10 Eco-Friendly Ways to Renovate your Home

After a while our homes need a change or some updating. They can seem tired and old and in need of little refreshing. Ideally, perhaps, you might like to move to a larger home but the economy has you worried and you want to spend your money wisely. So instead, you’ve decided to renovate your home not only to perk it up but to better accommodate your current needs and lifestyle. If you haven’t thought to do so already, you might want to think about some environmentally savvy ways to renovate your home.

1. Buy reclaimed

Don’t get caught up with having to have the newest and shiniest. Think about other materials like reclaimed wood which is not only an environmentally sound choice, but sublimely handsome and growing in popularity in all sorts of home renovation projects. Reclaimed wood is a great choice for counter-tops, flooring, and walls. One CKD (certified kitchen designer) recently used reclaimed wood around a kitchen hood. In the end, you will save time, money and energy that would be required to produce a similar and newer product.

2. Deconstruct your home – don’t demolish it!

If you plan on tearing down walls or even knocking down entire rooms, walk around your home first to see what you can salvage and re-use beforehand. Not only is this eco-friendly, but it will save money in the end. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Most likely there is a ton of material you can salvage and re-use. Consider everything from light fixtures, to flooring, tile, bricks, cabinets and molding. If you plan on replacing the chandelier in your dining room, instead of tossing it, think about using it in another room  - maybe your kitchen, your daughter’s bedroom, even a bathroom!

3. Donate your unwanted items.

So you really don’t want that dining room chandelier in any other room. Don’t toss it, instead bring it to Goodwill or a consignment shop. Perhaps you even have a crafty friend who might enjoy repainting and re-purposing it. Another great option for your chandelier, as well as other items like appliances and cabinets, is Habitat for Humanity. Not only do they welcome all unwanted materials, but they sell all donations and 100% of the proceeds from these materials are used to build new homes for the underprivileged. With this in mind, not only are you being environmentally friendly, but you are truly giving back to the community.

4. Think energy-efficient

When you are shopping around for new appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers and ovens look for those that are the most energy efficient. These products have the Energy Star logo right on them and will give you all the information you need. Many of these large appliances, especially the upscale refrigerators, generate a lot of electricity. For many people these high-end appliances are not only cost prohibitive initially, but they will end up costing a great deal more to run as well.

 5. Consider buying pre-owned materials

Habitat for Humanity is one such retailer, but there are many across the country, some even specialize in high-end products. This can be a great and cost-effective way to redo your home. If, in the end, that SubZero fridge is an absolute must have, you could save thousands of dollars buying one that has been used for a couple of years. Cabinets may be the largest expense of a kitchen renovation, these salvage shops often have high quality cabinets in fabulous condition. It’s an idea certainly worth investigating.

6. Re-face instead of replace

As I just mentioned, the greatest expense of any kitchen remodel may very well be your cabinets. Instead of replacing them altogether, consider repainting them or simply refacing them. Most likely your cabinets are in great conditions. New doors and drawers can give seemingly tired cabinets a whole new life!

7. Use low voc paints

Low voc paints are earth-friendly and better for you and your family. Benjamin Moore, for example, a leader in paint technology and innovation since 1883, offers their Natura No-Voc Paint. This paint is practically odorless, 100% acrylic and splatter resistant. It’s self priming and carries the “Green to Promise” designation. Best of all the Natura line is available in every Benjamin Moore color!

8. Insulate

Choose a high quality insulation. The better insulated your home is, the better it is protected from the elements. Your home will stay warmer in the wintertime, allowing you to keep your thermostat at a lower setting, and cooler during those hot summer months.

9. Let the sun shine in!

Many people are starting to consider solar energy when remodeling their homes. Solar energy can impact you heating bill as well. Skylights and solar panels are known to keep energy costs down. They can be used to heat, or help heat a home, and often give enough power for small items like fountains to run.

10. Visit salvage yards and antique shops

Antique shops and consignment shops are great places to visit for items such as doorknobs,  light fixtures and even mantels. Not only does this help your bottom line, but these repurposed items will add a charm and warmth to your home that simply cannot be replicated by their newer counterparts.
In the end, choosing to renovate your home in an eco-friendly manner not only helps the environment but allows you to do so while giving back to your community while saving some serious money. What’s not to like about being environmentally savvy when it comes to your home?

http://freshome.com/2012/10/25/10-eco-friendly-ways-to-renovate-your-home/

Top 10 Most Expensive Celebrity Homes in the World 2012

Here are the top 10 most expensive celebrity homes in the world of 2012. Some are billionaires and most are millionaires.

Steven Spielberg (Brentwood)

Madonna (Bel Air)

Mel Gibson (Malibu)

Christina Aguilera (Hollywood Hills)

Rod Stewart (Beverly Hills)

Jim Carry (Brentwood)

Justin Timberlake (Hollywood Hills)

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw (Beverly Hills)

Jennifer Love Hewitt (Toluca Lake)

Nicolas Cage (Bel Air)

The Hilton Estate (Beverly Hills)

Johnny Depp (West Hollywood)

Nicolas Cage (Los Feliz) 

http://thatdope.com/travel/top-10-most-expensive-celebrity-homes-in-the-world-2012-pics/

SU House by Alexander Brenner

Contemporary villa situated at the edge of a forest in the south of Stuttgart, Germany, was designed in 2012 by architect Alexander Brenner.

http://www.homeadore.com/2013/01/31/su-house-alexander-brenner/

Real estate: long flip versus quick flip

Cindy Wennerstrom quit her job in sales and marketing to indulge her passion for real estate four years ago. The 39-year old Toronto MBA now has millions of dollars in properties, but she prefers something called a long flip, versus the quick flip.
(Peter Power/Peter Power/ The Globe and Mail)

TRACY TJADEN

Cindy Wennerstrom is a bit of a hoarder. But the 39-year-old Toronto MBA grad doesn’t collect shoes or keep old magazines. Houses are her thing.
“I wanted to take control of my future. And what I really loved to do was renovate, have tenants and make great homes for people,” she says. “As soon as I set that course, within a year it was happening.”

Ms. Wennerstrom owns seven properties in southeast Toronto, two of them with partners. She bought her first house at 24 and has been flipping them since.
But Ms. Wennerstrom, who quit her job in sales and marketing at a frozen food company nine months ago, has perfected a more patient version of the flip. Like her quicker-paced counterparts, she buys rundown properties in up-and-coming neighbourhoods and oversees a renovation of two to four months.
But then, instead of selling immediately, she hires an appraiser to revalue the property, and she refinances it based on that higher value. To reduce her carrying costs, she converts from a higher-interest line of credit to a lower-rate mortgage.
At that point, she rents the property out for five to 10 years, earning rental income as the property continues to appreciate with the surrounding community. Ms. Wennerstrom’s renovations usually cost 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the purchase price of the home, which is usually between $350,000 and $450,000.
“The traditional flipping idea is flawed,” she says. “The long flip is so much better.”
Many real estate experts agree, noting that Ms. Wennerstrom’s strategy sidesteps several of the pitfalls flippers can fall into.
“Real estate goes in cycles, and if the music stops at that exact point you want to sell – as it did in 2008 – you are stuck,” says Don Campbell, president of the Real Estate Investment Network.
Vancouver real estate agent Grant Connell says flippers need extra cash, just in case. “My advice to people is always to make sure you can afford to complete the renovation and then hold it should the property not sell.”
Many people set out to flip and achieve a quick windfall after viewing a real estate-themed reality television show on flipping, says Mr. Campbell.
“We see a lot of people get into trouble by doing it with their last $10,000 after watching an episode on TV, like this is the way they’re going to get rich,” he notes. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”
People often don’t account for the tax, maintenance and mortgage costs they will incur if the market nosedives right as they’re ready to list.
Here’s what a flipping crash-and-burn typically looks like, says Mr. Campbell: Someone buys a fixer-upper, completes the renovation and then sells it for $25,000 more than the purchase price. After financing, maintenance and renovation costs, they’ve made $10,000 to $15,000 and immediately use that to buy another property.
However, at tax time, they owe $12,000 on that income. By then the money is gone.
Ms. Wennerstrom, on the other hand, typically buys a property on an open line of credit, and does not need to pay a penalty to break a traditional mortgage.
“You renovate and then force appreciation out of a home. But then you hold onto the property” – all the while collecting rental income. Also, profits made from quick flips are taxed as income, while money made upon the sale of properties bought to hold is taxed as capital gains, which is a lower rate. (There is no set time that properties must be held to qualify for the capital gains rate; the key is your intention.)
Mr. Campbell advises those who pursue the slow flip to target fixer-uppers in neighbourhoods that are already undergoing a revitalization.
Signs to look for are that the neighbourhood has a mix of old and new homes, and the old homes are being replaced by larger houses or multi-family properties. Also, new, higher-end retail outlets will be popping up, including coffee shops, restaurants and clothing stores to replace the mom-and-pop shops.




Ms. Wennerstrom, who is sitting on about $4-million in real estate holdings, manages and collects rental income on her own real estate portfolio, consults for others wanting to follow her long-flip strategy, and runs a tenant-search service for Toronto landlords.
Her advice? Hold properties for five years instead of five months, don’t cheap out on renovations, don’t underestimate the return on investing in curb appeal and make sure to get all necessary city permits.
Of course, Ms. Wennerstrom has learned lessons through trial and error. For example, she’s getting a better sense of when to blow her renovation budget. Contractors suggested she lower the basement in a few properties, and in hindsight she wishes she had listened. “I wish I had just invested that extra $10,000 because I would have made it back in rent,” she says. “And I wish I’d replaced the drainage in some buildings – but now I know.”
Special to The Globe and Mail

How Toronto got its name

   by Chris Bateman 

179 years ago this week the City of York voted to drop its colonial moniker for a title more befitting of the area's history. The move, a rare show of respect for native culture at the time, cemented the legacy of a Mohawk word that had traveled what is now southern Ontario for over a hundred years, being applied to lakes, passages, and rivers, before it finally settled here.
Toronto was first applied to a narrow stretch of water between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching at present-day Sophie's Landing. The word, Anglicized from Mohawk, was spelled tkaronto and taronto and is used to describe an area where trees grow in shallow water.
The name, misunderstood and confused by various old-world explorers, bounced around the area between Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron. On various early maps it was applied to a canoe trail on the Humber River and Lake Simcoe itself. Later, the Humber River, before it was named by John Graves Simcoe after a tidal estuary in northeast England, was called Rivière Taronto after the portage trail.
As the Humber carried south the water of countless creeks and streams, it also brought the Toronto name to the Lake Ontario shore.The first colonial settlement on this part of Lake Ontario was Fort Rouillé, a French trading post depicted in drawings with a high wooden fence at what is now Exhibition Place, just beyond the foot of Dufferin Street. The Seneca-Mohawk villages of Teiaiagon and Ganatsekwyagon (precise English spellings vary) were within today's city limits at the mouths of the Humber and Rouge rivers respectively.
The small complex - alternatively known as Fort Toronto - was founded in 1750 and contained a soldier's quarters, kitchen, a forge, and an ammunition store. It and Magasin Royale, another earlier fortification on the Humber River near Old Mill, were built to attack vessels servicing a rival British trading post at Oswego, N.Y..
Rouillé was abandoned and burned by its own troops retreating at the end of the Battle of Quebec in 1759, a key battle that led to France ceding much of its land claims in North America.34 years later, John Graves Simcoe, ordered a garrison built at what is now Fort York at the mouth of Garrison Creek. The English military leader believed the location inside the enclosed Toronto harbour would be easy to defend. The Islands wouldn't become separated from the mainland for another 65 years.
The town of Dublin, renamed York by Simcoe for Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of then-King George III, developed on the waterfront to the east of the military base.Prior to the construction of Fort York, a second encampment would be built on the other side of Garrison Creek. This short-lived base was destroyed in 1813 during the Battle of York. During the fight, the British army were forced to retreat to Kingston, leaving its armed citizens in the streets.
Before abandoning their garrison, the British set light to their artillery storage area and a ship, the HMS Sir Isaac Brock, under construction at the docks. The gigantic explosion that tore through the fort as the gunpowder ignited killed 38 soldiers, including American leader Zebulon M. Pike, and wounded 222 more.
The Americans occupied York for less than a week before deciding to leave with goods looted from across the town. Despite the wishes of their leader, the Americans raided and burned several buildings, including the town's printing press and Legislative Assembly building for Upper Canada, located on Front Street between today's Berkeley and Parliament streets.
The town was retaken by the British when the Americans departed for their original position further down the shore. The returning the troops built what is present day Fort York near the destroyed garrison and repelled several raids in 1813 and 1814.The town of York recovered from its temporary occupation and grew to surround the old fort. In 1834 the province's legislative council, the leaders of the area around what had become the largest city in Upper Canada, voted to incorporate the community as a city. A group of local citizens thought then was as good a time as any to rebrand the community.
The name Toronto, then recognized as an alternative name for the region, was favoured over York partly because the original York in England was considered so grim.
William Bent Berczy, a member of the Legislative Committee representing Kent, said Toronto had a "musical sound" and was " in every respect much better" than the original title. The others largely agreed, and the city of Toronto was officially founded that same year.
The York name lives on in East York, North York, York Region and the countless other York-related streets and communities in the GTA, while Toronto has continued to travel. Torontos in the United States, Australia, and U.K. all derive their name from that narrow stretch of water near Orillia.






http://www.blogto.com/city/2013/03/how_toronto_got_its_name/

Impressive Water Display at Osaka Station City

1inShaThis mesmerizing water display created by Koei Industry is located at the Osaka Station City shopping mall in Japan. It uses water to display the time, temperature and even artwork.







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http://enpundit.com

Kids Pirate Ship Bedroom Design

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Designer Steve Kuhl built this magnificent children’s bedroom, which was created to emulate a pirate ship for a lucky six year old boy. via apartment therapy