My RONA Home Finale Taping

As you've likely noticed if you've been watching the show, the episodes were all taped a while ago, back when we had great sunny weather (in fact, I think I had heat stroke when we did the the episode about landscaping — if I sound crazy on that episode, it's just the heat talking, ignore me).

But the final episode, where we find out who will win their home mortgage free will be taped on November 30 at 2:00 pm.

Episode Seven: Living Rooms

Yellow Team Living Room

This week our two teams again had a big job to tackle. They needed to finish the living room, front foyer and the stairwells. Basically they had to complete all the remaining space of the interior of their homes.

Laundry Rooms

The laundry room is an often overlooked design challenge. The space needs to be bright, and have adequate storage for all the necessary supplies. It should ideally provide space for not only cleaning and drying the laundry, but for folding and ironing so these tasks don't have to be spread out through the home. The unfortunate fact is that we likely spend more time doing laundry than we want to think about, so this space should also be enjoyable - housework is bad enough, there's no sense having to do it in a dismal space!

Wallpaper

Yellow Team Powder Room

After years of being banished from stylish spaces, wallpaper has made a huge comeback. And now it has even more flexibility with a wider range of materials. Calgary design experts give us their take on using wallpaper. http://www.avenuecalgary.com/articles/page/item/if-these-walls-could-talk

Episode Six: Dining Room

Blue Team Dining Room

This week our teams faced two design challenges: create functional and stylish spaces in the dining room and the laundry room. As if that weren't enough, the teams also had to complete the back entrance/mudroom area of the home.

Episode Six: Dining Room and Laundry Room

This week our teams faced two design challenges: create functional and stylish spaces in the dining room and the laundry room. As if that weren't enough, the teams also had to complete the back entrance/mudroom area of the home.

Both homes had dining rooms that were open to the kitchen, meaning that the design had to be integrated between the two spaces. With growing families, both teams needed to create dining spaces that would allow for plenty of different uses.

Open Concept Kitchens

Yellow Team Kitchen

Both teams faced the challenge of having a fairly open kitchen space. In the Blue Team home, the kitchen is open to the dining room, but in the Yellow Team home the open-concept first floor means that the kitchen is open to the dining room and living room areas.

Open concept kitchens have several advantages:

Episode Five: Kitchen and Powder Room

Blue Team Kitchen

A great kitchen can make some people salivate and it's not just a Pavlovian response about the food either. A kitchen that is both functional and stylish can make a huge difference to the enjoyment it provides.

This week our two families had the challenge of renovating the kitchen in their homes and as if that weren't enough, we threw in the powder room, too.

Episode Four: basements

Blue Team Basement.

This week our two teams were challenged with completing most of the basement space within 30 hours. (I say most because the laundry rooms are yet to come!)

Each team had to put in the flooring, paint and finish the space as well as set up all the furniture.

Episode Three: bathrooms

The Yellow Team Bathroom.

This week the teams had to complete two full bathrooms upstairs - the master ensuite and the main bathroom - in 30 hours.

Bathrooms are a space that can eat up a lot of renovation time, effort and money - but they don't need to. With careful planning and efficient use of all your resources you can have the bathroom you want.