The Secrets of "Ish” | Hour 1

but basically it comes down to this. My favorite way to describe eclectic decor in a house. The eclectic design of decor in a house is kind of a symphony of right, a lot of different things coming together but making one melody. My favorite way to describe how to do that is to master the secrets of ISH. And you hang tight, and I'm gonna explain exactly what ISH means and hopefully it will make sense to you. It's a big poll today, it really is. Today and tomorrow

we're going to be discussing this. I'm in the mood to discuss decor with you and to solve some really significant problems that most people struggle with when it comes to their decor, and that is at the very root of most homeowners' issues with decor, the fact that it doesn't feel pure enough for them. It doesn't feel like those magazine spreads look. And I'm gonna explain why that is and why you don't have to worry about that.

I'm gonna let you off the hook. But we're still going to put some serious effort into figuring out a decore theme for your home that include bludes, all sorts of different eclectic elements, which of course is life, and we're going to figure out how to do it right this weekend. That's our goal, So the rest of December kind of oriented towards a designed and decor. Next week we'll be talking about furniture buying and the difference between vintage, antique, retro,

and nostalgic. You're not gonna want to miss that as well. But today and tomorrow these two shows the secrets of ish how to pull off eclectic design properly in your home. Don't go anywhere. Let me introduce you to our awesome team that's here today. Sam of course on the board. Good morning, fan, Good morning, Dean. How you doing today. I'm good, I'm good. Sam's there, wrestling are not so live studio audience and all. We've a joy to work with.

Producer Ritchie of course standing by to take your call, always already taking calls. The phone lines are open, by the way eight three three two, Ask Dean A three three the numeral two. Ask Dean A three three two Ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. And of course, as always, we will be going to the phones this morning. Anything that's got you scratching your head about your home, give me a call. Doesn't matter, design, construction, diy. I am here to help you figure it out. A three

three two Ask Dean. Richie will tell you everything you need to know. He'll pop you into the queue. You can listen to the show while you wait. And of course Saturday morning is always a good time to give it a shot because traffic is light on Saturday mornings. At six o'clock. You and me, we're up. That's a good thing, So give me a call. You can take advantage of the fact that you've gotten up before most people. Uh everybody. Say hello to my buddy ii Leen Gonzalez.

the world. Tina is here. Welcome home. Thanks ye all right, So everybody who's wondering about Tina's recovery, you all know that we had an unexpected surgery for her, It's all fine, it's all good, it's all good, it's all good. But it was a it was a somewhat stressful way to, you know, get rolling into Thanksgiving and the Christmas season, for sure. And she has a long recovery ahead of her, several several weeks still to go. But she is a beast.

She is strong. And everybody, the doctors, everyone is like shocked at how well she's recovering. And we've now entered the phase. First, first couple of weeks, a lot of nurse mating. I was doing double duty on everything around the house. I'm still doing more than my share, because you know, we're giving the kids some space to recover. But I got to tell you we have entered the phase, just so you know, of Dean saying, Tina, sit down, don't do that. What are you doing not picking that up?

Don't do that. Yesterday afternoon, we got a call from our daughter in law saying, oh, I'm running a little late. And our granddaughter Olivia goes to school like a couple of blocks from our house up the hill, and Tina's like, oh, I'll just walk up there and get her. I'm like, what are you talking about I'm not doubting that you were going to do it. I knew you were going to do it if I didn't stop you, and I'm

not doubting that you would have successfully done it. But that's not has turned into slow her down, lower down, slower down. Uh So, anyway, just so everybody knows Tina's here, She's feeling bright, cheery, strong, things are good and that that is my early Christmas present this year for sure. All Right, y'all, when we come back, we are going to dive into what is he talking about the secrets of issues all about pulling off eclectic decor in your home.

It's going to be one of the greatest challenges I think I've done thus far in eight years of doing this show to describe this to you in ways that really make a difference. But I think we can do it. I think we can do it to talk about eclectic decoor themes for your home over the audio airwaves, and we'll do it all can if I bean sharp the house whisper, Hey, whether you live in a condo or home as a cottage or a castle, it doesn't matter. I am here to help you take it to the

next level. The rules, the principles of design, of construction, of good quality craftsmanship. They do not change all across the board, or at least, let me put it this way, they shouldn't change all across the board. And I'm here to make sure in your life that they don't and haven't changed all across the board. We want the very best for you and your home. We are going to dive in right now to the secrets of ish. I'm just going to remind you that our phone lines are

open as well. The number to reach me just a bit. When I go to the phones, you can call now and get into the queue. Eight three three two ask Dean A three three the numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two, ask Dean. Producer Richie's standing by. He's ready to take your call. He'll tell you everything you need to know. Pop you into the queue, and who knows You and me put our heads together. We'll solve that thing that's got you scratching your head about your house.

All right, all right, Dean, So what what is this thing? Okay? Now, I already said that the top of the show. Favorite way to describe eclectic design. Okay, And by the way, the dictionary defines eclectic as deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources. There you go, right, that's eclectic, meaning there's just a lot of different things coming into play. It actually comes for those of you who are word nerds or history nerds like me. The

word eclectic comes from ancient Greek. It's an ancient Greek word for choose, to choose, and it was a name given actually in about the seventeenth century to a whole category of ancient philosophers who didn't necessarily belong to any one school of thought or another, but who picked and chose ideas from all sorts of different schools of thought

in order to build their own personal philosophy. Those are pretty relatively grounded philosoph in my thinking, because they because they lived in the real world and so anyway, so the word eclectic comes all the way to us from ancient Greece and the these ancient schools of philosophy. But for us today, we're talking about eclectic decor inside your house. Not Christmas decor, just decorr. We're just designing the the everyday decor inside your home this weekend. That's our goal.

And you know, as the dictionary says, we're talking about what happens when you've got ideas, style, or taste from a broad, diverse range of sources, instead of what's the more considered today pure And I'm using my air quotes there, pure themes of design. That's how I feel about that. I mean, I love strong themes of design, don't get me wrong. But when we start going for purity, you know, it's like every everything in history, right, You're in Nazi

Germany's talking about racial purity. It's like, yeah, you know what, buddy, let's get into that conversation and you show me somebody who's actually racially pure, whatever the heck that means. I've gone to twenty three and me, I know, what a mishmash, what a mutt I am? And so are you? Okay? That's life. So I think it actually can work really well.

But I got to tell you, the more eclectic that you think you are, the more you've got to follow certain rules in order to pull this off the right way. As I said, my favorite way to describe eclectic is a symphony of diversity. And I think that's our goal, bringing all these divergent elements together. So that they're essentially singing one tune and really round out the picture of

the vibe of your house. Our little cottage, I think, is a really good example of this, because people often ask us, oh my gosh, I love the feel inside your house. What style of design do you call this? And you know, here's it. I'm giving this away right before we take another break here, Tina and I often say, well, it's early twentieth century ish. That's what we call the design of our house. The decor style in our house. It's early twentieth century ish. And by ish, I mean

are there some Victorian elements? Yeah, it's Victorian ish. Are there some craftsmen arts and crafts elements? Yeah, there are some. It can be described as arts and craft ish, a little art deco ish, little nineteen twenties and thirties ish, also a little forties and early fifties ish. You see what I'm saying, The ish in your decor, the secrets of ish. These are the little bumper zones where one

style pushes up against another and yet still works. And those are the secrets of ish that we're tackling this weekend. All right, so much more on this. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty KFI AM six forty and live streaming in HD everywhere on the iHeart Radio app. Dean Sharp the House whisper here with you on this lovely Sun's coming up Saturday morning here in December. It is the seventh of December.

Can you believe it? It's Saturday, December seventh. Ugh, I hope you are enjoying this December. Hope you're enjoying your holiday season. We're talking about decor not decorating for Christmas or the holidays, just decorating. And I tend to do this as we roll into the end of the year. Spend a lot of time during the year talking about construction stuff and larger themes of architectural design and so on.

And then I think it maybe it's just the fact that we're all decorating some and we're thinking about that and kind of a soft landing to the end of the year. I like talking about things that are a little bit more decor oriented because I think I have your attention in that regard. And of course, today, as you know, we're talking on a subject that I consider a tough one. To communicate to a lot of people. It's what I call the secrets of Ish. It's all

about how to pull off eclectic design. So let's dive back in. No one I know lives in ruthlessly consistent quote magazine spread unquote decore right, the kind of stuff that we look at. And maybe I'm dating myself even by saying magazine spread, but that's still a reality. I still get, you know, an architectural digest coming in the mail and showing up. There are still that classic magazine spread. So whether you're talking about a Pinterest picture or whatever,

I'm talking about those idealized decre photos. And you know, they took hours to get ready to take this one shot, and they eliminated all sorts of real life along the way. And that's my point. Nobody lives in those ruthlessly consistent spread decre scenarios and those who actually attempt it, and believe me, I've got plenty of clients who have wanted to attempt it. I discourage it. You know, I want us to go a different way because those who attempt

it are so easily thwarted. Those are they are fragile little scenarios. You can be easily thwarted by unexpectedly simple things. I'll give you an example. Imagine a stunningly sophisticated, kind of Euro style sleek kitchen, right, You've seen them, that kind of kitchen scenario. I can bring it to its

knees in a half second. All I have to do is walk into that kitchen, put a dime store refrigerator magnet on the fridge that displays this week's kindergarten coloring project from your young students, right, and boom, the whole thing kind of collapses in on itself. You know what I'm saying, because when have you ever seen a spread picture like that of a beautiful kitchen with you know, this week's coloring project that is art, but you know you love it and you know it has to go

up on the fridge. That's the kind of thing that I'm talking about that disrupts that kind of fantasy of somehow that there are people out there living in these kinds of spaces without any regard to the rest of life. Kind of crowding in life itself is eclectic. Life itself brings us things from all different angles and sources, and sometimes brings things into our home that are important to us, but don't necessarily reflect one strong theme of design. That's

the problem we're trying to solve. That is the problem to solve when it comes to beautiful, day in, day out living inside a home, what do you do with all the stuff that comes into your home? And I'm not talking about the junk that just attaches itself to you when you go out into the world. There's plenty of that, right, I'm talking about actual things that mean something to you, gift given by a family member or a loved one, you know, whatever the case may be,

something you just literally fell in love with. You were out at a shop or on vacation or something like that, and you bring it back home and suddenly you realize, well, it doesn't really go with the kind of the rest of the theme. So what do most people do? Eventually they sort of just abandoned the idea of consistency, and a lot of houses just become a missmash, a mishmash of things, a patchwork quilt. And yeah, patchwork quilts have

their charm, I suppose, I think they do. But the idea of eclectic decor, let me just be really clear, is not about chaos or random diversity or just clutter. Absolutely not about clutter. The idea of eclectic decor is the art and science, as it were, of taking diverse

elements and bringing them together under a theme. And again, just to repeat what I started with at the top of the show, a symphony, a symphony, all these different instruments, all these different materials, all these different players, a symphony of diversity all together, you know, playing in harmony, playing in a chord with one another, playing nicely together, so that we get a beautiful rounded melody. That's that's our goal, okay.

And so, like I said, you can bring one of these magazine spreads to its knees by just a few minutes of real life, right, And then there are just other elements where we're not even trying to match up to some magazine spread. What if you live in an

older home. What if you live in an early twentieth century home, which is happening more and more these days, and you're wrestling in a early twentieth century living room, wrestling with the right way to integrate a twenty first century flat screen TV, okay into a house that was built and designed in an era of radio. People just just hanging out around the RCA radio right with the dog and the tipped head. And that, I mean, that

was a real thing in the twenties. And there were no TVs in the twenties, and so living rooms weren't designed for them. And how do you integrate that and still maintain this one hundred year old home. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Real world decor is never pure. Not in the real world. It's always ish. Okay, you may live in a modern home, it's modern ish. You may live in an arts and crafts bungalow. It's

arts and crafts ish, Victorian ish, farmhouse ish. Right, A good ish wsh is when one style transitions to another without conflict. Now, no, it's not easy, and yes there are rules. And that list of rules is where we go next. Your home, Dean Sharp, the house whisper Kafi, Dean Sharp, the house whisper. Welcome home. Just a reminder, we're going to be going to the phones right at the top of the hour. The number to reach me eight three three two ask Dean A three to three

the numeral two, ask Dean. And of course, regardless of what I'm talking about, in the course of any of our fine little programs. When it comes to calls, you set the agenda. Anything that's on your mind regarding your home, construction, design, DIY, questions, whatever, just throw it at me. I promise you we'll put our heads together. We will figure out the answer to what you've got to scratching your head about your home today. A three to three to two askting that's coming up

right after the next news break. Okay, back to the secrets of Ish collect eclectic design. I said this right before the break. Every real world decor is never pure. It's always ish, modern ish, farmhouse ish, Victorian ish. That's because life just is ish, right, It's it's it's you may have a strong theme going there, but you wait around long enough and life is going to pepper in things from other styles, from other areas, from other locations.

Just it's just it's it's just impossible to move through life and maintain one pure theme. Okay. And so that's not a problem, Okay. The problem is when we're trying to maintain the pure theme and we're getting frustrated because we haven't allowed or the other things so to one degree or another, all real design, all real world decor is, to one degree or another eclectic, and in other words,

it has to accommodate various elements. But in order to do it right, to really pull it off in a beautiful way, there are rules let's start with and this is in no particular order, by the way, but let's start with one of the important ones. You've got to begin with a neutral canvas. If you're going to have an eclectic scenario happening in a space, then you want to begin with as much as possible a neutral canvas. That means that the busyness of what could potentially be

a busy room or a busy space. In terms of design elements, you really need to start with something white, bright, and not busy on The walls are going to unite the collection, as it were, and floors are going to ground the collection, because you know, floors are on the ground. But that's not what I mean. I just mean in the stylistic sense, a floor really becomes a grounding element for your collection of furniture and stuff and things and decor,

and then the walls are a uniting element. Okay, So a good floor that isn't necessarily trying to draw attention to itself those are my favorite kinds of floor. Now, occasionally we will do a flourish on a floor. When do you do that? When do you integrate something really tremendously fancy into a floor. If that's something that you're jones in to do, you do it in an area where, in fact, there are no other competing elements to draw

you away from it. So, for instance, if if we were going to, let's say, do a hardwood floor in your house, and you ask me, Dean, can we fancy it up? I've got a little bit room in my budget and I just want something I want, you know, can we do Can we do a rose? Can we do a pattern? Can we do a sculpted pattern in the floor? Somewhere where can we get fancy with this thing?

I'm not going to tell you that the living room or the family room is the place to do that, because that is where the floor is really serving, as I said, that grounding element for everything else that's going on in the house. Now, the entryway when you first step in, if you really want to boom hit somebody with the beauty of what they're going to see in the rest of your home, the entryway is a perfect place and entry way when it comes to smaller homes,

entry hall when it comes to estate homes. But the rule is the same. That's where we don't really have a lot of furniture, do we. You know, you don't walk into the entryway and find a sofa just sitting right there. You got a little space just for people to stand. Therefore, the floor is exposed and it's not competing with so many other elements, and it's not really

playing a supporting role there. It will play a supporting role elsewhere in the home, But in the entryway that's where you can jush up that floor and throw an inset pattern or a border or something that just kind of throws it off its normal kilter. That's the great place for that. Otherwise, use a floor in its textural and colorized beauty to lay a foundation to ground out everything else that's happening in the room. Not too busy, not too busy, and then the walls absolutely not too busy.

Now that's not to say that an eclectic decor, again, as I've said so many times, can't benefit and can't integrate with a feature wall of color in a room, but not a cave of color and That's what happens when somebody typically goes for all of the walls and the ceilings in a room all a bold, non neutral color, it gets really cavy, almost oppressively. So in fact, I would say usually oppressively. So I much prefer and of course it's a designer's choice, but you know, I'm right

about these six. I prefer features of color. Go you know, pick a wall and go bold and crazy on that wall, but just one so that it sets a really strong tone itself. And you can actually use that bold feature wall color as one of the connectors. Because the next rule that we're going to talk about when we reach turned to the subject is the eighty twenty rule. Now

I mentioned this during our live audience show. I mentioned the eighty twenty rule because we had the folks from Aldac up on stage decorating a Christmas tree, and one of the issues with a Christmas tree every year is

very much the same. It's like a microcosm of the trouble with the rest of the house because somebody had brought up like I love these beautifully themed and decorated Christmas trees, but I have ornaments from my childhood and I have ornaments that people have gifted me and I've got this and that that means so much to us, and they don't run with that theme. And so the question was, how can you do a stunning kind of department store window Christmas tree and still integrate things from

my own personal life into it. Well, it's the same answer that we give for the rest of the house. It's the same problem, isn't it. And one of the solutions is the eighty twenty rule. And the eighty twenty rule allows us to integrate one of those bold color feature walls. What is it? You'll have to wait till we return to this topic because right after the news, we're going to the phones go nowhere. You're listening to

Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer on KFI. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty