Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
Small sacrifices today, smaller mortgage tomorrow
Forget the steamy latte or dinner out and put money toward your mortgage.Financial manager Jim Rawson is starting to follow his own mortgage advice, forgoing small pleasures to pay down the debt on his 1888 Victorian row house in Toronto's Cabbagetown.
Almost a year ago, the veteran mortgage manager decided to ditch his twice-a-day latte habit at the Starbucks coffee shop around the corner from his offices at Invis, one of Canada's largest mortgage brokerage firms. "I would go to Starbucks every morning to get a latte and most often, it was twice a day.
"I thought this was nuts. I was spending at least $10 a day. I went out and bought a cappuccino maker for $750," says Rawson, who now makes his coffee at home before heading to his job as regional manager at Invis, which has more than 800 mortgage consultants across the country.
Rawson has lived in five homes in Toronto during the past three decades, starting with an Edwardian-inspired semi-detached home he bought for $106,000 in Leslieville, well before it was branded an up-and-coming neighbourhood. He sold it for $350,000, buying three other homes, before settling into the Victorian row house four years ago.
Rawson paid $850,000 for the row unit, putting down a 25 per cent down payment amortized over seven years.
He admits that once in a while, when it's a sunny weekend, there is time to sit in the sun with a green tea latte at his neighbourhood's Starbucks. Now it's more of a treat than a daily routine.
Not that he's not giving any thought to pulling up roots and selling again, instead Rawson is looking at borrowing $50,000 to renovate his 120-year-old home.
"It is not necessarily bad to go into retirement with a mortgage," says Rawson, who has been a broker since 1986, gradually paying down his mortgage and reducing his amortization while moving. "It is a no-brainer and most people make biweekly payments, speeding up the payment schedule.
"But that is where it usually stops," says Rawson.
Our parents were more careful about saving money, although most of them stuck with their fixed payment fee, retiring the mortgage after 25 years, he says.
"Today, boomers think about paying down the mortgage, but they want to enjoy their life, maybe take a trip to India."
It's easy to nip into a mortgage, give up a $50 dinner out or a latte habit and put it toward a lump-sum payment once a year, says Rawson. "It's also easy to round up mortgage payments, say from $975 to $1,000. You never notice the money and it makes a difference."
Based on a $200,000 five-year mortgage borrowed at a rate of 5.45 per cent over 25 years, giving up small indulgences has a big payback. Consider that skipping that $50 dinner or an equivalent in hot lattes each month will save $14,987 in interest over the life of the mortgage, allowing you to write it off two years early.
Data keepers at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation agree Canadians are ready to take some accelerated steps in paying off their mortgage. A CMHC survey has found 75 per cent of recent buyers intend to pay off their mortgage sooner, but only 33 per cent actually made a lump-sum payment.
It also seems Canadians tend to move every 3.5 years, says Rawson, taking out a new mortgage, sometimes with a lower amortization period. The lower amortization period is smart, says Rawson, who says he doesn't miss his Starbucks fix. "I get just as much caffeine in my system and it is cheaper."
-- Canwest News Service
Renovation & Design
When to match
Last week I wrote about how matching items can make your home static and uninteresting. Matching furniture sets, matching lamps, and so on, will look "nice" but may lack any real appeal. Matching items are a safe way to go but can be boring if you're not careful.There are times, however, when matching items create visual balance and harmony. While the daring may still choose to have a more eclectic approach I believe there are certain situations where having a pair of items make sense.
When to use matching items
If you are flanking anything that may be considered a focal point in a room then you might want to consider a matching set on either side to create symmetry. For example, if you are flanking a fireplace with two chairs, then they should be matching or very similar to achieve a sense of visual balance. Matching topiaries on either side of the fireplace will further support visual proportion. Bordering a headboard with matching bedside tables is not necessary but will create more visual continuity than using two different tables. The side tables however, do not necessarily have to match the headboard and the rest of the furniture.
In the dining room, unless you prefer an eclectic look, I think that a formal dining table requires matching chairs as well. You can, however, opt to have a sideboard and/or china cabinet that does not match the table and chairs, but rather, are complementary to the other pieces. Matching table, chairs, china cabinet and hutch may look a little over-the-top and impersonal. On that formal dining table, a set of matching china will create an elegant look. To add your own twist on things, you can add in similar items, like charger plates in a solid, complimentary colour, that do not match the china pattern, but again, are complementary to the table setting.
Bed linens
I often compare decorating to clothing fashions to make a point. In dressing the bedroom, think of buying a sharp suit for the office. You wouldn't buy an outfit wherein some marketing guru at the clothing company pre-chose the suit, shirt, socks, shoes, and jewelry because this leaves you no room for adding in your own tastes and personality. You do, however, want to start with a good basic suit and add complementary items from there to show off your unique sense of style.
The simplicity of matching linens in a bag is handy but can be somewhat visually inert. I think that starting with a solid base -- as in a matching comforter and sham set -- is a good place to start. You can then add in your own accents like sheets, accent pillows and draperies in complementary colours to create your own unique space. You have to create some visual balance by starting with a good bedspread/duvet, shams and possibly a bed skirt but you don't necessarily want to buy into matching drapes, sheets and wallpaper as well. That's a little overkill in my book. When you look at these sets in home decor catalogues it sometimes looks like the pattern exploded in the room. It would be like wearing a sundress, hat, shoes, stockings and handbag all in the same pattern.
Be sure to check back next week as I'm featuring a bedroom that encompasses what I'm talking about in finding balance between matching items and your own sense of flair.
In the bathroom
Again, the bathroom is an arena where home decor marketing 'geniuses' have created a matchy world of sets. Again, an explosion of pattern in a very small space, I might add. Do bring in continuity by having, say, matching towels and shower curtain, for instance, but add in your own unique touches with different bathroom mats and countertop accessories. The cup and toothpaste holders are a good place to use a matching set and perhaps a waste can, but stop there. It's harder to put your own stamp on the bathroom decor because we are all of the mindset that each piece has to match and that's how the products are presented to us. Go the distance and look a little further to create a space that has visual continuity but that also has a sense of your own unique style. I did this in my own bathroom by making my own shower curtain in a great fabric, then finding complementary accessories to complete the space.
In the kitchen
A great set of glassware, cutlery and dishes are all good bases for the kitchen. Having mismatched sets of cutlery and dishes might make your kitchen feel chaotic and disorganized. To these matching sets, add in your own unique linens and table accessories to support your design desires.
Some items just naturallycome in pairs
Like shoes and earrings, there are many decor items that come in matching pairs. For the most part, these pairs should not be broken up. Items like salt and pepper shakers, formal candlesticks, bookends, pillowcases and drapery panels should remain in pairs in most situations.
Renovation & Design
Small dwellings a growth industry
OK, so Lisa Petalek does truck her off-season wardrobe to her parents' home for storage. But that proviso aside, Petalek gets along just fine in her compact, 546-square-foot condo in downtown Ottawa.Heck, for a year she even used it as a home office.
Petalek, a business analyst with the federal government, is one of many buyers snapping up small downtown condos faster than they can be built. Even out in the 'burbs, there's a new market for Lilliputian (at least by McMansion standards) singles.
"I have to limit my purchases," admits Petalek, adding that "the closet is still a bit of a problem." And clutter is a no-go in her Spire, one of the pint-sized models in Urban Capital Property Group's development. "If you leave stuff out, it's obviously messy."
Products, including a closet system and under-the-bed hideaway baskets, help Petalek keep the space tidy. And although few retailers carried it when she moved into her condo in 2003, she says the sleek contemporary furniture demanded by mini-condos is now easier to find.
None of these tricks of the trade would help if her one-bedroom condo weren't well-designed. Nine-foot ceilings, an open-concept kitchen/living room/dining area, generous windows, and a sweeping balcony breathe light and space into the urban home in the sky. Neutral-shaded walls decorated with mirrors and large paintings push the space outward, while stainless-steel appliances and dark cabinetry add drama.
"All my friends are trying to get me to move to (the suburbs)," says Petalek, but she delights in avoiding "all that business" of snow shovelling and grass cutting.
And while she couldn't host a 30-person party in her place, she revels in the fact that her life is lived in "a five-block radius: You go out and play; you go to work, you go home and rest."
Petalek paid an affordable $150,000 when she bought her condo in 2001. Paying relatively little for all that a downtown location offers is one of the big draws of small condos, especially for young professionals.
Baby-boomer couples selling off the family ranch for a hip spot downtown usually go for bigger living spaces. After all, why blow 30 years of marriage by being constantly face-to-face with your beloved?
No figures are available on the number of small condos across Canada, but a glance around Ottawa finds plenty, especially in buildings under construction.
"The growth is for small types of dwellings," says Sandra Perez, senior marketing analyst for the Ottawa region of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. As evidence, she points to the 40-per-cent leap in condo construction forecast for Ottawa this year over last year. Half of that will be downtown, where high land costs favour plenty of small units.
By contrast, single-family home starts in the region are expected to drop seven per cent from 2007 levels. Trends are similar in Toronto, says Perez.
Across Canada, meanwhile, CMHC reports that single-family homes in cities of more than 10,000 people dipped to 52 per cent of the construction market last year from 61 per cent in 2002. A blend of town and row homes, apartments and condos has picked up the slack.
"Things are changing, people are downsizing," says Maureen O'Connell, who sold out half the units in a downtown Ottawa condo in an astonishing four days earlier this year. The small condos, like the tiny, perfect Vancouver -- 468 square feet, $196,900 -- went first. "A lot of people don't even buy the parking," adds O'Connell.
Making small spaces work requires, well, work. For the buyer, says O'Connell, it means thinking smart, like the condo owner who attached an industrial arm to her plasma television so she could swing it around from the living room to watch it in bed. Bingo. Space saved in the bedroom.
For the designer, it means "everything is tight, scaled-down," says Ottawa architect Barry Hobin. His projects have included small condos, including a 463-square-foot model.
"The focus is on things like sliding panels instead of swinging doors, having integrated cabinetry in the kitchen," says Hobin. "The first thing is making them as bright as possible, and the space needs to be big enough to flow. One thing you lose is your flexibility: You have to prejudge where everything is going to go, what length of wall you can put a bed on."
A buyer of a pocket-sized condo almost needs an interior designer, he says, adding that "in a small place, there's no room to be quirky."
And while slimming down usually means greening up, no one mentions the environmental advantages of living more compactly. Cost and convenience seem to be the driving forces behind the growth of small.
In more crowded cities including London, England, micro-homes are popping. These wee places -- featured in magazines, including Dwell and touted by reduced living advocates, including Jay Shafer, co-founder of the Small House Society -- are as small as 96 square feet. They perch everywhere from rooftops to microscopic vacant lots, and they toe the small-is-better line, if perhaps a little literally, of downscale boosters like writer/architect Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big House.
There is also shrinkage, if not miniaturization, going on in Canadian suburbs.
Mattamy Homes, for example, has included a three-bedroom, 1,279-square-foot Ashford model. The home combines functionality with less space by doing away with a formal dining room but including a kitchen with an eating area that flows into a great room.
Starting at $234,900, the Ashford fulfils the observation by Frank Cairo, Mattamy's vice-president of land development for Ottawa, that increased land prices are forcing developers to downscale houses if they want to meet the still-healthy hunger for singles.
Minto Group Inc., meanwhile, has introduced the Anderson, a three-bedroom, 1,365-square-foot home at $243,400. Buyers, says Minto's marketing director Catherine Shea, tend to be first-timers or people trading up from a terrace or townhome.
That's a dramatic shift from the early 1980s, when we got hooked big-time on big living spaces.
Prior to that, houses had been mostly modest. At the minute end of the scale, tens of thousands of bungalows, some as small as 500 square feet, were built by the federal government's Wartime Housing Ltd. during the 1940s for labourers and Second World War veterans across the country.
By 1950, North American homes were averaging about 900 square feet.
Suburban development flourished in the 1950s and '60s, with developers building slews of suburban singles, many of them in the 1,200-square-foot range.
Through the 1970s and '80s, says Hobin, real estate increasingly became "the embodiment of wealth collection and the dominance of baby boomers. The house became a vehicle for playing. People were saying, 'Why not have some fun with it?' It's also true that we're a consumer-oriented society -- status and all that other crap."
Hence the current crop of sprawling homes that owners adore and many others scorn as wasteful and ostentatious.
No Canadian figures are available, but according to the U.S. National Association of Home Builders the average American home is now over 2,400 square feet -- double what it was 50 years ago when families were larger. Observers agree Canadian houses have kept pace.
In addition to whatever bragging rights even a 2,400-square-foot-home confers, there are practical reasons for avoiding small. Because many costs -- a garage door, for example, or a staircase -- are the same for a small or bigger home, economies of scale kick in, and developers wind up charging more per square foot for a small home to realize a profit. As well, jumping from $250,000 to $270,000 to gain a few hundred square feet won't boost your mortgage by all that much.
No wonder Hobin hasn't designed a 1,200- or 1,400-square-foot home in two decades.
But like many couples who downsize after the children are grown, Diane and George Hanson traded a large home for a smaller home.
The Ottawa retirees sold their 1,800-square-foot home and, seven years ago, moved into a 1,335-square-foot Tartan Homes bungalow.
"All our children were married and we wanted to downsize," says Diane Hanson. "It's a lot easier to look after. There's a smaller lawn to cut. You don't collect so much junk; you have to have everything in its place."
The Hansons have turned one of the two bedrooms into a den and finished part of the basement, providing a little more elbow room when their children, their spouses and grandchildren descend.
An open-concept design, a half-wall between the living and dining rooms, and other features give the home an open feeling.
While George says there's "nothing too much" he misses about their big home, his wife does long for the good old spacious days when the whole family piles in at Christmas.
And she still remembers watching the new house being built. "I thought, 'Oh, gosh, it's so small. We'll never be happy here.'"
Is she? "Oh, yes!"
-- Canwest News Service
The smallest of the small: tiny homes
They're not for everyone, but teeny-tiny homes have their advocates.
Owners praise them for all sorts of reasons: Low building and maintenance costs; reduced environmental footprint; the close family interaction that's often missing in large dwellings where people go their separate ways. Here are some examples:
JoT Homes. Ranging from 128 to 1,500 square feet, these homes feature movable interior partitions and passive solar design. Cost: roughly $100 a square foot. See them at jothouse.com.
Jay Shafer's house. The co-founder of the Small House Society lives in a 96-square-foot home in Sebastopol, Calif. Resembling a caboose, the Lusby includes a fireplace, double-burner cooktop and two-person sleeping loft. The house sells for US$46,997. See it and others at tumbleweedhouses.com.
Sarah Susanka. Architect and author (The Not So Big House and others) Susanka offers house plans based on her philosophy of quality over quantity. While there is a plan for a 1,225-square-foot, one-person cabin -- and not a very attractive one at that -- most of the designs weigh in at 1,700-plus square feet. Go to notsobighouse.com.
The Boxhome (prototype). This two-storey, metal-clad home is the work of Norwegian architect Sami Rintala. Featured in the March issue of Dwell magazine, it's all of 205 square feet, and its darkly stained cypress interior looks gloomy. One participant in the project claims that an opening day party for 20 didn't feel crowded. See it at dwell.com/homes/new/15042286.html.
London coach house. An ultra-efficient former coach house in London, England, this 648-square-foot spot is big enough for a neatness-obsessed couple. The makeover -- at a jaw-dropping $400,000 -- included the kind of innovative storage solutions and minimalist design essential to small-scale living. See it at dwell.com/homes/new/15081121.html.
-- Patrick Langston
Renovation & Design
How to barbecue without getting cooked
Whether your barbecue uses charcoal, wood, propane or natural gas, don't even think about firing it up until you are sure it's safe.For wood-burning units, make certain vents are clean and operable and that there are no areas that have rusted through. Embers can wreak havoc with a nearby wood pile or even your home.
A barbecue that is in disrepair is dangerous at best. So take these precautions before grilling:
Thoroughly clean your grill each season. Grease buildup can cause a fire that cannot be easily extinguished.
Keep your grill at least three metres away from your home or other combustible surfaces.
Don't barbecue indoors, including in a garage. You can literally suffocate every living thing in your home.
Don't barbecue on a wooden deck if there is a chance that dry grass is growing beneath it. You can start a fire that can't be easily extinguished.
Never use a propane barbecue grill on a balcony, terrace or roof. It is both dangerous and illegal in many areas.
Keep children away from the grill.
It may sound silly, but a nearby garden hose (or a fire extinguisher) is a must.
Rotted wooden handles, a bad thermostat and frayed rotisserie wiring should all be repaired or replaced.
Cooking with gas
Gas grills require even more attention. Be sure to inspect the venturi (near the gas control valve). For some reason spiders are attracted to the supply tubes. They can nest in the tiniest places.
Each season we disassemble the gas lines between the shut-off valve and the burners. Everything is scrubbed with soap and water and blown out using a high-pressure air nozzle (this requires a compressor), so be prepared to make a trip to your local gas station if you don't have one.
The burners themselves need to be brushed with a wire brush and all of those little tiny holes need to be free of obstructions.
Check and secure all gas connections. A leak can be fatal. Soapy water sprayed onto each connection and fitting will reveal an unwanted leak.
Start your grills
Once your barbecue is up and running, follow a few rules to a safer and more pleasant experience:
Don't use gasoline or paint thinner to start your fire. You may lose a substantial amount of hair in the process.
Alcoholic beverages can be as flammable as paint thinner -- some even more so. Leave your cocktail glass on the table in the kitchen.
Use starter fluid sensibly. Apply it to the coals and then light your fire. Don't stand next to the fire and squirt lighter fluid onto the flames.
Don't wear loose clothing when barbecuing unless you are set on sacrificing yourself to the fire gods.
When using a gas grill NEVER turn the gas on with the lid closed. An accumulation of gas can result in a horrendous explosion.
-- The Associated Press
