KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp, the house whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app.
It's Amy King.
Let me tell you a little story about Dean Sharp. When I first started doing my morning show wake Up Call, I was hoping that one of the great hosts here on KFI would agree to get up really early and be a regular guest on the show.
Well, it turns out that none of our.
Great hosts wanted to get up, which was sad, but I mean it was okay, I mean, I get it, it's five o'clock in the morning. Well, after all the great hosts passed Dean shop me an email and volunteered to do a weekly spot on Friday mornings. So naturally, I continued to look elsewhere. I asked hosts from other stations, unemployed weathermen, several members of the janitorial staff, even the Kiosk guy who lets us in the parking garage, but
no luck. So, yeah, Dean Sharp is a regular Friday morning guest on wake Up Call, and I have to say our time together every Friday morning is extremely adequate, and I really look forward to wrapping up the eight minutes or less that I have to really love to spend together. So congratulations. House Whisper listeners. Dean is always there.
Live streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. It's the House Whisper Holiday Home Show live.
From KFI Studios here in Burbank and the helpful Honda Lounge.
And yeah, we got a live studio audience. These guys are live.
I'm hanging out with some very special friends, some of some of the people who mean the most of me here at KFI.
And you just heard Amy King, Amy King.
Good morning, welcome home, Thanks for having me. I love this holiday party.
Thanks for that glowing review.
Hey, anytime.
Amy and I spend Saturday, Saturday morning, Friday mornings together early, yep, we get.
Some feedback here.
That's probably professionals here.
So on Wake Up Amy host Wake Up Call right from five to six Monday through Friday.
Brilliant, wonderful show.
Hey, if you got to be up that early, let's have some fun.
Six people are like, yeah, I listened to that show.
Oh you know what, if you don't have to get up that early, I don't blame it.
And twelve other people were applauding or like, good for you. Good for you, Good for you. I heard it's wonderful you how long you've been doing wake Up Call now about a year and a half, and it's wonderful.
Thank you.
I sure have fun, you know, we hopefully let you know what happened while you were sleeping, so you're all caught up before you get your day started, and have a little fun and go in and see some cool things and talk to some fun people, and of course talked to about some unfun things. But we get to dive a little deeper into some of the topics of the day, which I think is a good opportunity for people to learn.
And we've got some really great people who helped teach us.
And you get to do an entire hour of radio before Bill Handle comes on there. That's right, that's right, and deal with all that stuff.
Hey, Bill's a hoot, Bill's a hoot.
That's one.
That's a that's a word. Yep, it is one word to describe Bill.
Neil knows. Neil knows what I'm talking about back there. Yeah, yeah, uh.
So what what was uh what was holidays like for you growing up?
Growing up?
Where'd you grow up?
Grew up? Well in uh Walnut Creek for.
A while, and then was little house on the prairie. No, that's Walnut Grove.
Oh how did you know that?
By the way, because everybody when I moved up to Medford after we lived in Walnut Creek, everybody goes a little.
House on the prairie.
So yeah, I don't know if you noticed.
I'm very aware of this, that that when any woman pulls out the dumb male voice. I can tell when Tina's like describing something, she's happy about it, something I said, and she's telling a friend. She's like, oh, Dean said this, and it's kind of high and lofty, and then there are other times when he's like when she's like and then Dean came along and said whoa, And I'm like, all right, if a shoe.
Fits, that was a swing and a miss, all right.
Yeah.
So growing up, yes, smaller family, very lots of traditions. We did lots of traditions, and I've continued those to this day. We still get together with my family, my immediate family, which is not very big, and have a wonderful thing. We do as traditional, like we go to church on Christmas Eve, and then we come home and we do fon do.
That's actually a newer one. We introduce that.
Yeah, we introduced that one about ten years ago because Mom had to come home and do all the cooking after going to a church service, and I said, well, why don't we do fondu and then everything's made, have to heat up the cheese and like everybody loves it, and so that's that's become a tradition.
And like Christmas.
Presents, we always did family Christmas gift exchange on Christmas Eve and then we did Santa Presence on Christmas Morning, so we spread it out as long as we can, and.
We used to have to. We also used to have to perform for our presence.
Whoa what so what is this?
Well, we had to.
Do a talent in order to earn a Christmas present. So I played the piano very rudimentorily.
I'm not great, but I played.
Adequately, yes, yes, yes, and uh and Rob played the violin and then he played the piano. And Mom cannot play the piano at all, but she tries every year. It's really fun.
So we all and then.
My dad who played White Christmas like nobody's business, and God rest his soul. We miss you every year at Christmas. Dad he would get on there and he was one of those people who played by ear, so he'd just sit down and he'd play, and it was just the most beautiful thing.
That's one of the things I missed the most.
Yeah.
Now, you guys didn't get presents based on the quality of your performance.
No, we just earned them.
And one year we kind of went outside the box a little bit because I was like, I don't feel like playing the piano this year, and so some of us got together and we reenacted the Saturday Night Live Classics Get Sweaty Balls Wow.
Which we can't even reenact here on the air. Nope, Nope.
It was good though.
Yeah, that was a family, except for my mother.
She was sitting there the whole time, going, children.
Here's a.
That's the one thing that that never happens in my household?
Is that sweaty No? No, no, no, no, no, is that.
My mom who's sitting back in the back row there, waved out everybody. Mom, Yeah, uh, there's no shocking her.
No, no, she'd like take over the skit.
So if we're playing Cards against Humanity, you're all in.
Oh my gosh, yes, she's in we were sitting I don't even know how long ago, what it was ago, you know, we just this is my mom, right, she's she We're at a restaurant somewhere and they started playing an Ed Sharon song and all of a sudden she's like, Darcy will confirm this. All of a sudden, she's like moving back, and I'm like, Mom, what are you doing? What are you doing? What's going on? She's like, Sharon's my jam.
I love it.
She's like seat dancing in the restaurant.
He's the best. So yeah, so that's one thing that's never gonna happen in our house, which is no, that could very well happen, okay, but but we're never gonna be We're never gonna have the fun of like offending mom.
Oh okay, I got you.
I'll be like, oh what was that?
What was?
No, that's not gonna happen. It's gonna be the other way around. Actually it's gonna be the other way around. It's like, Mom, sit down and put your pants back on, please please. So that's yeah, that's just the way it happens. Uh So that was that was your child?
Do you do anything now that's different than when you were a kid.
I mostly do the same things.
I mean, I decorate, but I'm I in fact, I broke it a Christmas tradition for you what today because I have my my my Christmas Disney spirit, and I am very much against doing Christmas before Thanksgiving is over.
I'm a one holiday at a time person. Okay, all right, that's fine, So I broke it just for you.
Well, but it's the same.
I mean, we decorate the house and we uh, you know. I do my tree, and I thought it was really interesting listening about the trees because I don't have any ornaments on my tree that don't mean something specifically. But that's great, right, so, But but I also do the same kind of thing because I have the theme like I do the real tree. Part of it's really because I don't have a place to store an artificial tree, but I do the real tree and it's blue and silver themed.
So you've got a base theme.
That's my base. That's what I was thinking when you were saying.
I was like, I've got my base theme, and then everything, all the ornaments means something, even if they like I didn't get an ornament at a certain place, they all mean something to me, Like if I have a store bought ornament like a Christopher Radcot, do you guys know who he is? The Oh my gosh, I love his stuff, and I think right after nine to eleven there I got an ornament that was a heart with American flag on it because it meant something, you know. So everything
that I buy means something. When we got to go to Jerusalem, I bought ornaments that were stars and a Nativity out of the olive wood.
So everything has a reason.
Yeah, And that's, by the way, one of the iconic quotes. That Another iconic quote that has kind of shaped my design philosophy William Morris, who was a late nineteenth century textile designer, very famous textile designer and design and architectural critic. He said this, and you guys should take this home with you for sure. And I'm going to misquote him here, but I'm not going to take the time to look it up. But essentially it is have nothing in your.
Home that is.
Not useful or beautiful that you consider beautiful. That's it, all right, So that's the idea. The idea is like have nothing on your tree that you don't consider you know, just absolutely beautiful. Just don't go there, right, So many people who don't consider themselves minimalists would become minimalists in a sense if they followed that rule, if they just kind of edited the fluff and just stuck with the things that and I like to say, you know, well,
I've got a story. Maybe I'll tell it on the other side of the break of where I've been asked in the past, because you know, the wealthy clients are like here, I'll tell it now, wealthy clients who are like, din, design me a library, and I'm like, great, show me the books. It's like, well, we don't have any books. And there was a time when I would have done that, and now I say show.
Me the books.
Because if we're going to design a library, it's going to be for your books, all right.
Right, because you've got to care about it.
So one of the things we do again that sets us apart, like for a custom design, is that if you got books laying out in your house, don't have prop books laying around, okay, because I'm going to come into your home and I'm going to pull one off the shelf and I'm going to say, hey, what do you think about this, right, and I'm going to give you your tests, right, and so you don't have to quote anything from it, but you should be able to tell me what that story is and why that's meaningful
enough to be sitting on your shelf. That's authentic living in a real home.
Right. It may not be a magazine spread. Who's getting pushed over here?
Somebody's getting Okay, we're gonna find out that story during the break, and then we'll tell everybody after the fact.
All Right, we gotta go. Uh, you can hang around sure, all right, Amy.
King everybody your home Dean Sharp, the House Westper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI A M six forty.
It's the House Whisper Live Holiday home show here at the KFI studios in Burbank, California.
The helpful Honda Lounge.
Uh, hang on a second, Hang on a second? Oh, I lost the thing? Where is the all right?
Okay? By the way, today's food brought to you by Egg and Bird.
Egg and Bird.
You can find Egg and Bird in Cyprus and Pico Rivera, in Maywood and Upland, and you can find him online at egg the Letter n Bird eggenbird dot com. Great food, great food. Everybody was really high with it today. Thank you egg and Bird.
Also today's show sponsored by.
The good folks at Aldick Home. I got Brian gold and Might up here. Brian one of the owners at al Dick mighta their design director for everything that happens over at al Dick. You guys, this year you always like push in a did you know the same thing that they always do. Oh by the way, Amy King,
everybody forgive me just hanging with my buds today. Every year, despite the fact that there's just this plethora of design differential between trees and just so many of them, but they always try and find one more thing, one more thing every year. And this year there's a distinctive theme, especially when you walk in the store right down that center aisle of candy and food stuff on trees and exactly so I know you're showing Neil so this yeah, right,
The audience is like, what the heck is that? This is a little rice crispy square here and check out these check out these donuts, all right, these glazed donuts okay, And you're like, oh my gosh, and and they're all they're all foam squishy.
Yet the audience is like, oh.
So there's stress balls too.
They are they're stress ornaments. I love it anyway. So there's this there's like a whole slew of you're gonna walk out of the store like dying to go to to a cafe and order you know, pastries and stuff.
Uh, they're all over the place. So what led to that theme this year for you guys? Somebody tell me.
Yeah, we haven't really done a whimsical theme in a while. Well, we've done gingerbread maybe a couple of years ago. And this time we thought we'd bring in candy cane and you know desserts that go in with that, but the candy cane with the red and white, but throwing a little pink in there, and then you lead your way
into a bit more of the pastels. So we have in the candy cane theme area, we have about six seven decorated trees, all different, some red white, some red white, pink, some just in the pastels, you know, just to kind of give you know, the customers different ideas or designers whoever might be coming in. And so it was something playful for us that I think has really our customers really gravitated towards this year.
Yeah, there's nothing. I think you hit it right on the head.
I mean, there's nothing more playful than like, you know, childlike foods and candies, I mean, and candies of all sizes, and they're all these are hyper realistic. These But you guys have got like those wrapped Christmas candy, like the hard Sucker candies with you.
I don't even know how to describe them.
It's a twist on either a twist on either end.
Right, that are like this big.
They're like, oh cool, They're like twelve at fourteen inches across, right, so all sorts of scale.
Do you have the little oh shoot, what are they called?
Now?
I can't think they're the little green mints that are wrapped Andy's mintce do you have those?
Forget it?
Can I share it? Can I share a Christmas story about those?
Yeah?
Okay, So there's another Christmas tradition.
Mom always wanted to have candy out at Christmas time, but she didn't want us kids to eat it because they entertained a lot, and so she told us that the little green strip in the middle of the Andy's mint was poison to children.
Oh, my gosh.
So I never ate an Andy's mint until I was like eighteen.
Wow, you know what, we're going to do a whole show, you and I.
We're gonna we're gonna go deep on just that, just that we're going to get to the bottom of that. I have never heard a story where mom is like, and those are poisoned by the way, poison for you.
It works, just for you.
Oh and she also she also counted or said that they counted the gold coins that were in the train and if there were any missing, then we didn't get Christmas presents.
Wow.
Wow, that's why Neil calls her the warden.
You know what?
Those are the kind of parenting decisions that really just stay with you for a lifetime.
They really do.
They're like, if you have a pool and you told that lie to your kids, that there's a chemical in the pool that turns purple and follows you when you pee in the pool.
That's not true.
Olivia, Olivia, my granddaughter sitting. Don't ever let anybody tell you that there's a chemical in the pool that turns purple when you pee. You just pee in the pool if you want. No one will notice if you pee in the pool, I promise. She's like, why is my grandfather telling me to pee in the pool? I do not, So I did not mean to when I told you when I just called you guys losers al de combe, I did not mean to imply that in any thing
but a joking way. I get it all the time where here you guys have gone like over the top to do all of this kind of stuff. And then Amy, who has a traumatic childhood story about poison mints, ask you if you have the one thing that you didn't actually been and sorry, and it's the one thing.
It's the one thing.
Yeah.
And I think that poison mints made it on the order. I think they got cut from the order. Yeah.
But we actually get that all the time, and people listeners take the show very seriously. I'm when I given out information, Like recently we did a fireplay show. I spent three hours talking about what I thought were the most relevant things to discuss on fireplaces and I'm sure shooting right. Like, the day does not end before I get an email or a comment on social media saying
I heard you talk at fireplay show. You failed to mention this particular element today, And I'm like, Wow, that's just that's just the way it goes, right, So seeks but are listening?
So next next year? Andy's mints?
Yes, they look so pretty on the tree.
Trying. Let's try and remember that, shall we? Where are we at? Oh, it's time to take a break.
Can you hang on a little? Mon Absolutely happened, super fun?
Yes, absolutely.
And then I want to share with you something, some advice that you gave me last year that I took that it will be applied at Christmas this year.
Good.
And then I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you for a commitment in front.
Of all of these people.
Yeah, it's not a marriage proposal, I promise, but a commitment to do something with me this year.
Involving Disneyland, which I know you love.
Sure I can do that.
She's like, Yeah, Disneyland, I'm all about asolutely all.
Right, y'all.
You're Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper. It's our live holiday home show.
More to come.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI Am six forty.
You're Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper.
This is our live I have audience Holiday Home show that we do every year.
We got a live audience right.
Here at KFI Studios in Burbank and.
The helpful Honda Lounge, and we're having some fun. I'm spending time with, you know, one hundred people that I really enjoy and some of my best buds here at iHeart at KFI up on stage with me right now, Amy King, and this entire show, by the way, brought to you by al Dick Home, the good people at Aldick.
This beautiful tree up here that we've.
Been talking about all show long, and we'll talk about it some more if we can. You had something you wanted to talk to me about advice I gave last year absolutely so.
As you know, Diana and I've talked about this before. One of the things that I love about Dean is that he not only shows you big picture stuff, but little.
Things and things you can do every day.
Maybe you're not going to do a complete home remodel, but it'll go, Hey, this is a really cool thing that I found that you could do and you can.
You know, it's not going to bust the.
Bank, and you can still do it.
Last year we were talking about a self watering tree and I don't know about you, but keeping that tree, the live trees watered all the time is a pain in the butt. I've got this cool tree stand that's like the best and easiest tree stand I've ever had. But the water reservoir is only like six inches across. I mean, it's small, so you have to water it every day religiously, sometimes twice a day, and getting to it.
And you have to get down on your hands and knees and get to it.
But no, there are some like there are like funnels that they make for trees now, which can strap to a branch or to the trunk and come up like two or three feet and come out on one side of the tree, so you can pour from there, and.
Then you have to be careful that you don't over before.
I've done that too.
So last year Dean told me about told all of us about this this thing that looks like a Christmas package but it's really a reservoir for water and it's a self and he happens to have one.
Okay, we did not coordinate this, and I brought.
The one that I bought because I wanted to say, Dean, I took your advice.
This is the.
Coolest thing it holds. What does it hold? Like two gallons of water or something?
Two gallons of water And I'm gonna describe I mean it literally is it looks.
What's brilliant.
There are several things that are brilliant about it. This, by the way, we get the name right. This is called you can find this online. It's the Ho Ho ho h two O tree filler. Okay, it's so cool.
So you see what's inside. See what's inside. There is a reservoir and a pump, and it's a smart pump as well, so it.
Only waters when it needs it, so you're not going to flood your room exactly.
Here's the power cord and then there's a hose that goes into the reservoir and it has a along with it. Right there, there's the key right there the sensor that is an electric continuity water sensor. And as soon you put this so that these two tips are near the top of your bowl of the water reservoir, and as soon as the water connects between these two, it shuts off the pump. And when it drops below and it evaporates and drops below, then it repumps water.
Back in and the and the key is that.
Number One, you can just forget about watering the tree, right, you don't have to do that. It's perfectly watered all the time. Number Two, this sets like out on the outskirts with the rest of the presents. That's why it's disguised as a present, right, so you don't have to crawl under the tree. You don't have to do anything crazy. It just sits in there amongst all the other presents. And right on the top here there's it's a little
Santa pattern with reindeer. Right on the top here is Rudolph and there's a no a cutout for his nose because the water I need water indicator is right underneath it. So as you just walk by the tree, if you see Rudolph's nose has lit up red, then you need to refill the reservoir in the thing.
It is brilliant, brilliant, especially like if you go, if you leave home for a few days, which I usually do around Christmas, and when I come back, my tree is well, it's turned into the Christmas stick. It's it's just ingenius and so I can't wait to use it this year.
So I brought this with me and not knowing that Amy was going to bring hers whether so I talked to everybody about this last year, right, and that's why you went and got one, ye, But I hadn't used it yet because I talked about it before Christmas.
So now we've gone.
Through a full Christmas, a full month and a half almost of having the tree, and it was flawless.
It's flawless.
I mean, it was just it's a very simple concept to pump and a reservoir. But you know what, it's just one of those ideas that is arriving just when it should and it's just so simple and so smart and so anyway, about my full endorsement to this little company, and you should find it online if you do live trees, Yeah, you should find this on and it will just be a joy to you, right And well.
Then your tree will look like that all season.
Exactly, even if it's a live tree. So yeah, the ho ho ho what a name? H two oh tree filler?
You know what you brought this up, Amy, I'm gonna canda hand that to Yes.
I'm gonna bring out a couple of more things before we're done with this bit. I brought some what I call secret decorating gear de core. Little things like that that make a huge difference. Right, some of you have asked me about this, and I want to show you.
I don't have time.
I should have set this up beforehand. But this right here, we call it the marshmallow. This is a Bluetooth speaker. Okay it is. You can find it on places like Amazon for like thirty five dollars. Okay, for those of you who are listening, I'm holding a blue black Bluetooth speaker with a metal case around it that is the size of a jump marshmallow.
That's why we call it the marshmallow. I turn this on. And for those of.
You who have a gas log fireplace, right, if you want the full manty out of your gas log fireplace, you turn this on. You said, don't put this in the fire, but the will. The metal casing is well insulated enough that you can set it on the front edge of the firebox. Okay, it's gonna get warm, but
I promise you it's all good. And then all you do is just take assign one of your mobile devices right, bluetooth it to this speaker, and pull up on YouTube one of those twelve hour crackling log fireplace videos.
I know, isn't that a c.
Set it to the right volume and you just let it run. And unless you are literally one foot away from the fireplace, If you are more than a foot away from the fireplace, this omnidirectional speaker is going to throw that sound through the firebox out into the room and anybody who walks.
And I now have had friends.
Who've come over and said, I didn't think you had a real wood fire wood burning fireplace. I'm like, yeah, won't you catch up then listen? So yeah, uh, literally you want to crackling, but don't, don't. Don't buy the stuff that oh this stuff crackles in the fire when you sprink, you know, it does for like twenty eight seconds and then you're done. Right, The little thing basically what I call fireplace pop rocks. Right, they last for like two minutes and then it's over. And you can
buy fireplace log crackles speakers. Don't do that because they are super low fidelity, okay, and the pattern repeats itself every twenty eight second.
I mean, it's just terrible.
Don't buy a just get a little micro bluetooth speaker. Put it in the front corner. Of the firebox and run one of those twelve hour YouTube videos through it. You will thank me for it. It's super fun. You're not gonna do it every time. But and the battery on this guy lasts like nine hours, right, and then it's rechargeable to regular USBC recharge anyway. A couple other things. This has changed radically life. Look at this little guy right here. I'm holding this little plastic nubbin about the
size of a nickel in my hand. And this I took the time last year to get a hundred of these guys and slide them onto our Christmas lights. The wires, Okay, you take the cap off and you lay the wire in that little groove and then you put the cap on and it just clamps it down and you put one every three to four feet on your outdoor Christmas lights, right, and so you know, hooks nails all, yeah, forget it. Because on the back of this thing a is an
earth magnet, okay. And every roof, every roof has edge metal right around the edge of the roof. That's metallic. And this little guy is metallic. And that's it. And that's how you put up your Christmas lights every year. Just literally, but it took me. I told you guys that we'd already put up our Christmas lights on the outside of the house. It took me a half an hour, okay, because they're all just all set with this, and I just reach up.
And I'm just like, no, I'll be I have a one story house. Okay, So it's gonna.
Take a little longer if you've got to get up on ladders everywhere. But the point is no more fiddling with hooks and gutter hooks and all of this kind of stuff. It's metal. They hold, They hold incredible. I mean, these aren't just weak magnets. They hold incredibly well. So if you go online again, I don't remember the specific brand of this one, but if you go online and just look for Christmas light magnet clips, right, you're gonna
find them. You're gonna find a slew of them. You can get a whole bag of one hundred or two hundred of them. They're gonna last forever. And that's the other cool thing is that, you know, like if you get to the end of a row and you're like, oh, I'd like to support this a little better. As I turned the corner and then you just move the magnet over, Just slide it over, give a little extra support. So anyway, yeah, it's a brilliant. One more thing, back to the fireplace.
You've heard me talk about embers, and when I say embers psychologically speaking, talk about design that affects us psychologically without knowing it. Right, the one of the I think the primary thing that separates are subconscious when we're looking at a gas log fire set from a real burning log fire, is not the realism of the logs.
That's fine.
Sometimes it's where the flame is coming from, that's fine. But most important of all, what you don't see on a gas log set is a bed of burning, glowing coals underneath the logs, right, you just see now. Of course, every log set comes with embers, right, which is that fluffy insulation kind of stuff. But this stuff right here,
platinum bright embers. Okay, these are made out of ceramic wool, and literally you pull these out, and you pull off these thin little squares of this material and you set this on top of the the embers that came with your log set. When flames hit this thing and heat hit these things, they glow brilliant orange, glowing and they'll last for a couple of years before you have to restart. I think that whole bag, which I only used half of,
was like thirty dollars online. So again, if you want an uber realistic gas log fire set, then you put these embers down at the bottom and people will walk in and just like there it's crackling, it's making sound. These don't make sound. But you got the Bluetooth speaker and you got this going on, and you got a real wood fire going on in your home. All right, We got to go to break. When we come back, more of the Holiday Home Show and some closing thoughts
for everybody. Don't go anywhere your home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
We're doing today's show in front of a live studio audience. I'm actually talking to our audience in between bits here while we're on break, and had a great question just come up about where do you start? Where do you start with a big design project. In this case, it was the yard, And you know, I gave some ideas about where to start with this. But here's the thing that I was about to say, and then it was time to come back. So I'm going to share it
with everybody. And this is probably one of the most valuable things that I've ever shared with you on air, and I will continue to share it again and again and again as a you know, I'm a designer and I'm a builder, and so I can see the process from both sides. I'm also a homeowner, so I can see it from all three sides, and I get it.
Okay. I never want to.
Give you designed advice that just doesn't attach to the real world. And I never want to build so pedantically that we just ignore what it is to have fantastic design.
The two have to just mesh with each other. There is a.
Thing it applies to many many industries, especially the construction industry, that we call the iron triangle. It's iron because it's unbreakable. It's an unbreakable triangle. It's a rule, and this is a rule that you can try. This is my son Jason Sharp by the way, and my granddaughter Olivia sitting up here for our last segment of our show. Hey give him my hand. Jason builds out a lot of our designs. He's the CEO of Dreamsmith Holmes. And so
here's the iron triangle. Three sides to this triangle. One side cost, one side quality, the other side time. That's it cost, quality, time, And here's the rule. You can have any two sides you want. Just know that you will pay for those two sides with the third side of the triangle. So, if you want your project done incredibly well, quality and incredibly fast time, get ready to write a big check. Okay, cost, the cost goes up. Okay, I want the best quality in the shortest amount of time.
The cost goes way up. Okay to do that can be done, but it goes way up if you want it fast and cheap. Okay, time and cost. All you have to do is sacrifice quality.
That's it.
You'll pay for it with the quality of the project. All right, most of us, most of us who are normal human beings, would like the best possible value, the cost as low as possible, but the right cost and the best quality. But why I can't get you to understand that you pay for that with taking your time. Okay, but that's the great lesson of the iron triangle. Take
your time, because design matters most, it really does. I know it's become kind of a catchphrase that I throw out there, and I keep throwing it out there because I keep wanting remind everybody that that's the case. But the fact of the matter is that, I mean, Tina and I did a little remodel on our tiny little cottage, and we're designers. We do this for a living, and we spent two and a half years kind of planning it out, getting ready and thinking it through and editing
it and so on. Now, I'm not saying you have to take that much time, but the point is this, I want you to pump the brakes.
Okay. Homes are not just about.
The materials that you get and the new new stuff and the stuff that you see in the magazines.
I say this all the time. You know, the home improvement industry is multiple billions of dollars in the United States. Okay.
And for an industry, for the home improvement industry to be as large as it is financially, why aren't home's actually improving that much?
Okay?
It's because there's something that you can't can't find on the shelf at the home improvement store. It's time your time, take time to plan it out, to edit it to go back to look at it again and again and again and take your time if at all possible. And I know some people aren't in that position.
I get it.
But if you can't, if you can spend your time on your project and then roll out the process from there, because it will make all the difference in the world, I promise you that.
And a lot of the time it comes down to the layers that you apply that you need time to adjust to seeing each layer go on and then deciding hm.
Hmm.
That kind of changes what I thought I wanted exactly. So as you start to maybe I'm gonna do this a little different, live.
Differently in your house, it'll it'll shift your consciousness because design does shift your consciousness, right layers All right, real quick, I just need to thank everybody who's been a part of the show today because we are running out of time and I want to thank all of my guests. Sharon Bellio, Neil Savedra, Amy King, my buds, thank you guys for being here, our sponsors today, Brian Gold and Mida from Aldick Home.
Everybody give Aldick a big shout out.
And by the way, just a reminder before we go that' at one o'clock. From one to two thirty, we're all going to be at Aldacombe on su Palvida. Come find us, say hi, give us hugs, take a look at Aldick.
It's an amazing place.
So for everybody who couldn't be here today, you can find us at Aldacombe this afternoon. To my family, who's been exceptionally great for me this week because Tina's been down. It's just been a crazy week and I appreciate you guys massively. Christy was going to be here, she's not here because she's with Tina this morning. So anyway, all of that, I love you guys immensely. Livy high five right here, all right, all right, a little sip of coffee.
I'm gonna leave you with a thought. Today we've been up here again talking about Christmas and design and decor. And it should remember, I said earlier, asked more questions. It should beg the question, what the heck does this guy know about Christmas?
Anyway?
Is even qualified to talk on this? And of course I'm not qualified to speak on it, but it's a good question to ask, right, So what do I know about Christmas? Well, when I was younger, I knew a lot more than I do now. That was back when I knew everything. Now I've lived long enough for life to teach me that I don't know much about anything and clearly right.
And I know you guys can relate to me on that. So what do I know?
Well?
I know this.
I know the weather has changed. I know that summer is over, Autumn is here, winter is coming. There's a chill in the air that wasn't here yesterday, and it's getting colder, it's getting darker. I know that for thousands of years, in the very coldest, very darkest places, people like you and me have wrapped their arms around those they love to wait it out. That, by the way, is not make believe. That is not a story. That's what this season does. It prods us at our most
basic needs. It exposes how fragile we are as people. It uses the cold and the dark to push us together, hopefully to remember what really matters most in this life.
Food, warmth, love, hope.
So then, is it silly for places like southern California, where it never gets too dark or too cold to set out blow up snowmen next to palm trees and to pretend that we are somehow somewhere in the frozen north. I say, no, it's not silly at all. It's not at all silly. And I'll tell you why, because we all feel it, don't we, the cold and the dark, even if it's not about the weather, right, Because the cold and the dark are never just about the weather.
It's life. And so for thousands of years, in the very coldest and darkest places, we come together. We light fires, we share food, We give gifts to one another. We adorn our homes with evergreens and lights and anything that twinkles and shines and keeps our hope alive. That is not make believe. That is what the season does to us.
And if our hearts can rediscover the things that really matter most, then despite the cold or the dark is dark, we celebrate. And that is real magic, real magic, the deepest, most unlikely magic. So what do I know about Christmas? I know seasons change without our asking our permission. I
know that together our hearts can endure it. I know finally that no matter what you're going through, no matter how harsh the weather, the seasons will change again, because that's what seasons do, and whatever season you're in, this too shall pass. But until then, let's thank the cold and the dark for how it pushes us. Let's conjure this kind of magic. Make this season a celebration of what's most important. Let's draw close. Let's wrap arms. Let
food and friendship warm you. Let evergreens and twinkling lights in the darkness keep your hope alive. And before you know it, the seasons will change again. New life, new warmth, new opportunities. And so I know this about Christmas. For thousands of years, in the very coldest and darkest places, people just like you and me always find a way
to build themselves a beautiful life. I hope you guys a very very happy Holidays, Happy Thanksgiving, and to everyone who is listening, have yourself a beautiful day.
We'll 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.