Painting your home interior may be as easy as paint by numbers for some, but for those uninitiated yet willing to give it a go (and save hundreds of dollars), having a bit of background knowledge is a boon.  This past weekend I painted my entire apartment.  It’s pretty small - only 3 rooms - so, I figured it would be a breeze.  Wrong.  I’m sure that as with most other people, the assumption may be that painting is a no-brainer and hey with a roller, fast too.  While it isn’t rocket science, there are a few pointers that can be very helpful (which I now wish I’d had before hand) for first timers.

I suppose you might want to start out with how to pick colours.  Although I flirted with some ideas of setting a Mediterranean Island feel/California terra-cotta look, in the end I went with a light cream to open up the rooms which had been previously coloured light olive, mauve, and yellow - all hideous shades.

If you’re not sure about which colours you’d like, or even where to begin, you can watch Mag Ruffman’s video tips or read the article. She basically recommends using more than an itty bitty paint chip as a reference.  For further reiteration Style at Home’s article also suggests viewing your chosen hue in different lighting.

Now that you’re sure about the colour(s), what other tools do you need?

1. masking tape

2. drop cloth

3. wall brush & trim and sash brush

4. roller

5. painting paint

6. cleaning supplies

Perusing a number of articles, I was surprised to learn that a number of professionals suggest washing your walls first.  Or, if the existing paint is glossy, you might have to wash with a special solution or else the new paint may not even adhere properly.

I also asked around and the general consensus was to cover everything of importance with a plastic drop cloth, cover edges with masking tape, cut the edges (line with paint) and then fill in the rest with a roller.

I thought this was all I needed to know.  Instead this is what happened …

Top 5 things I learned about painting:

1.  Make sure you have enough paint.

Seems obvious right?  Well, you might not want to end up with a bathroom door and one bedroom wall baby blue as I did.

2. Go towards the light:

Daylight reveals imperfections that are hidden in dim lighting that you’ll be quick to want to correct.

3. Tape the edges:

It will actually save you time in the long run.  I thought that painting the baseboards would be easy since as a fine art painter, I can draw straight lines on canvas no problem.  But as I cut across the baseboards, the effort it took to wipe up dribbles each time it happened collectively took longer than the couple of minutes it would have taken to put down tape in the first place.

4. Don’t overload the roller

Dipping your roller where the paint starts to pool in your paint tray and rolling it until the paint covers it thinly and evenly, tip it so that joint where it attaches is pointing to the ceiling as this will help to avoid gobs on the floor.

5. Start from the Middle

When applying paint with a roller, start about midway on the wall, roll upwards first, then pull down - this way the paint has less of a chance of running onto the floor.

Looking for more detailed instructions? One of my go-to sites - sort of like an online Dummies equivalant - HowStuffWorks.com has a great section on various aspects of painting.

For a host of painting tips, paint decor ideas, the low down on paint, materials, accessories and more, the Home Renovation Guide’s article library painting section is chock full of useful information; from the difference between Latex vs. Elastomeric Paint or the secrets to How to Make a Room Look Larger with Paint.

I wish I had been armed with all of this information, so I hope this post will help out others out there with the determination to beautify their space with paint.  When all is said and done, next time, I’d seriously consider just hiring a professional.

It was almost too beautiful a weekend to spend indoors, however, I was still able to check out the Fall Home Show at the Better Living Center building in Exhibition place this past weekend.  Highlights included the moment a sales rep approached a kitchen brand booth to inquire whether their large advert outside was indeed of Kenny Rogers - answer: No, it was Ronnie Hawkins - and the serial killer jokes that ensued after an audience member during Mag Ruffman’s talk on a particular green cleaner was most concerned about whether it could get blood stains out.

My photos of the home show part one and part two are up on photoshare for those who might be interested.

Mag Ruffman was on air yesterday on 97.3 fm EZ rock radio previewing her upcoming appearance at this weekend’s Toronto Fall Home Show at Exhibition Place.  Download or listen to Mag Ruffman on the EZ rock show segment as she chats about the secret to a good night’s sleep and mentions some of her favorite green product picks.

Welcome CTV viewers! The Home Renovation Guide has had a huge influx of traffic coming from Mag Ruffman’s appearance on CTV’s Canada AM, and we hope we can answer all of the questions you may have. We’re very excited about this partnership with the ToolGirl - her wealth of knowledge and fantastic personality are already bringing fresh content to the Home Renovation Guide. Below is an article from Mag that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen last week that should do the job, but please leave any further comments and questions below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible! Alternatively, you can send us question to our Ask the Expert section, where we’ve already responded to a few queries.

As I Lay Drying

The link between night sweats and snoring

In the ripe warm bed of youth he was stoic and silent in sleep.  Now he snores like a donkey.  All night.
In the pert, prone grip of yore, her firm skin flushed to an irresistible glow.  Now she sweats the sheets slick with no let-up and even less warning.  Every night. Snoring and menopausal night sweats are the ultimate pairing; vigorous, loud and hot. But not in a good way.

Sheet Disturber

I had never connected these two afflictions until, wakened one night by percussive blasts from my mate’s oropharynx, I trudged to the computer to research chronic nasal congestion, a common cause of snoring and wifely concern (read irritability).

What I discovered was chilling in oh, so many ways.  Not chilling enough to stave off a menopausal night sweat, mind you. But here’s the thing - menopause and snoring may have a symbiotic relationship. Let me explain. Night sweats propel excess humidity into mattresses, pillows and comforters, all of which tend to store the moisture if you don’t air them regularly.  Down is especially likely to collect humidity. Why is this relevant?

The more humid your bedding, the more it attracts dust mites, the eight-legged, butt-ugly microscopic spiders that love to devour cast-off flakes of human skin. You personally shed about one gram of dead skin every day (roughly the weight of a paper clip). And a lot of it ends up in your bed, so for bed-dwelling dust mites, chowtime is all the time. Icky? I’m just getting started.

Twenty times a day, dust mites excrete protein-laced feces that many, many of us are allergic to. As we breathe the allergen, our bodies produce antibodies, which trigger the release of histamines, which lead to swollen mucous membranes, stuffy noses, and yes, snoring. In fact, estimates are that dust mites may be a factor in 50 to 80 percent of asthma cases as well as in countless flare-ups of eczema and hay fever.

Dust mites thrive when relative humidity is above 50% and temperature is above 70 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s why they love nice warm humid beds, and nice sweaty middle-aged women who make beds even moister. And this is why female menopause may be at the root of male snoring.

Sweat Equity
There IS relief available, but you’ll have to hit this thing from a few angles so neither of you gets wakened up by the other’s exudations, whether they’re moisture-based or decibel-related.

I solved my Snore-o-Pause problem after testing a number of products. I’m going to tell you what worked for me. I no longer have night sweats and my husband doesn’t snore. We both sleep soundly every night and the Marital Tension Index has dropped from Murderous to Frisky.

Here’s the strategy:
First, consider retiring your old comforters and pillows. By the time those items are 2 years old, 10 percent of their weight can be composed of dust mite poo, dead mite bodies and sloughed off exoskeletons. If your bedding is 10 years old, fully one third of its weight can be dust mite detritus. A typical mattress contains between 100,000 and 10 million mites all munching on dead skin flakes and having way more sex than middle-aged couples. That’s just not fair.

Whether your bedding is old or new, the next tactic is to encapsulate your pillow and mattress in allergen-resistant casings.  There are lots of options available but many of them have a plastic, crackly quality that is annoying and not nice to sleep on.

After testing a number of products I found that the best solution for me was SmartSilk, a leading-edge product that is the first silk-filled bedding to be awarded the Asthma and Allergy Friendly certification. Developed by Montreal’s Harry Walker, SmartSilk is a three-component silk-filled bedding technology that blocks allergens with incredible effect. From the first night (four months ago) that we slept with SmartSilk’s duvet, pillow protectors and mattress cover, we’ve enjoyed a full 8 hours of sleep every night with no snoring and no tsunamis of perspiration. We wake up liking each other. A lot.

How does this stuff work?  A layer of treated natural silk fibers is sandwiched between breathable Egyptian cotton.  Silk strands repel dust mites, which can’t even survive in silk let alone poop all over it.
With the immediate and dramatic reduction in bed-borne allergens, your body stops producing antibodies and histamines.  That means no more respiratory congestion.  And no more snoring.
But the best part is that, unlike down, which stores humidity and makes you even hotter, the wicking properties of SmartSilk immediately transfer excess heat and humidity away from sleepers, so hot flashes are automatically dissipated by rapid wicking and evaporation. And that means never again lying naked on the cold bathroom floor in the middle of the night praying for surgery that will drain all of the hormones from your body.

A Queen set (mattress cover, two pillow covers and one duvet) from SmartSilk is about $700. It’s machine washable and dryable. Its allergen-reducing properties actually increase with subsequent launderings.

More Ways to Reduce Allergens in Your Bedroom

• Use a vacuum cleaner with a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter.  A non-HEPA vacuum just sucks up allergens and redistributes them into the air, and carpets can contain 100,000 dust mites (and their leavings) per square meter. Why breathe that? HEPA filters trap fine particles like pollen and dust mite stools.

• Install a high quality furnace filter (i.e. 3M’s Filtrete Micro Allergen filter) and keep the furnace fan running year round to remove airborne allergens.  A high quality filter can actually clean the air, not just trap and dehydrate a few moths.  Avoid cheapo fiberglass filters (sold in a 3-pack to disguise how useless they are).  Installing a Filtrete Micro Allergen filter is like strapping a HEPA filter onto your furnace; it can strain particles as small as .03 microns, including smoke and smog.  (The period at the end of this sentence is about 300 microns in diameter, a human hair is 70 microns in diameter, a dust mite’s anus is about 5 microns.)  TIP: Make sure that your furnace has a powerful enough motor to handle the denser Filtrete filter.  If your house seems dustier than it was before you changed your filter, it means that the furnace fan motor is not strong enough and you’ll have to revert to a lighter filter.

• Reduce the relative humidity in your home with a dehumidifier or central air conditioning.  Mite populations die off in humidity less than 50%.  Buy a hygrometer at the hardware store ($20) to monitor your home’s humidity, and use it under the covers periodically to make sure your sleeping environment isn’t moist enough to create a dust mite love shack.

It’s hard to believe that summer has gone by so quickly and it’s already time to start thinking about ways to warm up our homes.  Well, there’s more than one way of thinking when it comes to that.  Yes, insulation, duct cleaning, leaf raking might be what immediately comes to mind, but Fall is also the perfect opportunity to find other ways to bring warmth into the home.  Where to find some such ideas?  Home Shows of course.

And there are a plethora of them coming this month.  One I’ll be sure to check out in my neck of the woods is the Toronto Fall Home Show from September 18th to 21st at the Better Living Center, Exhibition place (Tickets are $12 for an adult). (Gee, I hope I can get those Tiny Tom donuts).  Other than checking out some cool gadgets, home luxuries, and the like, there are some fun and interesting demonstrations and shows.  As my furniture is all Ikea, one show I’ll be sure to check out is “interior design and lifestyle expert” Janette Ewen’s “Do-It-Yourself High-End Looks for Next to Nothing”.  I’m also excited about some of the cooking demonstrations - mmm, award winning chef, Christopher Ennew’s Spa food - because what’s more homespun than home cookin’?

Some of the other September 2008 Canadian home shows that weekend of the 18th to the 21st are: the Ottawa Capital Fall Home Show from September 18-21 (only $10 for unlimited re-entry), Victoria, B.C.’s 2008 Fall Home Show featuring Colin and Justin of HGTV’s “How Not To Decorate”, and the Calgary Home & Interior Design Show’s own multiple HGTV hosts.

Stateside, there are undoubtabely a bunch, like the Orlando Home Show Sept. 19th -21st boasting Ty Pennington of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (new season starts Sept. 27th) fame as their spokesperson, but who’s not on the actual agenda.  On the 26th - 28th there’s the Remodeling & Home Decor Show in Washington, D. C with a line-up of celebrity shows et al. and also a Dog Docks event.  That’s right, Dog Docks, the sporting event of dock jumping, where doggies compete for greatest distance or height jumper.

Sounds like Home Shows have a little something for everyone.

(Photo of Jannette Ewan from www.fallhomeshow.com)