Tag Archives: exterior design

Finance

Ways To Make Your Home Look Better For Winter Selling

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A truism in real estate is that the best time to sell is during the spring and summer months.

You have more buyers, prices and valuations are higher, and your home simply looks better under the bright summer sun than during the drab winter gloom. But what if you really need to sell your home now?

Before you list your property in the real estate listings such as these in Ottawa, here are a few simple tricks you can try.

  1. Make improvements to your fence.

If you have a fence, then it’s the first thing that people encounter as they walk to your home. It should give a good first impression, so you need to fix damages if there are any. You can also consider repainting it to make it look new.

Don’t forget to make sure that the latch works perfectly too. It should close easily enough without any sort of fussy process.

  1. Prune your trees.

The trees near your home shouldn’t block the buyer’s view of your house. Instead, the trees should have silhouettes that frame the house to make it look much better. It’s best to prune your trees during their dormant periods when they don’t have leaves. This makes it easier for you to see the shape and structure of the tree.

Remove the damaged and diseased branches first. Then get rid of the branches that hang low enough to obscure your house and hang over walkways. Finally, thin the crown to improve the air circulation and the amount of light.

  1. Plant snow flowers.

You can plant early narcissi and snowdrops in your garden, along with a few clumps at the edges of your walkways. These can add some color to your home amidst all that white snow.

You can also plant hardy hellebores that thrive during the winter months, such as the Ashwood Neon, the Walberton’s Rosemary or even the stinking hellebore (H. foetidus).

  1. Attract more birds near your home.

Having plenty of birds around is great during the winter. The place seems alive, and you get plenty of colors. You can do this simply by putting up a bird feeder on your property. You can also plant shrubs in your garden that are known to attract birds. These include bayberry, snowberry, and burning bush.

  1. Touch up the house number.

Your house number is important because you want your potential buyers to find your home more easily. Sadly, plenty of homes have rather illegible house numbers.

Even those that are noticeable can seem outdated or downright unattractive. You can improve its look in various ways so that it becomes appealing and also prominent.

  1. Keep the house clean.

One problem during the winter is that plenty of people track in mud after walking around in the snow and sludge. Often doormats aren’t just up to the job of getting rid of all that gooey mess.

However, you can arrange for boots to be removed first before people enter the home. If that’s not possible, you can at least buy and set up an effective boot scraper that can help your doormat get rid of the mess.

  1. Use your Christmas lights.

Put them up early, and leave them up until February if you have to. These lights can really make your home look better.

Use plenty of Christmas décor for more color as well.

  1. Wash your windows.

You need to get rid of the grime in your windows, which prevents the sunlight from getting into your home.

Featured image- Hadley Hooper/ Boston Globe. 

Sci-Tech

St. Catharines New Highest Technology Hospital Is Impressive

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The Project: The 980,000 sq. ft. acute care community hospital replaces two aging facilities in the Niagara region and accommodates 375 acute care beds, with associated outpatient and support services.

Niagara Health System New Health Care Complex – St. Catharines Site "2oth Century NOT included" CP
New Health Care Complex – St. Catharines Site “2oth Century NOT included”

It provides a comprehensive range of clinical services including:

• a cancer centre serving 1,200 patients close to home, relieving them from the stress of travelling to Hamilton or Toronto for treatments

• a longer-term mental health service that includes 53 beds

• dialysis services

• cardiac catheterization services, which provides diagnostic investigation, reduces hospitalizations for heart disease and provides faster local care for residents of the Niagara region

The goal of this project was to provide Niagara Health System with a modern, state-of-the-art, one million square foot building capable of providing one million square feet of care.

In addition to design and construction management, PCL’s [ PCL comprises a  family of  general contracting companies  and is the largest such organization in Canada and the fifth largest in the U.S. CP ]scope of work also included the procurement and installation of more than 25,000 pieces of medical equipment, as well as medical gas, head walls, nurse call system, information technology, audio visual, and security technology.

Some of the many interesting features that set this building apart include construction of the first radiation suites in the Niagara region, an enclosed ambulance bay to provide protection to incoming patients, an interior design that strategically locates departments to minimize clinical travel time by staff, and an exterior design that implements materials indigenous to the Niagara region.

 

Interior and exterior architectural designs affect patient and staff psychology so why not design accordingly? This ceiling detail of the Walker Cancer Care Treatment Room ceiling reveals the care and consideration that went into the hospitals designs. CP
Interior and exterior architectural designs affect patient and staff psychology so why not design accordingly? This ceiling detail of the Walker Cancer Care Treatment Room ceiling reveals the care and consideration that went into the hospitals designs. CP

 

Architectural

• Main Street feature wall using a combination of indigenous and complementary stones that tell a story of the geological formation of the  Niagara Escarpment.

• Use of structural elements in the form of a tree at the main entry and cafeteria to create the canopy.

• First operating rooms in Canada to use Corian wall finishes.

• Integrated interior finishes and way finding system,using landmarks to help visitors and patients locate themselves in the facility.

• Enhanced use of natural light to infiltrate deeper into the building, with particular attention to patient spaces.

• An acoustical design at the building envelope to mitigate and isolate noise generated by a nearby train corridor.

 

Structural

• Blending structural elements with architectural finish and spectacle.

• Strategy of a structural grid system to maximize open spaces and floor to ceiling height.

• Foundation system and MRI inertia slab to address vibrations created by train traffic and a nearby machine stamping plant.

• Post Disaster design to address potential seismic event, to allow the facility to operate during and after as a relief centre.

• Use of cast-in-place elements to allow equipment flexibility.

Mechanical/Electrical

• Pandemic containment capability to deal with infectious outbreaks and disasters, allowing the facility to isolate building sections and departments.

• Building automation system, fully integrated with building elements and equipment to monitor and ensure optimal building performance.

• Back-up and dual power systems to ensure fundamental building and medical systems remain available and functioning at all times, including integration with the building automation system, to allow targeted load distribution to non fundamental systems to become available as required.

 

The Operating Theater. It's understandable if you think that this is a set from Star Trek-
The Operating Theater. It’s understandable if you think that this is a set from Star Trek-

 

Sustainability

• The project is targeted for LEED® certification. As part of the construction and design strategy, the project team developed several innovations and elements for a significant improvement of the target to LEED® Silver certification – from 26 to 35 points.

• Incorporated an energy efficient lighting strategy using natural lighting as much as possible, as well as the broad use of occupancy sensors and low energy lighting systems.

• Integrated and efficient cooling and heating systems, and an optimized building envelope system that helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• The overall energy strategy resulted in the Energy Model that realizes an energy savings of 46% relative to the Model Energy Code for Buildings, which is expected to produce savings to the client in excess of $1 million annually.

• Use of native and hardy plant  species and an integrated storm water management program, including irrigation and water features to eliminate city water use for landscape elements.

 

A look at the state-of-the-art radiation treatment facility.
A look at the state-of-the-art radiation treatment facility.

Supplemental- Corian mineral composite wall panels– http://www.architonic.com/pmpro/corian-panels-mineral-composite-panels-mineral-composite-materials-finishes/3240623/2/2/1

1000 Canadian projects now LEED Certified/What is LEED– http://www.dcnonl.com/article/id55463

B+H Architects, designers of St. Catherines new hospital- http://www.bharchitects.com/en/projects/129

PCL Construction, builders of St. Catherines new hospital– http://www.pcl.com/Pages/default.aspx