enough shape to wear. Or you can
dial up one of ten thousand clothing websites online that
(11:43):
make retro nineteen seventies ish esque genes and they're brand new.
They're brand new, but they look like you know that thing.
So that's the idea. And when it comes to home
elements furnishings especially, a perfect example this would be appliances
companies like Smeg. No I did not cough something up.
(12:09):
That's the name of a retro appliance company, Smeg. They're brilliant,
they're beautiful. They make an entire line of appliances that
look very mid century, nineteen fifties esque in the colors,
the shapes, Socide, but they're brand new, brand new, high tech.
Smeg also Big Chill, Big Chill, especially for refrigerators, obviously
(12:31):
by the name of the company. So these are not
old appliances. These are brand new appliances that would have
looked perfectly brand new in a nineteen fifties kitchen. So
antique one hundred years old or older, vintage twenty to
ninety nine years old, and retro actually new but styled
(12:54):
to point back to a previous era. Now, all three
of theseies fall under one umbrella of nostalgic design, nostalgia,
and we're going to talk a little bit about that
right after.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on Demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Dean sharp the house, whisper here with you on this crisp, cool,
sunny southern California Sunday morning. Here right in the middle
of the month December fifty. Is it the fifteenth? It's
the fifteenth of December, smack dab in the middle of them.
That means it's ten days still Christmas. Don't panic, Tina.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
This is why I was panic shopping this morning.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Don't panic. Just embrace it. Just embrace You're like, ah,
still ten days still Christmas.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I see. Well, well, don't get caught up in all
this materialism. Just breathe it in. Let's do it now.
Just breathe. There you go, well done. Oh, Eileen, Eileen,
do you have your head? Uh? I was going to say,
I have a drone story. Oh yeah, did you see that?
(14:12):
That that may or may not calm people's thinking. And
I wonder about this because it wasn't that long ago
when we were spotting drones, like for four days straight
in our backyard. I would walk out and I'm like,
what does that sound? And I'm looking up and like
there's a drone. Who's who's doing that drone? You know,
(14:35):
you feel so violated when they're grone hovering over your yard, right,
So it took me a couple of days to figure out,
but I kind of noticed the timing and the pattern
of it, and I realized I walked around. We we
have a kind of a corner house, so I walked
her out front around the corner and here is a
guy from California Edison, uh, operating that drone and UH
(14:59):
and I to him and he's like, oh yeah, he said.
I said, you guys didn't send out notice about this.
He's like, no, we didn't, but technically, you know, we're
allowed to have the airspace over the the easement over
the power lines. He's like, but you know, with all
the recent fires all over southern California, cal Edison is
inspecting their power lines and especially the residential ones to
(15:21):
make sure that there aren't trees growing over and touching
lines and any and they're using drones. They start out
by using helicopters, but they're now using drones. So you
might be in a neighborhood where you see drones all
of a sudden for two or three days and you're like,
what is going on there? And for us, it was
Edison just inspecting power lines, which I thought, all right,
(15:43):
that's you know, that's fine. I'd rather actually have a
drone doing its thing than maybe a helicopter over my
house for an hour. So there you go. It's possible.
It's all I'm saying. It's possible or aliens. It's one
of the two.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I like that choice.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I'm going for either meaninglessly safe or tremendously meaningfully terrifying.
So there's no middle ground. Aliens you don't know very good. Yeah,
they could be. They could be aliens inspecting the power lines. Also,
I'm just saying, okay, I should move on to actual content.
(16:20):
I promised I would talk to you about nostalgia, because
nostalgic design or nostalgia is really the umbrella category for
everything that is a period design, everything that is a
theme of the past, okay, which is most architecture and
most design. Because there's only a very slim category of
(16:45):
current contemporary, and I don't really buy it's only contemporary.
I don't. I don't buy into futuristic design because that's
just not true. Nobody's designing futuristic design because as far
as we know, no architects are designers are time traveling
into the future, and we all know how futuristic design
(17:05):
turns out. It's kind of you know, if we were
to believe futuristic design when we were all kids, then
right about now, we would all be wearing those silver
shiny suits because that's how all people in the future dressed.
So yeah, it's contemporary design that means today, what we're
doing with today, and then everything including modern modernist is
(17:30):
now this period, you know, locked mid century of the
twentieth century. So anyway, nostalgia drives all of this, antiques,
vintage items, retro design. The word nostalgia, if you didn't know,
means a sentimental yearning for the past that evokes feelings
(17:51):
of pleasure with occasional notes sounds like I'm sizzling a dish,
pleasure with occasional notes of sad. It's true. In fact,
the word itself, the word nostalgias, derived from ancient Greek,
the word nostos meaning return and like in time and
(18:14):
algos meaning pain okay, And it was first coined and
started being used even though it has Greek origins, in
the design world about three hundred years ago. So this
idea of nostalgia, it is those fond memories nostalgia is
a powerful human emotion, right, and it can be Yeah,
(18:35):
it can be unhealthy if you get lost in the past,
if you get trapped in the past. But nostalgia usually,
and it's surprisingly that there have been major studies done
on nostalgia, nostalgia usually produces really healthy benefits, psychological and
(18:57):
emotionally healthy benefits. Excuse me. It creates a determined hopefulness
about creating the future. And you would think why looking back,
because it's kind of that like, we did it once,
we can do this again kind of thing. It creates
motivation to resolve interpersonal issues and rekindle relationships and reconnect
(19:22):
with old friends and reprioritize important things. Nostalgia in design
and decor can be a way of clarifying and embracing
personal values rooted in lessons of the past. And I'm
not talking about I'm not talking about political stuff. I'm
(19:43):
not talking about like, well, yeah, you know that's the
way when things work great, That's not what I'm talking about.
But I am talking about looking back at things from
the past, things like craftsmanship, passion, patience, simplicity, a simpler life, right,
(20:04):
a higher quality of life, contentment, engagement, wisdom, whatever you
want to call it, that kind of they don't make
them like they used to, So guess what, we're going
to start that again right now. And then the whole
idea of like those who don't learn from history are
doomed to repeat, and so nostalgia has locked up inside
(20:26):
of it, all of that kind of stuff, all of
these personal values that you can declare through design and
decor that you know, these things are important to me,
These things are important to me. Therefore, these are the
items that we have, the pieces or the facets of
our home that harken back to a time when dot
(20:49):
dot dot and then you just fill in the blank
from your own personal story. So they're way again as
all things of designing and defining a personal story. Okay,
and I think this. I think any design theme rooted
in the past brings emotional comfort, the comfort of being
(21:10):
a kind of a known quantity, right because the future
is unknown, the present is confusing. The past, you know,
we like the past because it feels more settled. It's past,
it's it's knowable, it's comforting, and it's dependable because it
doesn't have any more surprises for us. Right there, it is, right,
And so there is a sense of rootedness to that,
(21:32):
like I like this because guess what, I'm sort of
just embracing the idea that some things aren't gonna change,
some things are just set the way they are, and
I like it this way. So that is what is
driving And now that felt a little bit, you know
ethereal that all that, But you got to understand when
we're reaching for this massive, massive section of design and decor, antiques,
(21:58):
vintage items, retro items, got to understand what lies at
the root of it all, and it is nostalgia. It
is the nostalgic effect that these elements have upon our
human brains and upon human beings that we are all right.
So now the question is what do you do with
(22:22):
an antique or a vintage item? Right, I'm not talking
about retro because we know it's brand new, But if
you're shopping for vintage or antique, then you're going to
find those things in various states, various conditions, various states
of repair or disrepair or preservation. And the lesson is
(22:43):
going to be what we do two antique inventioned items
vintage items depends on what we plan to do with them. Okay,
what we do to them has everything to do with
what we plan to do with them. And there's about
five categories of things that you might do with them.
We'll talk about it all.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Forty Welcome home, Hey, coming up kids, next segment, right
after the next news break, we're going to the phones.
We got a few calls on the board. We've got
room for you. Eight three three two. Ask Dean A
three to three the numeral two ask Dean eight three
(23:32):
three to ask Dean. We'll be hitting the phones right
after our next break. So gifts a call now. Producer
Matt standing by anything you want to talk about regarding
your home design, construction, DIY, inside, outside, all around, anything
at all that's got you scratching your head, give me
(23:52):
a call. We'll put our heads together, we'll figure it out.
We will all right back to antique, vintage, retro, nostalgic design.
Kind of trying to demystify this for you today, for
those of you, and I know there are a lot
of you who are thinking in terms of, yeah, that's
kind of my bag and I've always wanted to acquire
(24:17):
these items, find places for them, integrate them well into
our home, all of that. So now the question is
what do you do to these items? Because, as I
said right before the break, you know, you go out
shopping for antiques and vintage items, and this is probably
more likely that you find a vintage item in disrepair
(24:40):
than an antique, because the longer something hangs around and
is handed around from person to person, the more antique
it gets, the higher the chance is that somebody along
the way has restored it, or preserved it or what
have you. A lot of vintage stuff that's just it's
(25:03):
showing its age, showing weathering, may be broken in part,
may be in need of refinishing, all of that kind
of stuff. So the question is do you just treat
it all the same? Is that going to be the plan?
And my answer to that is no, what you do
to an antique or a vintage item depends on what
(25:25):
you plan to do with them. Okay, now what does
that mean? Well, there are let's say five or six
I'm gonna look at my notes here, I think, yeah, six,
I've got six categories of things that you generally do
with it. Okay, so we're going to preserve an antique
(25:49):
or a vintage item, if it's already in the shape
that we want it to be in, Tina, catch me
on this. We're going to restore it. Okay, that's a
whole nother category. Now we're going to bring it back, Okay.
Restoration means that our aim is to bring it back
as close to its new state as possible, or we're
(26:12):
gonna remodel it, Okay, depending on you know, whether or
not we are how we plan to use it. So
there's three things that we do too. Antique advenage items, preserve,
restore or remodel them depending on three things we plan
to do with them, and that would be we're gonna
(26:34):
display them, We're going to reuse them. Okay. Now, if
you're going to reuse, meaning you're gonna put it back
into service, Okay, that's a whole another as you can imagine.
You know, that's a whole nother ballgame. Right. So, here
is a vintage or an antique foot driven singer sewing machine, right,
(26:57):
beautiful black, right, it's got all And if the plan
is to display it, then maybe you choose to leave
it in its state of aged decay as it were,
or maybe you want to really restore it to its
(27:19):
beauty superficially. So maybe you're gonna, you know, do your
best to just clean it all of the bare stainless
steel parts. You just get them looking shiny and new,
and you're gonna do your best with the paint work,
maybe even a little bit of touch up if necessary.
But if you're not planning to reuse it, then you
(27:39):
don't have to get into the mechanism and worry about
whether the mechanism is functional or not, or whether it's slipping,
or you know, whether the fabric foot is grabbing properly
or all of that. That's a whole other level. So
it's one level to display an item, it's another level
of demand if you plan to reuse an item, or
(28:03):
it's a whole another approach to the item if you
plan to repurpose it, okay, And I would say that
the vast majority, well, I would say from my experience,
the majority of antique and vintage pieces get a repurposed okay.
(28:23):
Next to that, they would be displayed and the smallest
category would be fully restored and reused. And what do
I mean by repurpose? Repurposing is very simple to understand
repurposing means, well, I'll give you an example. We have
a ten gallon galvanized milk can in our home. Okay,
(28:48):
it's one of those milk cans, you know. It stands
like twenty four inches tall, and it harkens back to
yester year of from a dairy. I mean, this is
not a thing you keep in your fridge. This is
the big milk hands coming straight from the dairy. And
the reason is our daughter in law's family used to
own the dairy. They're from Fremont, Ohio, and their family heritage,
(29:11):
her dad's family heritage was the you know, the owners
and operators of Linders Dairy. And so what Tina and
I did We found an old online. We found an
old example of Linder's dairy labels, and we recreated the label. Bought,
you know, a ten gallon milk can and put the
(29:35):
label on the milk can. And now the milk can
holds a potted plant on top of it. Right, it's
not holding milk. It is repurposed to be on display
and also doing another thing. And so that's repurposing.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
It's like, oh, well, I bought this beautiful bowl and
now I'm going to put a succulent in it or
something like that. So you get what I'm saying, all right,
There's so much more to discuss here, details and tips
on how to do each one of these things. We're
going to return to it, but first, after the break,
we're going to be going to the phones. The number
to reach me eight three three two. Ask Dean A
(30:11):
three three the numeral two, Ask Dean. You're listening to
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 to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning
from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand
(30:32):
on the iHeartRadio app
Home with Dean Sharp News
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
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.