Where To Get The Most Space For the Least $ - Outdoors | Hour 3

one more thing. If you're thinking that's all great, Dean, but what we really need is Dean and Tina standing in our house trying to figure out that problem right there, Well you can do that too. You can book an in home design consult with me and Tea. You just go to house Whisper dot Design, and you also get to while you're there read some really cool quotes things that have been the theme of our design careers together. It's a good little website to check out house Whisper

dot Design. All right, back to the subject of making more space for yourself for the least amount of money. Yesterday we talked garages. Today I am talking about getting outdoors, but I'm approaching it from this perspective. What's it going to take to get you outside, you land lubber you. And basically the angle that I'm approaching this from is the opposite of the ultra luxurious stuff that you hear and see all of the time. But that doesn't mean

it isn't pleasant and beautiful and lovely and enough. That's what we're talking about. What is enough to get you outside and really start enjoying the space around your home. We've already discussed the idea that the first and foremost thing is a comfortable place to sit, and that is the right kind of furniture. And it doesn't have to be,

you know, crazy expensive patio furniture. What it has to be is for you to take the time and find the right kind of chair or chairs that are going to allow you to relax comfortably without all the maintenance and the upkeep and all of that kind of stuff. I know this, and I had referenced the the you know, I'm prone to thinking this way because I'd referenced the fact that, you know, spent most of my life as an avid backpacker and doing mountaineering and all of that

kind of stuff. My idea of camping is not folding down the tailgate of the truck and putting the tent ten feet away from the car. Nothing against that, super fun. But my idea is like getting out, getting away miles and miles and miles away from the nearest road, the nearest car, the nearest anything. And so that means you're carrying it all on your backpack, everything in and when I get there, you know what, I'm not planning on

just sleeping on the hard, cold ground. We've got tents, and we've got bedpads, and we've got camp chairs, all ultra light. But that provide comfort and make setting up camp pleasant. Okay, so that's not what I'm suggesting for you.

But in the spirit of that, the fact that even when I am surrounded by nothing but hundreds of miles of wilderness in every direction, the spirit of being able to sit comfortably, to stay warm, to stay dry, or to stay cool from the heat of the sun, all of these things are things to take into consideration in that kind of extreme environment. You would think, if we can figure out how to do that, all we need to do is get you outside on your patio to spend a little bit more time outside of the house

and enjoy a little bit more space. Can that be done inexpensively, Yes it can. So First before I talk about shade and warmth, okay, because those are factors, absolutely factors. Let's just talk about the floor beneath your feet. Okay, what is it going to take to get you outside? What it takes most people to get outside is to be able to walk outside and not get their feet wet, not get their feet muddy if it's been raining or anything like that, or dirty. In other words, you want

to clean safe surface to walk out on. And for a lot of people, they imagine that's a concrete patio, or it's a you know, a paved of some kind of paved patio with stones and flagstones and mortar, or maybe it's a wood deck or a composite deck. All of these things are wonderful, but what would be the bare minimum. The bare minimum is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful elements that can go oh into

a backyard setting, by the way, and that is pea gravel. Now, stop those of you who are saying, well, listen, you know you can't walk into pea gravel in high heels. I'm like, I'm not inviting you to, you know, wear your stilettos in the backyard. It's time to you know, relax a little bit, you know, put on your slips, put on your tennies, or just put on your flip flops. And no, it is a misnomer from a lot of people that a pea gravel area is unsafe or difficult

to walk in. I can understand there are certain, you know, extreme conditions in which you know you'd rather be walking on a hard surface, which, by the way, is when you simply set paving step stones within the pea gravel in order to ensure that somebody who needs to get out there, who has a little bit of trouble with that, can walk on the stepping stones with the pea gravel

around you. But the fact of the matter is a beautiful pea gravel area for chairs, for a fire pit, for who knows what a dining set and table is. It has a very zen feel to it. It has a very natural, organic feel to it. And the cost, well, what do you think the cost is of that?

And yes, of all surfaces possible to put out there, the least expensive and in my opinion, one of the most gorgeous and most organic and most enjoyable is simply using pea gravel. Now, gravel comes in all different sizes. For those of you who are curious and wondering big road based gravel and the kind of gravel that we put into main concrete, you know, structural concrete structures can be you know, three quarters of an inch to an inch big, big, big particulate rocks. Pea gravel is exactly

what it is describing. We're talking about smooth, the little pieces of gravel at the most about three eighths of an inch in diameter that are about the size of peas, you know, peas like frozen peas. So pea gravel is comfortable to walk on, even in bare feet. If it's the right kind of soft, smooth gravel it is, it compresses, it stays in place, It does not blow around with the wind. Because it is rocks, by the way, and heavy enough to stay in place. It is easy to maintain. Here.

Can I get a little nature boy on you? At the same time, one of the things that you've heard me talk about when it comes to hardscape on our properties is that almost everybody's house in southern California has too much hardscape, too much stuff, and then water hits this non permeable hardscape that means concrete and stone and

all of that, and it has to run somewhere. So we have to add to that a whole layer of drainage considerations, and we've got to get all that water conveyed into drains, and then that drain system has to take it out to the curb. And then water falling on our property, a large amount of it gets conveyed off of our property into the storm drain system, which then just gets flushed out to the ocean. And the whatever rain we do get in southern California doesn't end

up stick with us. And that starts at the home owner, individual lot level. I am a huge proponent of allowing as much water that falls on your property to stay on or I should say, underneath your property, to feed your plants, to become part of the water table, to become part of the aquifer that feeds the entire region. And one of the ways we do that is by creating pathways and entertainment and spaces that are permeable hardscape.

Permeable hardscape in other words, hardscape that allows water to fall through it and still soak into the ground below without having to convey it out into the street. Pea gravel is the ultimate example of that, because a two inch thick layer, and that's usually what I recommend, is about two inches thick layer of pea gravel allows water, even in the most torrential of rains, to fall right through it and soak into the ground below. And yet

you go walking across it and you are dry. I mean, your feed are as dry as when you're walking on cement during the rain, except cement can get slippery. Pea gravel. Never does you get better traction in inclement weather with pea gravel than you do with cement. Now, it's not the universal answer for everybody, and so again universalists out there who take everything I say, and say, well, I can think of three situations where pea gravel isn't the

best thing, Dean, well, good for you. I can think of eighty situations where pea gravel isn't the best thing. But that doesn't change the fact that in a lot of applications it should be used far more than it is getting used. And it is without question, if we're talking about a hard serve, safe, clean, dry environment, it is the least expensive of all the paving scenarios for you, and the most attractive and the easiest to maintain. How inexpensive is it, Well, it depends on where you live.

You know, prices vary by region. But I will tell you nationally right now, the average cost of a scoop or a cubic yard or a ton of pea gravel is the average cost is hovering somewhere in about the fifty dollars range. So here in southern California, I can tell you this. Let's say we want to spread two inches of pea gravel over an area of maybe one hundred and twenty square feet, a ten by twelve rectangle, ten feet deep, twelve feet across. What's that going to

run you. It's going to run you about sixty dollars. Are you kidding me? Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna run you about sixty bucks for a ten by twelve area one hundred and twenty square feet of pea gravel two inches deep. That is not a lot of money, now, Is that the only consideration when you're putting together a pea gravel area? No, you know, it's it's good idea to put some borders on it to contain it, you know,

especially if you're gonna make a little patio area. So there's the cost of a little bit of bordering material which could be made out of wood or other materials, and some staking into the ground. Or you could build a concrete curb and contain it that way. They're all different ways to approach this problem. But the fact of the matter is, I'm just going to tell you my experience. As I told you, I don't have a big, grand home. I have a little home. But we are sitting on

about a third of an acre. And if you think that I'm going to pave all the pathways to get everywhere I want to go on my third of an acre in concrete and spend that kind of money. Then you got another thought coming. It is pea gravel paths, garden paths and areas all over the place here, And I love it when I got up this morning to walk out to the hen house to let the chickens out and give them their mourning meal worms and all

of that. You know, in the quiet of the morning, here's my feet crunch and crunching, crunch, crunch, crunch across the pea gravel. Sometimes I'm barefoot. Sometimes you know, I've got my flip flops on or slippers or shit, it doesn't matter. It's just a lovely experience. And the point being not for those of you who are looking for ultimate luxury, but those of you who are looking for a beautiful way of getting outside. What's it going to

take you to get outside? What's it going to take you to get out on to the patio to spend some more time outside. Well, one of those preconditions is I don't want to get messy. I don't want to get dirty. I want to be able to walk in and out of the house without dragging in you know, mud and clay and stuff on my feet. The least expensive way to go to do that here is pea gravel, and pea gravel is beautiful, it's what zen gardens are made out of. And pea gravel is in expensive and

so so flexible, And talk about the ultimate DIY. If you build the borders and get a rake and a shovel, you can do your own garden pathways and patio areas all by yourself, and you can get it done. And it's a beautiful thing. And by the way, it is not just an economic or it's not just a product for people who don't have a lot of money. I design pea gravel pathways into multi million dollar landscape jobs

because it's such a beautiful material. It also happens to be incredibly inexpensive at the same time, and those are projects in which cost is not even a part of the consideration. We simply do it because it's gorgeous and it's wonderful and it's zen and it's natural and it works. And so I say to you, the second condition, other than a comfortable place to sit, is going to be

a comfortable surface to walk on. Consider it. And if you need to put some stepping stones in it in order to make it easier to walk on, for somebody who's older or somebody who's not quite as stable on their feet. Then there you go. You can mix pee gravel with decking, you can mix it with hard scape, you can mix it with concrete, you can mix it with stepping stones. It's just a beautiful approach to it, all right. So where do we go from here? Now? Well,

what's it going to take to get you outside? A comfortable place to sit and enjoy yourself, A comfortable surface, a clean surface so you can move in and outside freely. We got those two covered. How about now? Temperature, Yeah, the environment itself. We need to stay dry, we need to stay warm, and sometimes we need to stay cool. All of those we will address right on the other side of.

very tight. Inflation has not left a lot of room funds are tight, but so is the house as far as elbow room, and we're looking for a little bit more space without having to engage in the full on remodel or room edition or all of that kind of thing. And so just an approach this weekend for those of you who happen to benefit from this kind of thinking that there are two off overlooked spaces where we can

get the biggest bang for the smallest buck. One of them is looking to the garage and which is already an interior room structure. That's about three quarters of the way there. We just need to take it over the top. That's what yesterday's program, or the previous episode of our podcast was all about, So go back and check that out. On the podcast today, we're talking about outdoors, spending more

time outdoors. Now. This is true anywhere you live in the country, truly, anywhere you live obviously right now, certain seasons not outdoor living for everybody, obviously. But the fact of the matter is spring is right around the corner here. The thaws are beginning everywhere soon enough, and before you know it, we're going to be in that time where being outdoors is going to be an option for everybody,

and how do we do that as inexpensively as possible. Well, we have to answer this question, what's it going to take to get us outside. We've talked about comfortable seating, We've talked about hardscape areas that are inexpensive, like utilizing materials like pea gravel instead of concrete and paving and specialized stone and decking materials and everything that goes into that.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with those things. But if we're talking budget mindedness, then pathways, even patio areas in pea gravel is inexpensive as a beautiful and safe and clean area can get your home. And yes, the question came up, what about decomposed granite, Dean, I've heard that that can also be inexpensive. It can be decomposed, granted, has its own set of challenges though, just know that,

and it's a little bit more involved. And so the reason it didn't make the very very first item on my list is that decomposed granite is almost i mean practically speaking, in most cases installed by contractors who know exactly what to do with it. Because it has to be laid down just right. It has to be compacted just right for it to last, and it also degrades faster than just pea gravel. Pea gravel is literally you know, you dump it out, you rake it out, and pretty

much you're done. And that's why it falls at the very very top of that list. All right, But there are other considerations, as I mentioned before the break, when it comes to spending time outside, what's it going to take to get you outside? Well, I need to comfeeding, not only in my seat and in my walking space, but also I need to be warm enough, I need to be cool enough, and I need to stay dry. Okay, so where do we go there, Well, we could talk

about patio covers, we could talk about shade structures. When it comes to shade, by the way, I'm all in favor of a nice, big, old, beautiful tree. I've got an ash tree, which here in southern California, by the way, is one of our native trees that grows unbelievably fast. So you can buy an inexpensive, smaller ash tree and in just a handful of seasons have a big, beautiful

shade tree in your yard. I've got an ash tree sitting sort of right smack dab in the middle of my yard that now provides shade for our outdoor dining deck because we love eating outside whenever we can. And how is it that it provides shade, Well, you know, it's big, and we built the deck in the right place relative to the tree, which brings up this one thing. The most invaluable tool for outside living planning that a lot of you have just not really thought about is

a compass. A compass which you can just dial up on your phone, by the way, these days, that's the one I use every time we go to a console, and every console we go on, inevitably people will see me take my phone out and I let them know I'm paying attention to you. I'm not taking a call. I'm pulling up the compass because I always want to see for myself exactly how a house is situated on

a property. That's one of the troubles with tracked housing, by the way, is that the you know, the four or so model floor plan models that went into your housing tract that you're living in one of them. Your house has been you know, rep heated multiple times throughout the neighborhood. Sometimes it's facing north, sometimes it's facing east west south. I mean, who knows it's the end of a cul de sac or it's sandwiched in between other houses kind of soldiered along the orientation of the house.

I was just having this conversation with a young architectural student this week. The orientation of a tract home is one of its biggest deficiencies. Now, maybe your house lucked out and your house got positioned just perfectly in regards to where the sun rises and sets and how it

travels through the sky during the day. But the point is every other house that's oriented differently handles it differently, and yet the windows and door locations aren't moving because they weren't designed with any consideration about whether it's going to maximize its view or take in the sunlight the right way. That's just one of the things about tracked housing.

So the point is when we go to customize a house, a tract home, and we're starting to make changes to it, I always want to know where is the sun midday, where is it in the morning, where will it be in the evening in regards to this room, or for today's discussion, in regards to this yard, this outdoor space. So knowing that my house is oriented the way that it is, and knowing that the space I had on the north side of my ash tree was the perfect place to build our little dining deck and put our

outside dining table. Why because I live in the Northern Hemisphere and the sun is always always traveling across the southern sky. Even at the peak of summer, when it almost seems like the sun is directly overhead, it's not. It's just a few degrees still to the south. So the point is the north side of your home, the north side of a big, beautiful feature tree, always shady, always in the shade for the most part of the day.

And as it is true, the only time our dining deck gets direct sunlight is in the early morning hours, when number one, we're not out there, and number two, when even during the summer, that direct sunlight is not

burning hot sun. By the time that the sun gets to it's kind of a well, right about now in the eleven ish hour, the dining deck is already in the shade and it will stay in the shade well into the late afternoon, which is the perfect time for it to be in the shade and to be completely cool. So when you are planning coolness for your outdoor experience. You know what it Get the compass out on your phone, the Compass app, and start taking into account where the

sun travels across the sky. It it amazes me that I still regularly run into homeowners where I say, well, you know, the sun is always traveling on that side of the house and this side of the house is always in the shade, and they think, well, I guess that's true. I never really thought of that before. It's incredibly important information when you're planning how to take advantage of light and or shade when it comes to your home. So understand what that is. And a lot of you

already know very very well what that is. But that's going to affect how we and where we position shade structures. Okay, the most problematic of which are when it comes to the house at least, is when you know your backyard, the backside of your house is facing due south, because you get blasted with that direct southern sunlight all day long when the sun is out and shining in the

sunshiny parts of the year. As a result, the shade that even a patio cover or creates is going to be offset from that cover location quite a few feet and so you need to get out and do a little shade testing. You need to hold a broom up in the air to about the level of where you imagine that shade structure is going to be and see where its shadow is falling on the patio, because way over there, that's where the shade's going to be, not

where you're standing where you build the shade structure. So all of this to say, all of this to say, the least expensive and the most effective way to bring shade regularly into an outdoor space is with an umbrella, an umberella. Okay, yes, why because they can move, two because they are the least expensive forms of shade, and three because we live, whether you know it or not, in the golden age of patio umbrellas. And there is an umbrella, a shape, a size, and a configuration that

will work best for you. Let's talk about that. Right on the other side.

so hang tight with me. Okay, Right before the break, I had broken open the subject of shade and the least expensive way, the least expensive way to stylishly but effectively get outside, get yourself out into the yard is with no not a new patio cover, awning, not a California room, not a new roofed shade area, nothing wrong

with those. But by the way, you know everything I was just saying before the break about southern sun orienting it, understanding your orientation of your yard to the compass, understanding where the sun rises, where it sets, what's in the shade already, what's not. All of these things only are compounded by the fact that the sun moves across the sky. And you're like, yeah, I Dan, we are aware of that.

I know you're aware of it. But strangely enough, not a lot of people give that thought when they're thinking about investing in that big, rigid patio cover structure, because we only imagine, oh, I build a patio cover, then I'm gonna get shade underneath it. Well, not exactly, maybe at some point point during the day you pretty much

get shade underneath it. First of all, if it's facing south, then the offset of the shade is going to be you know, a couple three feet in the summertime, and maybe several feet or maybe no shade at all when the sun is at its lowest point across the sky in the winter, okay, because the angle of the sun changes, and as it gets lower in the southern sky, then that shade is going to be thrown much closer to the house and not actually where you want to be sitting.

It's something to think about, and the fact that that rectangle of shade keeps moving. In the morning, when the sun is just rising, it may be twenty feet over there to the left, and in the evening when the sun is setting, it may be twenty feet over there to the right. And only during two or three hours of the height of the sun during the day is

the shade actually where you want it to be. And that might be okay, But just understand that these more expensive, luxuriant structures sometimes have inherent weaknesses their inability to adapt to the movement of the sun. Hence the ultra luxurious movable closable kind of shutter styled patio covers that companies like Structure make Right where you can open and close and adjust the shade level. Up there. Now we're getting really,

really luxurious. But the point is even those have limitations when it comes to the movement of the sun across the sky. Far easier and considerably less expensive to have a lovely umbrella next to you that can be simply tilted and adjusted, opened and closed. And that's a choice that Teena and I have made for our home. We love sunshine, we love open air living, and when it's not too hot outside, I don't want anything in the way.

I also want to be able to go out and sit on my deck when the rain is pouring and still feel comfortable and in doing so. In order to do so, we have a couple of cantilever style umbrellas

that are that are sitting on our deck. Cantilever style umbrella simply means that instead of the umbrella being concentric to the pole right in the middle of a round kind of shaped umbrella, that the pole is offset, you know, it's off to one side, so that the whole area that the umbrella is shading is free and open, free and open to move furniture around or to have chairs sitting under and there's no pole. You're not like a pole in between you and the person sitting across from

you that you're trying to talk to. A market umbrella is a very very simple umbrella that works like a typical umbrella, where the pole is in the center. Also, by the way, a market umbrella can sit next to you if it's a personal umbrella, no problem whatsoever. And market umbrellas you can pick them up at a big

box store for about forty five or fifty dollars. We're not talking about a lot of money when it comes to creating some shade in the backyard, okay, But for larger groups and for bigger entertaining or just a bigger amount of protection, cantilevered umbrellas with an offset post are brilliant. Now they come with really big bases on them, really heavy bases. That may be something that you don't like

because it's not easy to move around. But if you plot out the location of where you want your umbrellas and you want to fix them in place, they can also be And that's what we've done to our deck.

I don't have the big bases on the bottom of my umbrellas, because I actually designed my deck with the wood superstructure right where it needs to be, so that I bolted these umbrellas directly into the deck, and they are just coming up right out of the deck, and right now they're folded away because it's a beautiful day. I don't need an umbrella to keep me cool, and I don't need it getting in the way of the sky for me. But these two market umbrellas happen to

be eight foot by thirteen foot rectangles. That's the other thing about I'm sorry I called it a market umbrella. These two cantilevered umbrellas. That's the other thing about cantilevered umbrellas. They can be roundish in their cannabies, but they also these days, because we live in the golden age of umbrellas, they can be rectangular. Mine are two rectangles, and they sit on opposite sides of our deck with the fire

pit right in the middle. And so when I open up these two two eight foot by thirteen foot umbrellas, I get a sick sixteen by thirteen foot area because I've set them up so that they just touch in the center and they shade out the entire zone as if I had a big, expensive patio cover up above us, but I don't, and they also recede and go away. Now how much did these cost? I think I picked

these up for about eleven hundred dollars a piece. That's not cheap when you think you can get a market umbrella for forty bucks, but twenty two hundred dollars to completely flexibly cover an entire area around my fire pit on my deck compared to building a patio cover. Try building a patio cover for twenty two hundred dollars. It's not going to happen. So the point is, shade is not that hard to come by these days. There are creative ways to do it and saving a lot of money.

And I again I would argue, this is not just a cost saving thing for people who you know are budgetarily challenged. We do these kinds of umbrellas all the time on a state level homes because it's just the right solution for some of these places on an estate. It's just the right idea. Okay, So don't be adverse to it. Think about again, what's it going to take to get you outside? And then on that's the cool side of things. If you need to bump the cool up.

Think of a personal mister system that you can hook up to a hose or mounting a misting system. You know it will drop the temperature under those mists by twenty degrees instantaneously, inexpensive to buy, easy to install. Or there are freestanding little misters that you can run down and pick up very very shortly at the big box and the hardware stores that just to hook up to a garden hose and give you your personal experience. When

it comes to heat, of course, fire pits. They come in every shape and size and expense portable ones, propane driven ones. You can hook one permanently into your gas line. Again, far less expensive than you would think on the low end, and of course they can cost gabillions on the high end.

But you don't need that, just a little flame and that, And if that's not even in your realm, then a portable infrared heat dish heater that doesn't attempt to heat the air around you outside, but you just point it at you and you plug it in, run a little extension cord to it, and you point it in your direction and it heats up you and that's all. At the end of the day. That we're really looking for, right,

is that level of comfort. Infrared heats you under your skin, it doesn't heat the air around you, and it keeps you snugly and warm. And of course, when I say snugly and warm, the all to omit. The easiest way to stay warm outside is to have a comfy coat, a comfy pair of warm shoes, and a blanket. And you know, at the end of the day, that's all we really need to be able to get outside, to get some elbowroom, to get out of the house, to have more space, to take advantage of all the space

that's around you without breaking the bank. Now, there's a final component to this which we're not talking about today, and that is how to create an outdoor landscape environment worthy of you wanting to be out there and enjoy it with birds and bees, flowers and trees and everything that is potentially amazing about your yard. That, my friend, is another show, and that show good news is coming very very soon. But until then, I am going to leave you with this very very simple thought today, all

of these things are aggregates. Just like in life, one tiny thing builds upon another, one tiny thing makes a little difference, and then we build from there and from there and from there houses, homes, estates. It does not matter. They are all built from the smallest of components, one after the next, after the next, after the next, And

so is a beautiful life. And so what I wish for you today is that you take a moment, whether you the temperature is zero degrees outside right now, or whether it is sixty five like it is in my yard at the moment, but take a moment, step outside and consider, when everything is optimal out here, how can I better take advantage of this space, and how for the rest of today can I take advantage of the life that I've been given and build myself a more

beautiful life. All right, everybody, that's it for me today. We will see you right back here next weekend. Until then, get out there, build yourself a beautiful life, and we'll talk to you soon. 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.