We are happy to announce there’s a new show coming to KFI January 29th.
“HOME” with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer.
You can tune in Sundays from 10-11am.
Want to learn more about Dean? Click here to visit his website.
How to "Whisper" Your Own House (and your life)
I can't make you into a home designer, but I can get you ready to collaborate and recognize when the right ideas comes along. Design matters most. Creativity controls costs.
1. Ask questions — lots and lots and lots of questions.
Most people are "house blind." Too close to really see it anymore.
2. Every homeowner should become a little bit of an architectural historian.
Buying a house is like adopting an orphan. Knowing where it came from tells you a lot about where it can go.
3. Don't ask "design questions" too soon.
Everybody has this notion of the kinds of questions that lead to good design.
And most of the time those notions are wrong, because most of the time those questions are all about materials.
Resist the temptation to start thinking about materials too soon. Those are not questions, they are attempts at answers. And if they come too soon, I promise you, they will not be the best answers.
4. Ask the most human question: How does it make me feel?
The point of architecture is to shelter us and in doing so, have an experience. Everything we do to our house is an attempt to make our house a home, and to gain from it some experience. We want the places that we dwell in to make us feel a certain way. Make us think about certain things.
5. Run through your senses.
This is much harder than it first appears. Much of how architecture effects us is subtle, even subconscious. It takes time to bring it to the surface.
6. Don't judge even the weirdest of ideas.
Learn to treat the creative process with reverence. Every idea begins as a fragile, barely formed thought—so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easy to crush before it has had time to develop. Most of them are not the "right" idea, but they very likely will have something to contribute.
7. The hardest questions of all: What do I want? How do I want to live?
At its very best, your home's story is an extension of your story. Most people haven't figured that one out yet.