This story category covers home decor, home maintenance, garden design and garden maintenance.
DO IT YOURSELF | When schedules clash and you just can’t connect, timing is everything. Leaving notes has become part of our regular routine. This make-it-yourself message board is one place you are bound to look. Read more
WHAT TO GIVE | There is something so cool about cooking with equipment that can trace its beginnings back to the days when Christopher Columbus and John Cabot first discovered North America—and if you stew, bake or simmer with the voluptuous clay cookware from the Andean region in Columbia, you will be doing just that. Read more
EASY & AWESOME | If you’ve been casting around for the perfect mid-winter gift for someone who loves flowers but may not be a gardener, we recommend this beautiful low-maintenance no-brainer: flower bulbs in clear glass containers (so you can appreciate their roots) ready to burst into midwinter bloom. Read more
CREATIVE SOLUTION | Eco-friendly Marmoleum is a fashionable finishing material that doesn’t end up only on the floor. I’ve seen innovative applications on kitchen countertops and work surfaces such as desks and coffee tables. It’s extremely durable, non allergenic and comes in every colour imaginable. Here I’ve used it for placemats in simple patterns. Read more
Design Wise | If you love beautiful gardens and find yourself near Robson and Georgia this evening with an hour so to spare, you might want to walk over to UBC Robson Square where international superstar garden designer Andrea Cochran will give a free lecture at 7 p.m. Read more
FREE & EASY | Whether it’s branches in vases or individual leaves strewn along a dining table or on top of a napkin or plate, nothing looks more striking than nature brought indoors and left in its beautiful, natural state. Around here, we subscribe to a natural, casual approach when it comes to arranging botanical materials, and a less is more strategy for tabletop décor. Read more
BUYER BEWARE | For years, although I popped into IKEA’s as-is section every time I visited the store, all I’d ever bought was a $10 lamp. Then recently I came across a Karlstad corner sofa in Isunda grey (like the one pictured above), usually $1,199, for $899. I had been thinking about buying a sectional for some time but never did anything about it. Now here was the very one I’d been eyeing for $300 off.
I asked why it was as-is and was told it was a return. Nothing seemed amiss: no snags, tears, stains, dents or sags. The Richmond IKEA has furnished its returns waiting area with Karlstad sofas in the same slipcover and they seem to be holding up well, plus a friend of mine has bought two as-is sofas from IKEA with no problems. And there it was, assembled and ready to go. I bought it.
Here are the questions I wish I had asked. Read more
SHOPPING AROUND | Leave it to sophisticated Europeans to promote a stylish/ecofriendly way to dry your body after bathing. Flip through any of their high-style décor magazines and you’ll run into references to both linen and flat cotton towels, which are a true and viable alternative to those triple-thick terrycloth bath sheets we North Americans appear to prize—a choice that has our dryers set on overtime and our energy bills on the rise. Read more
BUY RIGHT | I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about bedding. It’s one of those product areas where well-known designers license their name in an effort to reach a broader market. When you purchase sheets by Ralph Lauren, Barbara Barry, et al., you are paying foremost for name recognition, not necessarily for quality. This is particularly true of designer middle-market lines destined for department stores such as Macy’s or The Bay, or discount emporiums like TJ Maxx and Winners. These sheets are always more expensive than the house brands, which may be equal or even superior in quality to designer-logo-label ones.
After snagging a particularly poor quality set of 500-thread-count sateen Barbara Barry sheets on sale at Winners, I decided to educate myself about sheeting so I wouldn’t get stung again.
WTF may be considered a profane acronym in certain circles, but in sheet world it stands for the three things that matter most: weave, thread count and fibre. Read more
DESIGN RIGHT | Of all the important elements of garden design, edges receive the least amount of attention in print. “Since edges are drawn wherever contrasting materials meet, almost anything you do in the garden results in an edge,” wrote James Van Sweden in his worthwhile pictorial how-to Architecture in the Garden. “If you build a fence, lay a terrace, dig a pool or erect a retaining wall, you create edges.” Edges make inadvertent, dramatic statements. The eye is automatically drawn to the places in a garden where change occurs, the point of transition from one level to another, for example, or the spot where one material is replaced by something different. Read more