Makeover Magic | Hour 2

out a request for such a thing. We do it, we do, we love it, happy to help as always, which is why I am here with you live every Saturday and Sunday morning. And here we are in the twentieth of April, Easter Sunday morning, and we're talking about makeovers. We're going to return to that conversation very shortly, but it's top of the hour, which means it's time to let you set the agenda for the show. I'm going to go to the phones, and I want to talk to John. Hey, John, welcome home.

how long it would last and the river. I'm out in Riverside, so you know, it gets hot and a sunbeats down in the backyard mainly, and he said about two years. And it's an investment. You know, it's three thousand to do everything. So I wanted to hear your opinion on the wet look versus a colored stain versus not doing it at all.

L ED is that right, modeled country? Okay. In other words, it's going to be an uneven color. It's going to be uneven if but unevenness can be worked into the vibe. Okay. If you had a situation where the concrete was going to just beautifully stain all one color, then you probably don't have unattractive concrete to begin with. So the whole idea is that getting a kind of a naturalistic, relaxed, modeled look, and a good staining company knows exactly how

to do that and make it look fantastic. And the reason I'm in favor of stain stain versus what stain versus all the cost of tearing it all out, or stain versus the cost of a coating on the surface that never works out. So people are like, well, what kind of paint should I put on my concrete? And my answer is always, if you can avoid it, no paint on your concrete at all. And that's because concrete is a synthetic stone. It's porous, it's soaking up moisture

from underneath. Moisture in the concrete is going to eventually push off from underneath, push off whatever sealed surface you set up on top of that cement. It's gonna push it off eventually. It's going to fail eventually, I guaran darantee it. So here's the thing. Stain is a is something that soaks into the concrete and doesn't sit on the surface, and so the effective stain is it's never gonna flake, It's never gonna get pushed off. It's going

to last. I'm talking about the color. Now, will it eventually depending on the quality of the stain and how UV resistant the stain is, will it eventually kind of bleach out and fade and light, Yes, it will. Will it do it uniformly? Yeah, it pretty much will. And so eventually stained concrete most people get around to restaining it again. But we're not talking about a couple of

years from now. We might talk about a decade or a two from now, depending So but here's where I'm gonna split the hair, because this is what I think I heard when you said you like the wet look Okay, let me be really clear. I got to get real technical here. Okay. There are stone enhancing treatments that are that say that they are wet look okay, and there are stone enhancing treatments that are color enhancing. Okay. Now what is the difference. Let's just take a look at

two things happen. When you take a hose and you spray a rock right with a hose, two things happen. One, the rock is enhanced. The color in the rock is enhanced by that water. It darkens and it riches, It enriches, and like all the all the character of that stone suddenly pops forward. Right. That's the first thing that happens. The second thing that happens is the surface of the rock is gliss because of the water that's sitting on the surface. There's a shiny glisten. I mean like what, Yeah,

you look at and you're like wet. That is the difference between a product that says color enhancing and wet look. I for the same reason that I just explained to you, I stay away from, and I urge people to stay away from in extreme heat and sunny environments, the wet look product because the wet look. Product not only darkens and enriches your concrete or stone, but it leaves a

surface glaze. Ah surface glaze, and guess what that falls right back into the category of something that water underneath or in the stone will eventually push off. And that is what I suspect the guy you were talking to is saying, Hey, it's only going to last a couple of years. The wet look with the shiny surface is only going to last a couple of years before it starts to peel from the back. But a stone enhancing a color enhancing, all that does is it digs into

the stone. It doesn't leave a shiny, wet look on the top, but it does accomplish the first part of what water does, which is deepen and enriched the color of the stone, and that will not get pushed off by water inside the rock. Does that make sense?

they're doing and what they're using. But you know, let him make his recommendations because there's probably a reason he's using it that way. Okay, that's great, all right, buddy gool much. You are very very welcome, my friend, and good luck with getting that concrete looking great again, bringing it back to life. Yeah, guys, don't put shiny surface ceiling stuff on exterior stone and concrete unless your plan is a year or two from now doing it all

over again. Surface ceiling products on porous materials that sit outside are going to flake and crack and peel. They just are the end. Okay, more of your calls when we return.

want to make some big changes, hang with us. I'm going to be cruising through some items and some ideas of how you can make some relatively big changes in your home for relatively small cost outlay, which a lot of us are thinking about doing right now. But right now we are going to the phones, as is our custom, and I want to talk to Susie. Hey, Susie, welcome.

and it's full of gunk. So I pulled some of it out, but obviously I can't really get on there to pull it all out. So the dishwasher is about ten years old, but my husband's lips here twenty and that's never been cleaned out.

with one of two things. Either a pressure clamp what we call a spring clamp, which is just a pressurized spring that has a couple of tabs sticking out from it. That's designed that if you grab that with a like a large pair of pliers, and you grab each tab on each side of the pliers and squeeze it, you'll

open up that spring clamp. You'll be able to pull the hose off from the side of the garbage disposal and have full access to the little the little port going into the garbage disposal and full access to clean out the hose as well. It's either that or it's attached to the garbage disposal with a hose clamp, which is even easier, which is one of these bands that has a screwdriver or a hex nut fitting at the top,

and you simply unloosen that. It'll come unlose and you can pull the hose off and as a result, you can get to whatever is unked up down at the garbage disposal line. So that is super easy. You should probably have like a you know, clear out the bottom of the cabinet and have like a bucket or a pan down there, because you know, if you clear out that there may be some standing water that wants to drip out. You don't want to mess up the inside of your cabinet. But I will also tell you this

that is there any problem with the dishwasher draining. I'll ask you that question. Okay, so the dishwasher is draining just fine? Yes, okay, so stuff is getting through. It just sounds like you've got some gucks. So the other thing is up on top of your sink, next to your faucet. There's a there's you know, normally what looks like a little stainless steel cylinder sitting up there. That is called the air gap. Okay, the air gap can

also be cleaned by you. You can grab that stainless steel cover, it's just a cover, it's just slid on, and pull it off. You might have to spin it a little little bit to loosen it up, especially if it hasn't been touched in twenty years, but you can, with your hand and just a little bit of effort, slide that thing back and spin it back and forth until it loosens up. You can pull that off, and what you're gonna find underneath is a weird plastic assembly.

And right at the top of that weird plastic assembly is a little top piece that is connected with a couple of tabs you can pull. You squeeze those tabs and pull it out and it will expose the tops of the two lines. One is the drain line coming from the dishwasher, and the other is the drain line heading down towards the garbage disposal That gives you access to both ends of that garbage disposal hose so that

you can get that thing cleared out completely. There's a chance there's a really good chance there might be guck up at the top of that partially blocking that line as well. It's just a good idea to occasionally do this every few years. It doesn't have to be like a six month thing. Just every few years, or when you see something starting to act up and you're starting to get the weird smell, go ahead and clean it out. But it really is accessible and uh and pretty easy to do.

working spick and span for you. Just find and by the way, once you get it all done, stuff, maybe have sitting down in the garbage disposal too long. Run to the hardware store and get a couple of garbage disposal deodorizer pellets that you can run some water and grind up in there and it'll clear out any residual odor.

tree thrives in thirty degree weather. They all kind of go into their torpor, They go into their slow growth mode. That, by the way, everybody is what tree rings are. It's

not bark. When you cut across the tree and you see a dark ring and a light ring, and a dark ring and a light ring, that's every light and dark ring represents a year of growth because the dark ring is slow growth, very dense, very slowly growing wood, and then the light ring is all of that spring and summer growth where the tree just like boom, goes out.

So there are lots and lots of big, beautiful feature trees that are going to do fine surviving a thirty degree winter or regular thirty degree temperatures and then just burst out and thrive during the spring and summer. Just do your research, talk to local experts on trees for your area, and I'm sure arnold you're going to find it. But yeah, you've kind of tapped beyond my instant tree knowledge to know exactly which ones are going to be

best for you. But I would do the same thing that I'm suggesting that you do, which is just dive in, do the research, and find it. As far as the fire pit goes, by the way, any questions about.

half inch gas line behind the stove. Half inch gas line is the tiniest, little, littlest, most minute fire pit feed And I would never recommend any buddy feed fuel a fire pit with a half inch gas line. If you've just got a portable one, you know, with the little propane tank. That's that's basically what we're talking about there, as far as the equivalent of a half inch gas line a fire pit out away from your home that you really want to be able to blaze and to

keep you warm. And okay, understand this is my theory on fire pits. When I build a fire pit for myself or any of our clients, the idea is a fire pit. You know, maybe it's not going to keep you warm on you know, when it's twenty degrees outside in a blizzard, that's fine, nobody's doing that. But on a cool night that drops into the forties. You know, a fire should keep you warm, and to do that, you're gonna need to run a minimum three quarter inch line.

Most likely, my recommendation is a one inch line out there. And yeah, now it's not gonna it's it's not It doesn't need to sound intimidating, it's not going to blow out a bunch of gas, and it's not going to be any more expensive really than just running a half inch line out there. But you need to run it from the meter. You run a nice size line out there, because here's the thing, my friend, to have a nice

burn on a nice size fire pit. I don't know if you've noticed this, but natural gas is it's pressurized, but it's the minimal. It's the least pressurized substance running through our homes. In other words, water is running through your house at anywhere from sixty to eighty pounds per

square inch of pressure. That's a lot of pressure. So if you bust a if you were to undo something and just have an open pipe and turn on your water supply, there's no way you're gonna be able to put your hand or your finger over that pipe and stop it. Because it's just coming out at such high pressure. A gas line is usually running between five and maybe a lie pounds per square inch of pressure. And I'm not suggesting anybody do this. I'm just saying, if, if you,

because I've had to do this occasionally. We've got like we've we detached a stove and it's sitting out in the middle of the kitchen floor and somebody bumped the gas line, and or we've taken off the valve and somebody actually bumps the gas line to turn it back on. I'm like, hey, turn off the gas And in the meantime, I just put my thumb over the end of the pipe and I block it. I stop it. It just

stops because it's very very low pressure. So what that means is it's not high pressure coming through the gas line. So if you want a nice, big, healthy flame that's going to keep you warm on a cool night, you need volume. When you don't have pressure, you need volume. And so as a result, instead of a one half inch line running out there a you know, three quarter inch line, which is almost fifty percent more, and a one inch line which is like three times more than

a half inch line. That's what you want for your fire pit, and you will not be disappointed by that. Believe me. You'll thank me for that advice later.

take three days to come out. It's all free and they'll come out and they'll mark stuff with flags, because I don't want you to trench in a gas line through your backyard and hitting something, you know, major, or cutting across cables or anything else that might be buried there. Always call them first, get everything marked before you dig. Call before you did. And the number is eight one one here in southern Califoria. I think it's the same number across the entire state, but it may not be

dig Alert per se. Anyway, call eight one to one and get everything marked off, all right, y'all when we return. You see that's why we take calls. Everybody learns when we come back, let's talk about some more makeover magic for your home.

but nationwide. So if you are going to dig anything, uh, you're gonna dig a trench anywhere on your property, you call eight one one and you alert them to the fact that you would like to dig a trench, uh, and they are going to contact all of the relevant utilities. They've got the maps and everything that anybody. Everybody, every everybody from from from petroleum companies that have lines running under your property, to the power company to the cable

company to telecommunication lines and everything. Everybody will all get contacted. They'll all check their maps. They have to. It's their job, it's their agreement. And uh, they will send out a rep I believe within two or three days. And uh and uh they'll send out a rep. And they'll just put flags, just saying, hey, well now we're just here in response to your you know, your dig alert, call this fla hear how deep where the lines are so that you don't have to hit them and cause major

problems when you dig your trench. It's that simple, and it's free and you should absolutely always do it. Thanks, Andy, appreciate it. And you know what, also, I love I love that industry professionals listen to the show and appreciate what we're doing here. That should give you a level

of confidence as well. We have a lot of contractors, engineers, architects, industry professionals in every imaginable way who enjoy listening to the show because they know I'm not jerking you around, telling you the honest truth about things, and hopefully it makes a big difference. All right, let's get back to makeover stuff. I want to get out of the bathroom, but before I do, I'm going to suggest two things Okay, one of them going to be highly controversial. Ready are

you ready? This is this controversial? As I get you may have an old shower door that you desperately want to replace because you hate the way that thing looks. It's got the big old brass or silver track running across, and it's got the wavy glass, and it's all gunked up, and it looks like it was, you know, put in there in nineteen sixty four. I get it. And yeah, yeah,

So here's the thing you're thinking. I'd love to have one of those new sleek shower surrounds and new glass, but that's gonna cost me like two thousand or more dollars to do, and you'd be probably right about that. How about this? How about removing all of that garbage that's there right now, patching up the walls, and then putting in a curtain rod. Now, don't don't stop, don't

don't get upset with me, because I know what you're saying. Really, Dean, really, that's about as low class as it gets, right, A curtain a rod, A shower curtain. Why I want to have some shiny vinyl shower curtain with ducks and you know, flowers that look like they used to decorate the dating game show in my bathroom. I want to take it another way. That's not what I'm talking about. And if that's what you think your only option is these days, you need to get out there and take another look.

I would suggest I. By the way, I am a lover of shower curtains, okay, and I'll tell you why. Number One, they don't have to be classless. Okay. The shower curtains that I love to install whenever possible are ceiling mount tracks. Ceiling mount so now there's no rod going across obscuring your view. And ceiling mount tracks with little ball bearings and hooks in them. And then the curtains that hang from those can just be white fabric

based curtains, fabric based, vinyl embedded, fabric based. And so you buy two curtains, the curtains are custom they hang down just the right amount. You buy two curtains, run a curtain for a while on the hooks. If it starts to get a little grody on you at the bottom and you're like it's starting to show with you. After a couple of months of hanging there, you pull it off. Throw it into the washing machine, put the replacement up, and then fold this one when it's done.

And you're always just rotating them on and off. It's classy, it's fabric. It's just a drape hanging there in the corner. But here is the thing that I love about shower curtains, and I know you're not going to be able to disagree with me on this one. The thing I love about shower curtains is there's a lot of money spent on the tile and or stone work or whatever is

going on inside that shower, a lot of it. And then we spend all this money on that, and then we put a glass door in front of it, and yeah, we can see through the glass, but we don't get the full impact of that. And if you have a smaller bathroom, a glass door, even as full all transparent as it may be, is still a divider. It's still a surface barrier that says, hey, you're stuck in this space. That thing is over there, and it makes a small

bathroom even smaller. Why I love a shower curtain. It can be ugie, It can hang elegantly like a drapery without any funky, weird patterns, or shine or sheen to it. And when you pull that shower curtain back, there's nothing in the way and you get to absorb the volume of the shower space visually, psychologically, emotionally that belongs to

the main space of the bathroom that you're in. Shower curtains make small bathrooms feel as large as they can feel because all of that volume and the visual of all the tile work is all there with you in the space. Even when you're standing in front of the vanity or sitting on the toilet doesn't matter. All of that's available to you because you haven't walled off the bathroom. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. You have

to decide whether that works for you. But give it some thought, because you do not have to live with those old, grody shower doors, nor do you have to replace them with you know, bank account breaking new glass. Maybe the answer for you is something as simple as a ceiling mount shower curtain track. Give it some thought, Give it some thought. Used to be, back when I started doing this to Holmes, this kind of thing actually didn't technically exist for homeowners. You know. Tina likes to

pat me on the back. She's like, you're always doing things like several years ahead of the trend, and so as a result, we had to get really creative. When I first wanted to do this in a home, I had to call a hospital curtain company, because you know hospital curtains, they're attached to the ceiling and they drape down and fabric I had to call a hospital curtain company to have this kind of made. But nowadays, guess what. You go ahead, just google the ceiling mount shower curtain track.

You will find there are companies that now do it just for you and just for your home, and they're glorious and they're easy, and it could make a big difference. All right. The last thing for the bathroom before we get out of it and move to the rest of the house is the paint. No bathroom these days has to put up with super shiny, reflective paint. We want Matt Finish, no sheen or low sheen paint and rich colors in a bathroom and to make it feel as

sumptuous as any other room in the house. And thanks to companies like Benjamin Moore, whose Aura bath and Spa paint is both Matt Finish and completely water and steam and moisture resistant. You can simply re paint your bathroom and bring its textural quality up to you to exceed the decorator's bar. Just use the right paint. Yeah, you can get rid of all that shiny stuff out of the bathroom and really make it rich and sumptuous and warm.

There you go, all right. When we come back, we'll move from the bathroom to some other spaces and we will keep revealing our makeover magic. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper 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 iHeart Radio app