Blog

How Green Does Your Garden Show?

July 25, 2011 - As a realtor operating in both the freehold and condominium markets, one shortfall a lot of sellers make is investing insufficient capital and landscape design elements to showcase their outdoor space. Whether you have a small patio or a private back yard, homeowners would be wise to visually merchandize the opportunities and benefits…
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Welcoming Habitat For Humanity

January 26, 2011 - Back in 1999 (see photo above), after three years of a detailed retrofit, the third adaptive reuse conversion I was engaged on became registered as 'The Movie House' condominium. Located in Toronto's Little Italy on the northwest corner of College Street and Euclid Avenue, this former Metropolitan Review Cinema became an intimate 18 unit…
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Fantastic El Cheapo Movers

January 12, 2011 - As a realtor I've been hesitant to refer a moving company for quite some time. I've learned that any firm is only as good as its employees, and in an industry with an enormous turnover of staff, it makes it risky choosing who to hire. However, despite the company's name which I…
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I’d Go Green Over Grey Anyday!

November 18, 2010 - I was recently in a meeting with fab Toronto green architect Paul Dowsett of Sustainable.TO, where we were pop-wowing on the re-imagination of a vintage soda bottling plant into lofty living spaces. The owner was proposing all sorts of visionary ideas, including the use of fibre optics to distribute natural light and vertical gardens…
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In The Lounge Of Luxury

October 14, 2010 - Ten months ago I decided to finish my loft in The Button Factory and take it to 'the next level', meaning I was actually going to complete the space and make it more of what I'd always dreamed of rather than what I had settled for. It was an enormous…
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I Love Trinity Bellwoods Park

September 20, 2010 - This past Saturday I bee-lined it to back-to-back appointments under ominous clouds threatening to rain. From the start of my 10am appointment til my last at 6pm, I was almost of the verge of a nervous breakdown for all the traffic and delays. With the Gardiner Expressway being closed for maintenance and repair, it reeked havoc…
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Wonderful Wallcovering

August 16, 2010 - For a good chunk of my adult life, those who subscribed to the purity of contemporary architecture and design considered wallpaper a bit of a decorating no-no. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Canadian and American Shelter magazines like Metropolitan Home (now defunct though archived), Dwell Magazine or Canadian House…
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Fall 2010 Forecast

August 09, 2010 - Ok, so here we are in the heat of summer when real estate sales are traditionally their slowest and the media is making dire predictions on where the market is headed. Here's my two cents from the real estate trenches! First, Toronto Life Magazine did a good job wigging us out with their July article called 'Bubble Trouble'.…
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Pretense-Free Snob Appeal

July 29, 2010 - Snob 388 Carlaw Avenue #202F Toronto, Ontario, M4M 2T4 Tel: 416.778.8778Fax: 416.778.0606 I love to entertain. In fact, I have been gathering friends and family around my table to feast and laugh for almost twenty-five years. I'm not a chef by any means, but I have learned that the key to a great…
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Kitchen A GoGo

July 27, 2010 - So it's been six months since I slipped into Makeover Madness and decided to upgrade my loft from boho to chic. Not that it was an instant decision. It started with a desire to finally unpack my cd collection and boxes of books that were gathering dust in my storage…
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