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By Amie Lesyk

With the summer months behind us homeowners are heading back indoors, moving interior reno projects to the top slot on our to-do lists. While repairing leaky taps and draughty windows may be practical, tackling unsatisfying decor is far more enjoyable.

Refreshing your interior doesn’t have to be an ordeal that takes over the entire house. Making simple changes can completely change a room’s existing palette, injecting renewed energy into the space. While your painted or (shudder) faux finished walls may have made the cut last year, this year you’re aching for a change—and rightly so.
The ultimate quick-fix room-renewal is the new generation of wallpaper. Modern patterns, textures and colours range from traditionally-inspired to graphic and striking. While the material itself may pay homage to yesteryear, this is definitely not your mother’s wallpaper.

Differences between then and now are not only visual, but practical, too. The ease of putting up and taking down wallpaper, the gorgeous designs including textures and metallics and trends in usage—mainly the fact you don’t need to wallpaper a whole room, but can use it simply for an accent wall are all traits of wallpaper’s new school.
“People are doing more in the way of one feature wall,” explains Karen Kuchciak, from Western Paint and Wallcovering, about today’s trends. “This gives you option to more easily change your mind down the road.”

There are still a variety of types of wallpaper to choose from which range in the method of how they are put up, so keep that in mind when shopping around or if you plan on installing the paper yourself.

Some of the more hassle-free wallpapers include Graham & Brown’s Paste the Wall technology. The wallpaper is hung dry onto a pre-pasted wall, and later—if the homeowner wants a change—the sheets can be removed in one simple motion.

A funky, new development is paintable, textured wallpapers, like modern anaglypta, that can also be hung au naturel, and have textures ranging from subtle texture to flowing lines and modular shapes. If you’re afraid to play with bold designs or colours, you can always opt for fun texture to add style to a room.
Wallpaper designs have gone in and out fashion since the Middle Ages. Nowadays, the miniature floral has been replaced with everything from classic flock-styles to organic shapes, high-contrast elements, as well as brushed-metallics and delicate, muted, colour combinations.

“Patterns are bigger—there are larger repeats. It’s back to the larger bolder designs. It has become almost a wall of art,” says Kuchciak, who admits to being in the industry since the days when wallpaper trends included “when people were doing all four walls with tiny flowers.”

Deciding where and how much you need is key to incorporating a wallpaper pattern into your room. Overdoing it can make it hard

to coordinate with other art or furniture, so wallpapering an accent wall will add a touch of flair while not entirely dominating the
space.

Choose a pattern or design that compliments the space and incorporates existing colours in your room, unless you are opting for an entire makeover. While it’s fun to peruse patterns online, to get an exact idea of the size and colours of patterns you should check out selections at local stores.

And if you can’t commit to a whole wall, wall-paper makes eye-catching art as large panels or in decorative frames.

For more information on the wallpapers pictured here, visit www.grahambrown.com.

Your House vs. Winter

A guide to help you do battle

By Amie Lesyk 

As painful as it may be to discuss the impending cold, taking some preventative measures by gearing up on the home front will make for a more pleasant winter season and help alleviate any mid-winter woes.

Making sure your home is ready to battle the wet and freezing cold is vital to your pocketbook and the long-term structural integrity of your house. Procrastination in this department is bound to bring expensive and time consuming results. While new homeowners may not have a clue, longtime homeowners may have fallen behind on their annual upkeep or may not be covering all the bases. To help you out we’ve compiled a list of the most important to-dos. So, grab our checklist and start figuring out how to dole out the duties.

Lifesavers

Setting an annual date to check up on your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors is necessary. Make sure the batteries are charged and test the alarms. If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector, get one. Carbon monoxide buildup is more likely in the winter when houses tend to be sealed-up tight. Fire extinguishers need to be checked on a regular basis. Make sure yours are accessible, everyone knows their location, and that they’re charged and ready to use. Timing this date with a holiday or fall birthday will help you remember each year.

Chimney Sweep

While you may not get Dick Van Dyke à la Mary Poppins, chimney sweeps do exist and you should call one. Overlooking maintenance on your chimney and fireplace could result in a chimney fire. Particularly, the chimney needs to be cleaned and swept before the first fire of the season. You never know what is blocking the chimney and you don’t want to take the risk of sending toxic smoke into your home. An inspection and cleaning should take place annually.

Fall Cleaning

Undeniably, you are going to be spending a lot of time indoors for the next several months, so now is the best time to get down on your hands and knees and clean every corner. Now is a great time to de-clutter by packing away your summer gear.

Furnace Checkup

Considering you’ve just scrubbed down your house, you don’t really want musty, dust-clogged filters in your furnace. Replace the filters. Consider having your ducts vacuumed to get rid of dust and pet dander. Your furnace should also be inspected on a regular basis. Check with your furnace manufacturer for a recommendation on how often it needs to be inspected.

Gear Up

Get your winter gear ahead of time so you’re ready to do battle with the first big snowfall. Ergonomic shovels and sand are handy items to have in the house. Mail carriers also appreciate if your front walk is not an icy death trap.

No Swimming in the Basement!

Try to not be one of the unlucky ones next spring, whose basements are transformed into the nastiest of wading pools. If your home is newer, take a walk around the foundation and check for spots where backfill may have settled. Fill in the area and slope the ground away from the foundation. For older homes, take care of any areas where puddles tend to form near the foundation.

Outdoor Faucets and Pipes

Disconnect your garden hose and drain your faucet to prevent costly damage. If ice forms inside the hose or faucet, the pipes could burst. Some faucets have an inside valve that needs to be turned off to drain the pipes. If there are any water pipes exposed to cold around your house, make sure to insulate them appropriately. If you have a sprinkler system, it too needs to be drained.

Get in the Gutter

While traditionally not a favourite task of home-owners, it’s a necessary one. Cleaning the gunk from your gutters and downspouts before the snow flies will help proper drainage during the spring melt. Wait until all the trees have shed their leaves before emptying the eaves of their debris and be careful. How many fell-off-the-ladder stories have you heard? Too many.

Roof Requirements

Don’t assume all is well with your roof. Get up there (carefully) and check for any damaged or loose shingles and loose eaves or downspouts. What might be a minimal, easy-to-fix problem now, can turn into a huge problem if melting snow permeates your roof. Remove snow from your roof while it’s still manageable. Waiting until the snow is too heavy and wet will make removing it near impossible and the weight puts dangerous stress on your roof’s structure.

Window and Door Duty

If you want to save some moola this winter be wary of drafts around your doors and windows. Weather stripping might need to be replaced or you may even want to consider new storm windows and doors, if yours are older than you are. There are several other ways to tackle drafts, including caulking around window and door glass and trim, door sweeps, removable draft seals or the window-covering plastic. Make sure you still have full access to one or two windows and be sure to wipe away moisture buildup to prevent mold. Also check for cracks around pipes or outlets that enter or exit exterior walls.

More to think about...

• Check your outside dryer vent for plugs or damage. You don’t need any creepy crawlies making their way into your home via the vent.

• Sump pump pipes can freeze, so disconnect the flexible pipe outside and put down a splash pad, such as a plastic sheet, under the discharge hose.

• Cover up your air conditioner to keep it safe from the elements.



APARTMENTS AND CONDOS

Thought you were going to get away chore-less on this one? Not so. Here are a few things for apartment and condo dwellers to consider when approaching the winter season:

Vintage Efficiency

Winnipeg has no shortage of character apartments and condos and you may be in one with the most ancient of windows. If drafts concern you, you can caulk them or ask your landlord to take care of the problem.

Carbon Monoxide Monitoring

While your suite is likely equipped with a smoke detector that’s regularly checked,
you may not have a carbon monoxide detector. Consider if you would benefit
from getting one.

Cleaning Spree

Knowing that you are going to be breeze-free for a while, it might be wise to do a serious scrub-down of your space. If you are packing up summer gear and storing it, consider cedar balls in lieu of the dreaded mothball smell.

Dry Spell

Often with the cold, comes the dryness, so you may want to think about getting a tabletophumidifier. Some heating systems, such as radiators and oil furnaces, are more prone to create dry air. A bit of humidity in winter can help you sleep and is good for your throat and skin.