How’s It Hangin’? | Hour 1

We're just gonna keep it simple and sweet today. But we're gonna address an issue that a lot of people have issues with, and that is how to hang stuff properly in your home. So today's show, how's it hanging?

hopefully make you feel glad that you were here. The team is here for you again. Week two, Tony Sorrentino on the board. Good morning, Tony morning. I'm just gonna leave it at that. Yeah, everything's back to normal next week. I'm just leaving it there right there. It is always such a joy to work with Tony. Tony's our master chef.

He is our wizard of all things. You know, board op here at the station and do it while Yeah, you've been doing it a while, and so whenever, whenever I get a chance to hang out with Tony, it's just the best thing my world always.

inside your house today. You know, we're taking a we're taking a break from the heavy, sweaty labor of building your house and now we're just talking about some decor elements that are super practical. Especially you know around the holidays, you're gonna start thinking about moving stuff around, hanging things, and.

right isn't about all the heavy construction stuff. Sometimes it's as simple as hanking a piece of art or a cherished photo on the wall. But when you count up the millions of scars and holes left on walls from failed attempt, I don't think anybody can can do anything but assume that hanging things in your home not as easy as it looks, not as easy as it looks at first glance. And so that is what we are tackling today. Plus your calls.

is hanging stuff on the wall. And if you think, if you think, if you're if you're a condo dweller or an apartment dweller, and think that the rich and famous have no problems whatsoever hanging stuff perfectly on their walls, you would be grossly mistaken. I mean grossly mistaken. So just take it for me. It's a universal problem. I've seen it all and so that's why we're gonna dive into it today. Plus of course, in just a bit we're going to be going to the phones taking your

calls as we do. So the number to reach me if you're interested in calling into the show and getting your question about your home answered eight three three two Ask Dean eight three three. The numeral two ask Dan. All right, let's talk about your walls and stuff that's going on. There are some basic steps here, and that's what we're going to just roll through this morning. What do you need to know first? What do you need to know other than okay, the thing that you're hanging,

all right, fine, there it is. But what do you need to know first? You need to know what the wall condition is? Okay, and by wall condition, I mean what is that wall made out of? How is it built? What do you expect when you know you you go to pierce the surface of that wall or attach something to the surface of that wall. What's our expectation? And we're talking about lots of choices here now, most commonly,

of course, drywall. The vast majority of homes and apartments and condos and castles drywall on the wall, half inch drywall on most walls. And behind that drywall are lots of open void spaces. Now behind the drywall, might you might find plywood or OSB oriented strand board, because that wall may be, in addition to just being a stud wall, it may be some form of sheer wall, meaning that a diaphragm of wood is placed across the studs. First, to give it some lateral side to side shifting support.

There's numerous reasons why there could be some form of sheathing on that wall underneath the drywall. But our most two common situations is that we've got drywall and then just right on studs, and then drywall with some kind of wood sheathing behind it. That's great if you got wood sheathing behind the drywall. It's great if you know that, because that means you've got, you know, some real strong, secure surface to hook something into other than just the

drywall itself. It's not great if you've got sheathing behind the wall and you don't know it, and you're trying to use a typical drywall type hangar and it's getting blocked by the wood sheathing behind. So again, wall conditions, knowing them is key. So drywall that's our most common situation for most homes. But a lot of older homes across the country, a lot of older homes now here

in Southern California, because you know, time is passing. So a century home in southern California is built in the twenties, now at the point a hundred year old home, and no doubt whatsoever since drywall was not a thing. It existed, but it wasn't a thing for homes. Drywall wasn't a thing for homes, by the way, until we get well

into the nineteen fifties. Okay, late nineteen fifties. So if you own an early nineteen fifties house or earlier, chances are you don't have drywall that you've got some form of plaster walls. Now, plaster walls come in two forms. They come in They always have a large coat of plaster on them on the surface, but behind the plaster you may have, you know, nearly three quarters or more inches of plaster and then would laugh. In the oldest of homes, you've seen this. If you haven't experienced it

in your own home, you've seen this. It's in every classic movie with a rundown house or a broken wall or whatever, and that is behind the plaster. They are these wood slats running horizontally on the wall, right wood slats, or in the secret passageway behind the walls, or in between the walls and the haunted house. You see those wood slats on the studs from the backside, and you see the plaster has oozed through. That's exactly what it's

supposed to do. That's what those slats are for. They originally they're put up with these gaps in between them so that when the plasters applied, the first coat of plaster, and there are multiple coats of plaster if you have a wall like this, But when the first coat goes on, it keys into it oozes onto the backside, and then as it hardens, now it's locking itself in place, so it stays on the wall. Anyway, plaster is at the

end of the day. Oh I didn't describe the second form, all right, the other form, the newer form, the more modern, the most modern form of plaster before it was replaced by drywall altogether. Could you know a lot of people mistake as drywall, because they'll they'll open up a part of their wall and they'll call me and say, all right, well, I've got a like a half an inch of plaster on top of a half an inch of drywall. It's not drywall, but it is gypsum based plasterboard which replaced

the wood lath. And that plasterboard actually has holes all the way through it, and the stuff oozes through and locks on the backside. Anyway, did not intend to give you an entire lesson on plaster walls, But you need to know that if you've got plaster walls, you treat them very, very differently than dry wall walls.

bedroom wall. So very important that we know whether we've got dry wall or plaster, we're gonna handle them differently. And then of course, other walls that are kind of self evident. Maybe the surface of the wall is wood, maybe it's paneling of some form or another. Maybe we've got a concrete wall, maybe it's a basement wall, you know, a live in basement. Or maybe you've got some form of just full on concrete or cinderblock walls in your

dwelling for whatever reason. Whether it's a solid surface meaning that there's no gaps behind the wall, or a hollow wall with studs. These are all the things we must find out about your wall conditions before we move on to the next step. And what is the next step?

that out. But you know, so we approached it from a ghostly and an architectural perspective. In years past, we've done all sorts of fun stuff. This year Halloween, I'm all in, We're all in. Tina's got her costume. We're going trick or treating with the nieces and the grandchildren and all of that, walking around with them. But it's a little late. Is it Thursday or Wednesday? It's Thursday. Yeah,

it's a little lad. So anyway, I thought instead we were just, you know, we'll play some cool, funky Halloween music and we'll talk about something that haunts all of you regularly, and that is hanging stuff poorly on your walls.

this way. Uh, if you've selected the style of hanging device or hardware that you think is going to be the best way to go, just know that in many many cases that hardware comes sized in multiple sizes. Like you're like, for instance, your classic nail driven hook, right, you know what I'm talking about, little brass hook. It's got a little fold over triangle on the top where there's a whole two holes in it actually that align

the angle optimal angle of a nail into drywall. It's a classic classic hook for hanging stuff on the wall. You've seen them, you've used them. Those come from the very very very small to the relatively big and beefy when it comes to that, and they come weight rated. So you need to know, you know, generally speaking, how heavy this thing is, so that you don't use something

too big or too small. Use something too big, well, it's not going to fall off the wall, but you don't want that hook to be pushing the frame off the back of the wall up at the top so that it's hanging you know, at an angle that's weird and nobody likes that look. So size the hangar to the weight of the object. And then the third thing we got to know is where are the anchor points

on the object itself? Okay, now when it comes to I'll just talk about, you know, your classic photo or piece of artwork, and there are various things that you might find on the back if you've just if you're framing this yourself. Of course, you get to choose what you're doing, and I have a recommendation for you there. But you may have just bought this artwork or received it from somewhere to plaque or whatever. Here are the most common anchor points. And what do I mean by

anchor points? I mean the thing that is on the back of the item that is supposedly there for hanging it. Most common, probably the cheapest as far as what the manufacturers themselves are spending on it is that little toothed bar.

the next tooth until you get it centered. But the toothed bar number one does not allow for much security in terms of you know, for instance, an earthquake or the wall rattles, because it's really designed to kind of hook over the small head of a finished nail or something like that. And if the nails sticking out too far and the toothed bar sticks out from the back of the frame, you again have that situation where you're pushing the top of the frame away from the wall,

and now the thing is hanging at an angle. There's a gap at the top and not at the bottom, and it just doesn't look as clean as it could look. Okay, So yeah, but there's some situations where the tooth bar you know, goes okay. Also, by the way, since it's the cheapest of all things for a manufacturer of frames

to put on the back of a frame. You will find occasionally that it is it has not been meticulously centered in the frame, so thankfully it's They're usually wide enough that you can adjust it left or right, but quite often the toothbar is not centered most of the time. When Tina and I inherit something that we want to hang and it's got a toothed bar in the back, well we'll probably take a look at it and then

just pop that right off. We'll carefully pry it off and abandon it and go for another form of hanging that takes up less space and doesn't give us that angle on. So there you go the toothbar. The other thing, now this comes a lot with like wood plaques, is the drilled hole. Right, So if you've got a plaque that has been designed to hang on a wall, chances are it doesn't have any kind of hardware on it.

It's probably got a hole drilled in the back and then a little slot upwards so that the hole is large enough to receive the head of a large nail or a screw, and then it slides down onto that's good for secure and it's also good for holding that plaque flat against the wall. You just got to be careful. Now we're going to be using the head of a screw or the head of a nail. We've got to make sure that we get that exactly where we want that to go, because there's no left and right adjustment

on that kind of situation. And you should always double check to make sure that whoever manufactured the plaque actually got their hole drilled centered on the back so that the thing is going to hang straight. And then there are ways of accommodating for this, so don't worry, because you can always use a little bit of you know, if you find that the only way to hang a plaque on a wall is to use the hole provided. And once you hang it, you stand back and you're like, the dang thing is crooked.

onto the bottom of the plaque, and then peel off. Well, actually you can stick them both together, stick it all onto the plaque, peel off the adhesive that's gonna face the wall, and then line that plaque up exactly how it's supposed to hang on that nail, and then push it in the velcrow.

few inches. You're gonna there's a little kind of almost a hinge plate and then a ring or a loop in the shape of a d okay on both sides. They may be facing up, they may be able to swivel and pivot. Most of the time they're facing inward. And a d ring can be a great thing, but I'll just tell you right now, it can be a

super frustrating thing. If you're thinking that the D ring should have a you know, a nail or a screw in each ring on each side, because then you've got to get the spacing exactly right, and you got to get those screws and or nails in the wall perfectly level with each other. Assuming again that the D rings have been hung on the frame perfectly level each with

each other. A better way to go if you find a D ring is to celebrate, Yay, it's a D ring, and then get yourself a nice length of picture wire and run wire in between the D rings so then we can actually put a hanger or two on the wall and hook the wire over the hangar. That's really actually what the D rings originally made for. Okay, And then you might have found nothing on the back of something that you want to hang on a wall, and now it's a dealer's choice as to how you want

to address it. And we'll talk about that as well, because the very next step are the types of hangers that we can use other than what came on the frame, and we'll well, you know what, like I said, when we come back from the break, we're going to table this conversation. Just press pause, and we're going to take some of our calls, because we got a lot of

them waiting for us on the board. When we return to this subject, we'll talk about those hangers, everything from the angled nail to the expansion anchor to one of my favorite, the monkey hook. So go nowhere, we will take make your calls when we return.

that's going on as well. All right, as promised, it's time to go to the phones. We're going to get a call in before we take our next break. Here, let's talk to the bump bumb Judith. Judith, welcome home.

So I've heard some ideas though, what do I need to know about putting in a retaining wall, like some distance from that place so it's water doesn't come right to the wall and sits there when it rains.

hits the soil. So again, we need to lengthen that down spout, the actual bend at the bottom. We need to put an extension on it. We got to get that water away from the house. If we can change the pitch of the soil at all. If we've got just a situation where there's too much water flowing on grade towards the house, then we need to think about maybe digging down doing a little bit of water proofing on the edge of the slab, digging down six eight

ten inches. It doesn't have to be a massive trench, but we just need to dig down enough to get some roll on waterproofing mastick or surface waterproofing on the edge of that concrete so that again the slab which is concrete, which is a stone sponge, is not in a position where it is absorbing too much water and then conveying that up into the walls, which it will because water will travel against gravity through a process called surface tension percolation up for quite a ways, and so

we want to stop that from happening. So a little bit of that, and while we have that open trench, maybe a small French drain which is a pipe with perforated holes in it to receive the water that's coming towards the house, and again running that along away from that critical area before it lets out and distributes the water elsewhere, or tie it into the yard drains, what have you. It's hard for me to picture the exact solution for you, Judith, just because I don't have the

full picture in my head. But these are the things we have to do to keep water away from the house, even something as simple as digging down and creating a deeper, little gravel filled well there so that surface water doesn't build up right there and creep into the wall line at the bottom of the sole plate of the wall. Anything we can do to keep the water from getting near the wood bottom of the wall, that's what we

need to do. So anything you can do in the yard to keep it from getting there in the first place. But if you can't avoid that, then once it's there, we've got to grab it and convey it elsewhere. Drain gravel, French drain, waterproofing, and generally speaking, all of the above, a layer after layer after layer approach, because there's usually no one silver bullet for the whole thing. All right, thank you for your call, Judith, appreciate the question. When

we come back, more of your calls. You are home Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer 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,