KF I am six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the House Whisper on demand on the iHeart radio app. Oh Oh, Marry.
Christmas House Whisper fans, it's your old friend Santa Neil bringing you Seasons readings. You know that magical elf. Dean Sharp and I have been good friends for many a year now. And yes, I recently had his sister on my Halloween show. Why because she talks to ghosts? And yes, I may have implied the Dean walks I'm outside in his underwear in the middle of the night and actually
whispers to houses like some kind of lunatic. I may have also implied, and his wife Tina and his entire home design career is just a fit of his imagination. But after speaking to Dean's attorney, I'm here to tell you it was all just a bit of fun, and
I have to go ahead and read the following. Any mention of mental health or professional qualifications of other hosts on the Forek Report is done purely for the purpose of entertainment, and any similarity any persons living or dead, or otherwise psychologically compromised.
Is entirely coincidental. Is that enough?
Okay, okay, Every Christmas, everybody.
Okay, I am sixty Deem Sharp the House Whisper. You have stumbled upon The House Whisper Annual Holiday home Show. We've got a live studio audience right here at the iHeart Studios in Burbank, California, in the helpful Honda Lounge. We're having some fun this morning. I am spending time visiting with some very special guests, some very special friends. We've got the folks from al dick Holm who've sponsored
the entire show for us. Today. They're up on stage decorating this extraordinary Christmas tree that we're going to be given away to one of our studio audience members today. That somebody's going home with this whole thing? Am I included in No, you are not. I would happily do that, but then you know, lawyers and stuff, I got it, that whole thing. We don't want that. And so hey, the voice you just heard apologizing for, by the way, exactly what he said on his show, Exactly what he said,
the underwear and everything, the underwear and everything. It's totally true. The lawyer may have been a little made up, but the Fork reporter himself nil savedra. Everybody get up here, Neil, come on up, Come on up, come on up. Oh take your time. You know, we got plenty of time. It's just radio, you know, just I'm dramatic.
It's drama. I'm building the drama. Look I brought you ornaments. Look at your guests.
You know what. Everybody in the studio quest sir, This house whisper ornament today. Oh yeah, people are listening saying again, yeah again, not for us. Thanks a lot, Deane.
I like how you keep telling you everybody welcome home, and these people think they're staying. Listeners are like, we could just stay here, he said, welcome home.
That's right, it's our home.
Now.
You got to mow the lawn out front.
So how you doing, Bud?
I'm doing well. Happy holidays? How are you?
I'm good. I'm good.
Look at that tree. I know where is Tina?
Tina's home recovering all that surgery. Thanks thanks for remembering well.
No, I didn't know until I saw it on her social media.
What was she having you removed from her?
Or what's the she was trying? Good when you're trying it was a fight, it was.
No.
I sent her good wishes and love and positivity.
There you go, thank you appreciate.
And I'm going to say it the P word prayers.
I said, it got a problem with that, okay, marry christ Mass everybody, I said it, look at me.
You had to go there, didn't you know? You just had to go and just say divisive things.
You know. It's funny.
I saw somebody say, you know, we're gonna put the Christ back in Christmas, and I said, how about let's put it back in Christianity first? There you go, Look at that boom con traversy on the show. I don't worry you, Dean.
I'm good, glad to be on your show. Neil, Well, it's what I do. Always happy to be a guest on the show.
You know.
So what do you like to eat, Dean?
Humble pie apparently a little bit of crow. Yeah. So what's going on at the Savadra house this holiday season?
Everything?
It seems, you know, we have my son's birthday. He's going to be eight this month, at the end of this month, so there's that. My father in law is going to be eighty, so we're calling it the Big eight oh eight.
Okay, that makes sense.
And then the holidays fit right in there as well. So and I don't have to cook anything this year for Thanksgiving?
Why is that?
Because I'm smart, Dean, because I find other.
People to do it, because you're phoning it in.
Yeah, you're done right. I talk about the food. They can make it now, so I don't have to cook anything.
He's cooking my mother and actually, you know what I think, Corner butcher Shop is cooking. But it will be at my mother in law's place, so it'll be at my in laws. But yeah, it's looking forward to. Then we'll probably do Christmas, Christmas at my brothers and just wanting to see people.
But I'll cook at home just for.
The heck of it. Is there any is there any like one thing that repeats every year that you say is like, this is a cornerstone of the Savedra.
Holiday experience, you know, when when we're lucky enough, if you have those one things. And this was something that I wasn't crazy about when I was younger, but I love now. If my mom makes a soup, so a meatball soup is really delicious. And when the weather changes, that reminds me a lot of homemade tortillas things like that.
So there's not a lot of personal time just eating.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, screw the family. I know who they are. Make me food, put me in a corner generally. No, I'll be fine.
I'm wiping my forehead because it's just warm up here.
Oh are you allergic to handsome? I can move?
No, no, no, it's not that. It's just that it's a little warm under this thick coaff of hair, you know how. Oh, I'm sorry, No, I'm sorry.
I gotta be honest.
I forgot.
I've never met anybody that wears a two pay that talks so much about their hair.
They usually like to just let it slide.
Yeah, for you, you let your a long time.
Also brought to you by Al Dick.
They're so lifelike they did they did Rosie's Day one. By the way, our little Al Dick's story here, right, You know that when these guys got started, by the way, the name Al Dick, it's very creative. Okay, two friends, Al and Dick started a flower shop and it's soilk flower business like in fifty one fifty one or fifty two, right, fifty one on Melrose in La right, and massively successful from day one. You know, got the attention of designers like me and the studios, right, I mean, these are
so realistic. They've they've been so committed to to quality, the highest quality over the years that you know they're out. You've seen you whether you have never been to Aldic before, if you've watched television or watched movies, you've seen their stuff and just assumed those are just plants. Those are those are flowers on the you know, uh, because the studios buy their stuff, Designers bring their clients there all the time. And a little startup back in the fifties,
a little a little startup in Anaheim called Disneyland. Hit them up? Is Disney Disney I think it's pronounced there's an accent, does not yeah something anyway, Well, it's a it's like an it's like an amusement park in any anyway.
Uh, they.
Aldi know you guys were were well, not you, Brian, because look how young you are. Okay, Brian has hair too good. But in fact, if we were a count who has hair on stage, let's see.
Let's count how many of them? It looks real on one.
Two two.
Two?
All right? If anybody who has seen you knows now why you wear that hat all the time.
I do.
You have to accessrize otherwise people don't know which ends up.
It's a cessrize for you. It's a cessriz or sunburn. It's one of the two.
It's this hat or melanoma. There it is.
Yeah, So anyway, Al Dick nineteen fifty two get hit up by Disneyland to do the Swiss Family, Robinson.
Tree, Holy Smoke, and.
Weirdly enough the under the underwater plant life in the Lagoon for the submarine ride. Right, that's aldi com like from day one. You imagine what it takes to be a small startup business and then all of a sudden Disney comes to you and says, hey, would you like to do two major features at our theme park next week? What's a theme park?
Exactly? What? This guy's good? I give it a week.
You're doing what in an orange grove? What are you doing? So anyway, Yeah, that's that's the little story about how Alda got their start, right, and the store on Melrose went and went went, and then they had to move to the valley and I begged them to move to another location where there's actually parking. Brian, right, we're hoping Santa brings us like you're not going to do it. You're not going to do it, or we'll find one we've always asked, and you're like, man, man, you know.
They're branching out into every Trader Joe's parking lot.
Here's the we just need to parking. I gotta tell you, Okay, as far as so when we say Aldick is the most beautiful store in Los Angeles, in southern California, it is okay on the inside, on the inside, And so I think it just like you prep everybody's expectation. Cause you're driving down SEPULVIDN get a little bit of south of Roscoe, and then you see, uh, the the Harbor Freight sign and then the Al Dick sign right under it, and you're like, am I going to Harbor Freight. I'm
parking in the Harbor Freight parking lot. Look at this Rando them warehousey kind of building. And then you walk inside and it's like where dude. You know, So you have a good way of just setting expectations at a certain level and then just blowing everybody away.
And we can tell when people walk in and then their mouth opens and they don't move for you know ten or fifteen seconds, we know they're new.
Yeah, that's true.
People come down there. People, hundreds of families actually get dressed up in their best holiday clothes every year and take their photos at alder No. They do. They come and these guys love it. They're like, yeah, come on in, it's fine. They's not like they're not renting out space. Just find a tree, don't get in the customer's way, and take your holiday photos. So all right, all right, we gotta go to break. We're gonna let Neil wipe his head down and when we come back a little
bit more with the Fork reporter himself, Neil Savedra. Here on the House Whisper Holiday Home Show.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is our annual House Whisper Holiday Home Show with a live studio audience right here in Burbank, California, at the iHeart Studios and the helpful Ponda Lounge. We are spending the morning talking about Christmas decor. I'm talking to some of my best buds around here at the station, right up on stage with me right now Neil Savadra the Fork reported himself.
Happy holidays, Good morning everybody. What a good looking crowd. I'll stop it, stops standing except one. I'm not going to point them out, not pandering. You know who you are, sir.
All right. So here's the thing. I've been talking to the to our studio audience here during the breaks and answering some questions, and we just had a really really fantastic question. A young woman said, how do you and forgive me if I get this right, you know wrong, how do you how do you engage a young male into the idea that that the design really matters and that it makes a difference. Uh. And because I assume I didn't get a chance to ask you, but I assume, Richie,
maybe we get a mic over there. I assume that that we're talking about somebody who is now who is this person? Let's just let's my husband, Oh, your husband? Okay? And and your husband just doesn't want to do a holiday decor. He doesn't or any decur where what it looks like he's pragmatic over design. Yeah, okay, all right, good, well not good but fine, all right, got it? Got the question, and I wanted to share this on the air. I thought it would be a good thing. Plus I
ran out of time, so we're here. Uh So here's the thing this is. I don't know if this is possible, but I try and actually do this every week on the show.
Uh.
The the the phrase that you hear me repeat all the time. That is the model of our new T shirt this season. Right, design matters most no one. If I was going to lecture him, if I was going to sit your husband down and lecture him, no human being lives to whom design does not matter. Okay, it's just the idea that we get in our heads, especially men get in their heads that it's like, no, I'm practical. Okay,
here's the thing. What we see, what we take in through our eyes, what we take in through our senses, it affects us. It affects us psychologically, It affects us emotionally. It is unavoidable. I do this for a living. I affect people's emotions. That's the weight, actually that any good designer should carry with them when they do their job, is the fact that things that you're doing are going to matter. I had a mentor when I first started my first big, big project. It was this house in
Brentwood Park. Right around the corner from OJ's house is a brand new twelve thousand square foot home in Brentwood Park. And it was upon me to design this place. And my mentor, Jim Shaw from Turtle Creek, Texas, he just a beautiful man, and he would say to me, all right, Dean,
here's what you need to know. You've got to understand when we do these things, that decisions you and I are going to make here on this project every day are going to affect the way people move through their lives for as long as they live in this space. He's like, if somebody gets up in the middle of the night and he is thirsty for a glass of water, they're going to walk down our hallway, They're going to walk into our kitchen or in this case, private kitchenette
suite off of the master bedroom. But the point is the flow, the way we move, what they see, where the lights are, everything about that experience is going to be a remnant of decisions you and I make today, and it's going to affect them. It's going to have some subtle but ongoing effect in their lives. And so that was one of those iconic pieces of advice that that kind of shape you right, and and I've never
forgotten that lesson. That was a powerful conversation we had that day because the whole weight of the whole time, I'm like, thanks, Jim, this is my first project. Thanks. You know, all my stupid decisions and I'm gonna make are gonna affect people forever.
But one missed color and they're getting a divorce. Go boy, exactly build something exactly right.
And I thought, I thought, until I got on the radio and they record every single show, Oh you ever do in posterity, I thought, uh, you know, it would never get worse than building a house. And then it's there fifty years later and all the mistakes you've made, people are still walking through it. But now so I guess maybe radio was a natural fit because now you can go back and listen to the first show I ever did, and just like.
Also most design matters on the first show built from there? Can I ask a quick question? How many pillows on your damn sofa?
Man?
Oh it doesn't. I am also kind of a minimalist.
I'm just saying as a man, I thought I'd jump in here.
No, No, I just I but.
You are Pillow.
Okay, I'm just saying there's a difference between design and decorating.
I agree with you, Neil, I'm actually the one. My wife.
It's reversed. My wife is very pragmatic, very you know. Listen, I want to be able to go from A to B and and I'm like, this thing makes me happy. Why do we have a full sized Darth Vader in the living room?
It makes me happy.
So I've never met a human being to whom design doesn't matter on some level. Someone right, you know, there may be you know, you know, I don't want to be all sexist when I say this. I'm just stereotypical. But women are less than men. Oh that's what you say. No, I thought you were saying that. I want that's how Conway does it. I don't want to be sexist, but women are.
No.
What I was going to say, thank you is a joke.
Man.
We all the world is run by women, especially me when I get home.
No, guys are very Some guys are very passionate about their cars. They're very you know. So if you find the one thing, find the Achilles heel of passion where it's like watch that thing. I know, I got to watch this thing four times a week. Okay, I'm not saying your husband, I'm just saying, whatever that is. Some where in every human being's life, there is something to
whom design matters most. Okay, because it affects them. It affects their you know, they get all out of They don't care what color you put on the pillows on the bed, but it makes a big difference what kind of rims are on the truck. Okay, that's design and it affects us. And my point is to everybody is that everybody needs to open up their eyes to the fact that you don't just turn off the effect of design when you walk away from the one thing that
you recognize it in. It affects you everywhere, twenty four to seven, all the time, at all times. Now, it doesn't mean that designers are, you know, secretly changing your lives at every corner, or that your mood doesn't override that kind of stuff. It's simply saying this that if you can help your spouse, your partner, somebody in your family to see the fact that the way the living room looks, the way the house looks when you walk into it, is having an effect. It is having an effect.
So just try and live in a world in which there we strip away all the color, We strip away everything about the except the utter utility of a space. Like if somebody claims, like I'm a pragmatic all right, let's take all the color out of the room. Let's not worry about natural light flowing into the room. Let's just have the absolute bare bones utility there. We got to toilet, we got to sink, you know, we got a place to look in the mirror maybe, and a place to sleep. You know what that is. It's a
prison cell. It's a prison cell. And guess what they send people there to not have a good time.
Okay, they're super cold inside.
You have to go to the bathroom in front of every I've been told they're super cold inside.
We have to talk. We have to talk about your time of job. Anyway, So does that make sense what I'm saying, it makes sense. Indoctrinate him with your show. Yeah, there you go. Just just let me add but it's not about I think a lot of guys just get it in their head that it's about proof and whatever, and or they feel like they're going to get feminized by the design problem. And that's just so not the thing. It's just so not the thing. It's just everything, you know,
this is designed. This might everything around us that isn't just naturally growing somewhere has been a process of design that some somebody else has has kind of thought through, and we just need to recognize that it's everywhere, and they all affect us. They all affect us on every level. That's the That's the best I can do is to just try and open somebody's eyes to the fact that that you can't make hardline divisions between one thing to
the other to the other. You're just not aware enough of yourself that you are being affected by it the way that you are. Okay, because otherwise, just go live in a prison. If you want to prove that you're a spartan pragmatic be there and see how that affects your mood.
Again, they're cold, and you have to go to the bathroom in front of her, right, Neil.
That's enough from you, my friend. Uh No, we haven't had enough of Neil, trust me, you have.
My wife is thrilled right now. She's always out of the house.
We will be back right after the News with more Neil Savedra from The Fork Report and more of The House Whisper Holiday Home Show.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI a M six forty.
Live streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You are Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. We are having our holiday home show. All right, I got her to get our hoop a little bit more. This is our annual holiday home show. We're just having some fun today. Normally I hold myself to pumping out as much in as possible. This is the one day every year to start the holidays off that I get to spend time with some of our favorite listeners who are here in
studio with us today. Tander Pander, Tander insert candering here, and then some of my U some of my favorite friends here at the station. Neil Sevadra is sitting on the UH. I was about to say the dais the das it is sitting here at the dais.
Well with you and I.
It ends up being yet like it does become a little bit of a roast. Yes, yeah, so it is a day. So it's like Dean Martin's gonna come out here any minute. Yeah, I gotta tell you, Dean. During the break, I walked up to the Aldic tree. Yeah, holy smoke, what did you notice? Okay, first of all, you don't see any wires. The lifelike configuration of the branches to me is huge. And I, as much as I joke, I am the one who likes design and pillows and all those things in our house, So I
that detailed to me. And the way the uh tree is imbibed literally imbibed with the light, you know, it's infused in there. Rather than them being on the tree, they're kind of in the tree. But that is spectacular if you get a chance to walk up and take a look at that and feel it. And then I noticed kind of the old world glass elongated ornaments that have have some more modernized colors to them, but still have that old school look. It just is stunning, all right.
So let's put a pin in that there. So we've got Mida and and who are you? Oh yeah, Brian, Brian Gold from al de Colm, one of the owners. So do you guys know the name of those ornaments, that kind of ornament that this is the I mean, what we're describing here everybody has seen this. This is like very Victorian, right, It's like a tear drop and then it opens up into a ball, and then there's a concave kind of reflecting area, and then.
The column reflector. But the shape is a finnial this long ago.
That's where fine, I'm just gonna go with Finiel. I don't even care.
Sounds like an old Irish guy's name. My name's Finel.
It is, yeah, it is. He's the guy that his head used to be shaped like that old finial.
The final yeah, and the sprigs coming out of there. It just is really stunning. But that tree is meticulous, just the tree itself without anything on it is a work of art.
It is now, Brian, is this one of the this all of your trees do this? I'm sorry I don't misspeak, but so this is the multicolor that's going on right now? Or you actually got a combo of white one the light palette. Half of the lights are white interspersed with the multicolor. So it's a brighter version of multicolor than what you'll see and do these transition also not this one does not okay, but you have treat So this
is one of the things I saw this. This is why you guys got to come to Aldick after the show today. Anybody who was listening to me right now, you come on down to Aldacomb. We're going to be there from one to two thirty today. But one of the trees that just kind of like stop me in my tracks. And there's always something every year that stops me in my tracks when I go to alc at
Christmas time. So you've got tree that will transition from the white lights to the multicolor, which a lot of trees do, right, But most trees don't fade from one from the light to the multicolor. They just pop. It's like, oh it's it's white, and then oh you can also
turn it to the multicolor. You're like, you've got some trees whose lights transition, and if you catch it midway through the transition, when it's moving from the white diodes over into the multicolored diodes, you end up with this amazing pastel pastel lights. Wow.
Right, because it's not because the easy right, because that's that means it's RGB is what makes them the different colors in the LEDs. Right, So you have to actually have white.
Yeah, and there's two diodes in every light, right.
And then stell mode is you're telling the white diote to go at fifty percent and the multicolor to go at fifty percent. And if you look at each light, it's a little different. It'll be a little bluish, a little whitist, or a little pink as a little whitist.
It's a pretty back to rich on tech.
Yeah, but it's amazing. Love it that.
Have you ever seen one like that before? Because you've got to check it out because the truth because it's not cheap to do.
I mean, the transition is beautiful as it goes through, but you can also freeze it at that and just say, hey, we're doing a pastel motif on the tree, which is just utterly that's.
Going full board.
That's that's for going above and beyond just going Look, you can go from white to color to be able to.
Transition from that. I agree, that's the geeky stuff. I love.
Now, you guys do all sorts of themes, right, there's so many how many trees are in the store right now decorated everyone in a different.
Theme, about fifty different themes fifty different decorated trees that people can.
And that's right off of that's not the tree lot. The tree lot.
That's about probably about sixty three now, I think we started with seventy. But certain styles are selling out of size.
So when we say there were sixty three trees in the tree lot, we don't mean that's all they've got. Okay, oh thank you, my friend. This is coffee that just came and as you can see here on the radio, ah, that's good. Oh it's got a little a little foamy thing going on. You gotta what's up, Neil? I'm just a little parched. Neil would like some table side service.
I should have said something there, all right.
So they when we say that there are like sixty plus trees in the tree lot, it doesn't mean that that's your stock, right, It means undecorated trees, shapes, species, lighting configuration. These are sixty different kinds of tree that you guys can that somebody can come in and buy kinds of trees. Right, that's a massive selection. People are like,
how do you have sixty different kinds of pre lit tree? Well, it starts out with different sizes and also how many species do you know how many species of trees you've got.
It's probably almost twenty.
Twenty different species of trees, all right. So if you're like, oh, well, i'm a noble fur, I'm a blue cypress person, I'm a yep yep, it's right over there, right, It's that.
Kind of it's different shapes for people looking for smaller spaces where you can group the trees up to the big wide trees, to the layered trees. Our problem is, I think we fall in love with trees too much, and we just we don't say no, We just keep growing the tree a lot. Then we encroach into mitas space.
So wasn't there just a recent story about a particular favorite Christmas tree that is now becoming extinct? There was something I had heard that maybe there was a species that is dying off or they're having a hard time keeping up. Another great excuse to use an artistic tree, the one that's manufactured, so you.
Could still find it. You can still find your favorite species.
Something recently i'd heard that maybe one was dying off, or that a particular Christmas tree. Another great reason to have something that you can I had.
Heard that I don't remember what the species is. But I know this, like my one of my favorite Christmas trees, the favorite tree throughout Europe is the Nordman. Yeah exactly, And you're looking at me like, what the hell is
a Nordman? That's my point. There are a few lots around southern California now that are starting to carry Nordman's, But there are so many trees across the globe, across the Western Hemisphere, and that you're not going to find that species because it's not shippable to your local you know tree place, right, But you can find them at Alda there they are right there. Okay, all right, can you hang on if I get you a coffee? Can
we I don't need a coffee. I just busting is you're just whining his chops, You're just whining.
I just thought it was funny.
Do you whine this much on your own show?
Yeah?
Because I don't listen, So yeah, just.
Your schamburger.
Okay, more with Nil Savedra, the Good People at Aldick Home and the House Whisper Holiday Home Show.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
You're listening to the House Whisper live holiday show here from the helpful Honda Lounge KFI Studios here in Burdbank, California. We've got a live studio audience. Great, great people with us. Uh not as good as you, though not as good as you are. Listeners, They're not as good as you, they really aren't. So you keep listening. We're almost as good as you, sir, Yes, well most of Yeah, No one's as good as that guy right there. No, he's one of my clients, so I've paid to say that. Yeah,
here's somebody not as good as nil Savedra. Everybody. This is the this is the one weekend a year that I just get to hang out with some buds and and you know, not worry about what we're accomplishing other than you know, doing something semi interesting.
But you and I do geek out about the tech artistic you know, it's one thing to be able to. This is a masterful This tree is a masterful combination of what we talked about the the about the.
Function of having a tree in your house.
But the design of these lights we were geeking out about that they're three milimeters rather than five.
So the brightness is one thing.
All those things is what makes that tree look like you want it in your home?
Yeah, rather than and.
So I was like size matters, Neil, I was going to get a three foot tree.
But the thing, the thing there is that that's what you remember the early LED technology looked like they were vibrating or the blue was off or whatever.
It's so far.
Look how warm then? And that right?
So yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful tree.
By the way.
Uh. This whole show today sponsored by our good friends at Aldac Home, including this tree. I've got one of the owners, Brian Gold with me right here and and Maida, who is there?
You are?
What's your official title again, Queen Queen of All Design Elements Creative Director. I knew it was something like that. So Brian, uh, you guys, sad just you knock this tree out of the park. It's got butterflies on and it's got it's got a whole mixture of things. Either one of you just chime in when it comes to themes on a tree, right. I think a lot of people have a lot of people like to imbue their their holiday decre with things that are very special to them,
like very personal to the family. And that could be like all different kinds of styles and elements. How do you do that and have a sexy designer tree that like would show up in a a in a magazine, Because that's one of the things I think there's a disconnect between the two. It's like, well, yeah, I'd love to have one of those, But if I did that at home, then we'd be excluding all of our stuff, which is like maybe off brand for that style of decor, or we just do our whole family thing and it
looks exactly the same every year. Maybe that's great, but what can can those two roads meet?
Oh?
Absolutely when you walk into the store. This time we went a little bit whimsical, but the thought process behind this beautiful, really modern led branch tree, white tree, and we put candy canes in it and it's and it's real and we have these beautiful bubblegum ornaments that glow so when you walk in. I mean, yes, it's about the decoration and you know what colors we use, but
it's also for me. I want to evoke something in someone when they walk in, whether it's an emotion, a memory, you know, and really just be a part of And I think like you mentioned.
You know, can it can they meet?
I think absolutely, and having that whimsical area for us at the front. This year we got a lot of that, you know, whether it was I think mostly it was the adults that walked in.
You know.
The kids were like, oh wow, yeah, you know cup, but I think to see you know, I like to stand behind some of these rooms that we have and just kind of hear you know, you know what what, Oh my gosh. Sure it takes them somewhere and I love that.
So so what you're talking about is surprising for a lot of people that you would think of a store like yours, the kids would just go crazy in and they do.
They love it.
They're just like, all this stuff is so cool. But where it really hits home is adults walking in because it evokes nostalgia, right and just reaches right into you and just like pulls on something deep in you that has been there since your own childhood. And those are just powerful, powerful emotions that you that when you interact and react to a piece of design like that. Uh So I'm gonna get technical, not like five millimeter three milimeter technical.
Sorry, I really like talking about it. Like front folks, but video games is Star Wars.
But we'll get I got to tell you a story about a patch that I just got from my for my hoodie. Remind me of that, Okay, patch, hoody patch, hooty, remind me tom So I get a technical on the decor side. Uh, the question of whether you can do a theme and maintain your own stuff is just a matter of ratio. That's all it is. Okay, there's a and this applies to every form of interior decor anywhere, exterior decor as well. It's what we call in design roughly the eighty twenty rule. It's not a law, it's
just a guideline. It's a rule, the eighty twenty rule. And the eighty twenty rule is this, you can get real serious about a theme, about a direction, and go into a space and communicate that story that you're going to try and communicate eighty percent of the stuff there
following that storyline. And if you do that, well, if you do the eighty percent along whatever theme that you want, then the other twenty percent can be dotted and bejeweled and accented with your stuff, personal family stuff all over the place, and they don't fight with each other. It's almost as if the eighty lays down a canvas for the other things to just appear. And it's when we think again, I think we talked about this earlier. It's like the all or nothing approach, Well, it got to
be this. It's got to be that Sharon and I were talking about, like when do you start decorating for the holidays? Well, how about roll it out in stages. It doesn't have to be everything goes up today or everything has to wait till, you know, after Thanksgiving. So the eighty twenty rule is just that, it's the idea that you need about ish eighty percent of a of a of a continuity of a theme, and then the other things dropped in they don't distract, They only kind
of enhance. They kind of they just accent it along. So you think about like your favorite family heir loom, ornaments or that little thing you know some people do, like an ornament every year that has their names on it, and you know, whatever the case may be, you don't have to worry about your stuff clashing. It's when everything becomes just a patchwork quilt that we sort of lose the story, right, we kind of we lose it at that point. And I find from a decor perspective, it's
one of the foundational rules of architecture. You hear me talk about it sometimes hierarchy, Okay. Hierarchy simply means that in any piece of art, any piece of art, something has to be more important than the other things. Okay, something directs your attention to it first. That's what we
call hierarchy. First glance, second glance. Usually with a good design, you get maybe three hits look here, look here, look here, and then I gotta let you go, and then you can just look anywhere, you know, and if you don't quite understand what I'm trying to communicate, it's like this picture, the Mona Lisa. When you see the Mona Lisa, anybody who looks at the Mona Lisa, nobody looks at her hands first, ever, ever, ever, ever, No one just like, oh my gosh, look at those hands, or look at
what's going on in the background there. No one ever looks there first. And the intent was for you to look one place and one place only, right right in that face and that we is that a smile? We don't know, And you're captivated and kind of captured right there. It's your first hit. It's your second hit when you start figuring out whether she's smiling or not and what
she's smiling about. And then you might drift down and take a look at her hands, and that's at that point she's like, hey, my eyes are up here, buddy. And then and then uh, and then you you know, if you stand there long enough, you're looking at everything that's hierarchy. Okay, So the idea of a Christmas tree is no different than anything else that you guys do in your space, which is, let's pick a theme. We could change it every year if you want to, but
let's pick a theme. Let's roll with that, and let's let's say that that the overall vibe of the room is going to communicate this and then just drop in like a gallery anything that is meaningful to you. And I promise you they won't fight with each other, they'll they'll be accented and they kind of work together. Does that make sense? Yeah? So that makes oh oh, I get to shake Neil's hand about that. All right, look
at that. We're at the top of the hour. When we come back, I've got some more favorite guests of mine. Some more buddies, and we've got more to talk about by way of decor, and we're going to hand out these beautiful ornaments that Neil made for us. Let's hear for Neil Savager. Everybody, you are Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper here at our annual holiday live audience home show on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI Am six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app