renovations

For Moving, Renovations and More, Life is Easier with a BigSteelBox

September 12, 2017 by Kathryn 16 Comments

For the last four months or so, my husband and I have been eagerly involved in the process of building our forever house. Sitting on six acres of beautiful Saskatchewan prairie, it’s a dream in every way and we can’t wait to move in.

Because of that, we wanted to start organizing and preparing for the move so that when our house was ready, we could get into it as soon as possible. But with the house still under construction, there was no way to do that since we had no way to move and store our packed items.

Then we found the answer…in the form of a BigSteelBox!

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Tackling Home Renovations with Help from Canadian Tire-Giveaway

October 18, 2013 by Kathryn 333 Comments

One of my favourite things about being a homeowner is updating the look of my home, and with a house that’s over a century old, there is a lot to be updated! Room by room, I have been tackling projects and modernizing the look of my house, and recently Canadian Tire gave me the chance to update one of the rooms that I’ve been longing to tackle for months…my living room.

living room renovation before — This was the living room before the renovation. Since it was in pretty rough shape, I just covered it in kids’ artwork as I pleased!

The living room is fairly small, like most rooms in the house. The floor was covered with the same carpet that had been in the house when I was born, making it about 35 years old. Half the walls were drywall but the other half were still lathe and plaster. The room had been painted back when I was a teenager, but the beige shade was outdated and overall look of the room was rather haphazard and old fashioned. I couldn’t wait to tackle the job and turn the room into a comfortable and modern area for spending time with my boys.

canadian tire supplies — My assortment of renovation supplies from Canadian Tire!

Canadian Tire supplied me with a new power drill and an assortment of supplies to upgrade the look of my room and I couldn’t wait to get started. Since I was doing all the work myself, I decided to tackle the room one wall at a time rather than try to do too much at once. It was the right decision, because even repairing the damage to the existing walls was quite a job! But as soon as the first wall was washed, repaired, sanded and painted, I could tell that the work was going to be well worth it. The change in the look of the room was phenomenal!

living room — The bannister before and after painting. Benjamin had so much fun helping Mom!

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Wordless Wednesday with Linky-Cupboard Doors

April 24, 2012 by Kathryn 39 Comments

man fixing cupboard doors — When we moved into our century-old house, the badly stained and worn cupboard doors were all off and awaiting refinishing. Now finally, thanks to my wonderful husband, my disorganized cupboards are where they belong; hidden behind doors!

If you have a Wordless Wednesday post, feel free to link it up below; I’d love to check it out!

3M ScotchBlue Painter’s Tapes with Edge-Lock Paint Line Protector-Review

October 23, 2011 by Kathryn Leave a Comment

Since buying our own home back in August of last year, my husband and I have quickly learned that when you’re a homeowner, life is one big renovation. Especially if you happen to buy a house that is over a century old and hasn’t been cosmetically updated since the 1970s. From insulating to replacing flooring to updating appliances, there’s no end to the work that we have to do. And a lot of the time, painting is a big part of the updating process.

3m scotchblue painters tape edge-lock To get the results we want, high-quality paint is important, but high-quality painter’s tape is important too. We’ve had a chance to use a few different brands and varieties of tape during our many renovation projects, and until we did I never realized what a big difference the right tape could make. 3M has been providing professionals and homeowners alike with high-quality painter’s tape for years and when I got the chance to review tape featuring the company’s new Edge-Lock Paint Line Protector technology for perfect lines with no paint bleed, I couldn’t wait to test it out.

We’ve been gradually renovating our youngest son’s room and I planned to test the tape in there when we started to do some painting but, as so often happens when working on a house, we ended up changing our plans. My husband decided to replace our old and leaky front door instead. He had a beautiful metal exterior door that he had been given, but the previous owners had painted half the door black. It looked completely awful and he decided the time had come to sand and repaint the door so that he could install it.

Preparing the door for painting took most of the work, but the painting itself was a breeze with the painter’s tape. My husband especially liked the wide tape, which saved him the trouble of cutting paper to cover the windows. The Edge-Lock Paint Line Protector was so effective and when my husband had peeled off the tape, the door looked brand new.

We are still planning to finish my youngest son’s room before Christmas and when the time comes to paint, I know the job will be easier thanks to 3M. I can’t wait to get creative in the room and try some different styles and painting techniques! Check out the new 3M ScotchBlue Painter’s Tapes with Edge-Lock for yourself and see how creative you can be when paint bleed becomes a thing of the past.

Buy It: 3M ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape can be purchased at home centres and hardware stores across Canada

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