Colour match for the English Lane Townhouses

Colour matching our Exterior Paint

This article comes from Kim Fraser on Humphrey Gate

Our townhouses are of the age where they all are in need of some touch ups and a tour of the neighbourhood will show that many of us have attempted and failed miserably in the colour match department. Now trying to get a colour match truly is a pain in the you know where. It will be slightly different for all of us due to weathering, sun discoloration and just plain dirt, but the closer we can get the less our homes with look like a hodge podge of splotches. Here is the closest I have found after upteen attempts. (I covered up some crack repairs and if you don’t know where to look they blend in very nicely). First off you don’t need stucco paint, a high quality exterior paint like Behr’s from Home Depot does nicely. I experimented with their sample sizes (about $5 each) . I had them colour match a piece of stucco which is not fool proof due to the texture. The colour match is : Base UL 204: CL 23 , LL 110, RUL 1. I then had to add the colour Spanish Tan (MS-21) in a 2:1 ratio to get a good match. E.g 2 tsp’s of the colour match mixed with 1 tsp of the Spanish Tan. That ended up being a good match ( that is what I used for my repair. I then painted that onto a stir stick with the intention of getting that colour matched in the future when I need to paint a larger space e.g the underside of my car port. If you find something better please let us know.

Kim

Suggestions for Contractors

Over the years both Joe and I have been asked by various neighbours for the names of contractors that we have used for different renos and repairs. So here's our list. I encourage everyone to add their suggestions to the list. I know several people have done upgrades and repairs. We need suggestions for roofers, window repair/replacement, colour matches for outdoor house paint. We'll keep a running list so that it can be refered to:

General Contractor
Craig Newtown
City Renovations
647-295-0551
cityrenovations.ca

Plumber
Max Tremblau
647-889-7585

Electrician
JTL and Sons Electricians
647-294-7500

Marble and Granite
Sinco Marble and Granite
Artoush Sinani
905-477-7002
sincogranite.com

Painter
Mario Persechini
Lakehurst Decorating
416-414-2309
lakehurstdecorating

Airconditioning and Heating
Dwayne Culzac
Culzac Heating and Airconditioning
416-805-5941
http://www.culzacheating.com

Landscaper/patio stones/drivesways
Neale Nicholes
C: 416-886-2578
W: 416-688-2578

WE HAVE OUR OWN BLOG

It's finally done, we the residence of this little enclave of Don Mills, have our own blog. Created to help build neighbourhood spirit and cohesiveness, we'll add to the BreenBeltDonMillsHOA.blogspot.ca as often as we can. We'll use this spot to talk about neighbourhood events, updates on city planning for the undeveloped elements and general good news that will help make us a community.

Anyone can add to the conversation, so please post your thoughts and comments, just remember this is about positive spirit and cohesiveness. We want to build our community and make it the best place in the city to live - WHICH IT ALREADY IS!!!

Waiting for Spring in Don Mills

“In a city with so many great pockets, and many more improving faster than you can say "gentrification", the competition for the title of Number One Neighborhood is cutthroat…” That’s the opening line from Toronto Life’s recent listing of preferential neighborhoods in the city. With an overall rating of 70.0 (only really loosing points to a lack of effective transit – which many could argue applies to most of the city), Don Mills Branbury outshines all but Rosedale as the neighborhood of choice.

But ranking a community by arbitrary (albeit measureable) standards such as Entertainment, Health, Environment, Shopping, Housing, Crime and Transit doesn’t really tell the story of the neighborhood. It doesn’t talk to the community and the people who inhabit it. Our community toy chest does.

Instead of seeing the toys, neatly stacked under the community play set as plastic awaiting recycling, see instead a totally voluntary, non-orchestrated community toy chest. What started as a way for a young mother of three to reduce the chore involved in getting her children and their toys to and from the local park, she chose to leave the toys in the sandbox. Quickly the idea caught on. More and more families added to the growing supply of toys. And nothing makes a toy more interesting than it be something you haven’t played with before, something that didn’t come from your own home. Now, on any day when the temperature is above freezing, tiny hands swarm the play area gleefully running to find their favorite plastic treasure.

The small community park is the centre of the neighborhood. This is a neighborhood made up of all kinds of people who have arrived here from other parts of the city and other parts of the world. This is a community of people and families that enjoy the close living of urban life and enjoy watching the smallest of the community drive plastic trucks through the hills and valleys of the local sandbox.