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house Whisperer dot Design house Whisperer dot Design. All right, we are talking antiques, vintage, retro nostalgia today that kind of decor and the and tips and tricks and great advice for you of how to integrate it into your home. We're coming back to that in just a bit. But it's top of the hour. You know what that means. Time to go to the phones. Let's do it. I want to talk to Mike. Hey Mike, welcome home.
Hey Dan, thanks for taking my call. So I have a contractor that's been installing a roof for I don't know about a month now. They came in replaced the roof. Well, my contract was new roof, new facia, and I needed to trim some raftertails because the previous owner took a saws all and just cut everything off because of some other dry rod at the time. They came in put the new roof on. Then from there they came back three days later to do the facia and the gutters.
The new facia was two inch, old facia was one and so all the facia is extending out past the asphalt shingles. Also, they had to rip the entire drip edge off to even start that process. So my question really is is what do I need to look for when they do all this work? Can they even repair this to an integrity after ripping off the entire perimeter of the drip ridge and distrupting every single shingle.
Yeah yeah, well, you know, at the risk of being just blunt. What you need to look for is a new contractor.
Yeah well yeah.
Then I actually gave them an out to even bay completely out and they said, oh, I'm not contract already.
Yeah no, this is this is what I'm talking about. That that that is completely as my dad would like to say, bass ackwards. So here's the thing. The facia uh and I don't care what size the facia is, right, you know, get one inch fatia, replace it with a two by facia which is an inch and a half. That's great, fine, no problem, right. Raftertails have to be
uh you know repaired along the eves. All of that eve starter board sometimes starter board, by the way, starterboard everybody is is the is like the tongue and groove stuff that you see when you look up underneath your eves. You see nice boards there, not the bottom of plywood, which is the rest of the roofing material or OSB
you know, chipboard. So the point is this, though, when they did the tear off, when they tore off the old roof, now is the time to do all of that that's when you do all of it, you tear.
Off the to do Yeah, this is standard.
I don't know what their deal is that this is standard roofing practice. I mean, it's just like roofing one oh one. We're going to tear off the old roof, get down to the sheathing. In some situations, if it's an older home, there's you know, there's one by six slats up there, uh and not sheathing. So the point is we're going to make sure that our that are sheathed membrane, you know, our layer of the roof, the ply would, the OSB, whatever the case may be. We're
going to make sure that that's all intact. And all of that is going to extend down with starter board uh from the root wall line out to the edge of the facia. The new facia goes on with the repaired rafter tails. All of that happens before we put down you know, roofing felt or roofing membrane and UH and the shingles because we want the the the drip edge, the metal flashing at the bottom of the roofline needs
to be hanging over the facierboard. It doesn't, it's running over the facia and that flashing is tied in to the roofing membrane and the shingles. In fact, the shingles themselves should be hanging over depending on what situation you've got. Let's say you've got asphalt composite shingles. Asphalt composite shingles should be hanging over the drip edge by at least a half an inch to an inch, okay, hanging over the drip edge which is hanging over the facio. So
something has gone wrong there, Mike. And and my concern is that if they do this and they say, oh, yeah, no, no, we're going to take care of all that, well, what do you get You're going to be pulling up shingles. Have they run the papy have they hyper extended the paper out already on the shingles, are already run out? Or have they not finished those courses because oh no, they.
Yeah, they yeah, they they came into the entire roof one hundred percent, came back and actually I kind of yelled at them before they even came back to do that, saying you guys needed to do this and this, And then when they were cutting raftertails, they cut into the sheathing underneath they so that needed to get redone. So I've got about forty seven feet of sheeting that needs
to get replaced now, almost the entire eve edge. And you know, I just I don't even know how to even approach with this with them.
Okay, So here's the thing. Here's the one piece of leverage that you've got, is that there was a permit pulled for this reroof Okay, if there wasn't. If there wasn't, by the way, you don't owe them any money for anything at all. Right, that permit, there's a permit pulled for it. That permit should not have been signed off yet.
But even if it was, you have recourse you need to reach out if if they don't get their act together and get this right, you can reach out to the city and say, hey, this is the permit that got pulled from my house. I'm the homeowner. I didn't pull the permit directly. The riffer pulled the permit. I don't know if you guys have done final sign off. But here's my situation, and now I am concerned. I'm concerned that they're gonna, you know, screw up the whole
base of this. What can you do, and you know, an inspector will be happy. Most inspectors will be happy to come out and take a look at the situation and you know, red tag it if he needs to.
Okay, yeah, I mean they've they've come out. The inspector came out and actually missed some dry rot. The installers missed some dry rot on the eves and they're trying to blame each other. And I told the contractor, I'm all, look, regardless, it needs to get fixed. I mean, so I do have the contract the inspector's name and number already, so that's a bonus on my part.
Yeah, that's that's where you're gonna need to go with this, probably, Mike plus photograph everything, video, photograph everything, document it documented, documented, show up close shots and say here's where the roof ends. And that's gonna be the approach. And the best thing you could do is leverage the situation so that they get on the ball and uh and get this done right for you as opposed to you know, I mean, I'm saying generally speaking, as opposed to throwing them off
the job, having somebody come back in. That's gonna cost you, even if you're holding a good amount of their money. Still, it's gonna cost you more because whoever comes in if I if I was to come in after the fact, believe me, I'm like, well, I'm gonna need a little bit of more freedom in the budget here to you know, tie back into what they've already done, you know, because whoever touched it last, it's theirs now. So if it all possible to get these guys to finish this right,
that's what I would try first. I mean, of course, at the end of the day, sometimes you got to toss a contractor from your job. I hate that, hate it, hate it, but it's a reality. Sometimes. Hopefully that's not the situation you're in. The best thing you can do is document it all, have some serious conversations with them and let them know, hey, happy to get the building department involved again, just to make sure that this goes right.
So let's get this done. Industry standards and practices, those are the three words. Might write that down. Industry standards and practices. This is what every contractor has to as a bare minimum, make sure that their work complies with industry standards and practices. Craftsmanship is one thing you can debate craftsmanship all day long. Oh, it could have been this, or could have been that, or it could have been
nic sir. Okay, your situation comes down to industry standards and practice, the bare minimum bar to clear, and you've got every bit of leverage to get that done. Right, buddy, I've got to go. Thank you so much for your question and for your call. I hope that helps just give you the the right encouragement. Yeah, you're you're You're not wrong about this. That is not a good situation, all right, y'all. When we come back, more of your calls your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
We are going to the phones right now before we return to the subject of antique vintage retro items for decor in your home and have a handle them. But right now it's time for some calls. Let's talk to Arnold. Hey, Arnold, welcome home.
And marry Christmas. Hey, So, I live in a vintage house. It's twenty one years old, brand new, built in two thousand and three. In dog years, It's an antique house. One hundred and forty seven years old to trying to do the rein style. But hey, quickly we are painting the house for the first time exterior, do we have to remove the rain gutters or they just paint over the rain you know, they just paint the rain gutters, They just paint whatever they see of the facia.
Well, that depends on a couple of different factors. Actually, Number one.
I.
Generally wouldn't remove the rain gutters if it's the very first time that you're doing the exterior paint of the house, maybe next time around it's worth doing it just so you get a little bitter access up to the facier board and the drip edge, just to make sure those things get sealed up properly and get a good coat of paint on them. But first time out, I don't know that I would pull the gutters off because that's an additional expense and probably you're okay as far as
moisture protection up underneath there anyway. So that's one factor. The other factor though, is like, how do you negotiate around it and get to it or do we need to remove it? Really has to do with number one, how they're mounted, Are they tied against the facier board, do they have any play where you can get a little bit of paint up behind them so that there isn't a weird line? How much masking would you have
to do? And the other thing too is are the gutters going to be different color than the facier board itself, which enters into a design question that ends up affecting how it is that you go about executing it. And if you've heard me talk about gutters before, and facier boards on most roofs in southern California, most roofs being asphalt posit roofs which don't have a lot of thickness and body to them. I've handed this pearl of wisdom
out many many times before. A lot of people have scratched their head about it, but then come back to me and said, you know what, Oh my gosh, it made such a difference. I am not the guy who is very hip on the white facia board going with the white trim of the house with an asphalt composite roof. And the reason is that it leaves the roof material itself feeling thin, thin ish, it doesn't have. It doesn't give the roof a lot of presents. So for me,
my clients. They know that my tendency is to say, unless there's prevailing circumstance. There's never an absolute rule to this, okay, so please no emails, But unless there's a prevailing circumstance, I like to give roofs a sense of body to them,
and the facia the edge of the roof. It's such a significant way to do that that I tend to choose a color for the facia, a dark color that corresponds with the one of the colors or one of the shade darker shades in the roofing material itself, so that the facial board really feels like the edge of the roof. And then gutters. When it comes to gutters, I don't hide gutters. I don't camouflage gutters. I actually pick them out and if at all possible, I'm like,
you know what, they're made out of? Metal? Here is our theme for metal on the front of the house, whether it's kind of cast iron, black or charcoal, or whatever the case may be. Utilizing gutters as the crown molding quote unquote that they are for most homes. I don't want to hide them away, I don't want to disguise them. I want to accentuate them as an architectural feature. So I'm the guy who's going to paint the gutters. Also probably some metallic color as well, and that of
course leads to the hole. Well, now we've got got to mask between the gutters and the facia and the facia and you know, and so on. So all of those factors come into play, my friend, when it comes to figuring out how to paint around the gutters. Of course, from the painting perspective, the painters would love for you to just pull the gutters off. If you're the painter fascinating, then then you know, do your best. You could use painting shields just to get a brush up underneath far
enough so that there's no weird line exposed. But those are the factors involved. Does that make sense?
Well, thanks so much. Hey, I'll think it about because I already heard the painter of just going up there and single stort to sprain it before they show up. Sprain, just sprain underneath it with a can of white spray paint. But I like your idea of changing the color of the gutter, but I don't know. I already got the bid, so I'm not going to do that. But what about if I just get a can of white spray paint just stick it up in there, just maybe some added protection.
I have no idea anyways, Well, yeah, I mean, if you're talking about the wood, I would I'd prefer to utilize a brush method up there, and you'll actually you might find it actually is neater than the spray method because you don't want to get it the fogging of the spray around and affecting the edge of the roof tiles or anything like that. But yeah, I mean, you got this, you're thinking creatively about it, So just kind
of process through what you can do. But again, first time out on a newer vintage home, a twenty year old home, I'm not sure I'm too worried about redoing the paint behind the gutter this time out. If there's any indications that you should, by all means otherwise you can probably do okay, just going up the face to the bottom of the gutter and then transitioning to whatever the gutter is there. You go, all right, my friend, Thank you for your call, Thanks for the great question.
When we return, we're going to dive back into the swirling tide pool. No swirling. I was gonna say cesspool. It's not the whirlpool. That is vintage, antique, retro, and nostalgic decor. How's that all right? Fine?
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on Demand from KFI AM six forty.
We're talking antiques, vintage, retro, and nostalgic decor today. I want to get back to our tips and insights into this area now. When I left the conversation previously, I just kind of described to you that what you do to an antique or a vintage item really depends on what you plan to do with it. Okay, You're either going to do one of three things. Generally, you're going to preserve it, restore it, or remodel it, depending on whether you plan to display it, reuse it, or repurpose it. Okay.
And I set those there boundaries up for you, or at least those those branches of the tree, so that you can understand you got a lot of flexibility when it comes to antiquing, a lot of flexibility when it comes to utilizing vintage things. And you know what I am all about doing it for your home well, okay, just doing it well so that it incorporates the goal. The goal is always for me as your designer. The goal is to match up with you your home, its story,
your story, and communicate that. Now, however you need to do that utilizing vintage or antique or retro items, then you know, have at it. Okay. I there are absolutely antique items out there that by and large everyone would agree, oh, don't touch that thing, don't. I mean it's it's literally a museum piece. It should be meticulously restored, not added to, not altered in any way. It should simply be restored to the fineness of its original intent and then just
observed and appreciated as a piece of true artwork. Absolutely, there are those pieces out there, and a lot of them. But that is not the hard and fast rule for antiques or vintage pieces at all. That is not the law, okay. And I disagree with a lot of designers who think or antique officionados who think, well, if you do anything other than that to an antique, you're really abusing it
and ruining it. I don't think so at all. I think that if you can embrace and incorporate something of a vintage or antique design into your home in a stellar a beautiful way that keeps it a part of your story. Then you've done it and you've honored it along the way. I'll mean, give you an example that I shared, what is last week or a couple of weeks ago, about the grandfather clock that Tina inherited from her grandparents, right who she loved to pieces, and this,
of all things, was such an iconic thing in their home. Now, it's not a fancy grandfather clock. It's not going to be. I mean, when this clock is five hundred years old, it'll probably sell for like thirty dollars more than what they paid for originally. No, that's not true. It'll be more pricier than But the point is, this is not one of those all deeply crafted, German made grand you know, it's not a swisk. It's it's just a lovely grandfather clock that they bought at a furniture store in the
early nineteen eighties, late seven, these early eighties. And it has a kind of a classic style to it. And it's a real clock, right, It's got weights and chimes and all of that. But you know, it's not going down into any museum. But here's the thing. It means the world to her, and Tina means the world to me. And so as the result of that, this clock has to find a place in our home. It's kind of that honey oak, you know, thing that doesn't really match
up with anything else we got going on. So eventually Tina said, you know what, I want to incorporate it into our home better. I'm going to paint it the color of the room, the dining room wainscotting that's just adjacent to it, sitting across the hallway from it. So it's now this beautiful shade of blue. The whole thing. All the oak is gone, I mean not gone, but it's painted now and as opposed to stained, and it so belongs in our home now, right, it really does.
It so belongs there. And so now if you were if you if you live by the law of antiquing, then some people would say, oh, you've just abused it. You've abused that clock because you haven't left it exactly how it was when it was made. But our point is if we were to have left it exactly how it was, it wouldn't have a place in our home.
And I think sometimes repurposing it as much as you know, you you do alter the finish or the wood, you're giving it extended life. Because we've done that with the several vanity pieces as well. We found some beautiful old cabinets that we turned into sink vanities. And you know, some people were offended that we painted it. Some people thought it was amazing, but you know, it is. It's attention. But it also gave it new life that it wouldn't have necessarily had.
It gave it a new useful life our home. Yeah, repurpose. And by the way, just because something is antique, I said, you know, the price goes up, Sure it does, but just because something is antique does not mean that it's necessarily rare. Right. And so we've got and we're going to do a video at least one, maybe two videos on this for social media, a little VIP content before we're done with the show today. But on maybe let's just pick out maybe the the vanity that we did
in the guest house. Right, So it is an east Lake Victorian east Lake period vanity okay, uh, that we found at an antique store I think down in Ventura. If I'm not mistaken, east Lake style, great style for us in court, you know, this is truly an antique, but not rare. It's not like, oh, that's a one of a kind thing, and no, no, no, So we felt the freedom to just treat it like a really good design element. And uh, and I think we've honored it by giving it this whole new life. You guys
will have to be the judge. I'll tell you what. Maybe we'll break away right now and do that quick video and you can be the judge whether we've honored this thing or abused it, and we'll show you exactly what we then we'll talk to it about it maybe on the other side of the break.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is a beautiful it looks like a little blustery now cool crisp Saturday, Southern California fall morning. It just lovely outside here on December fifteenth, Sunday, December fifteenth, December is halfway over. Wow. Wow, All right. We're talking antique, vintage, retro, and just generally
the category of nostalgic design elements. Giving you tips on what you can do, how you deal with these items can be incorporated in and where I left us right before the break was this idea that I want to encourage you. You've got a wide latitude, at least I
think you do. I am not one of even though I love and absolutely have great appreciation, unending appreciation for those one of a kind antiques that should just be restored, meticulously brought back to as close to new as possible, and then just be looked at, look, don't touch, just appreciate it for the fine art that it is. Totally get that. But not every antique or vintage item needs to go that way. In my opinion, just because it's
antique doesn't mean it's rare. A lot of pieces are still available in a lot of different categories out there in some way. Sometimes the best way to honor a a vintage or an antique piece is to really kind of own it for yourself, make it your own, incorporated into the house, give it a new life. So what we did during the break is Tina and I we ran into our guesthouse bathroom, the bathroom in the ADU, and we did a little video that Tina is furiously
attempting to get. Is it up? Is it up? Tell everybody where they can find it.
You can find it at Home with Dean, on Instagram and Facebook. I'm also going to throw it up on TikTok for all of you TikTok users.
There you go. So it's just an example of raising this question. We've taken an a circa eighteen eighty okay, so it's well over one hundred years old piece, an East Lake Victorian age East Lakes style vanity that we found, got a good deal on, and we changed its color, we modified the drawers, I drilled through the top and put us sink in it. So some people are like cringing, like you have ruined it. Others, I hope will see it as, oh, you've really honored it. So have we
honored it or ruined it? Go take a look at the piece, give me your opinion along the way. My point is not every antique has to be fully restored and then not touched. You can restore, you can observe them, display them, reuse them, or repurpose them. The question at the end is what serves you? What serves you? Okay? I am a custom home designer. My focus is you, your home, your story. You're the center of all of this. Not a piece that you serve. Pieces in your home
serve you. Okay. Does that mean that I want to do this to every single antique out there, No, no, no, no, I would push you hard. If you're in love with a piece that deserves full restoration, let's do it, okay. But this is another way to go as well. And the reason I wanted to show you this particular piece, and you'll see it online, is that I designed the whole wall, the tile work, the lighting, everything around this piece being kind of an exploded view there. So anyway,
check it out, because that is the point. Okay. Remember also that there is a difference between a vintage look, and I think this dovetails into this subject. Well, there's a difference between a vintage look, which most of us want. Those of us who are vintage prone, you want a vintage look. There's a difference between that and true vintage, or what we might say pure authentic vintage. This is where again I deviate from a lot of designers who are kind of oh I'm purest and the authenticity is
the essence. Listen, here's the point. I work on a lot of century plus homes, okay, a lot of antique homes. Basically, a century plus home is any home that's more than one hundred years old, right that puts us back in the nineteen twenties right now and earlier. So we work on these homes, and this is what I find from the homeowners. They don't they want it as period appropriate as possible, but they want to live a twenty first
century life in this home. And the binding the balance can be really tricky between preserving that period look but also making it accessible to live well a twenty first century life. So that's what I mean. There's a difference between a vintage look and true vintage. True vintage would mean, for instance, in a Victorian home, dark Victorian rooms without
much window feeding into it. It would mean gas lamps, which are not even legal anymore, gas lamps lighting up the ceiling and leaving soot over, you know, build up all over the the ceiling line, around the gas fixtures. Family bathrooms, no on suites, okay, not generally speaking, and for a lot of pure Victorian purist homes, no no indoor plumbing. So there you go, And that's my point. That's what we are not after doing. We want to bring all of this in incorporate it. So you know,
I run into the same situation now. If I'm ever given a brief for taking a house and restoring it to its utter authenticity, that kind of restoration, that's museum restoration. And nobody's going to live in that house, but people are going to come to see it. So we're going to bring it up to spec so that people can come and appreciate it as it was. Nobody's going to
live in it. Nobody would want to live in it. Okay, even classic structures, eight hundred plus year old No Tre Damka Cathedral, which just literally reopened what a couple of weeks ago after the devastating fire. It was rebuilt with utter precision in terms of restoration to its original specifications, with one exception now here in twenty twenty four, Notre Dame has a fire suppression system built into it. Uh huh.
So you see, even that is something where it's been integrated into twenty first century life so that we can enjoy it for another eight hundred years. All right, all of this, as you can tell, there's a lot to it. I've got so much more to share with you. But when we come back after the break It's time to go to the phones. The number to reach me eight three to three two. Ask Dean A three three the numeral too. Ask Dean 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 iHeartRadio app