Here is why I hate fashion and design and anything to do with the overarching beauty industry. The seventies. Someone, or a select group of someones, decided, in the seventies, that brown was an attractive colour and should be plastered on highly visible items like clothing, cars, and houses. These same someones then decided to […]
Slow Mo Reno – Making a Grand Entrance
Entry doors are unique and important parts of a home both functionally and aesthetically. A really nice door is damn near impossible to take your eyes off of. They are the first thing people notice about a house and they are often the first thing people touch, typically in a twisting fashion. Doors come in […]
Slow Mo Reno – Timber!
Chainsaws are the indisputable kings of power tools. There’s not a man alive who doesn’t immediately devolve into Tim Allen ape grunting seconds after hearing the sputtered pops of a chainsaw being started. When the throttle is fully engaged and the screaming metal shrieks through a neighbourhood, like DIY meerkats, men turn their heads to […]
Slow Mo Reno – Contracting a Sticker Shock
There are two groups of people in Calgary; those that work in the oil industry and those that renovate their homes. Sure, there are thousands of others who work in service industries and the civil service, but in two years’ time when the NDP is obliterated in the provincial election and the “new” conservatives dial […]
Slow Mo Reno – Designed to Fail
“You talk funny.” In retrospect, I should have shown her the door the moment those three words sprung from her pouty, Greco-Italian mouth like an upscale restaurant hostess’ over-stressed blouse button. I didn’t want to hire an interior designer but I felt obliged to do so. Considering the money we were willing ourselves to spend, […]
I Made A Contractor Cry
When I bought my first house I had three desires driving my purchase. First, I wanted a place that was mine; not a rental, not my parents’, mine, all mine so that I could do whatever I bloody well pleased with it. If I wanted to paint a room bright orange in honour of The […]