This past weekend, The Toronto Star’s Your Home section featured any article about Murphy Beds. Our own Barb Larocque was interviewed for it, and provided some good information about our beds and the blossoming interest in them.  Even about a year ago, we were installing a Murphy Bed perhaps once a month; right now, we are closer to once a week, and the installations go smoother than ever before.  The bed pictures used in the article are of our Queen Size display bed, which you can see in person at our showroom.  To see the article, click here.

Well, we’re at that time of year again.  Spring has indeed arrived; the weather is - generally - beautiful, things are sprouting, and it’s time to turn our attention to the outside.  For many of us, it’s now also time to turn our attention to the Garage. We’ve put away our snow shovels for the winter (We think. And am I the only one who never used his this year?) and time to dust off the lawn mower, hedge trimmer and garden gloves; and also it’s time to swap the skis and toboggans for the golf clubs and tennis rackets.  Many of us forget during the winter just how much we are storing in our garage, and now that we’re looking for that patio chair or barbecue tank, we’re stumbling over all the other things we keep in there.  That may mean that it’s time to have a garage sale - it’s that time of year, too - but maybe you’ve purged enough already. What you need is a better system.

Space Solutions has the means to let you reclaim the space in your garage. If you live in the city of Toronto, you’re likely lucky to even be able to park your car in the garage, as many older homes have garages that date back well before the dawn of the minivan and SUV.   Even with a larger space, a family with children will find that bicycles, skateboards and hockey nets take up much of the space that would otherwise house your vehicle.  Getting as much of the kids’ things off the floor as possible will go a long way towards freeing up that space.  StoreWALL’s slat wall system is a great place to start. With holders to hang bicycles, baskets for sports balls and hooks for all sorts of sporting goods and garden tools, you can have a better organized space in no time.  A wall covered with StoreWALL looks great too, and is resistant to weather damage and mildew. The patented locking mechanism on StoreWALL’s accessories keep things secure on the wall, because you need your garage to be a safe place, too.  Hang Mom and Dad’s bikes up high, and mount the kids’ bikes lower where they can reach them, and be amazed at how much floor space you recover.

RedLine’s garagegear cabinets provide a great solution for tools and smaller items.  Not every Toronto garage is going to have the space for cabinets, but even if you can get a small series in one corner, all those cans of paint, hammers (if you’re like me, you have 4 of them), light bulbs, Christmas decorations - they can all have a neat, tidy home.  Garagegear cabinets are powder-coated, making them also resistant to moisture and most chemicals.  Include a heavy-duty workbench top, and the hobbyist or home handyman has a durable, convenient place to work.  The best thing about about our garage cabinets is that they’re mounted off the floor to the wall, so they are away from wet, sloping garage floors.  Our trained installers guarantee to get it right, so you don’t have to worry about your things, your car, or your kids.

The Garage page on our website features more pictures of garage ideas, as well as links to our garage suppliers’ websites and color options. Visit our showroom to our offerings in person, we’ll also be happy to do a site visit and come up with a proposal for your space.

We built the cabinet out of MDF and had it factory-painted.  (Our production shop has a spray facility for factory finishes.)  MDF is used for paint-able cabinetry, as it provides a consistent surface for even coverage - and also allows for profiles, like the applied molding on the drawer fronts, the baseboard detail and the wonderful edge detail on the surface.  To properly fit a cabinet like this, we perform two site visits with the installation team.  The initial trip is what we call the dry fitting: before the cabinet is painted, we bring it to the site to scribe the surface and do any of the tight fitting.  (In older homes like this one, right angles are few and far between, so some cutting is to be expected, and you don’t want to be cutting the unit after painting, as that would risk ruining the finishing on the perimeter.) After confirming the fit, the cabinet is then brought back to the shop for painting, and once that has been completed, the finished cabinet is then installed, and the handles attached.  The client then outfitted his new window seat with a stylish cushion, and the result is a piece of furniture that is as beautiful as it is functional.

We can also install the cabinet for you as unfinished MDF, in which case you - or a  painter you might hire - would paint it afterwards.  You can use whatever paint you might be using say for your baseboards, and the cabinet can blend right in.  It may depend on the size and look of your project which way you’d want to go - and of course, what your budget is, as painting it yourself will be more economical than a factory finish.  We have examples of cabinets both factory-painted and hand-painted in our showroom, so you can see the results for yourself.

Click here to read another post about another factory painted cabinet project.  And click here to request an in home consultation for your next project.

Update February 1, 2010: our Annual Winter Sale has now ended.  Thank you for a successful sale!

We’ll also be presenting a simple closet at Marilyn Wetston’s booth at The Zoomer Show.  Marilyn’s show, From A Woman’s Perspective, runs every Saturday morning from 8 to 9 am on their sister station, AM740.  Barb Larocque, the owner of Space Solutions, is a frequent guest on Marilyn’s show, and is happy to contribute to her booth as well.