Speaker 1: Let's say good morning now to the host of home
Speaker 1: every weekend right here on KFI, the house whisper Dean Sharp.
Speaker 1: So Dean, we're taking a look at tracked homes this
Speaker 1: weekend and how to make them a little more homey.
Speaker 2: Huh, yes we are, yes, we.
Speaker 1: Are, okay, So start. I think this is interesting because
Speaker 1: I have a person I know who bought a tract
Speaker 1: home and one of the options was to make changes
Speaker 1: before she ever moved in. But after you move in,
Speaker 1: you can still do some upgrades to make it more
Speaker 1: like a home and less like a pre fabricated box.
Speaker 2: You know, a well over eighty percent of us live
Speaker 2: in some version or another of a tracked home. And
Speaker 2: you would think that a custom home designer like myself
Speaker 2: would be like, you know, looking down our noses at
Speaker 2: tract homes. But I live in one as well. And
Speaker 2: the fact of the matter is, you know, the tract
Speaker 2: home is essentially what has created the middle class homeowner.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I don't I don't poo poo
Speaker 2: the idea of living in a tract home. It's simply
Speaker 2: the thing that has enabled the most of us to
Speaker 2: actually own a home. But but you have to understand
Speaker 2: there are problems that come with tracked homes. There's a
Speaker 2: very unique set of things that are involved. Craftsmanship, you know,
Speaker 2: is not always that great in a craft in a
Speaker 2: tract home, things like lot orientation, uh, the way a
Speaker 2: home is facing its street, the directions of the compass.
Speaker 2: There are that same floor plan is laid out so
Speaker 2: many different ways in attract it appears so many different
Speaker 2: times as kind of you know, the roll of the dice.
Speaker 2: And yet the windows, the doors, they don't change their orientation.
Speaker 2: It's one fixed plan regardless of its orientation to the compass.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the things about a tract home
Speaker 2: that you can change things like turning windows when necessary
Speaker 2: in two doors. And when you think about that, you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that must be a big thing. It's really not. Imagine
Speaker 2: taking like a sliding glass door and turning it into
Speaker 2: a window. Okay, you would take out the door, you
Speaker 2: would put in a window the same with and then
Speaker 2: all you would do is build that little wall section
Speaker 2: up underneath it. It's a pretty simple move in terms
Speaker 2: of construction. You're not even touching the structure of the house. Well,
Speaker 2: the opposite of that is exactly how every window and
Speaker 2: door in a tract home is made. Every window started
Speaker 2: out as a door, so turning it back into a
Speaker 2: door is simply removing the window, removing that section of
Speaker 2: ball underneath, and adding in a door. And when it
Speaker 2: comes to a bedroom that doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 2: light coming into it, or a bedroom like in a
Speaker 2: ranch style house that has access to the backyard through
Speaker 2: a door, it could be a huge design game chain.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those things that you can do
Speaker 2: in a tract home remodel that is relatively little cost
Speaker 2: compared to a massive, massive payoff.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, And then here's another one that I wholeheartedly
Speaker 1: agree with, and because I think they were a thing
Speaker 1: for a while, not so popular now, and that's soffits
Speaker 1: getting rid of them.
Speaker 2: Yes, soffits are placed in tracked homes in a very
Speaker 2: very generalized way to leave room for HVAC ducting, you know,
Speaker 2: air conditioning and heating ducting and things like that, little
Speaker 2: plumbing things. And the thing about soffits is that whatever
Speaker 2: space that AC duct needed, uh, it wasn't just confined
Speaker 2: to that. It was much easier for the builder to
Speaker 2: just drop the whole ceiling or make the soffit much
Speaker 2: much larger than it needs to be. And so if
Speaker 2: we do a little bit of investigating, we find out
Speaker 2: exactly where the duct is, and I got to tell
Speaker 2: you nine times out of ten, we can reroute the
Speaker 2: duct anyway to get to that same space and get
Speaker 2: rid of soffits completely. And that can change things like
Speaker 2: entry ways from seven foot ceilings up to eight or
Speaker 2: nine foot ceilings. Kitchens are notorious for having softits all
Speaker 2: around them. Those soffits come out so easily and can
Speaker 2: make such a big difference.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then real quick, you mentioned ceilings, and I
Speaker 1: love this idea. Maybe get rid of the attic space
Speaker 1: and put in some vaults.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not everywhere in the house. Not every how room
Speaker 2: in the house needs to have its ceiling vaulted. But
Speaker 2: there may be, I mean, you're if you're already committing
Speaker 2: to a remodel, there may be some of those prime
Speaker 2: rooms rooms like the living room or the kitchen or
Speaker 2: the family room where if you get in the attic
Speaker 2: and you actually understand, you know what's up there, there
Speaker 2: are ways to eliminate the or move the structural elements
Speaker 2: in the attic. And just to imagine a ceiling line,
Speaker 2: vaulting up in some of these rooms that we spend
Speaker 2: most of our time in volume. Even though you're not
Speaker 2: changing the square footage, the volume of the room makes
Speaker 2: all the difference.
Speaker 1: Ye. And that's just a couple of the things that
Speaker 1: you can do to make your tracked home more homie.
Speaker 1: You're gonna find out a whole lot more this weekend.
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp has a little show on KFI. It's called
Speaker 1: Home six to eight am on Saturday, nine to noon
Speaker 1: on Sunday. You can also follow Dean at Home with Dean.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Dean, We always love talking to you.
Speaker 2: Thanks Amy, have a great weekend.