From the monthly archives:

August 2009

Accessories

Ikea Faves

It’s like Christ­mas when the new Ikea cat­a­logue arrives. I start imag­in­ing what I’m going to buy—how a cer­tain chair is exactly what I need for the cor­ner of one room, or how a new tray will help cor­ral the messy condi­ments in the kitchen. Easy-​​​​to-​​​​swallow price points have made Ikea the go-​​​​to source for cot­tage dec­o­rat­ing, sim­ply because […]

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Accessories

Recycled Wine Bottle Torch

If you’re like me and would pre­fer some­thing other than the tiki torch look for out­door fire, this DIY project is a sleek alter­na­tive. Erik Ander­son of brand­ing agency Ger­ar­dot & Co. has cre­ated easy-​​​​to-​​​​make wall-​​​​mounted torches using old wine bot­tles and a few bits of hard­ware. You can find the full instruc­tions and more pic­tures at […]

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Building and Architecture

Design a Cottage for Living

Yes­ter­day I was chat­ting with Gra­ham Smith of Altius Archi­tec­ture about one of his recent projects and we got to talk­ing a bit about cot­tage design in gen­eral.
When you’re build­ing a cot­tage from scratch, the key thing is to remem­ber that you’re design­ing a cot­tage, not a home. “It can be dif­fi­cult to get clients out of the mind­set of […]

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Cleaning and Organizing

Catching Flies

Here’s a fly trap that won’t offend the visual senses. Mounted to the inside of a win­dow with suc­tion cups, the rec­tan­gu­lar frame holds a sticky-​​​​back card that cap­tures flies and keeps them out of view. No more star­ing at lit­tle black car­casses pil­ing up—ew. Win­dow fly trap, $6, refills, $5 per pack­age of two, Lee Valley Tools.

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Behind the Scenes

& Haliburton">Scouting in Muskoka & Haliburton

Well, I’m back in the office after a two-​​​​day scout­ing trip to the Huntsville and Dorset areas to check out a few cot­tages for poten­tial sto­ries. After look­ing at two places on Lake Ver­non, I dropped in at the cot­tage my fam­ily used to rent dur­ing my pre­teen and teen years to say hi to old friends.
A few […]

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