Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
Countertop options abound
Dear Marc: I am remodelling my kitchen. I've chosen these beautiful dark-stained cabinets and will be painting my walls a light espresso colour. I currently have stainless-steel appliances which I would like to keep for the new kitchen. What kind of stone countertop options do I have for my kitchen? Emily
Dear Emily: There are a number of different options when designing a kitchen. Whether it's selecting cabinetry, countertops or flooring, each decision will alter your kitchen's look and feel. The best way to create a great end-product is through proper pre-planning. It's through the pre-planning process that you can identify exactly how the different elements work or contrast together.
In a kitchen, it's important that we balance the esthetics with their functionality to truly make an educated decision.
When it comes to selecting hard surfaces such as countertops, we're fortunate to have a wide array of options. The first step is to determine our material options. Countertops today are made with many different materials. Some of the most popular ones include granite, quartz, concrete and laminate.
A popular material we see used in new homes are granite countertops. Granite counters are wonderful for homeowners who like the unique quality they possess. No two counters are the same.
As for maintenance of the counters, they simply need to be sealed every now and then. It's recommended that homeowners seal their countertops at least once per year. Another advantage of the granite countertop is that it is a clean product that holds little bacteria when properly sealed.
Quartz countertops, on the other hand, are man-made. They are produced by combining quartz with a binding epoxy resin which makes a very durable end-product. Quartz countertops come in a variety of colours, which is great since some homeowners love ultra-chic colours such as white.
One of the newest options for homeowners is concrete are concrete countertops. They come in a variety of different colours and share some of the advantages of other stone countertops. Some manufactures will even build the concrete counters on site in order to fully customize them to your space. The maintenance is quite similar to other stone counters -- it's recommended that they be sealed every nine to 12 months.
Stone counters are a wonderful additional to any home as they add to your property value. Many realtors will even list this as a selling feature in their listings.
Renovation & Design
New gardening lingo
Green thumbs looking to add to their gardening vernacular need look no farther than wordspy.com, a website dedicated to tapping in to the English language's latest words.
Impress your garden-loving friends by working these zingers into your next over-the-fence conversation:
Extreme gardening: Gardening that takes place in hostile or difficult conditions (think springtime in Calgary).
Potscaping: Artfully arranging shrubs and flowers planted in pots and other containers.
Guerrilla gardening: The surreptitious or unauthorized planting of flowers, shrubs, vegetables, and other flora in a public space.
Heirloom seed: A type of seed that has been passed down through a number of generations; a type of seed that is traded between individual gardeners rather than through a seed catalogue (you can actually bid for these online).
-- Postmedia News
Renovation & Design
TREE CARE: Putting down roots
During the summers, I'm often asked about what kind of trees should a homeowner plant. Here are some of my favourite: bur oak, linden, Delta hackberry, Prairie Silk honey locust and Discovery elm.
Bur oak is an under-utilized native tree that really does well when properly planted and maintained in residential yards. People always tell me its growth is too slow, but I tell them to fertilize the tree in the proper manner.
I've always planted a bur oak in every place I've lived on the Prairies. I can usually get one to 1.25 metres of annual height growth. These oaks like the clay loam soils we have in the Red River Valley, and grow quite well if treated properly. It's the best native tree for dry Prairie soils.
There are several varieties of lindens available from southern Manitoba nurseries. Most seem to do very well. The linden has an overall crown that resembles a bee hive, though some varieties more than others. It's one of the more visibly attractive trees, rarely growing more than 12 m high. Remarkably, it's free of serious diseases that affect most other trees.
When a small linden is planted, it's critical that the roots are spread out and not allowed to curl into a root ball. Root curling can cause lindens to self-girdle their trunks when the roots wrap tightly around the base. The tree can die from this effect, or be seriously weakened.
Delta hackberry is also an under-utilized native shade tree that grows naturally at the south end of Lake Manitoba. It's in the elm family but does not have any of the elm's problems, such as Dutch elm disease. Its crown forms a pleasing shade canopy without growing too tall. On our clay loam soils, it will grow up to about 12 m.
Like the oak, the hackberry is virtually free of serious diseases and has only a few minor feeding pests. Its roots are not as aggressive as elms, so it doesn't normally pose a problem for house foundations.
Prairie Silk honey locust is a small tree with outstanding features that clearly make it a candidate for this short-list of great trees. The tree produces horizontal twigs and branches that bear compound leaves having quite small leaflets. Cleanup of fall leaves is simply not a problem as these leaves shrivel up into tiny pieces that decompose quickly. Fall leaves are bright yellow in colour.
The branches tend to be quite symmetrical about the trunk, giving the tree an instant appeal. To date, pests and diseases have not been serious problems.
Discovery elm has Japanese origins but was developed on the Prairies. Its height growth is similar to lindens and hackberrys. With proper care, it's an outstanding tree, tending to produce a flat-topped canopy with a noticeable vase shape.
In a well-spaced cluster of these trees, this effect is visually very appealing, such as in a plaza near the Health Sciences Centre's Buhler Centre on McDermot Avenue. It's my favourite grove of inner-city trees.
Michael Allen is a consulting urban forester, certified I.S.A. arborist and owner of Viburnum Tree Experts. He provides advisory services on trees and shrubs. He can be contacted by calling 831-6503 or emailed at viburnumtrees@shaw.ca