8 Home Improvement Tips for Ottawa Moms

Home improvements (from de-cluttering to re-decorating) will leave you with a feeling of calm when they're done. Here are eight tips on how to get it done.

Let this year be the year you extract your family memories from your computer and show them off on your wall. There's no better—or easier—way to turn your snapshots into real art than giving them the canvas treatment at CanvasPop. Any photo will do—a wide variety of filters and enhancements means CanvasPop can work with anything from an Instagram shot to a professional portrait.

Go room-by-room, sorting into three piles (or better yet, straight into boxes or garbage bags): Keep, Donate, Discard. One of the hardest things to deal with (especially if kids are underfoot) is the overflowing toy box. If you suspect that some toys aren't being played with, stash them out of sight in a cardboard box for a month. If time's gone by and no one has noticed, it might be time to get rid of them.

Value Village is a popular destination for gently used goods, but the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and smaller places like St. Vincent de Paul get the lion's share of our donations. If you have furniture to donate, consider calling Helping With Furniture. They're a volunteer-run, charitable group who picks up furniture and household goods from private donors and delivers it to refugee claimants in the Ottawa area.

Make a bit of pocket money via websites like UsedOttawa.com or Kijiji. Or how about renting a table at a community yard sale? If you don't have time to sell your goods, you can also donate them to the Westboro Community Association. And techno-friendly garage sale junkies might be interested to know that OttawaStart.com has a special Twitter feed just about Ottawa and area yard sales.

Find better ways to store the things that really are essential. For example, consider repurposing an old dresser. If you don't need it in a bedroom anymore, what about using it in your foyer or mudroom to store hats, mitts, scarves and shoes for the coming season? It provides a place to put your keys and mail, and by hanging a mirror above it, not only do you have a great way to check your appearance on the way out, but you add a greater feeling of lightness to the space.

Look for multi-purpose furniture. Think about bringing in pieces of furniture like an ottoman or bench that also stores items inside. These can be useful in family rooms, basement rec rooms, front halls or at the foot of a bed.

The two Habitat for Humanity ReStores in Ottawa are a ‘must visit' for anyone seeking materials for an inexpensive, home-related DIY project. Need to replace a broken tile? Some battered moulding? A grimy light switch cover? The ReStore sells a huge variety of new and used building materials at a fraction of the retail price.

They say your home is your castle, but we bet Cinderella never gave a moment's thought to air quality. The Healthiest Home makes sustainable, zero-emission products like Marmoleum, a wipe-clean, durable and hypoallergenic floor with natural linseed oil as its base and featuring CFC-free adhesive. We also love their bamboo flooring—which is easy on knees and backs and can be hand-sanded and reapplied as needed without emissions—and their line of Mythic latex paint, a high mineral paint that contains almost no liquid chemicals, has zero emissions and has even approved for use while pregnant.