Big Tract Home Remodel Wins, Part 1 | Hour 2

Home with Dean, same handle for them all. And of course this very program is the house Whisper Podcast that you can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand, hundreds of episodes, all searchable by topic. It is your home improvement reference library. And lastly, if your home is in need of a little more personal house Whisper attention, yeah, you can book an in home design consult with me and the tea at house Whisperer dot Design. Just go to house Whisper

dot Design. Yeah, we'll come on over to your place, stand around, look at that problem thing, help you get unstuck. We helped a very very lovely couple get unstuck yesterday and they were very grateful in a good time was had by all. It's always fun. All right, y'all, let's

get back to the phones. We're talking. By the way, if you just joined us about tracked homes this weekend, specifically tracked home weaknesses and as a result of understanding what those intrinsic weaknesses are, I've got a whole list for you, specifically on tomorrow's show for things that you can do, include in your rema to get a huge disproportionate win from a relatively small time and money investment to when it comes to plugging those holes and fixing

those weaknesses. But today we're laying the groundwork of what those weaknesses are. We'll get back to that discussion, but right now I am taking calls and I want to talk to Shirley A Sureley. Welcome home.

A porch is considered sort of a flat hardscape addition to the property, and you know that that's something that could for most municipalities, stick into the setback zone of your property, but putting the roof on it all right now, we are technically ending the envelope of the house. So let's say you've got a twenty foot setback for your house. If your house proper right now is sitting right on that setback line, then I mean you conchect with your city.

But the chances of putting a wrap around porch with with an extended roof covering over it, They're going to say, Nope, you're in your setback. You can't you can't do that. But if you are well back of your setback, both front and on your sides, then wrapping a porch around with its you know, a tending covered roof, there's no If it's not a zoning land usage issue from the city, and you can just find out by giving them a call, then then it just comes down to whether the house

can handle the style. And I agree with you, I think they're beautiful, and your little thirty foot house, by the way, will grow in size visually as a result, because if it's truly a rap around and not just a front facing porch, but if it wraps, if it turns the corner and wraps around. Then the depth of that porch, let's say, you know, eight feet or so, is going to add another sixteen plus feet to the overall you know, front presence of your home. So it

could be a big win for you. But the key is to find out where your setbacks are and whether you can build into that space. Again, if it's just a porch, then it would be considered more of a deck, and in almost all cases that can be pushed out into the setback. But you put the roof over it, and the city is like, now you're extending the envelope of your house and we want you to keep it inside the setback.

and or money. Big list. Most of that comes tomorrow. Today, we're just laying the foundation of understanding tracked homes better, especially their weaknesses. But right now I just want to finish up calls I've got time for maybe one more call today, and who's it gonna be. I think we're gonna talk Tordaura, Hey, Laura, welcome home.

about pea gravel the other day. We have had two landscape architects look at our area and recommended decomposed Granted, what's the differences between the pea gravel and deepset Granted it doesn't come in different colors? And then where is a good place for a good source for California native throughout tolerant plants. We're looking at replacing all the plants in our flower beds where all this is going. I can go to our local gardens stores and that kind

of stuff. But is really California native best being in southern California? Or can any drought toler plants be used?

I personally, I lean towards gravel because I it's easier to maintain, it is far less inexpensive to install, and it drains beautifully. And you can get it in any color, just about any color. So when most people think of peak gravel, they're like, well, I don't want the whole gray blue kind of tint or you know, but that's just standard peak gravel. There's you know, think about aquarium rocks.

You know, you can get it in the same browns and beige's that decomposed granite essentially takes on you can nudge it in several different directions. So I'm only a fan of gravel because I'm a fan of gravel. Have I specified and designed decomposed granite for some clients and some designs, absolutely, So it's really about choosing the right one. But just understand decomposed granite it takes more time to install.

It has to be installed well, I mean in order for it to work and not wash away or become unstable. It has to be installed by a pro or a homeowner who is meticulously following the steps. It's got to be compacted down at every turn. And that's why for a lot of instances, the labor there for me versus

the resulting product. It's just far easier and a lot less expensive to use gravel because pretty much, once you've got your you know, your base soil leveled and firmed up in the direction of drainage whatever is necessary, you just pour the gravel out, break it out, pour it out a couple inches thick and there you go, and you're done. So that's that as far as native plants versus drought tolerant plants, I am always a fan of using as many native California plants as possible, or wherever

you find yourself, using native plants for your region. And that the reason is not just the for California, the drought tolerance and the minimal watering that comes along with that, but also just habitat bird life, animal life in your yard. It all begins with insect life, okay, birds making a yard a backyard beautiful all begins with whether or not there is nectar and whether there are plants there that insects can utilize. And people are like, eh, I don't

line in. It's like, well, if you want a sterile yard, then just plant completely non native plants. And here's the reason why. From an evolutionary perspective, insects, the you know, the food that birds eat coevolved with plants in this region, in every region. And so the problem is that non native plants the vast majority, well oh for ninety eight percent of native California insects have no use for a non native plant, which means they won't be there. And

if they're not there, then the birds aren't there. And if the birds aren't there, then you don't have this beautiful outdoor landscape with the life thriving all over it. So, in terms of pure watering, any old drought tolerant plant will do. In terms of building habitat, you want to go native. Now, it doesn't have to be one hundred percent pure. No, my yard is a full on habitat. And I've got some drought tolerant non native plants in my yard, a few, Okay, I just don't build the

entire yard out of them. The vast majority are plants that work here in Southern California. And this rule applies to everybody no matter where you're listening to the show from buy and plant native to your region. And finally, for your last question, here in Southern California, Yeah, undoubtedly the best single resource. Now you can buy these kinds of things just about anywhere, but the best resource for

your education is the Theodore Pain Foundation. Theodore Pain Foundation, they have a twenty two acre nursery on the north edge of the San Fernando Valley over in Sunland. I think it's Sunland or Tahunga and Theodore Pain Foundation. They are a one stop showplace for all native California plants.

You go there, you'll see displays you can actually buy from the nursery, but you can go there for an education bare minimum and see everything that California has to offer in terms of its own native plant offerings, and let me tell you, it is vast. It is a lot more than most people think. Laura, great question, Thank you for your call, and good luck on that landscape. I like all the moves that you're making. I think

I think you're headed in the right direction. All right, y'all, let's get back to our conversation on the intrinsic weaknesses of tract housing and what we're going to do about it.

a tract home, which most of us live in tracked homes. Now, I've already discussed a couple of the biggies in terms of what it is about a tract home that is an intrinsic weakness. Told you that it has its strength obviously the cost because most of us are living in homes that weren't custom built, and as a result, we get to live in a home. But now that you're in it, you are ready to remodel it. It's time to turn it into that custom home that you always wanted.

So we got to address the shortcomings. Orientation on the lot is a massive, massive weakness of a tract home because it wasn't really designed for the lot. It is sitting on per se and as a result, it's windows, its doors, they don't take full advantage of or fight with the property, the view, the lack of view, the privacy, so on and so forth. It's not the only weakness. Maybe second to that weakness of orientation on the lot is is that a tract home lacks Most tracked homes

lack any particular architectural pedigree. Now some of you are reacting to that thinking, well, wait my place. I mean it's clearly med it's a Mediterranean house. Okay, Well yeah, quite possible. Okay, I'm not saying every tract home falls under this category, but most do because of the thing I discussed earlier in the show, the desire for a for developers to kind of build the illusion that there are more homes in a neighborhood than there actually are,

or more unique homes. You basically, you know, in most developments, you end up with about four different floor plans, four houses, and then to those four houses, you flip them left and right, and now we've got eight house plans because you know, four of them are facing the opposite direction of the other. And then you take those eight plans or the four the original four, and if you've got maybe four different facades for the front, then you've got sixteen.

And then you know, you see how the math works. But it's that interchangeable facade on the front of most tracked homes. That's what I'm talking about about a lack of architectural pedigree. If if you live in a neighborhood where there are some of the homes with Spanish tile on the roof or s tiles something like that, and then you've got others that have sighting instead of stucco

and flat tiles on the roofs. In other words, you may have homes in your tract that kind of look a little Colonial or a little Tutor, or a little Cape Cottish, or a little Mediterranean or Spanish, and you might have a mix of all of them, all of those facades going on essentially the same four floor plans.

That is not an essential plan, that is specifically one architectural pedigree, you understand, because by definition, if we can interchange the style on the front of the house, then the structure of the house itself is not designed to be any one particular thing.

a house with no real architectural pedigree. Do you want to hear what it is, Well, hang tight with me, we'll talk about it day. Hi, King Sharp the house Whisper, Welcome home. Thanks for joining us on the program today. I'm glad that you are here. We've got a beautiful Saturday ahead of us here. No matter where you are across this great land, it's gorgeous here in southern California. This is why people pay the big bucks to live here. It is a gorgeous spring day here in Southern California.

I hope that spring is busting out wherever you are as well. And so and I'm glad you're here with us. We've been talking about the intrinsic weaknesses of tract homes now, you know. And I'm not piling on to a tract home to you know, poop pooh them, because I'm a custom home designer. That's not my goal at all. I live in a tract home. Chances are you live in a tract home and and there's there's good reasons for it.

But we've got to understand when we're going to remodel our tract home and make it more hours, make it more custom, we want to address the things that are most intrinsically weak about the home in order to turn it into that dream home that we've always wanted to live in. So we've talked about things so far today, things like the craftsmanship of a tract home. You know, when a home is being built by spreadsheet, it's not

going to be the finest craftsmanship in the world. We've talked about the fact that, on the other hand, the engineering of a tracked home far better and any home being built you know in the last you know generation, far better than you know super ultra custom wonderful homes built in the nineteen twenties, as far as it's engineering is concerned, in other words, its strength and its resilience to to handle you know, the elements that it sits in.

But at the heart of weaknesses of a tract home lies this idea that very few tracked homes developments have

strong architectural pedigrees. Now, somebody was asking during the break, so explain this architectural pedigree thing, And the easiest way to explain it is that to give you an example, let's take a Queen Anne Victorian, which is like a gingerbread y kind of Victorian home that you've all seen, and you're like, you know what they look like a Queen Anne Victorian, an authentic turn of the century Queen

Anne Victorian home. No one in their right mind takes a Victorian home and tries to turn it into a Spanish med home because it's the hardest thing in the world to do. Why because it's a Queen Anne Victorian. You know, it knows exactly actly what it is down to its bones. It is a Victorian home. So changing it, I mean you might as well. Honestly, if you wanted a Spanish home and you bought a Victorian, you might as well just level it and start over. And the

same is true like a craftsman home. There's no taking a craftsman home and turning it into a Victorian. So you get these are homes with strong architectural stylistic pedigrees, and your typical tract home which is really designed to be flexible enough to you know, have a colonial facade on the front, or have something that looks a little tutor on the front of the same floor plan, or that has something that looks Spanish met on the front

of the same floor plan. If a home that can take all those kinds of facades doesn't really have its own strong particular pedigree. Okay, but wait, I actually think that's a silver lining for most of us. Don't see your place as a boring beige box. See it as a blank canvas longing for what it never really had,

which is a real identity. So the truth of the matter is, if you're working with a home that was really designed as a hybrid, if you do the research, if you pile in on the design, the advantage to working with a home of questionable architectural pedigree is we can probably make it just about anything you want it to be, because in one sense, there's only two types

of houses, those with pedigree and those without. And those with pedigree know what they're supposed to be and they give us a design playbook to follow in terms of the remodel. But those without a pedigree, it's a blank canvas to paint on as we please. And this means that every house has a path forward, every house has hope of becoming something truly special. And you know, I used to say this all the time. Most renovations don't need a bigger budget, They just need a better story.

And when that story merges with your story, that is when you are in a position to take an ordinary tract home and make it an extraordinary custom home, built as if it was built just for you. That's the secret, that's the key. Okay, Now, this was just part one of this two part series. Today we took a look at the intrinsic nature of a tracked home, took a

look at its weaknesses. Tomorrow on The Big Show Sunday Live from nine to noon, we will be taking a look at the whole essence of what are these things that we can take advantage of. I'm going to give you a preview. Most ranch, single story bedrooms have some sort of view into the backyard. That view is typically a window. So many ranch bedrooms would benefit from that

window being turned into a door. And guess what, because of how a ranch house is built, turning the window into a door not a big deal at all, and actually not even making a structural change to the house. That's the kind of stuff we're going to be talking about tomorrow. Relatively small effort, relatively small budget, big big payoff. I've got a whole list of them. Join me here again tomorrow from nine to noon. Until then, get out into this big, beautiful day and get busy building yourself

a beautiful life. We'll see you tomorrow. 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