December 15, 2024 • 32 mins
In Hour 2, Dean takes you on a journey into the heart of nostalgic design. Learn how to incorporate vintage and antique pieces into your home while balancing restoration and repurposing to suit modern living. Dean shares creative tips, answers listener calls about home improvement challenges, and discusses the emotional resonance of design rooted in history.
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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 app. Hey,
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(00:22):
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(00:42):
coming at you every week. So there you go. Follow
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(01:03):
house Whisperer dot Design house Whisperer dot Design. All right,
we are talking antiques, vintage, retro nostalgia today that kind
of decor and the and tips and tricks and great
advice for you of how to integrate it into your home.
We're coming back to that in just a bit. But
(01:24):
it's top of the hour. You know what that means.
Time to go to the phones. Let's do it. I
want to talk to Mike. Hey Mike, welcome home.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Hey Dan, thanks for taking my call. So I have
a contractor that's been installing a roof for I don't
know about a month now. They came in replaced the roof. Well,
my contract was new roof, new facia, and I needed
to trim some raftertails because the previous owner took a
(01:56):
saws all and just cut everything off because of some
other dry rod at the time. They came in put
the new roof on. Then from there they came back
three days later to do the facia and the gutters.
The new facia was two inch, old facia was one
(02:17):
and so all the facia is extending out past the
asphalt shingles. Also, they had to rip the entire drip
edge off to even start that process. So my question
really is is what do I need to look for
when they do all this work? Can they even repair
(02:40):
this to an integrity after ripping off the entire perimeter
of the drip ridge and distrupting every single shingle.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah yeah, well, you know, at the risk of being
just blunt. What you need to look for is a
new contractor.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah well yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Then I actually gave them an out to even bay
completely out and they said, oh, I'm not contract already.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah no, this is this is what I'm talking about.
That that that is completely as my dad would like
to say, bass ackwards. So here's the thing. The facia
uh and I don't care what size the facia is, right,
you know, get one inch fatia, replace it with a
two by facia which is an inch and a half.
That's great, fine, no problem, right. Raftertails have to be
(03:26):
uh you know repaired along the eves. All of that
eve starter board sometimes starter board, by the way, starterboard
everybody is is the is like the tongue and groove
stuff that you see when you look up underneath your eves.
You see nice boards there, not the bottom of plywood,
which is the rest of the roofing material or OSB
you know, chipboard. So the point is this, though, when
(03:50):
they did the tear off, when they tore off the
old roof, now is the time to do all of
that that's when you do all of it, you tear.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Off the to do Yeah, this is standard.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I don't know what their deal is that this is
standard roofing practice. I mean, it's just like roofing one
oh one. We're going to tear off the old roof,
get down to the sheathing. In some situations, if it's
an older home, there's you know, there's one by six
slats up there, uh and not sheathing. So the point
is we're going to make sure that our that are
(04:23):
sheathed membrane, you know, our layer of the roof, the
ply would, the OSB, whatever the case may be. We're
going to make sure that that's all intact. And all
of that is going to extend down with starter board
uh from the root wall line out to the edge
of the facia. The new facia goes on with the
repaired rafter tails. All of that happens before we put
(04:48):
down you know, roofing felt or roofing membrane and UH
and the shingles because we want the the the drip edge,
the metal flashing at the bottom of the roofline needs
to be hanging over the facierboard. It doesn't, it's running
over the facia and that flashing is tied in to
(05:12):
the roofing membrane and the shingles. In fact, the shingles
themselves should be hanging over depending on what situation you've got.
Let's say you've got asphalt composite shingles. Asphalt composite shingles
should be hanging over the drip edge by at least
a half an inch to an inch, okay, hanging over
the drip edge which is hanging over the facio. So
(05:34):
something has gone wrong there, Mike. And and my concern
is that if they do this and they say, oh, yeah, no, no,
we're going to take care of all that, well, what
do you get You're going to be pulling up shingles.
Have they run the papy have they hyper extended the
paper out already on the shingles, are already run out?
(05:57):
Or have they not finished those courses because oh no, they.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, they yeah, they they came into the entire roof
one hundred percent, came back and actually I kind of
yelled at them before they even came back to do that,
saying you guys needed to do this and this, And
then when they were cutting raftertails, they cut into the
sheathing underneath they so that needed to get redone. So
I've got about forty seven feet of sheeting that needs
(06:24):
to get replaced now, almost the entire eve edge. And
you know, I just I don't even know how to
even approach with this with them.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, So here's the thing. Here's the one piece of
leverage that you've got, is that there was a permit
pulled for this reroof Okay, if there wasn't. If there wasn't,
by the way, you don't owe them any money for
anything at all. Right, that permit, there's a permit pulled
for it. That permit should not have been signed off yet.
(06:57):
But even if it was, you have recourse you need
to reach out if if they don't get their act
together and get this right, you can reach out to
the city and say, hey, this is the permit that
got pulled from my house. I'm the homeowner. I didn't
pull the permit directly. The riffer pulled the permit. I
(07:17):
don't know if you guys have done final sign off.
But here's my situation, and now I am concerned. I'm
concerned that they're gonna, you know, screw up the whole
base of this. What can you do, and you know,
an inspector will be happy. Most inspectors will be happy
to come out and take a look at the situation
and you know, red tag it if he needs to.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Okay, yeah, I mean they've they've come out. The inspector
came out and actually missed some dry rot. The installers
missed some dry rot on the eves and they're trying
to blame each other. And I told the contractor, I'm all, look, regardless,
it needs to get fixed. I mean, so I do
have the contract the inspector's name and number already, so
(07:58):
that's a bonus on my part.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, that's that's where you're gonna need to go with this, probably,
Mike plus photograph everything, video, photograph everything, document it documented, documented,
show up close shots and say here's where the roof ends.
And that's gonna be the approach. And the best thing
you could do is leverage the situation so that they
(08:23):
get on the ball and uh and get this done
right for you as opposed to you know, I mean,
I'm saying generally speaking, as opposed to throwing them off
the job, having somebody come back in. That's gonna cost you,
even if you're holding a good amount of their money. Still,
it's gonna cost you more because whoever comes in if
I if I was to come in after the fact,
(08:44):
believe me, I'm like, well, I'm gonna need a little
bit of more freedom in the budget here to you know,
tie back into what they've already done, you know, because
whoever touched it last, it's theirs now. So if it
all possible to get these guys to finish this right,
that's what I would try first. I mean, of course,
(09:05):
at the end of the day, sometimes you got to
toss a contractor from your job. I hate that, hate it,
hate it, but it's a reality. Sometimes. Hopefully that's not
the situation you're in. The best thing you can do
is document it all, have some serious conversations with them
and let them know, hey, happy to get the building
(09:26):
department involved again, just to make sure that this goes right.
So let's get this done. Industry standards and practices, those
are the three words. Might write that down. Industry standards
and practices. This is what every contractor has to as
a bare minimum, make sure that their work complies with
(09:49):
industry standards and practices. Craftsmanship is one thing you can
debate craftsmanship all day long. Oh, it could have been this,
or could have been that, or it could have been
nic sir. Okay, your situation comes down to industry standards
and practice, the bare minimum bar to clear, and you've
(10:09):
got every bit of leverage to get that done. Right, buddy,
I've got to go. Thank you so much for your
question and for your call. I hope that helps just
give you the the right encouragement. Yeah, you're you're You're
not wrong about this. That is not a good situation,
all right, y'all. When we come back, more of your
calls your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We are going to the phones right now before we
return to the subject of antique vintage retro items for
decor in your home and have a handle them. But
right now it's time for some calls. Let's talk to Arnold. Hey, Arnold,
welcome home.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And marry Christmas. Hey, So, I live in a vintage house.
It's twenty one years old, brand new, built in two
thousand and three. In dog years, It's an antique house.
One hundred and forty seven years old to trying to
do the rein style. But hey, quickly we are painting
the house for the first time exterior, do we have
(11:17):
to remove the rain gutters or they just paint over
the rain you know, they just paint the rain gutters,
They just paint whatever they see of the facia.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Well, that depends on a couple of different factors. Actually,
Number one.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
I.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Generally wouldn't remove the rain gutters if it's the very
first time that you're doing the exterior paint of the house,
maybe next time around it's worth doing it just so
you get a little bitter access up to the facier
board and the drip edge, just to make sure those
things get sealed up properly and get a good coat
of paint on them. But first time out, I don't
(11:59):
know that I would pull the gutters off because that's
an additional expense and probably you're okay as far as
moisture protection up underneath there anyway. So that's one factor.
The other factor though, is like, how do you negotiate
around it and get to it or do we need
to remove it? Really has to do with number one,
how they're mounted, Are they tied against the facier board,
(12:22):
do they have any play where you can get a
little bit of paint up behind them so that there
isn't a weird line? How much masking would you have
to do? And the other thing too is are the
gutters going to be different color than the facier board itself,
which enters into a design question that ends up affecting
(12:44):
how it is that you go about executing it. And
if you've heard me talk about gutters before, and facier
boards on most roofs in southern California, most roofs being
asphalt posit roofs which don't have a lot of thickness
and body to them. I've handed this pearl of wisdom
(13:05):
out many many times before. A lot of people have
scratched their head about it, but then come back to
me and said, you know what, Oh my gosh, it
made such a difference. I am not the guy who
is very hip on the white facia board going with
the white trim of the house with an asphalt composite roof.
(13:27):
And the reason is that it leaves the roof material
itself feeling thin, thin ish, it doesn't have. It doesn't
give the roof a lot of presents. So for me,
my clients. They know that my tendency is to say,
unless there's prevailing circumstance. There's never an absolute rule to this, okay,
so please no emails, But unless there's a prevailing circumstance,
(13:51):
I like to give roofs a sense of body to them,
and the facia the edge of the roof. It's such
a significant way to do that that I tend to
choose a color for the facia, a dark color that
corresponds with the one of the colors or one of
the shade darker shades in the roofing material itself, so
(14:13):
that the facial board really feels like the edge of
the roof. And then gutters. When it comes to gutters,
I don't hide gutters. I don't camouflage gutters. I actually
pick them out and if at all possible, I'm like,
you know what, they're made out of? Metal? Here is
our theme for metal on the front of the house,
whether it's kind of cast iron, black or charcoal, or
(14:35):
whatever the case may be. Utilizing gutters as the crown
molding quote unquote that they are for most homes. I
don't want to hide them away, I don't want to
disguise them. I want to accentuate them as an architectural feature.
So I'm the guy who's going to paint the gutters.
Also probably some metallic color as well, and that of
(14:56):
course leads to the hole. Well, now we've got got
to mask between the gutters and the facia and the
facia and you know, and so on. So all of
those factors come into play, my friend, when it comes
to figuring out how to paint around the gutters. Of course,
from the painting perspective, the painters would love for you
to just pull the gutters off. If you're the painter fascinating,
(15:18):
then then you know, do your best. You could use
painting shields just to get a brush up underneath far
enough so that there's no weird line exposed. But those
are the factors involved. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Well, thanks so much. Hey, I'll think it about because
I already heard the painter of just going up there
and single stort to sprain it before they show up. Sprain,
just sprain underneath it with a can of white spray paint.
But I like your idea of changing the color of
the gutter, but I don't know. I already got the bid,
so I'm not going to do that. But what about
if I just get a can of white spray paint
just stick it up in there, just maybe some added protection.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I have no idea anyways, Well, yeah, I mean, if
you're talking about the wood, I would I'd prefer to
utilize a brush method up there, and you'll actually you
might find it actually is neater than the spray method
because you don't want to get it the fogging of
the spray around and affecting the edge of the roof
tiles or anything like that. But yeah, I mean, you
(16:17):
got this, you're thinking creatively about it, So just kind
of process through what you can do. But again, first
time out on a newer vintage home, a twenty year
old home, I'm not sure I'm too worried about redoing
the paint behind the gutter this time out. If there's
any indications that you should, by all means otherwise you
(16:38):
can probably do okay, just going up the face to
the bottom of the gutter and then transitioning to whatever
the gutter is there. You go, all right, my friend,
Thank you for your call, Thanks for the great question.
When we return, we're going to dive back into the
swirling tide pool. No swirling. I was gonna say cesspool.
(17:01):
It's not the whirlpool. That is vintage, antique, retro, and
nostalgic decor. How's that all right? Fine?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on Demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
We're talking antiques, vintage, retro, and nostalgic decor today. I
want to get back to our tips and insights into
this area now. When I left the conversation previously, I
just kind of described to you that what you do
(17:40):
to an antique or a vintage item really depends on
what you plan to do with it. Okay, You're either
going to do one of three things. Generally, you're going
to preserve it, restore it, or remodel it, depending on
whether you plan to display it, reuse it, or repurpose it. Okay.
And I set those there boundaries up for you, or
(18:01):
at least those those branches of the tree, so that
you can understand you got a lot of flexibility when
it comes to antiquing, a lot of flexibility when it
comes to utilizing vintage things. And you know what I
am all about doing it for your home well, okay,
just doing it well so that it incorporates the goal.
(18:22):
The goal is always for me as your designer. The
goal is to match up with you your home, its story,
your story, and communicate that. Now, however you need to
do that utilizing vintage or antique or retro items, then
(18:44):
you know, have at it. Okay. I there are absolutely
antique items out there that by and large everyone would agree, oh,
don't touch that thing, don't. I mean it's it's literally
a museum piece. It should be meticulously restored, not added to,
(19:05):
not altered in any way. It should simply be restored
to the fineness of its original intent and then just
observed and appreciated as a piece of true artwork. Absolutely,
there are those pieces out there, and a lot of them.
But that is not the hard and fast rule for
(19:28):
antiques or vintage pieces at all. That is not the law, okay.
And I disagree with a lot of designers who think
or antique officionados who think, well, if you do anything
other than that to an antique, you're really abusing it
and ruining it. I don't think so at all. I
think that if you can embrace and incorporate something of
(19:53):
a vintage or antique design into your home in a
stellar a beautiful way that keeps it a part of
your story. Then you've done it and you've honored it
along the way. I'll mean, give you an example that
I shared, what is last week or a couple of
weeks ago, about the grandfather clock that Tina inherited from
(20:17):
her grandparents, right who she loved to pieces, and this,
of all things, was such an iconic thing in their home. Now,
it's not a fancy grandfather clock. It's not going to be.
I mean, when this clock is five hundred years old,
it'll probably sell for like thirty dollars more than what
(20:38):
they paid for originally. No, that's not true. It'll be
more pricier than But the point is, this is not
one of those all deeply crafted, German made grand you know,
it's not a swisk. It's it's just a lovely grandfather
clock that they bought at a furniture store in the
early nineteen eighties, late seven, these early eighties. And it
(21:01):
has a kind of a classic style to it. And
it's a real clock, right, It's got weights and chimes
and all of that. But you know, it's not going
down into any museum. But here's the thing. It means
the world to her, and Tina means the world to me.
And so as the result of that, this clock has
(21:23):
to find a place in our home. It's kind of
that honey oak, you know, thing that doesn't really match
up with anything else we got going on. So eventually
Tina said, you know what, I want to incorporate it
into our home better. I'm going to paint it the
color of the room, the dining room wainscotting that's just
adjacent to it, sitting across the hallway from it. So
(21:46):
it's now this beautiful shade of blue. The whole thing.
All the oak is gone, I mean not gone, but
it's painted now and as opposed to stained, and it
so belongs in our home now, right, it really does.
It so belongs there. And so now if you were
if you if you live by the law of antiquing,
(22:08):
then some people would say, oh, you've just abused it.
You've abused that clock because you haven't left it exactly
how it was when it was made. But our point
is if we were to have left it exactly how
it was, it wouldn't have a place in our home.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
And I think sometimes repurposing it as much as you know,
you you do alter the finish or the wood, you're
giving it extended life. Because we've done that with the
several vanity pieces as well. We found some beautiful old
cabinets that we turned into sink vanities. And you know,
(22:49):
some people were offended that we painted it. Some people
thought it was amazing, but you know, it is. It's attention.
But it also gave it new life that it wouldn't
have necessarily had.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It gave it a new useful life our home. Yeah, repurpose.
And by the way, just because something is antique, I said,
you know, the price goes up, Sure it does, but
just because something is antique does not mean that it's
necessarily rare. Right. And so we've got and we're going
to do a video at least one, maybe two videos
on this for social media, a little VIP content before
(23:19):
we're done with the show today. But on maybe let's
just pick out maybe the the vanity that we did
in the guest house. Right, So it is an east
Lake Victorian east Lake period vanity okay, uh, that we
found at an antique store I think down in Ventura.
(23:39):
If I'm not mistaken, east Lake style, great style for
us in court, you know, this is truly an antique,
but not rare. It's not like, oh, that's a one
of a kind thing, and no, no, no, So we
felt the freedom to just treat it like a really
good design element. And uh, and I think we've honored
it by giving it this whole new life. You guys
(24:01):
will have to be the judge. I'll tell you what.
Maybe we'll break away right now and do that quick
video and you can be the judge whether we've honored
this thing or abused it, and we'll show you exactly
what we then we'll talk to it about it maybe
on the other side of the break.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is
a beautiful it looks like a little blustery now cool
crisp Saturday, Southern California fall morning. It just lovely outside
here on December fifteenth, Sunday, December fifteenth, December is halfway over. Wow. Wow,
(24:44):
All right. We're talking antique, vintage, retro, and just generally
the category of nostalgic design elements. Giving you tips on
what you can do, how you deal with these items
can be incorporated in and where I left us right
before the break was this idea that I want to
(25:05):
encourage you. You've got a wide latitude, at least I
think you do. I am not one of even though
I love and absolutely have great appreciation, unending appreciation for
those one of a kind antiques that should just be restored,
meticulously brought back to as close to new as possible,
(25:30):
and then just be looked at, look, don't touch, just
appreciate it for the fine art that it is. Totally
get that. But not every antique or vintage item needs
to go that way. In my opinion, just because it's
antique doesn't mean it's rare. A lot of pieces are
(25:50):
still available in a lot of different categories out there
in some way. Sometimes the best way to honor a
a vintage or an antique piece is to really kind
of own it for yourself, make it your own, incorporated
into the house, give it a new life. So what
we did during the break is Tina and I we
ran into our guesthouse bathroom, the bathroom in the ADU,
(26:16):
and we did a little video that Tina is furiously
attempting to get. Is it up? Is it up? Tell
everybody where they can find it.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
You can find it at Home with Dean, on Instagram
and Facebook. I'm also going to throw it up on
TikTok for all of you TikTok users.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
There you go. So it's just an example of raising
this question. We've taken an a circa eighteen eighty okay,
so it's well over one hundred years old piece, an
East Lake Victorian age East Lakes style vanity that we found,
got a good deal on, and we changed its color,
(26:56):
we modified the drawers, I drilled through the top and
put us sink in it. So some people are like cringing,
like you have ruined it. Others, I hope will see
it as, oh, you've really honored it. So have we
honored it or ruined it? Go take a look at
the piece, give me your opinion along the way. My
point is not every antique has to be fully restored
(27:19):
and then not touched. You can restore, you can observe them,
display them, reuse them, or repurpose them. The question at
the end is what serves you? What serves you? Okay?
I am a custom home designer. My focus is you,
your home, your story. You're the center of all of this.
(27:43):
Not a piece that you serve. Pieces in your home
serve you. Okay. Does that mean that I want to
do this to every single antique out there, No, no, no, no,
I would push you hard. If you're in love with
a piece that deserves full restoration, let's do it, okay.
But this is another way to go as well. And
(28:05):
the reason I wanted to show you this particular piece,
and you'll see it online, is that I designed the
whole wall, the tile work, the lighting, everything around this
piece being kind of an exploded view there. So anyway,
check it out, because that is the point. Okay. Remember
also that there is a difference between a vintage look,
(28:28):
and I think this dovetails into this subject. Well, there's
a difference between a vintage look, which most of us want.
Those of us who are vintage prone, you want a
vintage look. There's a difference between that and true vintage,
or what we might say pure authentic vintage. This is
where again I deviate from a lot of designers who
(28:50):
are kind of oh I'm purest and the authenticity is
the essence. Listen, here's the point. I work on a
lot of century plus homes, okay, a lot of antique homes. Basically,
a century plus home is any home that's more than
one hundred years old, right that puts us back in
the nineteen twenties right now and earlier. So we work
(29:11):
on these homes, and this is what I find from
the homeowners. They don't they want it as period appropriate
as possible, but they want to live a twenty first
century life in this home. And the binding the balance
can be really tricky between preserving that period look but
also making it accessible to live well a twenty first
(29:35):
century life. So that's what I mean. There's a difference
between a vintage look and true vintage. True vintage would mean,
for instance, in a Victorian home, dark Victorian rooms without
much window feeding into it. It would mean gas lamps,
which are not even legal anymore, gas lamps lighting up
(29:55):
the ceiling and leaving soot over, you know, build up
all over the the ceiling line, around the gas fixtures.
Family bathrooms, no on suites, okay, not generally speaking, and
for a lot of pure Victorian purist homes, no no
indoor plumbing. So there you go, And that's my point.
(30:17):
That's what we are not after doing. We want to
bring all of this in incorporate it. So you know,
I run into the same situation now. If I'm ever
given a brief for taking a house and restoring it
to its utter authenticity, that kind of restoration, that's museum restoration.
(30:39):
And nobody's going to live in that house, but people
are going to come to see it. So we're going
to bring it up to spec so that people can
come and appreciate it as it was. Nobody's going to
live in it. Nobody would want to live in it. Okay,
even classic structures, eight hundred plus year old No Tre
Damka Cathedral, which just literally reopened what a couple of
(31:03):
weeks ago after the devastating fire. It was rebuilt with
utter precision in terms of restoration to its original specifications,
with one exception now here in twenty twenty four, Notre
Dame has a fire suppression system built into it. Uh huh.
(31:24):
So you see, even that is something where it's been
integrated into twenty first century life so that we can
enjoy it for another eight hundred years. All right, all
of this, as you can tell, there's a lot to it.
I've got so much more to share with you. But
when we come back after the break It's time to
go to the phones. The number to reach me eight
(31:46):
three to three two. Ask Dean A three three the
numeral too. Ask Dean your home with Dean Sharp the
house Whisper on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI
AM six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight
Pacific time, and every Sunday morning from nine to noon
(32:07):
Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
house Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
follow us on social media. We only do the good kind, uplifting, informative,
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(00:22):
Dean is the same handle for them all. While you're there,
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(00:42):
coming at you every week. So there you go. Follow
us on social media Home with Dean And if your
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If you're like, you know, if we could only get
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You can book an in home design consult with me
and Tea. All you have to do is go to
(01:03):
house Whisperer dot Design house Whisperer dot Design. All right,
we are talking antiques, vintage, retro nostalgia today that kind
of decor and the and tips and tricks and great
advice for you of how to integrate it into your home.
We're coming back to that in just a bit. But
(01:24):
it's top of the hour. You know what that means.
Time to go to the phones. Let's do it. I
want to talk to Mike. Hey Mike, welcome home.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Hey Dan, thanks for taking my call. So I have
a contractor that's been installing a roof for I don't
know about a month now. They came in replaced the roof. Well,
my contract was new roof, new facia, and I needed
to trim some raftertails because the previous owner took a
(01:56):
saws all and just cut everything off because of some
other dry rod at the time. They came in put
the new roof on. Then from there they came back
three days later to do the facia and the gutters.
The new facia was two inch, old facia was one
(02:17):
and so all the facia is extending out past the
asphalt shingles. Also, they had to rip the entire drip
edge off to even start that process. So my question
really is is what do I need to look for
when they do all this work? Can they even repair
(02:40):
this to an integrity after ripping off the entire perimeter
of the drip ridge and distrupting every single shingle.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah yeah, well, you know, at the risk of being
just blunt. What you need to look for is a
new contractor.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah well yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Then I actually gave them an out to even bay
completely out and they said, oh, I'm not contract already.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah no, this is this is what I'm talking about.
That that that is completely as my dad would like
to say, bass ackwards. So here's the thing. The facia
uh and I don't care what size the facia is, right,
you know, get one inch fatia, replace it with a
two by facia which is an inch and a half.
That's great, fine, no problem, right. Raftertails have to be
(03:26):
uh you know repaired along the eves. All of that
eve starter board sometimes starter board, by the way, starterboard
everybody is is the is like the tongue and groove
stuff that you see when you look up underneath your eves.
You see nice boards there, not the bottom of plywood,
which is the rest of the roofing material or OSB
you know, chipboard. So the point is this, though, when
(03:50):
they did the tear off, when they tore off the
old roof, now is the time to do all of
that that's when you do all of it, you tear.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Off the to do Yeah, this is standard.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I don't know what their deal is that this is
standard roofing practice. I mean, it's just like roofing one
oh one. We're going to tear off the old roof,
get down to the sheathing. In some situations, if it's
an older home, there's you know, there's one by six
slats up there, uh and not sheathing. So the point
is we're going to make sure that our that are
(04:23):
sheathed membrane, you know, our layer of the roof, the
ply would, the OSB, whatever the case may be. We're
going to make sure that that's all intact. And all
of that is going to extend down with starter board
uh from the root wall line out to the edge
of the facia. The new facia goes on with the
repaired rafter tails. All of that happens before we put
(04:48):
down you know, roofing felt or roofing membrane and UH
and the shingles because we want the the the drip edge,
the metal flashing at the bottom of the roofline needs
to be hanging over the facierboard. It doesn't, it's running
over the facia and that flashing is tied in to
(05:12):
the roofing membrane and the shingles. In fact, the shingles
themselves should be hanging over depending on what situation you've got.
Let's say you've got asphalt composite shingles. Asphalt composite shingles
should be hanging over the drip edge by at least
a half an inch to an inch, okay, hanging over
the drip edge which is hanging over the facio. So
(05:34):
something has gone wrong there, Mike. And and my concern
is that if they do this and they say, oh, yeah, no, no,
we're going to take care of all that, well, what
do you get You're going to be pulling up shingles.
Have they run the papy have they hyper extended the
paper out already on the shingles, are already run out?
(05:57):
Or have they not finished those courses because oh no, they.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, they yeah, they they came into the entire roof
one hundred percent, came back and actually I kind of
yelled at them before they even came back to do that,
saying you guys needed to do this and this, And
then when they were cutting raftertails, they cut into the
sheathing underneath they so that needed to get redone. So
I've got about forty seven feet of sheeting that needs
(06:24):
to get replaced now, almost the entire eve edge. And
you know, I just I don't even know how to
even approach with this with them.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, So here's the thing. Here's the one piece of
leverage that you've got, is that there was a permit
pulled for this reroof Okay, if there wasn't. If there wasn't,
by the way, you don't owe them any money for
anything at all. Right, that permit, there's a permit pulled
for it. That permit should not have been signed off yet.
(06:57):
But even if it was, you have recourse you need
to reach out if if they don't get their act
together and get this right, you can reach out to
the city and say, hey, this is the permit that
got pulled from my house. I'm the homeowner. I didn't
pull the permit directly. The riffer pulled the permit. I
(07:17):
don't know if you guys have done final sign off.
But here's my situation, and now I am concerned. I'm
concerned that they're gonna, you know, screw up the whole
base of this. What can you do, and you know,
an inspector will be happy. Most inspectors will be happy
to come out and take a look at the situation
and you know, red tag it if he needs to.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Okay, yeah, I mean they've they've come out. The inspector
came out and actually missed some dry rot. The installers
missed some dry rot on the eves and they're trying
to blame each other. And I told the contractor, I'm all, look, regardless,
it needs to get fixed. I mean, so I do
have the contract the inspector's name and number already, so
(07:58):
that's a bonus on my part.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, that's that's where you're gonna need to go with this, probably,
Mike plus photograph everything, video, photograph everything, document it documented, documented,
show up close shots and say here's where the roof ends.
And that's gonna be the approach. And the best thing
you could do is leverage the situation so that they
(08:23):
get on the ball and uh and get this done
right for you as opposed to you know, I mean,
I'm saying generally speaking, as opposed to throwing them off
the job, having somebody come back in. That's gonna cost you,
even if you're holding a good amount of their money. Still,
it's gonna cost you more because whoever comes in if
I if I was to come in after the fact,
(08:44):
believe me, I'm like, well, I'm gonna need a little
bit of more freedom in the budget here to you know,
tie back into what they've already done, you know, because
whoever touched it last, it's theirs now. So if it
all possible to get these guys to finish this right,
that's what I would try first. I mean, of course,
(09:05):
at the end of the day, sometimes you got to
toss a contractor from your job. I hate that, hate it,
hate it, but it's a reality. Sometimes. Hopefully that's not
the situation you're in. The best thing you can do
is document it all, have some serious conversations with them
and let them know, hey, happy to get the building
(09:26):
department involved again, just to make sure that this goes right.
So let's get this done. Industry standards and practices, those
are the three words. Might write that down. Industry standards
and practices. This is what every contractor has to as
a bare minimum, make sure that their work complies with
(09:49):
industry standards and practices. Craftsmanship is one thing you can
debate craftsmanship all day long. Oh, it could have been this,
or could have been that, or it could have been
nic sir. Okay, your situation comes down to industry standards
and practice, the bare minimum bar to clear, and you've
(10:09):
got every bit of leverage to get that done. Right, buddy,
I've got to go. Thank you so much for your
question and for your call. I hope that helps just
give you the the right encouragement. Yeah, you're you're You're
not wrong about this. That is not a good situation,
all right, y'all. When we come back, more of your
calls your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We are going to the phones right now before we
return to the subject of antique vintage retro items for
decor in your home and have a handle them. But
right now it's time for some calls. Let's talk to Arnold. Hey, Arnold,
welcome home.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And marry Christmas. Hey, So, I live in a vintage house.
It's twenty one years old, brand new, built in two
thousand and three. In dog years, It's an antique house.
One hundred and forty seven years old to trying to
do the rein style. But hey, quickly we are painting
the house for the first time exterior, do we have
(11:17):
to remove the rain gutters or they just paint over
the rain you know, they just paint the rain gutters,
They just paint whatever they see of the facia.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Well, that depends on a couple of different factors. Actually,
Number one.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
I.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Generally wouldn't remove the rain gutters if it's the very
first time that you're doing the exterior paint of the house,
maybe next time around it's worth doing it just so
you get a little bitter access up to the facier
board and the drip edge, just to make sure those
things get sealed up properly and get a good coat
of paint on them. But first time out, I don't
(11:59):
know that I would pull the gutters off because that's
an additional expense and probably you're okay as far as
moisture protection up underneath there anyway. So that's one factor.
The other factor though, is like, how do you negotiate
around it and get to it or do we need
to remove it? Really has to do with number one,
how they're mounted, Are they tied against the facier board,
(12:22):
do they have any play where you can get a
little bit of paint up behind them so that there
isn't a weird line? How much masking would you have
to do? And the other thing too is are the
gutters going to be different color than the facier board itself,
which enters into a design question that ends up affecting
(12:44):
how it is that you go about executing it. And
if you've heard me talk about gutters before, and facier
boards on most roofs in southern California, most roofs being
asphalt posit roofs which don't have a lot of thickness
and body to them. I've handed this pearl of wisdom
(13:05):
out many many times before. A lot of people have
scratched their head about it, but then come back to
me and said, you know what, Oh my gosh, it
made such a difference. I am not the guy who
is very hip on the white facia board going with
the white trim of the house with an asphalt composite roof.
(13:27):
And the reason is that it leaves the roof material
itself feeling thin, thin ish, it doesn't have. It doesn't
give the roof a lot of presents. So for me,
my clients. They know that my tendency is to say,
unless there's prevailing circumstance. There's never an absolute rule to this, okay,
so please no emails, But unless there's a prevailing circumstance,
(13:51):
I like to give roofs a sense of body to them,
and the facia the edge of the roof. It's such
a significant way to do that that I tend to
choose a color for the facia, a dark color that
corresponds with the one of the colors or one of
the shade darker shades in the roofing material itself, so
(14:13):
that the facial board really feels like the edge of
the roof. And then gutters. When it comes to gutters,
I don't hide gutters. I don't camouflage gutters. I actually
pick them out and if at all possible, I'm like,
you know what, they're made out of? Metal? Here is
our theme for metal on the front of the house,
whether it's kind of cast iron, black or charcoal, or
(14:35):
whatever the case may be. Utilizing gutters as the crown
molding quote unquote that they are for most homes. I
don't want to hide them away, I don't want to
disguise them. I want to accentuate them as an architectural feature.
So I'm the guy who's going to paint the gutters.
Also probably some metallic color as well, and that of
(14:56):
course leads to the hole. Well, now we've got got
to mask between the gutters and the facia and the
facia and you know, and so on. So all of
those factors come into play, my friend, when it comes
to figuring out how to paint around the gutters. Of course,
from the painting perspective, the painters would love for you
to just pull the gutters off. If you're the painter fascinating,
(15:18):
then then you know, do your best. You could use
painting shields just to get a brush up underneath far
enough so that there's no weird line exposed. But those
are the factors involved. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Well, thanks so much. Hey, I'll think it about because
I already heard the painter of just going up there
and single stort to sprain it before they show up. Sprain,
just sprain underneath it with a can of white spray paint.
But I like your idea of changing the color of
the gutter, but I don't know. I already got the bid,
so I'm not going to do that. But what about
if I just get a can of white spray paint
just stick it up in there, just maybe some added protection.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I have no idea anyways, Well, yeah, I mean, if
you're talking about the wood, I would I'd prefer to
utilize a brush method up there, and you'll actually you
might find it actually is neater than the spray method
because you don't want to get it the fogging of
the spray around and affecting the edge of the roof
tiles or anything like that. But yeah, I mean, you
(16:17):
got this, you're thinking creatively about it, So just kind
of process through what you can do. But again, first
time out on a newer vintage home, a twenty year
old home, I'm not sure I'm too worried about redoing
the paint behind the gutter this time out. If there's
any indications that you should, by all means otherwise you
(16:38):
can probably do okay, just going up the face to
the bottom of the gutter and then transitioning to whatever
the gutter is there. You go, all right, my friend,
Thank you for your call, Thanks for the great question.
When we return, we're going to dive back into the
swirling tide pool. No swirling. I was gonna say cesspool.
(17:01):
It's not the whirlpool. That is vintage, antique, retro, and
nostalgic decor. How's that all right? Fine?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on Demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
We're talking antiques, vintage, retro, and nostalgic decor today. I
want to get back to our tips and insights into
this area now. When I left the conversation previously, I
just kind of described to you that what you do
(17:40):
to an antique or a vintage item really depends on
what you plan to do with it. Okay, You're either
going to do one of three things. Generally, you're going
to preserve it, restore it, or remodel it, depending on
whether you plan to display it, reuse it, or repurpose it. Okay.
And I set those there boundaries up for you, or
(18:01):
at least those those branches of the tree, so that
you can understand you got a lot of flexibility when
it comes to antiquing, a lot of flexibility when it
comes to utilizing vintage things. And you know what I
am all about doing it for your home well, okay,
just doing it well so that it incorporates the goal.
(18:22):
The goal is always for me as your designer. The
goal is to match up with you your home, its story,
your story, and communicate that. Now, however you need to
do that utilizing vintage or antique or retro items, then
(18:44):
you know, have at it. Okay. I there are absolutely
antique items out there that by and large everyone would agree, oh,
don't touch that thing, don't. I mean it's it's literally
a museum piece. It should be meticulously restored, not added to,
(19:05):
not altered in any way. It should simply be restored
to the fineness of its original intent and then just
observed and appreciated as a piece of true artwork. Absolutely,
there are those pieces out there, and a lot of them.
But that is not the hard and fast rule for
(19:28):
antiques or vintage pieces at all. That is not the law, okay.
And I disagree with a lot of designers who think
or antique officionados who think, well, if you do anything
other than that to an antique, you're really abusing it
and ruining it. I don't think so at all. I
think that if you can embrace and incorporate something of
(19:53):
a vintage or antique design into your home in a
stellar a beautiful way that keeps it a part of
your story. Then you've done it and you've honored it
along the way. I'll mean, give you an example that
I shared, what is last week or a couple of
weeks ago, about the grandfather clock that Tina inherited from
(20:17):
her grandparents, right who she loved to pieces, and this,
of all things, was such an iconic thing in their home. Now,
it's not a fancy grandfather clock. It's not going to be.
I mean, when this clock is five hundred years old,
it'll probably sell for like thirty dollars more than what
(20:38):
they paid for originally. No, that's not true. It'll be
more pricier than But the point is, this is not
one of those all deeply crafted, German made grand you know,
it's not a swisk. It's it's just a lovely grandfather
clock that they bought at a furniture store in the
early nineteen eighties, late seven, these early eighties. And it
(21:01):
has a kind of a classic style to it. And
it's a real clock, right, It's got weights and chimes
and all of that. But you know, it's not going
down into any museum. But here's the thing. It means
the world to her, and Tina means the world to me.
And so as the result of that, this clock has
(21:23):
to find a place in our home. It's kind of
that honey oak, you know, thing that doesn't really match
up with anything else we got going on. So eventually
Tina said, you know what, I want to incorporate it
into our home better. I'm going to paint it the
color of the room, the dining room wainscotting that's just
adjacent to it, sitting across the hallway from it. So
(21:46):
it's now this beautiful shade of blue. The whole thing.
All the oak is gone, I mean not gone, but
it's painted now and as opposed to stained, and it
so belongs in our home now, right, it really does.
It so belongs there. And so now if you were
if you if you live by the law of antiquing,
(22:08):
then some people would say, oh, you've just abused it.
You've abused that clock because you haven't left it exactly
how it was when it was made. But our point
is if we were to have left it exactly how
it was, it wouldn't have a place in our home.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
And I think sometimes repurposing it as much as you know,
you you do alter the finish or the wood, you're
giving it extended life. Because we've done that with the
several vanity pieces as well. We found some beautiful old
cabinets that we turned into sink vanities. And you know,
(22:49):
some people were offended that we painted it. Some people
thought it was amazing, but you know, it is. It's attention.
But it also gave it new life that it wouldn't
have necessarily had.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It gave it a new useful life our home. Yeah, repurpose.
And by the way, just because something is antique, I said,
you know, the price goes up, Sure it does, but
just because something is antique does not mean that it's
necessarily rare. Right. And so we've got and we're going
to do a video at least one, maybe two videos
on this for social media, a little VIP content before
(23:19):
we're done with the show today. But on maybe let's
just pick out maybe the the vanity that we did
in the guest house. Right, So it is an east
Lake Victorian east Lake period vanity okay, uh, that we
found at an antique store I think down in Ventura.
(23:39):
If I'm not mistaken, east Lake style, great style for
us in court, you know, this is truly an antique,
but not rare. It's not like, oh, that's a one
of a kind thing, and no, no, no, So we
felt the freedom to just treat it like a really
good design element. And uh, and I think we've honored
it by giving it this whole new life. You guys
(24:01):
will have to be the judge. I'll tell you what.
Maybe we'll break away right now and do that quick
video and you can be the judge whether we've honored
this thing or abused it, and we'll show you exactly
what we then we'll talk to it about it maybe
on the other side of the break.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is
a beautiful it looks like a little blustery now cool
crisp Saturday, Southern California fall morning. It just lovely outside
here on December fifteenth, Sunday, December fifteenth, December is halfway over. Wow. Wow,
(24:44):
All right. We're talking antique, vintage, retro, and just generally
the category of nostalgic design elements. Giving you tips on
what you can do, how you deal with these items
can be incorporated in and where I left us right
before the break was this idea that I want to
(25:05):
encourage you. You've got a wide latitude, at least I
think you do. I am not one of even though
I love and absolutely have great appreciation, unending appreciation for
those one of a kind antiques that should just be restored,
meticulously brought back to as close to new as possible,
(25:30):
and then just be looked at, look, don't touch, just
appreciate it for the fine art that it is. Totally
get that. But not every antique or vintage item needs
to go that way. In my opinion, just because it's
antique doesn't mean it's rare. A lot of pieces are
(25:50):
still available in a lot of different categories out there
in some way. Sometimes the best way to honor a
a vintage or an antique piece is to really kind
of own it for yourself, make it your own, incorporated
into the house, give it a new life. So what
we did during the break is Tina and I we
ran into our guesthouse bathroom, the bathroom in the ADU,
(26:16):
and we did a little video that Tina is furiously
attempting to get. Is it up? Is it up? Tell
everybody where they can find it.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
You can find it at Home with Dean, on Instagram
and Facebook. I'm also going to throw it up on
TikTok for all of you TikTok users.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
There you go. So it's just an example of raising
this question. We've taken an a circa eighteen eighty okay,
so it's well over one hundred years old piece, an
East Lake Victorian age East Lakes style vanity that we found,
got a good deal on, and we changed its color,
(26:56):
we modified the drawers, I drilled through the top and
put us sink in it. So some people are like cringing,
like you have ruined it. Others, I hope will see
it as, oh, you've really honored it. So have we
honored it or ruined it? Go take a look at
the piece, give me your opinion along the way. My
point is not every antique has to be fully restored
(27:19):
and then not touched. You can restore, you can observe them,
display them, reuse them, or repurpose them. The question at
the end is what serves you? What serves you? Okay?
I am a custom home designer. My focus is you,
your home, your story. You're the center of all of this.
(27:43):
Not a piece that you serve. Pieces in your home
serve you. Okay. Does that mean that I want to
do this to every single antique out there, No, no, no, no,
I would push you hard. If you're in love with
a piece that deserves full restoration, let's do it, okay.
But this is another way to go as well. And
(28:05):
the reason I wanted to show you this particular piece,
and you'll see it online, is that I designed the
whole wall, the tile work, the lighting, everything around this
piece being kind of an exploded view there. So anyway,
check it out, because that is the point. Okay. Remember
also that there is a difference between a vintage look,
(28:28):
and I think this dovetails into this subject. Well, there's
a difference between a vintage look, which most of us want.
Those of us who are vintage prone, you want a
vintage look. There's a difference between that and true vintage,
or what we might say pure authentic vintage. This is
where again I deviate from a lot of designers who
(28:50):
are kind of oh I'm purest and the authenticity is
the essence. Listen, here's the point. I work on a
lot of century plus homes, okay, a lot of antique homes. Basically,
a century plus home is any home that's more than
one hundred years old, right that puts us back in
the nineteen twenties right now and earlier. So we work
(29:11):
on these homes, and this is what I find from
the homeowners. They don't they want it as period appropriate
as possible, but they want to live a twenty first
century life in this home. And the binding the balance
can be really tricky between preserving that period look but
also making it accessible to live well a twenty first
(29:35):
century life. So that's what I mean. There's a difference
between a vintage look and true vintage. True vintage would mean,
for instance, in a Victorian home, dark Victorian rooms without
much window feeding into it. It would mean gas lamps,
which are not even legal anymore, gas lamps lighting up
(29:55):
the ceiling and leaving soot over, you know, build up
all over the the ceiling line, around the gas fixtures.
Family bathrooms, no on suites, okay, not generally speaking, and
for a lot of pure Victorian purist homes, no no
indoor plumbing. So there you go, And that's my point.
(30:17):
That's what we are not after doing. We want to
bring all of this in incorporate it. So you know,
I run into the same situation now. If I'm ever
given a brief for taking a house and restoring it
to its utter authenticity, that kind of restoration, that's museum restoration.
(30:39):
And nobody's going to live in that house, but people
are going to come to see it. So we're going
to bring it up to spec so that people can
come and appreciate it as it was. Nobody's going to
live in it. Nobody would want to live in it. Okay,
even classic structures, eight hundred plus year old No Tre
Damka Cathedral, which just literally reopened what a couple of
(31:03):
weeks ago after the devastating fire. It was rebuilt with
utter precision in terms of restoration to its original specifications,
with one exception now here in twenty twenty four, Notre
Dame has a fire suppression system built into it. Uh huh.
(31:24):
So you see, even that is something where it's been
integrated into twenty first century life so that we can
enjoy it for another eight hundred years. All right, all
of this, as you can tell, there's a lot to it.
I've got so much more to share with you. But
when we come back after the break It's time to
go to the phones. The number to reach me eight
(31:46):
three to three two. Ask Dean A three three the
numeral too. Ask Dean your home with Dean Sharp the
house Whisper on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI
AM six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight
Pacific time, and every Sunday morning from nine to noon
(32:07):
Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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