Off to tour great gardens of France

Today, I am in Paris to lead a 14-day tour of some of the great gardens of France, including Versailles, Villandry, Vaux le Viscount and Monet’s garden at Giverny.

Most of the people on the tour flew with me out of Vancouver yesterday afternoon and arrived here early this morning.

You can follow our exploits on my In the Garden blog at www.vancouversun.com. I will try to file photos and updates every day.

I will also be tweeting whenever the opportunity presents itself. Internet access is sometimes a hit and miss affair in Europe.

We started today by pausing on our way to the hotel near the Champs Elysees to see one of the loveliest rose gardens in Paris – Parc de Bagatelle, which has more than 10,000 roses, as well as a spectacular landscape laid out for a small fortune in breakneck speed back in the 1700s.

This garden is also home to France’s national collection of clematis, but at this time of year it has particularly terrific displays of peonies, irises and masses of spring-flowering bulbs.

I thought it would be the perfect place to have a spectacular garden welcome to Paris in May.

Tomorrow, we start the tour proper with a visit to the famous gardens at Château Vaux le Viscount.

This will be a wonderful introduction to the formal 17th-century landscape style of Andre Le Notre, one of France’s most brilliant garden designers. (He was also responsible for Versailles and Tuileries gardens, among other iconic landmark sites.)

One of the things I’ll be pointing out at Viscount is the superb way that Le Notre created stunning visual effects through the dramatic placement of cascades and fountains and his clever, artistic use of hidden distortions in perspective.

From Viscount, we go to Château Courances to see the 500-year-old “garden of mirrors” on the west side of the Fontainebleau forest.

Viscount is a massive landscape, covering 90 hectares, with a 16th-century castle at its centre. It gets its nickname from the fact that the garden has many pools and ponds that mirror the sky and bring the movement of white clouds to the ground.

My tour is designed so that we have a minimum number of hotel moves; we dip in and out of Paris for the first few days and then skip down to Tours.

The international Jardins, Jardin festival, featuring all the latest and best in European garden design ideas and products, will be on in the Tuileries while we are there. It’s kind of like an informal Chelsea. A bonus.

In Paris, we’ll take time to visit Parc Floral de Vincennes, a favourite with Parisians and a perfect example of what a beautiful public garden should be.

We’ll also being going to Jardin des Plantes, France’s most prestigious botanical garden and Parc Andre Citroen, an ultra-modern, chic garden, brilliantly designed by a team of landscape architects on the site of the Citroen factory in the 1990s.

From Paris, we will head down to the Loire valley to the Tours area, pausing on the way to visit Chartres with its magnificent cathedral.

We’ll start the next day at the world-famous garden of Villandry with its exquisite geometric exactitude and clipped boxwood parterres planted in almost hypnotic patterns.

For a change of pace, we’ll also take in the gardens at La Chatonniere. This series of 12 interconnecting gardens has been described as “a jewelled necklace adorning a pretty woman’s neck”.

Each garden has its own distinct theme: Abundance, Intelligence, Science, Romance, Fragrance, Silence, Delights, Elegance, Senses, Dance, Luxuriance, and the Essence of France.

I am expecting time spent here to have as big an impact on the group as Versailles, Villandry or Giverny.

The owners of Chatonniere say the gardens have the ability to “awaken the senses, evoking feelings of wonder, charm and contemplation.”

At Château Chaumont, we have the lucky timing to take in a special annual international garden event.

Every year, this fairy tale château hosts a display of between 20 and 30 top themed gardens. More than 300 submissions are received from various countries, particularly England, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan, but only about 30 are ever accepted.

The theme this year is: Gardens of the Future; the Art of Happy Biodiversity.

I picked this stop partly because I had heard that it is such a great place to see new, creative ways of using plants, as well as all sorts of innovative, even spectacularly avant-garde, landscape design.

We, of course, will taste local wines, such as Sancerre, and there is no better place to do this than while visiting a garden, so we will be dropping into Jardin de Marie in the beautiful village of Neuilly-en-Sancerre.

This will be the opposite experience to the grandeur of Viscount and Villandry – an intimate, small (three-hectare) garden full of enchanting components, including an orchard garden, typical French kitchen garden and graceful pond and white garden.

Iris on Laurier - a one stop for elegance

I LOVE RUE LAURIER!


MONTREAL - Boutiques are the saving grace for many a Quebec designer, and Iris Setlakwe’s new namesake store is graceful indeed.

Marking the 10th anniversary of her collection, Setlakwe has opened a retail shop on the western edge of Laurier Ave., stocking her well-edited womenswear in an airy salon setting with black velvet French antique chairs, black chandelier and polished cement floors, designed by Line Thibault.

“For the first time, people can see the full collection,’’ she said. “It’s to make wardrobing easy for women. Everything goes together.”

The clothes are meant for the businesswoman, age 30 and up, she said, and can meet all of her needs, from professional to casual to chic.

Hanging on the racks are lined jersey sack dresses in black, pale grey and salmon ($245); an easy boyfriend jacket in the palest blush ($325); a flirty silk chiffon top in black or white ($185); and a linen sailor stripe dress ($375).

Dresses are her biggest sellers, and Setlakwe herself was wearing a tulip-skirted black dress with three-quarter sleeves that flatters the figure well.

“I always talk about elegance,’’ she said when asked to define her line’s signature look.

“There are so many trends on the market,” she added, saying women sometimes get lost and dress in clothes that are too young and inappropriate.

Setlakwe will spend Thursdays from 2 to 8 p.m. in the store. “The idea is to listen to the women and dress her according to her lifestyle,’’ she said.

Fabrics come mainly from Italy, and everything is made in Montreal. So if there’s a need to restock a popular style, Setlakwe said, she can do so in three weeks.

Iris Setlakwe boutique is at 1127 Laurier Ave. W.
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Iris+Laurier+stop+shop+elegance/4805359/story.html#ixzz1OXvjHlLS

AISLIN CARTOON - JUNE 4TH, 2011

Don't you love Aislin? He just gets everything right.... our roads and highways are such a mess in this province. The roads in Hudson (in particular - since I work there) are terrible - roads are probably in better shape in Bosnia! HA! LOL!

House profile: Craggy Meets Contemporary

A two-sided fireplace divides the kitchen area and the living room.


A two-sided fireplace divides the kitchen area and the living room.
Photograph by: Allen McInnis, Montreal Gazette

Never judge a book by its cover or a home by the face it presents to the street.

At first glance, the residence at 64 Ballantine Ave. N., in the heart of Montreal West, is a striking but relatively modest example of the craggy 19th-century architectural effect known as Scottish baronial (think of a Lilliputian Royal Victoria Hospital).

On closer inspection, however — preferably at night, under the pretext of walking the family dog — a large, lit window at ground level reveals an intriguing space that might serve as a guy's clubhouse or after-hours bar. What is going on with this place?

Gain access, and all is revealed. The result of seven years' labour by architectural designer Glenn Harrison and his firm, Bildhaus, as both the Harrison family home and "an experiment for my business to play around with stuff," 64 Ballantine has one foot lovingly in its craftsman heritage, and the other firmly in the 21st century.

"The house built itself. It dictated what it was going to be," said the fiercely articulate, borderline obsessive Harrison during a walkabout of the five-level home he and his talented team of workers have re-imagined, reconfigured and renovated from the studs up, beginning in 2004 and still stressing the fine details through this past winter.

Indeed, so unrecognizable is the house, its original owner did not know whether to go up or down during a recent visit. We're going down, into that intriguing space that can be glimpsed from the street.

It's a kitchen, if kitchen remains the word to use for a site defined by an enormous work area, and a raised, double-sided fireplace that straddles kitchen and the dining room-living room beyond.

The vast granite counter is used to cook at a professional grade, an earlier Harrison occupation before choosing a hammer and computer.

"It's a big, open space," he admits, "but everything you want is within two steps."

He and his family, the long-suffering lawyer and construction cohort Mary Jeanne Phelan and their two young sons, gravitate toward the kitchen, where as many as 15 friends have pitched in cooking without killing each other.

Tools of their trade include a Liebherr refrigerator hidden behind oak doors, Bosch wall oven and Miele dishwasher. All occupy the very highest end of the appliance market and are included in the asking price.

Participants in the food prep ritual find plenty of room to consume what they've created, either at the capacious dining room table or in a family kitchen nook.

Heating here and in virtually every room, is via hotwater radiant floors, and they're mighty cosy in woolsocked feet on a cold day. Materials that conceal it are, variously, quartersawn oak with a tight grain and tiger stripe, ceramic, travertine and tile.

Swing open French doors from the dining area, and you're on a new 16-by-32foot cedar deck invisible from street level. During appropriate months, you can use the outdoor food preparation counter with two stainless-steel sinks and a natural gas BBQ outlet. Also on the ground floor is a laundry room with a second dishwasher — that was dinner dishes for 15, after all — a larch-lined wine cellar and a powder room.

This conviviality is all very well, but what about a place to sleep? Look up. Look way up. The second floor contains a den with piano Harrison calls his music room and an airy master bedroom with six windows, ensuite bathroom with two-person shower, and walk-in with teak-fitted cabinetry. There's also a second bedroom.

Move up a short flight, and the third floor holds the three remaining bedrooms, all with built-in cupboards and bookcases.

OK, so there's plenty of room to crash, but what about making a living? That would involve a descent: past the den, past the new solid-oak front door, past the mud room with built-in cubbies, past the cooking-living-dining area, past the lead-covered original door to the indoor garage, and down to a 400-square-foot area that multi-functions as family room, entertainment centre and home office.

It was the last room finished and is up to code for this century and ones to come. "Bombproof," is how Harrison describes it. Tech wonks will be happy to know its features include recessed lighting, low-voltage wiring for a home-theatre projector or wall-mount television, and HDMI wiring for 3-D and Surround Sound. For those of a less digital bent, it's a room to call home.

All of this has come at a price. When Harrison and Phelan first moved in, they camped out in the attic while the rest of the place was gutted. That lasted a year. As mentioned earlier, work on his dream project was ongoing until recently, and may still be ongoing in Harrison's busy mind.

His is a brain so engaged in the conception and creation of historically sympathetic but completely contemporary domestic living spaces, he wants to do it all over again. But this time, he's going to do it in the Eastern Townships.

johngriffin@bell.net
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

From supermodel to super advocate - Christy Turlington

A career shift from supermodel to super-advocate is indeed a unique transition, and for Christy Turlington Burns, it is also a deeply personal one. In 2005, after suffering complications after the birth of her daughter, she embarked on a mission to understand the global epidemic of maternal mortality. She went back to school to study public health at Columbia University, and began working with organizations such as CARE as Advocate for Maternal Health, and in 2008 began work on her first directorial effort — a documentary called No Woman, No Cry. In it, Turlington Burns travels around the world to share the stories of pregnant woman at risk. Turlington Burns spoke to Postmedia News Service from her home in New York about how she got involved and how the film came to be.

Q: How does one transform from a supermodel to an expert on maternal health?

A: When I evolved and became a mom and learned that the (medical) complication I had was linked to the leading cause of maternal mortality in the world, that made me want to dig deeper. I had the opportunity to travel with the aid organization CARE a couple of years after I had my first child, and was pregnant with my second. We travelled to El Salvador, where my mother was from, and being in that country with poor women living in rural areas while pregnant, that was the ’a-ha’ moment. Had I had the experience I had with my daughter Grace in that community, I would have died. I thought I could help other women make that connection, to bring it closer to them.

Q: You travelled to Bangladesh, Guatemala and Tanzania. Why these locations?

A: In Bangladesh, we wanted to show an urban story. It was in the slums of Dhaka, and through a community health worker we met Monica, our main mom. Her story turned out in a way that helped us communicate the cultural limitations in her area, which are the biggest mysteries of all working on these issues.

I chose Tanzania because it’s on the top eleven of the highest burdened countries in maternal mortality but ... the president has been incredibly vocal and taken a leadership position. It’s a sub-Saharan African country where there are high rates, but political will, and we wanted to find out what is the big gap. And that is the human resource gap -that women live in rural areas and are way too far from the care that they should have access to in an emergency.

In Guatemala, the physician we focused on is an obstetrician who worked for Planned Parenthood. She was eight months pregnant herself when we filmed with her. I wanted to pick a country that had a large indigenous population, and that has grappled with some of the ideology that is so present in Latin America that is a barrier to care for so many women.

bfrenette@vancouversun.com

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/From+supermodel+super+advocate/4882862/story.html#ixzz1OPbtrXoc

How to keep your patio furniture looking its best

Sun, rain, precision-bombing birds: outdoor furniture takes a beating. Here's our guide to keeping it looking good and out of the landfill.

Quality

Start with good products. That $89 wicker chair looks great in the big-box store, but guess what happens when moisture and pollution and the human body get at it?

Better to save up for something like the Bimini wicker line. Manufactured by Toronto-based Actiwin and available at Ottawa's The Fireplace Center & Patio Shop, it's made of weatherproof resin wicker, has a welded aluminum frame and is UV-resistant. At $300 a chair, it's not cheap, but it will last.

Wood

Prefinished wooden patio furniture usually spells disaster, says Zvi Gross, owner of Mostly Danish Furniture on Wellington Street. Varnish, for example, lifts when moisture gets underneath it, leaving a rough, flaky surface.

Some manufacturers, he adds, use stains and finishes to disguise lower grade woods that are less durable. Gross sells unfinished teak patio furniture and recommends either treating it with Semco sealer or leaving it to age naturally to a rich silver-grey.

Sealed or not, clean outdoor wooden furniture with warm soapy water and a brush twice a year, rinsing it lightly afterward.

If the furniture is near a pool, rinse it weekly: chlorine plays havoc with finishes.

Keep wooden legs off grass -moisture will make short work of the wood -and refinish surface scratches right away to prevent moisture penetration.

Aluminum

Aluminum won't rust, but the powder coating on aluminum lawn furniture breaks down from suntan lotion, perspiration and air pollution. An occasional sponging with warm, soapy water followed by a rinse keeps it looking new.

An occasional light coat of liquid car wax heightens the coating's gloss and makes it easier to remove stains.

Plastic and recycled furniture

The ubiquitous white plastic lawn chair can be spiffed up with a household cleaner that's safe for plastic. Use an old toothbrush for crevices. Ditto for higher-end garden furniture, like Adirondack chairs, loungers and picnic tables made from recycled plastic by C.R. Plastic Products of Stratford, Ont. Available in bright yellow, fuchsia and other eye-candy colours at Apple Saddlery on Innes Road and elsewhere, the Adirondack chairs run $280 to $340.

The company suggests an occasional coat of Armor All for UV protection and says a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is great for eliminating streaks and dirt.

Delaying Repairs Can Come Back To Haunt Owners

It is recommended that homeowners keep at least $5,000 in easy-toliquidate assets, to cover emergency repairs or replacement costs.

It is recommended that homeowners keep at least $5,000 in easy-toliquidate assets, to cover emergency repairs or replacement costs.
Photograph by: Thinkstock, Postmedia News

In a recent article, I wrote that an expert recommended homeowners keep at least $5,000 in easy-to-liquidate assets, to cover emergency repairs or replacement costs.

Although no one objected to that number -the expert said it was a minimum, and more like $10,000 in the bank would be better -I assume that very few people, especially those on fixed incomes or who have children in college, have even $5,000 to set aside for emergencies these days.

With the economy still in disarray, there is a tendency to postpone repairs if they don't disrupt day-today living. If a pipe bursts, you shut off the water and call the plumber immediately.

But if the faucet in the bathroom sink drips a bit, you try not to think about it, even though you're wasting lots of water and probably adding to your monthly bill.

Sometimes, even if there is enough money to pay for the minor repair, you postpone it -learning to live with the situation, as real estate agent Marilou Buffum put it, until it becomes so much a part of your life you forget about it. Until you list your house for sale, that is.

In a market where there are still too few home buyers, sellers are less likely than ever to find someone as tolerant of a dripping bathroom faucet as they are, Buffum said. A few weeks back, I wrote about a five-bedroom Colonial for sale for $234,900 that prospective buyers described as "too blah," and that even the agent had considered "boring."

The owners had spent a lot of money trying to make the house, built and purchased in 1971, look appealing, but it spent the winter sitting empty.

Finally, an agreement of sale was negotiated with first-time buyers for $225,000, with a $5,000 sellers' assist at the settlement table.

The subsequent home inspection uncovered needed plumbing and electrical repairs, including bringing the septic system up to code.

Then, there was the water pressure, which the owners said had always been problematically low, though the family of nine had managed to get by on it for three decades.

The repairs were not that expensive, but the angst created by the inspector's report was high, as was the concern that the best opportunity for selling the house might be lost to things that were known and left uncorrected because its owners had learned to live with them.

Noelle Barbone, broker manager of Weichert Realtors, in Media, Pennsylvania, recently sold in just two weeks her parents' home of 40 years. Sure, they gave each room a coat of paint, but her father also had the roof replaced. Because they knew the house would have to pass the township's use-andoccupancy inspection, "we had everything taken care of from that checklist," Barbone said.

In preparing the colonial for sale, however, the owners of that house focused on cosmetics rather than on the systems, which were in greater need of attention.

Items that are not on most buyers' lists of desirable features are roofs in need of replacement and major plumbing and electrical issues. They want those fixed, or there's no sale.

Best advice: Deal with deferred-maintenance issues before you list your house for sale.

If you can't remember what they are, start at the bathroom sink.
© Copyright (c) McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Property market challenged to create niche for vital seniors

Canada’s population is getting greyer every day, but the level of vitality and the desire for independence is just as strong as those much younger.

Between 1991 and 2031, the proportion of Canadians over 55 will have risen from one in five to almost one in three, according to figures in a Housing for Older Canadians publication by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

And, the 65-plus crowd will grow from one in nine to one in four.

“These numbers suggest substantial increases in demand for products and services targeting older segments of the population,” says the CMHC publication.

And housing is one of those areas that builders and developers have to spend more time considering — and doing something about.

Sure there are some out there who have delivered housing for seniors — Statesman Corporation, for example — which has created communities for the older set, much of it with a health care element.

And there are others who have developed housing styles, typically villa bungalows, that caught the eye of the more affluent of the 55-plus group.

But, in general, the housing industry has kind of forgotten the greyhairs and their housing wants and needs.

“We’ve thought about it, but not much more than that,” I was told recently by one builder. “Maybe it’s time we looked at it again.”

There is a huge middle market of financially comfortable seniors who would like to live in their own home for much of the year and then head to the warmer climes in the winter.

They don’t want an aging-in-place scenario, don’t want to spend megabucks on a home they will use only part of the year, and don’t want to buy something out past the suburbs.

Yeah, I know the other side of the coin isn’t bright and shiny, the housing industry has a lot of challenges in finding land that can be brought to market with a product that allows some expectation of being profitable.

And this particular market segment likely isn’t as easy to satisfy as the first-time homebuyer group. But it is a segment that deserves some housing consideration.

A delicious colour for a first-time buyer.....

Hi Sam,

I’m moving into a brand new condo, which also happens to be my first home that I purchased with my fiancé. I really want to do a good job with the design since it will be the first time I have a real say in how my home will look. I’ve had a few months to think about my design, but I’m getting cold feet.

I want a light taupe sectional from Maison Corbeil in Montreal, and a glass coffee table and a low white TV unit facing the sectional. Now the tricky part, I was thinking of having purple accents like pillows, some purple details in the drapes, maybe some flowers or a vase. I also wanted to paint the wall behind the sectional purple! When I mean purple, I mean a greyish purple. We were considering Inspired AF-595 from Benjamin Moore, keeping the other three walls light cream. Am I crazy to think of putting purple in a small condo?

Andrea Bednarczyk (a student who’s trying to focus more on finishing her semester than finishing her design)

Dear Andrea,

Crazy? I would say you’re crazy not to add purple to your new condo. Please, Andrea, don’t chicken out and go all beige and neutral on me — no matter what your girlfriend, neighbour or mother tells you. If you love purple (or orange, green, pink or blue), then use it. It’s your home.

Colour rules such as light colours for small rooms and dark colours for large rooms drive me bonkers. Great decorating is all about an awareness of balance and how you pull the furnishings and accessories together.

You are on the right track; start with some lavender accessories. A giant vase, bold patterned pillows, maybe even an upholstered bench or chair. Then move on to paint, which is an inexpensive way to inject personality into your space. I’m not the biggest fan of feature walls because it’s hard for many of us to pick which wall is the best to highlight. Usually a recessed wall or wall behind a fireplace, headboard or, in your case, the sofa will work best as an accent wall.

The lavender-grey you’ve chosen is soft and won’t feel overpowering throughout the living and dining room. I won’t be a pushy decorator, but I like the unified feeling of all four walls painted the same colour. Just be sure to keep the space balanced with soft whites and varying shades of lavender, grey and sand (to reference your sofa).

Back to the feature wall. A lavender and cream wallpaper would be a sassy alternative to paint. Plus, the cream will provide a bridge between the wallpaper and white walls. A horizontal five-inch lavender and cream stripe paint treatment will have the same effect.

Finally, drapery is the ultimate and most luxe finishing touch in a room whether you do lavender and white patterned panels, a leading edge or horizontal stripes as we did for a young couple’s living room on HGTV’s Pure Design. If custom drapes are not in the budget (they’ll start at $120 per panel plus fabric), there are plenty of fabulous ready-made panels on the market to which you can add a four-inch purple leading edge or 24-inch width of fabric at the bottom. We kept the walls white, but imagine them in lavender, or better yet with a graphic wallpaper — magnificent.

Send your small-space question to asksampynn@gmail.com
© Copyright (c) National Post


http://www.househunting.ca/montreal/buying-homes/delicious+colour+first+time+buyer/4239488/story.html

C'mon, baby, light your fire....

Rebecca Rogers, 12, roasts marshmallows at a portable firepit in the backyard of her home in Toronto.
Photograph by: Tyler Anderson, National Post

Back in the day, no self-respecting backyard would be caught dead without a display of patio lanterns.

Now, it's all about firepits and firepots, stylish gizmos that cast a merry glow, can help warm the cool evening air, and run on everything from propane to ethanol.

They range from the $399 Jackson Patio Fire, a Jackson Grills firepit available at Romantic Fireplaces & BBQS in Orléans and dandy for a wiener roast, to the four-footlong, decorative Linear Patio Flame by Napoleon Grills ($1,299 at Ottawa's The Fireplace Center & Patio Shop).

Both products are made in Canada and are even safe for backyard decks. Whereas strict regulations govern open-air wood fires, natural gas, propane and ethanol-fired appliances like these are permitted in the City of Ottawa.

"People like creating backyard oases," says Mike Pilon, president of Romantic Fireplaces & BBQs (romanticfireplaces.com). "These give you some heat and comfort and extend the season."

Pilon's company also designs and builds larger, custom firepits starting at $1,500. They include traditional campfire-like models and sleek, contemporary designs.

Some off-the-shelf products use a standard barbecue-style propane tank or alcohol-based gel fuel. Others tap into natural gas lines or large propane tanks, requiring professional installation.

Big box stores have got into the act. Home Depot (homedepot.ca) sells the Paramount line including the mood-creating, table top Gel Pot Cream. At $39.99, the seven-inch-tall ceramic firepot has river rocks cradling a small, central flame. It runs on clean-burning gel fuel.

http://www.househunting.ca/montreal/homes-and-gardens/baby+light+your+fire/4837016/story.html

WIRED OR WIRELESS?

Pulling cyberspace into the home can be a daunting experience for those not familiar with terms such as 801, 12a, b, g and n Wi-Fi; Cat-5 Ethernet cables and Gigabit routers. For the average Canadian just wanting to set up a simple home network, it can all be a bit overwhelming.

Fortunately, the debate over wired versus wireless home networks is easy to resolve. Deciding which option to choose is "really all about choice and how a family uses their Internet," said Chris Fudge, HP Canada's vice-president of consumer business. "Both options have benefits and drawbacks, so the choice really comes down to personal preferences and factors like installation, cost, reliability, performance needs and security."

Let's talk tech: A wired network uses Cat-5 cables to physically link computers, a broadband modem (for connecting to the Web), a router, and perhaps Internet-capable TVs, game consoles and Internet radios (audio devices that tune to Web-based radio stations). In contrast, a wireless network uses radio waves to link these devices. Each device transmits and receives signals over the air. This is why setting a password on the wireless router — the electronic gatekeeper that manages and controls the network — is a must. A password keeps out intruders, just as a front-door lock keeps out burglars.

Because a wired network uses physical cabling that is immune to wireless hackers, it is more secure than wireless. Wired networks also move data much faster than wireless networks can, are more stable and have more carrying capacity. These capabilities matter if you want to stream high-definition movies from your home computer to your HDTV set, said Ted Kritsonis, spokesman for online retailer NewEgg.ca."Unless your wireless-connected TV is really close to your wireless router, the signals can experience dropout," he said. "This makes your video stop and start, an effect known as stuttering."

Given that wired networks are operationally superior to wireless networks, why would anyone want to go wireless? One reason is mobility: "With a wireless network, you can move around the house with your laptop and stay connected," said Darryl Rosenfeldt, director of Future Shop's ConnectPro installation services division. "A wired network forces you to stay wherever the Cat-5 cable connections are."

Wireless networks are also easy to add new devices to. With a wired network, you have to literally run a new cable from the router to the new device. This means either having cables running along the floor, or opening up the walls and building them in. In contrast, adding a new wireless device is easy: Just turn it on, connect to the wireless router, enter in the password, and presto: You're on the home network!

On the negative side, wireless networks are prone to performance issues due to radio interference. Warning: The more people who use wireless in your neighbourhood, the more likely your network performance will slow down due to interfering signals. In some areas of North America, the airwaves are becoming so congested that wireless networking isn't practical. Add the fact that some wireless networks run on the same radio bands as baby monitors and cordless phones, and the chances for interference are very real.

http://www.househunting.ca/montreal/decorating/Wired+wireless/4826763/story.html

How Do You Spell Curb Appeal?

It doesn't matter if you're just starting out in a new home, thinking about selling, or staying put - buffing up the curb appeal of your house is an absolute must. How your home looks from the outside is the first impression viewers get of who lives inside.

And real estate agents will tell you when it comes to selling, there is no bigger turn-off than a messy front yard or sad-looking front door.

We gathered sage advice from area gardening and home professionals to help you spruce up the front of your house.

Clean up: The cheapest way to put a shine on the old address is to grab the rake and get busy.

Weed, trim edges for a clean appearance and prune and shape overgrown bushes. Snip off lower branches of pines for a good neat factor.

Add mulch or stones under cedars and around flower beds. Just like a new haircut, you will feel lighter by the end of the day.

Urban choices: Most of us live in the city, be it a tight bit of city bliss or in a suburb where neighbours are within touching distance. Choose trees carefully, says Trevor Cullen, co-owner of Cullen Landscaping on March Road.

Look for compact trees, including the Canadian Serviceberry or the Japanese Silk Lilac, suited to smaller urban lots. They will grow to 4.5 metres (15 feet). If you desperately love maples, be sure they are planted at least 12 metres (40 feet) from your house, says Cullen.