KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, follow us on social media. We just literally last break posted a new video for you about that Nick's color sensor that if you haven't looked yet, you gotta go, look, gotta go look. Everybody's having the same reaction to it. Oh my gosh, this is like having a wizard's wand in your hand. Anyway, follow us on social media. We're always popping up good stuff. We only do the good
kind of social media, the uplifting, informative, inspiring kind. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x Home with Dean, same handle for them all Home with Dean and if your home is in need of some personal house Whisper attention, if you're like, you know what, I love listening to you guys on the show. I learned so much, but I really really, I mean, I just need you to have you over to the house. Well, actually you can do that. You can book a three hour in home design consult with me and Tea. You
just go to house Whisperer dot Design. All right, get back to the show. Now here we go. We're talking about interior decore, specifically what I call the secrets of Ish, which is aclectic design. It's how you take your modern farmhouse decor theme and make sure that it doesn't get compromised even though there are other things that aren't modern farmhouse added to it. That's just one example. That's why we say everybody's decor theme is an Ish modern farmhouse ish.
It's cottage ish right, it's colonial ish right, because those soft edges, that's where the real life of the real world come into play. And that's where we can tell whether you're following the rules or whether you just got lucky or for a lot of people got unlucky in terms of like, yeah, that's so just messes up the theme of this room. So that's what I'm trying to help you with today. We're going to get back to that in just a bit. But right now it's top of the hour. Time to go to the phones, and
I want to talk to Kathleen. Hey, Kathleen, welcome home.
I'm here. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can there, you are welcome home.
Sorry. I just wanted to thank you and Tina for what you do. You've given me so much knowledge and knowledge is power.
Oh, thank you so much. How can I help you today?
Okay, Dean, I know I'm asking questions about a subject you talked about a lot, which is fire protection. I'm an old person that lives in the sixty year old house. I had my roof completely redone last year, very happy about you know, about the roofers. And at the time, they put on O'Hagan low profile vents, and I guess I had never done this before, so I think I might have had four events. But anyway, they told me they thought I needed more, so they put six on.
And after they put them on, you know, I was reading and I saw that there's o haagen fire and ice vents, which you know have smaller mesh like one eight inch, And I asked them just about it's going to put the roof on it was rainy season. Asked them about at it and they said, no, they're on back order. They didn't know where they would come in. So, you know, I just had them do the low profile ones. So now we're at a little over a year later, and you know, I get nervous every time there's Santa
Ana winds. I want to number one protect my house from you. Know, wildfires before I worry about any home design or anything. Do you think that it would be too late to go back and you know, replace those vents with you know, the fire and ice ones.
Okay, Yeah, here's the thing. I mean, it's never too late if if you want to actually spend the money on doing it that way, because you know, the Hagen vent is flashed into your roofing material now, right, it's all tied into the roof so to change it out would be too basically, and you're not going to get a credit on that vent. It can't be reused for another client of theirs, right, so you're basically double buying the vent. You're gonna have to throw those away and
put in the other one. So and you know what, honestly, I mean, if it's that important, I'd be willing to step up and uh and do that for myself. But but here's the thing. I want you to do a little shopping research and give a phone call to a couple of different plays. Well here's one right now, Brand Guard Vents and Embers Out Okay bo, both companies that
create these vents. I believe I believe that Embers Out specifically is willing to customize some of their ember reduction material so that you could apply this to the underside from the attic side of the roof underneath your o'hagen vent, okay,
where it actually comes into the attic. If you if you got a basic frame from them that screwed on and on the underneath side, you'd basically be emberproofing your existing vent from the backside, and it would work equally well, and you wouldn't have to dig into your roofing material.
The thing is, though, Dean, I have the I have a long roofline. The house is about twenty six hundred square feet and it's the attic. You know. You you basically can reach the attic by like inside hall of my house, and you can. You can get up there. The heat and stuffs up there, but you can't stand up there. So I think even at one end I had, you know, at one end where there might be say three vents, they wouldn't I don't know that they would be able to get in there and do it.
Well.
I'm sure they could get in. I'm sure they could get in, but it's gonna be I understand, it's just a tricky access. I mean if it's attic, it's attic and so so. Yeah, it's not as simple as you just going up on a ladder and screwing these in. That I clearly, I clearly understand, but I still think, I still think, and you'd have to price it out,
just price it out. But I still think it would be less expensive for you to uh to buy some of this retrofit material and have a handyman, uh you know, a contractor even uh you know, maybe even the roofer would come back and make an attic crawl for you and install these on the backside. I still think that would be less expensive than tearing out the O'Hagan vents from the top of the room and reflashing it all and repapering it all in to make sure that they
get it all right. Again, I still think that would be a less expensive Even if you're paying somebody to crawl your attic for you, I'm guessing that it's going to be considerably less expensive and in the end, you don't mess up your roof and you get the same level of protection.
Okay, because you mentioned quickly the other thing you've talked about vulcan vents and brand guard, and you know, I've heard you talk about those several times, and I have two I think what you would call gable vents, you know, one at each end of the house that are fairly large, and so you know, I wanted to see if I could.
I just haven't done it because I haven't felt well, but I wanted to see if I could call, like say brand Guard and maybe another like say Embers out and see what they could do to put smaller you know, mesh there because you know, the house is as old as can be. So yeah, absolutely would be a good thing.
Absolutely it can be done. And that I mean you'll find those products for like end gable retrofit vents right on their websites. Absolutely can be done. But I again, I think you're taking the right tact. I want you to actually just talk to them, call them, talk to them, say here, here's my situation. As soon as you say, Ohagen, they're going to know exactly what you're talking about. Everybody else who's listening to us is like, what's an o'hagen event.
That's not important right now, everybody. What's important is that you know that there are, there is a way to retrofit your exist most existing roof vents, whether it's end gable, whether it's high ridge vents, whether it's low events, there's a way to retrofit them without tearing up the roof or tearing up the house in order to ember protect it. And so yeah, give give a conversation with them, and they're going to guide you in the right direction, because
that's what they're all about. They're all about helping you out.
Okay, And one more real, real question. So would someone like a brand Guard be able to tell me based on you know, whatever they would do if let's let's say they could do something on the inside of the events I have and would recommend something from the gable vents, then would they you know, tell me again based on the square footage and what you've talked about, you know what that'll give me enough ventilation in my attic?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, and these.
Too, Yeah, is I want to you know, I want to decrease, but I want to make sure I still have enough ventilation in my attic. Yeah.
These companies, they they the ones that I continually recommend
Vulcan vent embers out, brand Guard Vents. The reason why I recommend these companies specifically and The reason why these three companies are all cow Fire a Fire Marshall recommended in the state of California is because they produce a fantastic ember deterrent vent without that still breathes basically, that still breathes effectively because you know, I, I mean, we could emperproof your attic just by sealing it all up, but now you don't have at events, and so we
don't want to diminish the attic ventilation capacity while at the same time protecting you. We want to do both. We want them both. We want to have our cake and eat it too, and Kathleen that they're going to help you do exactly that. So don't worry about that. You have a good conversation with them, and it's going to work. We've seen it happen again and again. Kathleen. Thank you so much for your call and for your kindness.
Good luck on the house. I know it's going to work out for you, y'all when we come back.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Dean Sharp the House Whisper at your service. We're talking about eclectic decor and how to do it well. That's what we're going to return to in just a bit. But right now we're going to the phones. I want to talk to Ron. Hey, Ron, welcome home.
Here's hi, good morning. I have a bank of five single pane aluminum windows about thirty four inches by fifty eight inches. I'm trying to sound proof of them. I'm looking at insets for them, but anything you could recommend, or any company you could recommend.
So you want to do it. You want to do an insert on the inside of the window, just to give it a little bit more sound capture.
Is that what you're saying, If that's the most practical thing?
Yeah, well yeah, is there a real let me just ask in I want to be budget sensitive. Is there a reason why, if this is a priority, that we don't want to just switch out those windows? Change out those windows because single glazed aluminum windows, that's definitely an older window weather wise, energy wise and sound wise. And is it a hesitation because we don't want to disrupt the outside surface of the house.
Because that's that's part of it. I'm a renter.
Oh I got you, I hear you. So they're not your window?
No, no, they're not my windows. So and they install these windows probably about three four years ago.
Oh really, single glazed aluminum windows. They put them in three years ago.
That's what I'm assuming it is. I may be wrong, but that's what I'm assuming They are.
Now install them illegally. Actually, do you do? You know your landlord?
I do, But they might be double pain I don't know. But they're still letting them a lot of sound.
Okay, all right? Yeah? Yeah? You know, you could go to a lot of expense putting a clear panel insert inside the window jam in order to block the sound. And I see clear panel because obviously, I mean it's windows. So I mean I could tell you how to soundproof or how to drastically sound reduce those windows just by getting some foam sound resistant panels off of Amazon and
cutting one to size and putting it in. But you wouldn't have a window anymore, right, So is there a time when you need it to be quieter when the window aspect is not important. I'm trying to get creative with a solution here, because that would be the best thing here. Another pane of glass at this point is going to help a little bit, a little bit, but not really produce a whole lot of bang for the buck that you'll be spending on them, and they're not
even your windows. And so if it's like, well, when we sit down, or I've got to do I have to do a podcast, or I want to watch movies
at a certain time of day. And I mean, if it's something like that where the window itself does not have to keep doing its job of letting light in, then the easiest way and the least expensive way, in the most effective way would be to, you know, come up and spend just a few dollars on a place like Amazon and uh and buy some inexpensive sound baffling foam that you could cut as an insert into the window. But it's going to block the I mean, it essentially
closes down the window. But the sound wise, there's nothing better that you could do for that situation. If you're not going to switch out the window, I just don't have a mean, there's no magic bullet that's going to solve the problem and continue to let the light in of a of a leaky window, sound leaky, uh, you know, weather, leaky, you know all the same.
But so I'm looking, can I mention the name of the company that I'm looking at sure it's called the inn window mm hm. And they're they're quoting me about three thousand dollars for the inserts.
Uh huh.
They're saying anywhere up like fifty to seventy percent soundproofy.
Yeah, so again, uh, it's pricey. Three thousand dollars is pricey. And I want you to be really aware of this, that that that that is a you know, fifty to seventy percent reduction of sound through the window. That's not a fifty to seventy percent of reduction of sound in the room, Okay, because the window is just one component, and so loud sounds could still be finding their way A large majority of them are finding their way just through the wall. Okay. So I just want you to
be clear on that. I'm not going to tell you not to use a company like that. I just want you to be aware that. You know, sometimes it's said like, hey, ninety percent reduction of sound. Well, okay, for that two square three square feet, that that area ninety percent reduction, But when the rest of the wall is still transmitting sound, you may only see a ten percent reduction of overall
sound in the room that you're struggling with. And if that's the case, then you have to measure that against the three thousand dollars that you're going to spend for the window. Answer.
So again, so you're recommending the phone sound buffering.
Yeah, I'm recommending a thick I mean literally, you know the kind of foam of sound absorption material that you can find on a website like Amazon for just pennies on the dollar that will when you need it to be quiet, you can plug the windows with as opposed to spending big bucks. Because you know what, for three thousand how many windows are there by the way, five? Yeah, windows?
For three thousand dollars, you're almost spending the You may actually be spending as much, if not more than putting retrofit windows in those openings. And that's the thing. I'm just it's just a it's a high price to pay. I'm not saying it's not a good product. It's just the kind of thing that you use in an extreme situation when literally no other solution presents itself. And I would really want to explore other options, including when do
you need it to be quiet? Right? And if that's the thing, then just plug the window home if that makes sense. Ron, Thank you for your question. Not everything is an easy solve, right, And some products that are advertised that kind of say, hey, here's the miracle. Price is going to be aware. You know, there's a lot of sound that actually moves through a wall, not just
the window. Yes, windows are leaky holes, But spend that much money trying to get a reduction of the glass transmission and find out that you've only reduced the overall room sound by ten fifteen percent. Now, maybe that's good enough, but for three thousand dollars, you have to evaluate whether that's the case. All Right, y'all when we return, let's dive back into our conversation about eclectic decor, and I'll be hitting up the phones again in just a bit.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Now, feng Shui. Feng Shui is not a decourse style. It's a methodology. Yeah, and no, it doesn't really fit in the ish category because it's not a decorese style. Yeah, I'm sorry, all right, everybody, I'm just answering a question.
Answering a question here in the studio. I am so glad you've joined us on the show today we are talking about the secrets of ISH, and by ish, I mean that kind of eclectic decor where your theme that you really we'd really like to establish for your place, for a room, for a space, whatever the case may be, and how you're never going to achieve. I mean, the bad news is you're never going to achieve purity, one
hundred percent purity with your decor theme. It's always going to be an ish, right, It's like, well, it's going to be contemporary ish, it's going to be a modern farmhouse ish. It's going to be craftsman ish. Why because life, because real life, Because because if you have relationships with other people, if you walk out into the world, you come home with things that are meaningful and special and beautiful, but don't necessarily line up precisely with that theme, that period.
That's not and it's not even just about those elements. Maybe you live in a century old house. Maybe your house was built in the nineteen twenties, and you would like to use your living room to watch a twenty first century flatsk TV. You know, integrating that into a home that was never designed even to conceive of a video screen is a challenge. From a decor perspective, and
that's what makes it ish. But if we do it, if we follow the rules, we follow the best advice available, which of course you will receive right here, then you can be really, really successful at this. So dive back into this conversation with me, shall we. That sounds good, all right, So again I want to underscore this. Oh and by the way, by the way, sorry sorry sorry, go to our social media and check out Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Right now, we just posted a video about
the Nick's Mini Color Analyzer. You're gonna want to see it. You gotta see it. You got to check it out. It may be the thing that will save your bacon when it comes to your ability to get the right colors in the right place for you. Design and decre not a sponsor of the show. I'm just recommending it. This is a tremendous tool. Anyway, you can find it home with the Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. It's up there right now. Check it out. So I want to underscore aiming for
the intentionality of a gallery for your home. That doesn't mean that it has to be austere and plane or anything like that. I just mean, I want you to
be very, very intentional about your decor. Eclectic is a word that gets thrown around a lot by hoarders, by people who have way too much stuff, uh, and and people who have essentially given up on an attempt to do a decor theme and just say, well, I'm a collecting and so it's an excuse for not being thoughtful and for allowing a little bit of design chaos to enter into your home. So yeah, yeah, let's use the
word and give it the honor that it's due. Eclectic decor is a discipline and it's one that you can really achieve. But it takes intention. It takes the intentionality of a gallery owner. It's not random, it's thoughtful, and it's curated curated carefully. Okay, all right, so now on to the next tip. As we go here, the next thing I want to talk to you about just is patterns.
Be aware of patterns. Patterns, meaning whether visible printed patterns in furniture, on paintings, on furnishings like blankets, throws, pillows, fabrics, those kinds of things. The two questions that are most important to ask about patterns are this, do the geometries of the patterns of a couple of different patterns play well together? Okay, I'll explain that in just a second. But do the actual shapes of two different patterns do they play well together? And number two, does the scale
of the patterns play well together? Okay, and I'm not talking about one pattern. I'm talking about an eclectic design in which there's more than one pattern in the space, in the room, on the sofa, whatever the case may be. So we've got to ask these critical questions. Do the geometries play well together? And does the scale play well together?
So what kind of patterns are out there? Anyway? Well, I'm sure that we could split hairs and create more than these six categories, But in general, in general, a pattern falls into one of these six categories. It's either floral and organic. Right, floral organic meaning there's patterns of leaves or tree branches or you know, you know what I'm saying, I know, a sense of organic representation in the pattern. Number two abstract, it's not representing anything in particular.
It's a weird amorphous shape or a blending of shapes and tones. That's an abstract pattern. Then you've got number three geometric patterns and that should be self explanatory. It's circles, squares, it's rounds, it's triangles, it's geometry, geometric shapes coming through really strongly. Four Technically this is a geometry but stripes. Stripes get their own pattern category because it's such a
common theme. So there's stripes, there is solids. That's number five, just solid color, solid, you know, which is really kind of I don't know why it's on the list, but it's it's the non pattern essentially. And number six animal prints. Animal prints are different than floral and organic. They are organic, but we're talking about like, you know, leopard skin, that kind of thing, those those kinds of elements. Animal prints.
Those are the six main categories of patterns, and the way these work together in an eclectic decor is typically typically nine times out of ten, maybe ninety nine out of one hundred. You want to have the patterns, two different patterns in a room, coming from two different categories of patterns and two different scales, meaning that we don't want a strong pattern of squares right here smashed up
against a strong pattern of circles. They're both out of the geometry category and they're tough to meld together, especially if the squares in the circles are the exact same size or relatively the same size in those patterns, that's the scale. That's where the scale enters in a strong pattern of stripes or squares with some floral or organic pattern, especially when one of them is significantly larger and the
other pattern is reduced in scale in its repetition. That's the kind of two patterns that could play well together. Got it?
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Welcome home. We're talking about eclectic decor, which, to one degree another is everybody's decor, because no matter how pure you attempt to do a decor theme in your home, there's always gonna be something, something finding its way in that doesn't match up, doesn't match up with the period, doesn't match up with the style that you know, and so is that a fail? Do you have to purge your life from all variables in order to have a
beautiful home? No, no, you don't know. We start with the eighty twenty rule, which if you can get eighty percent of it headed in the right direction, the other twenty percent can, if well done, can integrate in and not be a problem. But we're just talking in general. But how do you blend these diverse pattern styles and themes in an efficient and beautiful ways. So hope you're
encouraged by today. This was this was a heavy lift for me, honestly, because this is the kind of thing that not everybody gets right out of the you know, right out of the gate. And it's the kind of thing, honestly that I'd rather show you pictures. But you know, here I am on the radio with you. But I hope that you're getting the idea, and I'll tell you why.
In one sense, maybe this is better if I'm not showing you pictures, because you can go online, like I said at the top of the show, and ask this very question, how do I do aclectic decor? And you know what you're gonna find. You're gonna find that everybody very much devolves almost immediately into just showing you things to do. Okay, not principles to apply to your house, but just showing you what they did. Like you know, and learning by example is great, but when when a website,
you know, advice point number six is add plants. That's not being very specific to your home. Right, anybody can say that, oh, add plants. Okay, well, what if this is a room where that's not going to happen. Then See, now we're just giving examples of things and not actually telling you. This is the give a man a fish, teach a man to fish idea, trying to help teach you how to fish for a collectic decre All right, the metaphors are all breaking down now, so I'm gonna
move on. By the way, right after our next break, we're going back to the phones. So a three three two, Ask dean, A three to three the numeral two, ask dean. That's right after the next break. All right, back to our list. Now this should be very very self explanatory. I hope by the way you understood the idea of patterns. Do the geometries play well together, does the scale play
well together? The goal there just to summarize when it comes to patterns, if you're going to combine two or three patterns together diverse patterns, right, then it's best to pick a pattern from a different category. That there are three different categories. So the categories were floral and organic, abstract, geometric stripes, solids, and animal prints. So you get three animal prints together from three different animals, all at the same size scale. It looks weird. They just they're fighting
with each other. They're fighting for attention as opposed to complimenting each other. But you get a floral pattern, you know, I'm looking, I'm staring at one right across the table from me. You know, this kind of embossed white on white rose pattern with rows, stems, and blooms in this sofa that's directly across from me here. And then add to that a geometric pattern, a stripe, a solid, squares, circles, And then add to that solids or even an animal print.
Those three things could go well together, could go well together if we've got the scales right. So the question is do they play well together? Your chance of success is going to be most high if the patterns come from different categories, and if the scales are different between the three patterns put together, right, that's just the rule of thumb when it comes to matching those things. It should go without saying my next point here, don't ignore
a room's functionality for the sake of decor. That is real life designed advice. I cannot tell you how many times again I've opened up a magazine spread and I'm like, yeah, that's a lovely art piece there. You can't live in that room. Somebody standing next to me says why not, and I say, well, take a look. Take a look at how they've arranged these two chairs in this corner here. Do you see how close the sofa is or that bouquet of flowers is. See that big bouquet sitting on
the table in between the two chairs. Now imagine yourself sitting in those two chairs having a conversation with a friend. That bouquet of flowers has to be moved because the vase is like three feet tall. And when I sit down in this chair and I look to my left, I can't see you. You're right on the other side of these flowers. So that but when you're standing across the room looking at all of this compressed into a two D image, yeah, looks great. You know, first impressions
are it looks great. You don't really think about moving through the space. So my point is, again, don't ignore the room's functionality. When the question comes up, should we emphasize form or function, the answer is always the same. Both. Don't sacrifice either. I refuse to say form first, function later no no, no, no no. The goal is both. That's what we're shooting for. That's the target. That's the bullseye. Okay, all right now, next piece of advice for you who
we're up. Yeah, okay, I'm going to slide this one in when you're doing this as you work on the decor in your home, just as if you were an author or any kind of creative creator. But let's stick with the author metaphor for the moment. I want you
to find yourself a ruthless editor. A ruthless editor. You know what the role of an editor is to go into, you know, the work of an author and go snipping through, or if we want to use editors in the turn in the sense of filmmakers as well, to cut out dialogue that just doesn't need to be there, to remove certain things, to connect certain thoughts. And the best editors are what I call ruthless. Now that they're not ruthless
people kind wonderful people who love you. That's who I want helping you with your living room or whatever room that we're doing this decor in. But I want them to I want you to permit them the freedom to ruthlessly edit the things that you're talking about, especially when it comes to like pulling things out saying yeah, I'm not really seeing that that's working. Somebody who's just completely, one hundred percent honest with you about what they're seeing.
And why get yourself a partner in this, or at least the assistance of a ruthless editor when it comes to decor, and you will find yourself being more successful than you ever imagine. It's an emotional step that a lot of people have because they don't want to be critiqued when it comes to artistic and creative stuff. But trust me when I tell you, as an artist and as a creator, I felt the same way in the beginning. I'm like, no, no, don't say things, don't say bad
things about what I did. Now, believe me, you need them, You want them, You want them in your life. You want somebody who can come along iron sharpening, iron sharpening the blade of what it is that you're trying to create. So another tip for you today, find yourself a ruthless editor to assist you in the process of making selections when it comes to an eclectic design. All right, we got so much more to cover when we come back from the news, we'll be going back to the phones.
You are listening to Home with 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.