KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. This very program, you know, is also what is known commonly as the House Whisper podcast that you can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand, hundreds of episodes, all searchable by topic.
It is truly a home improvement reference library waiting for you wherever your favorite podcasts are found, of course on the free iHeart Radio app, but also anywhere else that you listen to your podcast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, you name it, we're there. You just search for Home with Dean, or The House Whisper or Dean Sharp, you know Tina Sharp. You could just anybody's name. Just put in anybody's name and you will find my pod. No that's not true. But if you put in my name, you will find
our podcast waiting for you. Every episode that we do live here of our live broadcast about an hour after we go off the air, you will find it living forever in podcast form, waiting for you there. And also if you're thinking, well that's all great, but what we really need is Dean and Tina in our house, well you can do that too. You can book an in home design consult with me and Tea even if you
live out of state. Oh we have our ways, yes we do so no matter where you live, within the sound of my voice, you can book an in home design consult with us. Just go to house Whisperer dot design. All right, we are in the midst of an all calls Sunday morning. I am so enjoying just talking to you as we just cover whatever it is that you want to talk about regarding your home. Let's go back to the phones. I want to talk to Bob. Hey, Bob, welcome home.
You steed look at the risk of boring your listeners about these airs, my friend.
No, no, we will talk forever about these until every home in southern California has them.
So I'm on and it scares me to death just looking at these things. But I also have a crawl space with crawl space vents that are about, I don't know, a foot off the deck and there's so many of them. Is that not a fear?
Oh yeah, same same same concern. Event event is event is event the same concern and uh uh and uh yeah, So you head on over to uh, you know, my buddies at brand guard Vents brandguardvents dot com. There are partners on the show. Brand guard makes all vents for your house, Okay, garage vents on your front of your garage door, the vent on the bottom of your water heater cabinet if it's outside. What you're talking about are there's two different kinds of events that we say there.
There is the foundation vents. If you have a raised foundation house, then you've got foundation vents all around the premier of your house. There are different sizes. There are a couple of common sizes out there in terms of foundation vents, you know that are sort of typical sizes. They have those, you know in stock like if you've got a standard six by fourteen or an eight by sixteen side, those are the most common size foundation events.
But if yours is an odd size, they'll custom make the event for that covering right there, for that penetration. So yeah, for those of you who have sub floors, I meaning crawl spaces under your house, absolutely all the vents on the house.
It is a.
Small, small investment, a small price to pay to fire harden your home in the most important way possible. And yes, also the crawl space access vent the one that you actually remove to get under the house.
All of them, all of those are all.
Available from brand Guard, and yeah, you should change them all out. Now, if you live on a slab, you don't have to worry about stuff down below. But just add events and events and all of that. But yeah, Bob, they make them all great.
Thank you for your help, appreciate it.
You are very welcome, my friend. Let's start another call, shall we? Let's start one way. I won't be able to finish it because I'm gonna stay on time. Here Melody, welcome home. Hello, Hello, Oh.
Yeah, Dan, I have I'm trying to repurpose an old upright piano and I want to separate the section that holds all the chords from the back panel which supports the chord panel. Now it's an antique piano, so it's quite old. And if the two panels are glued together and I dissolve, I'm trying to figure out how I can separate the back panel from the chord panel, which currently is glued on. Is there any way I can dissolve the glue.
In order to finish this restoration?
Yes, Well, because I don't need the back panel, I want to. I want to repurpose the panel that holds the cords because the cords are copper, and I want to make the back panel black and the cords the copper. And of course I want to put that at a piece of art.
So gotcha, gotcha, got right. So I'm we're right at the brake line right now. So I'm gonna pop you on hold you've been holding already from the popy hold and and I'm gonna answer this question on the other side of the brake and probably expanded into a slightly larger topic, and that is, you know, how do you how do you even find out where to even begin to look to find out how to do the opposite of what most.
People want with gluing?
When when the when glue gets mentioned, we want to stick things together, but what if there's glue already there and we want to pull it apart? We will answer that right on the other side of the break. So Melody, you hang tight and the rest of you. Here's a treat.
You're listening to home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI A M six forty.
Thanks for joining us on the program today. Southern California. You are experiencing cold, rainy weather. Thank goodness, celebrate it, enjoy it, indulge in it today because it's gonna help. It's gonna help every single fire, which we've already turned the corner on these fires.
But it's going to help.
And hopefully it doesn't come down so much in so fast that it will end up hurting and moving soil because of what the fires have done. But just let's embrace it. Let's embrace the wind for the moment, shall we. We're taking a pause from all the craziness of the last three weeks and just having an open calls all calls Sunday. You set the agenda for the show, loving it, loving talking.
To you as I always do.
I've got Melody on hold and the melody are you still with me?
I'm still here here the.
There she is, all right.
So, right before the break, Melody was explaining that she's got a project in the works on an old piano that she's wanting to repurpose some portions of it, and she needs to figure out how to separate the Now, is it actually the frame that holds the strings that you're trying to separate from a wood panel that's glued to it is that?
Did I get that right?
That's correct? Yeah, it's an old upright. So the support panel is framed by authentic two by fours really two inches by four inches? Yeah, right right, you know, and that's covered with uh some type of plywood. That then that frame attaches to the frame holding all of the piano.
Chords right, all the strings.
So that's the.
Part that needs to be separated because it would be so heavy. It's heavy as it is, but I want to reduce the weight so I can put this thing up on the wall.
I got you, all right, So you're you're trying to actually just get the get the frame out of there, get the harp portion, the cords out of there.
Not the cords are attached to a panel, and that panel is then attached to another support panel, and it's the supporting panel I want to separate from the panel that is the cords are affixed too.
Right right, All right, Well, you have a challenge ahead of you. It's not impossible. Sometimes when things are incredibly well adhered together, they are incredibly difficult to separate, especially when you don't have access to be able to dip them or soak them in a solvent. But I'm not saying that it can't be done, but you're going to
have to just sort of experiment with it. Chances are, now this is a broad brushing of the subject, Chances are, in that situation the solvent that you're looking for, and a solvent is what we're talking about, that would be the definition of a chemical that would dissolve another chemical property. A solvent that you're looking for there is very very likely going to be acetone. Okay, probably nine times out
of ten. When it comes to wood furniture and instruments, acetone is going to be the key to dissolving the glues that hold them together. Acetone does a good job of dissolving most wood glues. Acetone also does a great job of dissolving metal to wood epoxies when there's a metal to wood connection that has to be dissolved away. And so that would be my general suggestion is acetone also rubbing alcohol, but rubbing alcohol likely will not be as potent. The trick when it comes to this, it's
not about severity of the chemical that we're using. It is just literally chemistry. It's chemistry, and so you know, sometimes water is the best solvent to separate two things, and you think, oh, well, water is not powerful.
Oh, yes it is.
It's all about does the particular molecular structure of this chemical interact with the molecular structure of the other chemical in a way that breaks the bonds apart. Okay, it doesn't have to necessarily be caustic, although most of the
time they tend to be somewhat caustic. So anyway, all of that to say, I'm thinking in your situation that you carefully attempt to start working those seams with acetone, acetone and anything that you can carefully pry in between the two panels in order to let the acetone penetrate deeper along the seam or the face of the glued surface. You'd probably see your best results that way. Acetone rubbing alcohol. I would go with the acetone first and just be
super careful and super safe as you handle it. The other thing that I wanted to bring up to everybody is a little secret weapon of mine. Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Since Melody raised the question of glues, how do you know? How do you know what to do with what?
Well?
You kind of reverse engineer this thing Okay, you reverse engineered in the sense of like whether if you're trying to separate a thing, you've got to figure out how they likely glued it in the first place. And also if you're just interested in it hearing something one thing to another, and we should do an adhesive We're going to do an adhesive show soon in the next few weeks. We're going to do We're going to bring back an adhesive show and a tape show because it's so helpful
for people. But anyway, here is an invaluable website. I love it. It's called this to that, This to that dot com? As in, how do I attach this to that? Okay, this to that dot com? I literally couldn't tell you right at the moment.
I can't.
I don't remember who put this together. Some rocket scientists somewhere, some chemical engineers. Anyway, here's what you do. Here's what you find when you go to this to that dot com. You get there and right at the top it says this to that and it says I'm reading it right off the website because people have a need to glue
things to other things. And then there are pulled down menus and it says attach and then there's a blank here and there's a pulldown bar ceramic, fabric, glass, leather, metal, paper, plastic, rubber. So let's say, like if I wanted to attach leather, and then it says two another thing. Let's just say glass, attach leather to glass, and then you press the button. Let's glue, and guess what we get leather to glass. For the strongest bond, we recommend general electric silicone two.
Also see potentially seal all or household goop or for a non toxic alternative weld bond. Oh my gosh, right, all of that information. So in Melody's case, here this is what I actually did during the break. I'm like, you know what, I think it's acetone, but I'm going to go to this to that. And so what I went is I went in and I put in a couple of options of how to attach to this to that, found the adhesives that are most likely used, and then all I have to do is kind of do a
reverse question. And that is what solvent out there breaks down these most common adhesives, and that's where we arrived at actone. And there you have it. So I'm showing you how the sausage is made a little bit here. But I'm also giving you this great great or resource this to that dot com. Oh the fun you can have there. All right, y'all, Melody, thank you for your call.
Good luck on that project. Sounds fascinating and awesome. Please send me a pick when you are done more of your calls when we return your Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. It is
a beautifully rainy, cool Southern California Sunday morning. I am as always honored to be spending time with you on this morning, and we're taking nothing but calls all weekend long here just because man, I just love talking to you, helping you out with your house, and we're just taking a breather from the flood of information that you've heard from us over the last few weeks fire wise, and I'm totally down for talking fires, by the way, but also anything else, just so that we can all just
breathe deep this morning, enjoy the fact that mother nature has showed up and said okay, that's enough enough of that, let's go back to the phones.
I want to talk to Jeff. Hey, Jeff, welcome home.
Oh wise, Dean, I hope you can help me with my greatest frustration at home improvement.
Oh no, See, when you start like that, you're just setting me up for failure.
No, I don't think so. So if you take sandpaper to wood, you get fine sawdust and you get smooth wood. What's upon a time we used to paint walls and if you take sandpaper to it, you'd have a similar result. But now that we coat our walls with plastic, you stand that and it melts the plastic and you get really bad results instead of smooth walls. So what do you do?
Well, what do you do?
Uh?
So you ease up on the sanding, is what you do.
So I'm assuming that what we're setting up here is the idea that you've got acrylic based or latex based paints on the walls, and you know, they have a rubbery sort of you know, plastic key aspect to them. They're not all lead based paints like in the good old days, you know, when you could lick your walls and die, but they were so sturdy and they're not
oil based paints anymore. But yeah, so under the friction of an aggressive sanding, you can you can kind of regelatinize a coat of paint on your wall and you end up with gummy, gooey whatever stuff. So here's the thing. If you are restanding a room and you're committed to just stripping the paint off the walls and getting back to ground zero, then you know what, you just ignore that and you just keep on going. You just plow through the goo. You change out your sandpaper, and you
continue on. However, if the paint is just like, well, we don't like this color of paint, and I want to change the paint in this room, and it's time change the paint. But it's bonded well and it's holding well, then the mistake that a lot of people make is to go at it too aggressively with too heavy a grit of sandpaper. You know, you don't need to use eighty grit or one hundred grit sandpaper to prep a wall for new paint, especially if the paint is in
decent bonding shape. And when I say decent shape, I don't mean it's got marker and it's just color. No I mean, is it grabbing the wall? Well, all right, So in that case, you approach the wall with a screen what we call something in that on the spectrum of sandpaper approaches the end of the spectrum that we
call screening. Screening is literally just the lightest kind of sandpaper, because all we're looking to do is open up the porosity of what's there, not remove what's there, but open up its porosity so that the new code of paint bonds well to it. And for that you could use one eighty two hundred. I mean, in some situations you can simply do it with you know, heavy hot steel wool, which is I'm not recommending it, I'm just using that as an illustrate. So to avoid the uh, the gelatinization
of your existing paint. If it's a room where you can live with having that paint stay on the wall, then lighten up on the on the sanding pressure and lighten up on the grit so that you're just opening up the perocity of that paint and you're not going to get in you know, in the world of goo and gum.
Yeah, where I have the biggest problems on trim on the molding.
Yeah, Now, trim is tricky. Trim.
Uh, you know, again, the rule still applies, but on trim sometimes sometimes it's time to strip it, and sometimes you could actually just do better again, foregoing the sand paper altogether. And uh, let's just get a little bit of paint stripper on there and apply it carefully, let it do its work, and get right back down to
the base of the wood itself. Of course, be careful to make sure that it's wood that you're working with and not some like MDF casing or baseboard, because you do that with some stripper and you just go right through it, just like, oh.
It dissolved my base board. But assuming baseboard.
Then stripper sometimes will do a far better job of just getting you back to ground zero.
Cool.
How'd I do?
Pretty good?
You sound a little disappointed, though, I gotta say, I feel like I'm listening.
Try it and see if it works.
Okay, all right, all right, all right, all right, my friend. Well, thanks for keeping an open mind, and hopefully my wisdom did not disappoint you this time around. And give it a shot, and I think you'll I think you'll see it works out. Remember, everybody, when you're repainting a room, you don't need to strip the old paint off, you know.
I mean, in some cases that's the goal, right, It's like, but even even when it comes to dangerous things like lead based paint, Okay, you've got a hundred year old house and you know that there's lead in the paint. And again, you don't want your you know, your two year old being able to you know, rub their fingers all over the wall or lick the wall. And I'm not saying your two year old as a wall licker.
Every two year old is a wall liquor, Okay, I'm just saying even those quote unquote dangerous paints don't have to be stripped. In fact, I would tell most homeowners don't because you're then you're disrupting it and putting it out into the air around you. Better to encapsulate it, meaning that there are coatings that can go over the
top of that. So the moral of the story is, if you're repainting a room, unless the paint that you've got is peeling off, and sometimes it is, that needs to come down because that's not a stable base to put more paint on. But if the paint is holding, it's just old and dingy and gross and whatever. All you have to do is take the sheen off of it.
All you have to do is just very lightly rough it up a little bit so that the porosity on the microscopic level has opened up and is ready for the new paint to get into those pores and grab on,
and the new paint's gonna hold just fine. So a lot of homeowners, a lot of di wires, run into back breaking projects when solely because you know, they went at it with too aggressively and they created the backbreaking work for themselves, when just a little bit here and there would have been enough to get them rolling to the next phase. And there you go, all right more when we return.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Well, here we are at the end of another three hours show that we have spent with you this morning. I hope you have enjoyed the time. I'm not done yet. I think I have time for one more quick call. It's been an all calls weekend. If you've missed any of it, you know, find us on the podcast and you will. You'll enjoy it. You'll enjoy both Saturday and Sundays.
Really good callers this weekend. And I've been in good mood too, and that always helps, not that I usually i'm not, but you know, you know what I'm saying. Let's talk to Carrie. Carrie, welcome home. Hi, good morning. How can I help you?
Hi?
I just want to say I really enjoy your show.
And I just bought a new home, new to me as a fixer upper, and I have a four hundred square foot covered patio and I'm having a bit of sticker shock with everything. And when I got the price for a tile, it was quite a bit of money, and I was told if I put granite grip paint down, it's about half the price. And I was wondering, in your opinion, is it worth spending the money for tile or is the grant grip paint a good thing to go with?
Okay, well, I mean explain the patio for me. Is it covered? How exposed is it to slippery moisture?
And uh?
And when you say the granite grip paint, you mean you're just wanting to do that on top of your concrete for a granity kind of look versus running it running tile.
Well, yes, it's covered. And it's it's a it has copped out indoor outdoor carpet on it right now, but there is a cement slab underneath. So I'm just just wondering, what do you Is it worth spending the extra money for the tile, which I'm kind of leaning towards.
But.
I just wonder what you thought about the granite grip paint.
Well, I don't have any problems with granite grip paint if that's the thing that everybody is looking to do, but again, it is a coding and it has a certain look and a certain vibe, and if your heart is leaning toward tile, I would do the tile.
I mean, just straight out.
Sometimes sometimes a client will come to me and say, I really want to do this on my patio. You know, I want to cover my patio with marshmallows. Deem, How does that sound? You know it could be problematic, but honestly, honestly, Carrie, in those situations, you know what I say, Well, let me think about that, and I literally, if possible, and I'm exaggerating a little bit, but in some situations not
so much. If possible, I'm going to figure out a way to put marshmallows on this damn patio right and have it last, because that's what my client wants to do.
Uh, in your case, I mean the tile on the patio, exterior patio.
Yeah, let's just make sure that it's a tile that does well in exterior applications, that that it's a tile that's going to last. And on the grip side of things, let's make sure that it is a flooring tile that has a good grip coefficient to it.
In other words, that you know, the minute.
It gets a little bit moist, you know, we don't want people slipping and dying out there.
And so may.
I ask you, yeah, sorry, may I ask you? What is the grip?
Is it friction?
Is that the number that I'm looking for? What number? What I be looking for?
The grip exactly?
The friction coefficient because you want the friction to be high. You know, the opposite of high friction is you know, teflon is just slippery. You want a full stick patio so that people just walk out and uh and just feel confident even even when it's wet and so but there, there's there's a thousand tile applications that will work in that situation. So uh, you know, I am all about as a designer, uh, making function match the form that
you want. And so the form that you are looking for, the look, the vibe, the feel that you're looking for, that should always come first and then only be steered away from if for some reason, the like I said, marshmallows right, the form that you're looking for just isn't going to work in that environment. And in your case, there's a thousand tiles you can put out up there and and have it last and make it look gorgeous.
So why not you have my full thumbs up. Go for it.
Okay, I'm so child.
Thank you all right, Gerry, thank you so much. Great call, great calls today, just great calls today. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to draw the line right there, left a couple of callers online. If you guys who are still holding want to call back next week, then you let Richie know that, Hey, I was on the line last week, Dean didn't get to me. I am happy to move you to the front of the line because that's the
way we treat people around here with respect. We can't always meet every need every weekend, but we'll get to you. I promise we always will all right, thanks for spending the time with me again this morning. It has of course been a privileged don't forget follow us on social media Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x all at Home with Dean. The house Whisper podcast is everywhere your favorite podcasts are found. And again, if your home is in need of some
personal house Whisper attention, then yes it's true. You can indeed book a in home consult with me and the tea my boss. You just go to house Whisper dot design and follow the prompts there and we'll get you all set up.
All right. So a bit of a.
Bit of an of an interesting closing thought today, a thought actually about not having a closing thought, and then it turned into a little bit of a closing thought. So all right, take it for what it will. I'm going to leave you with this thought today. There are Sunday mornings that I wake up with something unmistakably potent on my mind, and then there are others when I have to sit for a while and listen before whatever
it is that I'm feeling rises to the surface. And then there are days like today when I seem to know from the moment that I open my eyes that there just aren't going to be any messages waiting in the inbox of my brain. It doesn't mean it's.
A bad day, or that I'm down, or that I'm too tired to be clever. It's just a day when things are quiet inside.
And on those mornings, I still get up, pour myself a coffee, and I sit by the fire and I listen and just.
Quiet.
And when I'm pushing myself to produce something, quiet is not what I want to hear. But I think quiet is a kind of message in and of itself.
After all.
I think it's my own soul's way of letting me know that today just have to find something else to do. It's kind of like showing up to a place that you planned on spending some time and finding that it's closed, and you're like, oh, I didn't know they were closed on Sundays, So okay, now what, Well, we'll figure it out.
So here's the thing.
I have no idea if today is that kind of day for you, Perhaps it's a good day for quiet. Perhaps you've been sitting too long and it's time to get up and get something going. I don't think there's a right answer. I think there's just your answer, and I'll suggest this though, whatever it is, honor yourself in it. Speak to yourself like you speak to somebody that you love. Always try to speak to yourself like you speak to
someone that you love. And then whether it's racing or resting, creating, or just quiet, you'll know that you're doing what you should do to build yourself a beautiful life. Everybody, enjoy this rainy weather today, enjoy the afternoon, Enjoy the NFL playoffs, Enjoy whatever.
It is that you are about doing today.
Honor yourself and we will see you right back here next week. 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 on the iHeartRadio app