Preventative Home Maintenance Tips You Shouldn’t Ignore

September 25, 2017 by Kathryn 1 Comment

Home maintenance is one of the most crucial tasks for any homeowner. It’s all about maintaining your house, fixtures and fittings to ensure your home stays safe and secure. Of course, there are numerous house maintenance tasks to be done, so the list actually depends on your home.

That being said, there are some basic home maintenance jobs most homeowners should be doing regularly. And if you’re wondereding where to start, these are key preventative maintenance tips you shouldn’t ignore: [Read more…]

Easy Ways to Make Your Home More Kid-Friendly

April 20, 2017 by Kathryn Leave a Comment

Combining décor and functionality is hard enough, but adding kids into the mix makes home design feel almost impossible. Maintaining a clean space, providing comfort and adding safety features are just a few of the ways you can make your home more kid-friendly. Keep these facets in mind and transform your home into a safe, happy shelter for your entire family.

Furniture That Provides Storage Space

As any parent with young children can attest, it’s easy for the living room to turn from elegant sitting room to toy box overflow. It’s important to look for furniture that does double duty when it comes to style and storage. From ottomans that open up to provide the perfect book storing nook, to side tables that feature drawers where you can toss pencils and crayons that aren’t getting used, looking for furniture that provides storage solutions is essential. Shop for storage furniture on CrateandBarrel.com. [Read more…]

3 Easy Ways to Share Your Childhood with Your Kids #StreamTeam

February 22, 2016 by Kathryn 1 Comment

One of my favourite things about being a parent is getting to share some of my own childhood with my boys. From food to activities to television shows, it’s such a great feeling seeing my boys get excited about the same things that used to fill my heart with happiness at their age. Looking for ways to share a few special moments with your kids? These are my top three ways to let my kids see what I loved most as a child!

Grandma’s Special Dinners

When I was young, my mom had a few meals that were only made on special occasions. Her famous Shrimp Curry Crepes, luscious Spinach Lasagna, Chocolate Chip Meringues…we knew that our favourite dishes were pretty much only going to be served when we made a special request on our birthdays or other occasions. Now, I share those foods and memories with my boys by occasionally whipping up some of the same meals for our own dinners! And in a slight rebellion, I usually do it on an ordinary day instead of a special occasion…to make that ordinary day special! [Read more…]

Get the Perfect Breeze in Your House with the Ozeri 3X Tower Fan

November 5, 2015 by Kathryn 24 Comments

I’ve spent my entire life in a house without central air conditioning and since my previous home was over 100 years old, that meant that summer could be sweltering! I eventually bought a window air conditioner for the master bedroom because it was the only way I could get any sleep on a hot summer’s night. And for every other part of the house, I used fans.

Now my boys, my significant other and I are living in an apartment as we await an upcoming move out of the province. And I’ve found that fans in the rooms are equally important here. For one thing, the small space can get quite stuffy when the weather gets too cold to open the windows. And for another, the smells from other apartments often seem to waft into our own. While some smells are fairly pleasant, others are horrible!

That’s why I was thrilled about the chance to review the Ozeri 3x Tower Fan. This fan features a multitude of settings and three independently controllable fans in one unit. Setting up the fan was a simple matter of screwing the tower onto the sturdy base and took just seconds. Then I turned the fan upright, plugged it into the wall and got ready to test it out. [Read more…]

Keep Your Closet Organized with a Shoe Rack from Ohuhu

October 5, 2015 by Kathryn 2 Comments

When it comes to keeping my house clean and organized, I’ve learned that having the right tools for the job can make a world of difference. And our front entryway was the perfect example of why sometimes an inexpensive product is a must-have for keeping a space neat and tidy. Our shoes and boots were taking over the small closet space inside the door and an Ohuhu 20-Pair Shoe Rack seemed like the perfect solution for keeping our shoes organized, but still accessible.

The shoe rack was compactly packaged and very simple to put together. I just inserted the bars into the plastic end pieces, hammered each connection lightly to lock the bars in place and set the rack up in the entryway. Then it was time to fill it with shoes and get our space organized!

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Treat Mom To A Clean House on Mother’s Day with a Special Offer from Helpling.com

May 6, 2015 by Kathryn 38 Comments

I always find it interesting how I never realized until I became a parent just how much my mom did for me when I was growing up. Raising children is rewarding, but it’s also exhausting and a mother’s work is never done when it comes to caring for them! This Mother’s Day, Helpling.com, a fabulous Toronto cleaning company dedicated to making a mom’s busy life easier, has created an adorable video celebrating just how much mothers do for us. Take a look and see what you think!

Enjoy Mother’s day with Helpling Canada

Helpling is a new online service that takes some of the workload off of Mom with its innovative home cleaning services. Instead of worrying about interviewing cleaners, coordinating schedules or managing cash payments, just visit Helpling.com! The company’s experienced and insured home cleaners are standing by, ready to get your house looking spick and span when you’re short on time. [Read more…]

Sharing My Childhood Memories with New Air Wick® Life Scents™ #MyScentStory

April 9, 2015 by Kathryn 24 Comments

My home may be old and need a lot of updates, but it’s also full of memories. The house in which I’m raising my boys was my home as a child and every room is full of stories from my own youthful days. In a few months, I’ll be moving away and leaving this memory-filled home once and for all. And as I show the house off to potential buyers, I find that the memories are flooding back even faster.

This century-old two-story house isn’t very big, but its cozy feel is partly what I love about it. When I was a child, one of my favourite activities was curling up in a corner of the living room with a good book while my mom baked up something delicious. Even though she worked all week long, she always made time to cook and bake on weekends. Being born in Finland, some of her favourite recipes were ones from that country and the sweet, spicy smell of Piparkakut, spiced Christmas cookies, or Pulla, a cardamom-scented yeast bread, are ones that instantly put a smile on my face.

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Furnish Your House with the Trendiest New Styles at Leon’s Furniture #LeonsNewLooks

October 3, 2014 by Kathryn 54 Comments

For the last few years, I’ve slowly been updating my century-old house and it is no small job. Walls have been replaced, new flooring has been put down, wiring has sometimes needed work…the process has sometimes seemed endless but bit by bit the house is looking better and better. And while some of the work is tiring, some is actually quite enjoyable. I may not enjoy pulling down lathe and plaster walls, for example, but I absolutely love picking out new furniture for an updated room!

My last major furniture update was new beds and mattresses for my boys and it was so much fun setting up the pieces in their rooms and putting on new bedding for both of them. Even better, since replacing their worn-out coil mattresses with new, comfortable memory foam mattresses, both Zackary and Benjamin have been sleeping better too!

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