Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
Can opener can do more than open cans
QUESTION -- Whenever I purchase household items that have thick packaging encasing them, it takes me a mountain of time and frustration to remove the plastic. Often my scissors can't cut through the thick plastic. Do you have any ideas to make this easier? Gloria (Grand Pointe)
ANSWER -- Run a manual can opener along the edge of the plastic. You won't believe how much easier this task becomes.
QUESTION -- We installed new appliances recently, and I was able to remove the thin film protective coating on all but the microwave. The remaining film on the microwave seems thinner than the other protective coatings that I removed. Any suggestions on how to remove the remaining film? Jill (Winnipeg)
ANSWER -- Without knowing the microwave brand, I can tell you some manufacturers install thin plastic film that is peelable only when certain screws are removed. Other microwaves have a thin plastic coating that is added as a permanent part to the microwave. Please double-check the manufacturer's instructions. If the film is removable, here are a few tips sent in by other readers in this predicament: Wipe the microwave with cooking spray and scrape with a plastic credit card, or wipe with household ammonia, peel and wash with dish soap and water. Test on an inconspicuous area first.
QUESTION -- I can't seem to make my white socks remain white after laundering. Any suggestions? Urma (Neepawa)
ANSWER - Some lower-quality socks pill and darken after laundering. Purchase medium-quality socks and toss them in a pot with one tablespoon lemon juice or a half lemon. Boil for five minutes. Cool and wash as normal.
QUESTION -- I have used the same plastic containers for 25 years, and they are still in good shape. The problem is they carry a food odour I can't get rid of. I need your help! Michelle (Winnipeg)
ANSWER -- Use a pastry brush and smear the plastic interior with either mustard or toothpaste. Make sure you cover every corner. Fill the container with water and leave for a few hours. The smell should be gone. If the containers continue to smell, stuff them with crumpled newspaper, seal and leave for a few days. Remove the newspaper.
Manitobans share
-- To remove clown makeup from clothing, wash the area with glycerin bar soap and water. Submitted By: Dee Dee the Clown, Winnipeg
-- I got in touch with you once before on how to simply tell if an egg is hard-boiled or raw. I now have another tip for you. If you have a bottle you would like to remove the label from without frustration, it is easy to do, and very environmental. Take a tissue that is wide enough to cover the bottle and long enough to completely wrap around it. Soak it with just enough Williams Lectric Shave so it is well soaked. Cover with a plastic film and leave sit for five or six hours. Depending on the glue and length of time soaking, the label should slide off as if it were held in place by oil, with little, if any, subsequent cleanup. If I a guy can use it on his face before shaving, it ought not be too harmful like other products! Submitted By: Alan, Winnipeg
-- An easy and inexpensive way to absorb greasy hair is to rub cornstarch into your scalp. Submitted By: Brittany
-- I used to have difficulty opening jars until I came across this easy solution. Secure one elastic band around the middle of the jar. Secure another elastic band around the lid. The rubber makes it easy to grip and turn. Submitted By: Manuela
I enjoy your questions and tips, keep them coming. Need a presenter on the topics effective speaking or the power of words? Check out: Reena.ca
Renovation & Design
Avoiding mould grief in basement insulation
111I am currently developing my basement. My home was built in 1974. The previous owner had already framed the exterior walls and installed pink R12 fibreglass insulation along with a vapour barrier, probably around seven years ago. The vapour barrier was not sealed with acoustic sealant, only stapled. I have also installed a high-efficiency furnace approximately five years ago, which may have contributed to elevated moisture in my home. I do not have a fresh-air intake, either.
During the development process I had to remove some of the vapour barrier and insulation in order to attach interior walls. I immediately encountered mould in the top two feet of the wall, especially on the northern sides. The mould was on the entire wall, and some of the other walls as well, but even more concentrated in the corners where it's coldest. Since that point, I have cleaned the walls with bleach and water.
I am currently at the point where I need to insulate again. My initial approach was going to be to use pink fibreglass again, with the vapour barrier on the warm side with acoustic sealant. However, since I really don't want to create problems again, I am thinking my approach would be to spray one inch of closed cell spray foam, from Home Depot, followed by R12 fibreglass and no vapour barrier. I am wondering what your thoughts on this will be for the our climate here in Winnipeg. Your feedback on my situation will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you, Dino Catelanis
A: Basement moisture problems from insulating the inside of the foundation walls are one of the most common questions I receive, mainly due to the mould concern you have noted. There are different schools of thought on how to successfully deal with this difficult issue, but the best solution is often not within a homeowner's budget. I will offer you an option that may satisfy your needs at a more reasonable cost.
To properly address this issue, you must first understand the way air movement occurs inside the wall cavity in this location. Heated house air will normally leak underneath or through the bottom of the wall assembly in a basement. This air contains moisture and heat and will naturally travel upward behind or through the fibreglass insulation. This air will rise, by convection, until the point it loses most of its heat. Often, this is not until it reaches the top of the wall, where the floor joists attach to the foundation walls. When this air cools sufficiently, it will reach its dew point, where the water vapour contained within will condense. When this happens, the insulation and/or foundation wall will become wet. If this occurs in winter, the inside face of the foundation wall may be below 0 C, and the moisture will freeze. This will create a layer of frost or ice, which will melt when warmer spring weather arrives.
The typical solution to these convective air currents in perimeter basement wall assemblies is to seal the wall as tightly as possible, especially at the top and bottom. This is normally accomplished with 6mm polyethylene sheathing and acoustical sealant caulking.
While this can be fairly effective, it is not a perfect solution, and air may still penetrate the wall cavity through fastener holes, electrical boxes, or small gaps anywhere in the assembly. If this air leaks into the wall, we must then try to prevent it from easily moving through or behind the insulation. This is difficult with fibreglass batts because they have very little resistance to air and are designed to trap air to provide the best thermal resistance. Also, they have a tendency to adhere to the cold foundation wall, if any frost develops, preventing quick drying. This can provide an ideal climate for mould to grow on any dust, dirt, or debris in this area.
Because of the "sticking" phenomenon with fibreglass batts, some authorities and contractors have attempted to minimize this issue by leaving a small gap behind the insulation. While this method may help moisture inside the wall dry more quickly, it is a major mistake, in my view. Any air space in this location will provide perfect conditions for convective air currents and almost guarantees condensation, frost and mould growth. To solve this issue, the wall cavity should be always be completely filled with insulation, preferably a type that does not allow air movement.
Your solution of using high-density blown-in foam in minimal thickness will address this issue but will not be thick enough to provide a complete air/vapour barrier. If you were to install three to four times that thickness, it would work, fill the entire wall cavity and eliminate the need for poly sheathing inside the studs. Your way, 6mm poly would still be needed and you would have a substantial extra cost for the foam. A better option might be to install a thin layer of expanded polystyrene insulation on the foundation wall. This rigid material is moisture-resistant and allows some air and moisture movement, but not nearly as much as fibreglass. Those properties should allow you to complete the rest of the wall assembly with the typical batt and poly method, without as much concern about convective air currents. The key to this method is doing a really good job of sealing the rigid insulation and stud walls along the bottom and top to prevent air intrusion, as well as the poly on the inside of the studs. You could complete this by blowing several centimetres of foam at the top of the wall, and in between the floor joists, to seal that critical area.
Your proposed method of re-insulating your basement walls may be somewhat effective in preventing moisture and mould growth, but you will still need a poly air/vapour barrier, and may not be cost-effective. A modified version of your plan, using less costly rigid foam sheathing and less blown foam, may be a better bet.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the past president of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors -- Manitoba (cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at 204-291-5358 or check out his website at trainedeye.ca.
trainedeye@iname.com
Renovation & Design
Exotic locales inspire gardeners
"I am out of the country until the snow disappears and will have no access to my emails or phone during that time."
It's a message that resonates at this time of year as wanderlust fuels the desire to travel. What exotic locales enticed you to escape, if only for a short while, from our Manitoba winter? Was it the chance to indulge in an overseas tour of remote villages and vineyards or a trek along wild flower walks to discover rare and spectacular flora in a mountainous region? Or are you the intrepid urban adventurer?
Whether a select number of your nights have been spent in a secluded villa in a quaint European village or a week's worth of halcyon days found you cycling through the warmest states south of the U.S. border, your mind's eye will likely have captured images that will inspire your garden design.
But can Eden be recreated in our cold, short-season climate? Or in a tiny, suburban landscape surrounded by modern, box-like houses clad in stucco or vinyl siding? Yes, to both questions.
Let restraint and subtlety, though, serve as your guide. Translating fresh inspiration, whether it is experienced by transplanting yourself to a foreign setting or via armchairtourist.com, into a blueprint for your entire garden isn't necessary or even advised. Introducing even a hint of the mood and magic from another locale can have a dramatic impact on your surroundings.
Shelley Walker's St. Vital garden shows the influence of her travels through the skilful use of textures and colours inspired by the geological richness of other regions, near and far. Rocks, in particular small, rounded ones, have proven to be an irresistible drawing card wherever she goes. There are rocks in her garden from the Bay of Fundy, New Zealand, Australia, England, and many parts of the United States and Canada, including the Arctic.
When Walker visited Germany, she was captivated by a fan-shaped pattern used in ancient cobblestone streets and alleyways. Upon her return home, she and her husband researched available paving materials, then laid out a sidewalk design that mimicked the same Old World pattern.
The sight of a gorgeous climbing rose on the grounds of romantic Jardin de Bagatelle in Paris inspired Walker to plant a climbing rose against an obelisk in her backyard. She chose John Davis from the Canadian Explorer series, a hardy climbing rose with double pink blooms that was specially developed at the Morden Arboretum Research Station, so it is well-suited to survive our Manitoba winters.
"There are many other inspirations from our travels," says Walker, "that are not in my garden but perhaps someday." Most notably, Walker recalls the pebble mosaics in the Chinese garden courtyards at the Sun Yat Sen garden in Vancouver and at the Floriade, an international horticulture expo held every 10 years in the Netherlands.
Spring in the Netherlands attracts visitors from around the world. Irene Friesen travelled from her home in Pinawa in March of 2012 so she could catch the first colourful expression of masses of flowering bulbs in vivid bloom at Keukenhof near Amsterdam. Her trip of a lifetime included visits to Malta, Germany and Switzerland.
Keukenhof, known as the Garden of Europe, stirred her senses. "If you travel to see only one garden," says Friesen, "Keukenhof will exceed your expectations."
Friesen says there are three garden attributes that linger with her. First, sculpture and gardens are partners, she says. "In Europe," describes Friesen, "there has been a major philosophical shift away from romanticism. The contemporary garden is an unusual synthesis of satirical, futuristic, urbane and joyous expression."
When Friesen, who has created her own designs as a potter, stepped into a small, treed garden room dominated by a dragon sculpture, her inspiration was not to mimic the design, but rather she viewed it as a whimsical reminder all of us have the capacity to breathe fire about the issues we are passionate about. And to also be the friendly dragon that plays with the children who enjoy our gardens.
Friesen was struck by the functionality of the gardens she visited. Beehives in city gardens are a common sight. Herbs and vegetables grown in public gardens are used by chefs in recipes at garden restaurants. Friesen took special note of the rows of trimmed boxwood used to separate square plantings of herbs as a tool to control cross-pollination.
Some gardeners will space their plants such as French thyme a distance away from another herb such as Italian thyme to avoid spreading dominant flavours. Friesen plans to borrow from the idea of creating borders of small clipped hedges for her own herb garden, but instead of boxwood, which is not reliable in our climate, she will substitute a variety of barberry, a dense, small-leaved ornamental shrub with an added bonus -- deer resistance. Cherry Bomb barberry, a new listing for 2015, for example, is a low-growing shrub with crimson foliage and bright red berries in fall and winter.
Friesen is introducing herself to the ecological design principles that form the basis of permaculture, a sustainable practice that has a presence in most of the European gardens she visited. She observed that not only is close attention paid in European gardens to companion planting as a non-chemical means to reduce the use of pesticides, but also there is often the close proximity of wetlands to formal gardens.
To North Americans, a wetland may seem a strange bedfellow to a beautiful formal garden, but Friesen says a wetland invites biodiversity so is viewed as an essential partner rather than an ugly slough with tall reeds. Of course, in a European setting, wetlands are less likely to be home to hordes of mosquitoes, adds Friesen.
Last fall Friesen, who is completing a master of arts in integrated studies, returned to Malta to make a presentation at an academic conference. Malta is home to some of the oldest free-standing structures on Earth, which have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Drawn to visit on numerous occasions, Friesen hopes to create her own outdoor garden room that is oriented to align with the rising sun during the equinoxes and solstices.
Key to this unusual project will be a specially crafted natural doorway that will direct light to a specific spot in her garden room. It will take some doing to get it right, but the mere thought of achieving it is a tantalizing one.
Keith Lemkey's travels have taken him to almost every corner of the world. A landscape designer and owner of Lemkey Landscape Design, he has taken thousands of photos that have served as inspiration to draw upon when he is designing a landscape.
Architectural elements such as a beautiful doorway spotted in a Barcelona neighbourhood, the magnificent, mind-boggling scale of Versailles with its knot gardens, parterres and topiaries, a boulevard planting in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a Japanese garden showcased at the Epcot Walt Disney World Resort in Florida -- these are some of the sights he recalls again and again. What play in his mind most are the different textures and balance, flow and continuity of how things repeat themselves in a landscape while adhering to the principles of good design.
Replicating something can be based on the same principle but may depend on the use of a different mass and scale without sacrificing functionality and practicality. How you interact with your space and how one aspect lends itself to another, says Lemkey, is important so they complement one another.
In our globalized plant world, very little is inaccessible. Desire something in your garden from a faraway place? Barbara Jean Jackson, a Brandon master gardener, will introduce a different gene pool into her hybridizing efforts this year with a 2011 miniature tall bearded iris variety called Thruppence by well-known English hybridizer Olga Wells. Ordered from the British Iris Society, Jackson has already given the seeds their cold-water soak. She will plant the germinated seeds into her garden by early June for an interesting, new addition to her garden.
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Notice:
Pembina Active Living's (55+) Still Bloomin' gardening club welcomes Len Giesbrecht on Thursday, Feb. 26, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Topic: Irises and Daylilies. Grace Christian Church, 50 Barnes St. For more information email info@pal55plus.com or call 204-946-0839.
colleenizacharias@gmail.com
Renovation & Design
Want parents close by? Build a granny suite
Fifteen years ago, it was frowned upon to apply for a permit to build an addition called a granny suite. In those days, the preferred nomenclature employed by the City of Winnipeg was servants' quarters.
Apparently, the city's mandarins believed granny suites would become rental units in parts of the metropolis not zoned for rental. Therefore the prudent choice for a name for such an addition became servants' quarters, with its implied understanding only family retainers would occupy the renovation, certainly not street plebs who might clog respectable neighbourhoods with beaters and beer cans. This logic could have made sense at the turn of the last century, when even middle-class families could afford to keep a maid or two, but in this post-modern world, very few of us can afford or desire to do so.
It took about a decade before modern city planners realized the windfall in tax revenue that would be generated by allowing granny suites (servants' quarters weren't cutting it) to proliferate throughout the city, and, after 10 years, a lot of the old prudes who had favoured the term servants' quarters over granny suites had retired and were living in the latter.
Admittedly, granny suite is not a moniker that will win the approval of feminists, or even normal women. Personally, I would not be offended if they were called grandpa suites; however, that might suggest something untidy and, well, un-vacuumed, such as a man cave. Better, I think, to retain the title of granny suites as we all know grannies are impeccable housekeepers, accomplished cooks and really great babysitters. (Is grandpa going to read to the grandkids at bedtime? No, he's going to keep them up to all hours watching a Jet's game.)
Granny suites, if you have been wondering, are classified as renovations that include their own sources of power, water and sewage. They average 800 to 1,000 square feet into which is fitted a bedroom or two, a bathroom, a living/dining area and a family room. Depending on size, some suites have a laundry, but this is not required because the main house to which the suite is attached has a common washer/dryer area shared by all family members.
A large, outdoor deck is accessible from a door in the kitchen.
Maria and Miguel Santos kindly showed me their granny suite in St. Vital. About two years ago, it was added onto a large house owned by Maria's daughter and son-in-law. Maria said she and her husband decided to sell their condo in a distant part of the city so they could live next to her family, including two grandchildren aged two and four.
"My daughter and her husband both work, so the grandkids stay with us when their parents are at work or away," said Maria.
The granny suite is separated from the main house by a four-car garage, a short, indoor walk for Maria or Miguel when they pick up or return the grandchildren.
"It is such a joy for us to be close to our family and to be a part of their growing up," said Maria, who has lived in the suite with Miguel for more than two years.
"When we lived in our condo, it was so much work to get the kids. Now we can be with them whenever we want," she said.
For his part, Miguel said he enjoys watching the family grow and appreciates the short drive from St. Vital to the centre of Winnipeg.
The couple's daughter said she recommends the living arrangement because her parents are available to babysit and, more importantly, can participate in family life with the option of returning to their own private space when they are tired.
The suite was built by Larry Larwyn of Larwyn Custom Homes for about $130,000, a very respectable price considering the cost of renovating in today's market or the price of a new home.
Larwyn said granny suites are popular because they are an inexpensive alternative to condos or single-detached dwellings.
"They also keep elderly people out of care homes where they are left alone and shut off from family and friends," said Larwyn, who has built a number of suites in different parts of Winnipeg.
One of his most recent was completed in Wolseley, an area with a stock of larger homes that are being converted back to their upper-middle-class 1900s splendour-- many include servants' quarters or, as we now call them, granny suites.
Larwyn can be reached at 204-997-6770.
davidsquare81@yahoo.com
