HomeStars News and Updates

Need to understand the New HST? CARAHS can help

Do you have concerns about the new HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) and how it will affect your business? HomeStars would like to notify you about the up coming event, sponsored by CARAHS, TD Canada Trust & BFW that will tell you everything you need to know.

This is a great opportunity for people to come along and find out what its all about and how it will effect them.

Glen Faulknor will be presenting. He is a Senior Technical Interpretation Analyst GST/HST Rulings from Canada Revenue Agency and he’ll be discussing the upcoming HST and how it impacts your business. This is a great opportunity for everyone there to voice their concerns to Revenue Canada. Glen will be taking questions from the audience. Come prepared with your questions. The event will be held on event Thursday March 25, 2010 from 6 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. For more details, check it out here.

Posted by BrianS

It’s packed at the Hamilton Ideal Home Show this weekend!

The Ideal Home & Garden show had a fantastic first day  the aisles were buzzing with homeowners across the Hamilton area – they came from Oakville, Stoney Creek, Dundas, Flamborough, Ancaster, Brantford, Burlington and even people some from London and Stratford and Grimsby.

It’s now Saturday morning and the aisles are already full at the huge Careport Centre. I went around the aisles last night and met some really friendly exhibitors that have some great ideas to help us homeowners with various projects we have this year.

Mag Ruffman will be up on stage interviewing 4 top rated contractors (and exhibitors) today to share their tips and ideas:

Beverley Hills Home Improvement – Ben

CoreTemp Heating & Air Conditioning – Richard

Stonecote – Jerret

Lighting Innovation & Design – Brendan

Come check us out at 2pm on the main stage! Don’t forget to print your 50% off ticket coupon before  you arrive.

Posted by NancyP

Fraser Valley Home & Garden Show – Second Show of the Season

This weekend our west coast Home Show rodeo continues with Shannon hitting up Abbotsford for the Fraser Valley Home and Garden show. Want discounted tickets to the show? Click here and write a review for $5 off your ticket price.

You know you don’t want to be in downtown Vancouver!  The crowds are going to be crazy with the Olympics, so take a trip a few miles out of town before the tourists start roaming and hit up the Fraser Valley Home & Garden Expo.

The event will be at the the Tradex Trade and Exhibition Centre which is at 1190 Cornell St, in Abbotford.

Stop by our booth and say hi to Shannon and the crew and pick yourself up a $5 Starbucks or Tim Hortons card for writing some nice things (or not nice things, if that’s the case) about your local contractor or home improvement specialists.

If you’re walking around the show and need some thoughts on who is good don’t forget to look through our online show guide here. You can even filter by category so if you’re only looking for roofers, you’ll only pull those up. (with 21st Century Roofing right now leading the pack in the roofers)

Posted by BrianS

The Best Toronto Contractors – 2009 Awards Night

Last night HomeStars announced the Best of Toronto awards at the Toronto Cricket Club. About 200 people showed up representing about 110 different companies. It was a night to celebrate those that don’t get publicly rewarded often for the hard work they put into their businesses. We are proud that our readers put these companies into the spotlight based on the feedback they give on the site. And the companies were very proud of the work they had done, from Kitchen and Bathroom Designers, to Heating and Air Conditioning experts, to Plumbers and Drainage guys.

As a homeowner, you want to know who to trust, and in Toronto, these guys have proven themselves to be hard and honest workers as expressed in reviews by their consumers. When you’re looking for some work done, it’ll be hard to go wrong by choosing a Best of 2009 Toronto award winner.

We have posted the fulle Toronto list on on the site here.

But here are a few of the shots of some of the individuals from the night. There’s plenty more shots on our FaceBook page here. Feel free to tag yourself or your favourite contractor.

The guys from Kitchen Designs Plus won again this year:

We also had Alec from Master Deck:

And here’s Nanette Snel, accepting her award for Nanique Interiors:

Posted by BrianS

One of our HomeStars (Just Junk) is growing

Mike Thorne, one of our HomeStars clients,  has been building JustJunk.com into a national brand over the last few years. They have been using HomeStars over the last year or so and have franchises with listings in Toronto , Burlington, St. Catherines, Hamilton, and Jacksonville, FL.   According to Mike, the JustJunk.com brand is an award winning business that has already expanded to 21 locations. (many, we think, not listed on HomeStars yet….. – and if they were, they’d be doing better!). Check out their website at www.justjunk.com to read additional information and hear about their success.

They are now growing and in search of new franchisees.

The junk removal business is busy on HomeStars, with companies like Des O’Leary, Junk It, and last years Toronto Best of 08 Award winner, 1-800 Got Junk bringing in hundreds of jobs per year through HomeStars, let alone what they do through their other advertising channels.

Who will be Best of Toronto in Junk Removal this year? …. Come find out on Feb 4th!

If you’re interested in learning more about this franchise in Junk Removal, give Mike a ping a at mikethorne@justjunk.com.

Posted by BrianS

A paint colour makeover for our main floor changes everything — and nothing

A while back I did an interview with Janice Lindsay about her new book, All About Colour. I became so enthusiastic about colour and how much it can affect whether or not you love your home that after the interview I hired Janice.

As soon as she entered our house I could see her eyeing it in a way the rest of us don’t. She was looking into the shadows in the dark corners and at the way the light filtered into the house. Light and colour work together she told me. Sometimes dark corners can get lost in a room, as in our case in the dining room. Janice suggested varying shades of straw, which depending on how much light an area of the room received, could be a shade lighter or darker. She also suggested adding a block of orange (BM 2171-30) in the dining room. The block serves two purposes: one is to help break up the long living room and dining room wall and the second purpose is to ground the artwork so it doesn’t appear to be floating.  She carried the main straw colour (Benjamin Moore’s Powell Buff HC 35) through to the kitchen for consistency but suggested we go outside of our comfort zone and paint one kitchen wall black. If we weren’t comfortable with that, she also suggested “Churlish Green” from Farrow and Ball as an alternate (it ended up in the powder room).

In the end we used every colour she suggested, including — dare I say it — the black. Yes, that’s right, we have one black wall in our kitchen. As my husband and I said to each other when we decided to go for it — it’s just paint. If we end up not liking it, we can paint over it. So far, my only regret with the black paint (PPG Pittsburgh Paints Black Magic 518-7) is that I didn’t use chalkboard paint (although admittedly, keeping it clean would have been a pain).

I bought the highest-end paint I could afford (low VOC Manor Hall by Pittsburgh), because I wanted a durable, washable paint that won’t fade over time, and hired a fantastic painter who painted the entire house top to bottom in four days (no trim work necessary).

When friends come to visit they don’t even notice the new paint colours — which, let’s be honest, can be a bit of a letdown. But what they do notice is the warmer, cosier feeling in the home. Some of the more observant guests notice the orange block in the dining room, and a few have even noticed the black wall in the kitchen.  It reminds me of that Coco Chanel quote:  “Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman.”

See below for before and after pics. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos — they really don’t do the change justice, but with me being a mediocre photographer and owning a really old digital camera, this is what happens.

Posted by CathyR

HomeStars Partners with CARAHS – Kicks off with Rona Workshop

HomeStars has begun a partnership with CARAHS (Canadian Association of Renovators and Home Services) – a relatively new organization. The CARAHS aim to make those in the Construction, Renovation and Home Services industry aware of their obligation under the law, as it relates to the Occuational Health & Safety Act. In addition they are working on becoming an organization which helps their members find new business by educating them on new market developments and new techniques in the home services business.

As part of that process they invited HomeStars to come an present to their members early Friday morning at the Whitby Rona Store. Fraser Firth, our business development manager presented in front of about 30 of their members, including some of our current companies with lots of reviews including CallRich Eco, and Envirotech Insulation. It was a great morning of education and networking among the members, about HomeStars, as well as about other issues in the industry. 

There have been a number of recent changes in the health and safety regulations in Ontario recently, including changes in WSIB requirements. Additionally the regulators and agencies have been cracking down on small renovators. In Ontario, many of our renovators are small businesses, and are generally too busy to get involved in bigger employee and owner education programs. CARAHS aims to help these renovators and home services companies by providing them an inexpensive way of keeping up to date on their requirements, as well as helping them network to find new business.

We would highly encourage any company involved in HomeStars to look into what they are doing and give the fearless leader of CARAHS, Alec Caldwell, a call at 1-866-366-2930, or email him at info@carahs.org. We’ve also added their link into the blogroll on the side of our blog.

We will also be posting some of their articles and information in upcoming blog posts to help our community of HomeStars companies.

Posted by BrianS

Top Rated Vancouver Home & Interior Design Show Companies

Our booth has been busy at the show. While the sun is starting to peek out from the rain, on Vancouver day, the city has come to the Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show. With a Canucks game tonight across the street at GM Place,  we expect it will get busier as the day goes on.

We have been walking around the show and meeting some of the exhibitors who have some great reviews on our site.

If you come to the show be sure to check out Penfolds Roofing. This Vancouver roofer has not only has the most reviews on HomeStars, but also has prime position on the central aisle of the show.

We also ran into Dave Hillier, from Resurface Solutions/Vancouver Bath. He has been working a busy booth throughout the show. (This isn’t Dave in the Booth at the time of my picture)

Also, the guys at WestCoast Renovations were very busy talking to potential new customers at the show:

Posted by BrianS

Twitterers at the Vancouver Home Show

We are at the Vancouver Home Show, showcasing HomeStars to the Lower Mainland community. The reception has so far been fantastic. I have been updating our twitter followers with notes about who is at the show and how the progress has been going through our twitter account.

While the home services industry has not fully embraced twitter we found a few early adapters at the show who have been using the vehicle to grow their businesses.

We ran into @papaplumbing whose booth is right around the corner from us:

We also saw the fabulous Urban Barn (@urban_barn) display who, clearly by their HomeStars reviews,

And of course, the fine people at Habitat for Humanity (@HVHGV_Restore) had a booth for their Restore, one of our premium Vancouver companies.

And finally we ran into the fine people at My House (@MyHouseLive) Design Build , who also has a booth near us, at the after party. Great bunch of guys.

Posted by BrianS

New, Durable “Smart Interior Wash and Wear” Paint from CIL, Available At a Retailer Near You

It’s been said that paint is the cheapest mistake you can make when it comes to decorating your home. The implication is that when it comes to colour, go a little outside your comfort zone because you can always repaint if you don’t like it and the extra cost is minimal.

While I firmly sit in this camp, there is always the problem of painting a colour you actually like, but if it’s in high traffic areas like entryways, stairwells and kitchens, the paint can get scuffed and banged up fairly easily. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to wash the scuff marks off your walls — or worse, wash them off, but the paint comes with it!

CIL has just introduced a new paint, “Smart3 Interior Wash and Wear” that is completely scrubbable regardless of whether an ultra-matte or semi-gloss finish is used. Further, it includes a primer and “one-coat” technology, meaning that one coat is all you need — which also saves you a lot of time.  It is fade and chip resistant and will stay new looking for many years — which means you don’t have to paint as often, saving you money and time.

CIL Smart Paint Can

An exterior line of “CIL Smart paints” is available as well, in flat, satin and semi-gloss.

Cost: $33-45/gallon.

See http://www.cil.ca for your nearest location or call 1-800-387-3767.

Posted by CathyR