Tune in on Monday December 29th at 10pm on HGTV’s The Decorating Adventures of Ambrose Price , Martin Swinton will appear as an expert on episode about upholstery. It was shot last summer.

Jim Byers featured the story of local small business owners fighting to get their A-frame signs back from the city only to be told that they can’t put them out because the sidewalk is too narrow.

We feel for them. On north Avenue Road, we are facing the similar problems. The bylaw officers have told us that we can’t even put our A-fram sign on private property in front of our shop. This, to us, is insane. 

Once again, lots of enforcement of bylaws by city of Toronto inspectors; little services from the city for the high commercial property taxes that we pay.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

“The Decorating Adventures of Ambrose Price” is coming to HGTV in fall 2008. Ambrose was a designer contestant on the recent Designer Superstar Challenge.  Although he did not win the title of Designer Superstar, he caught the producer’s attention and a new show was conceived.

An episode the new show is being shot in the shop today with Martin appearing as an expert judge. Tune into the show in the fall to see the episode.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

Carissa Reiniger has turned her smashing book Stories From Our Black Books into a play.

We love the book because it featured the story of our first date (see “Martin” page 141 ). The play started May 8th at Six Degrees (2335 Yonge Street). Check it out. We’ll have to see if our story has been included.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

Martin appears as a panelist tonight at 9pm on Goldhawk Live. The topic is “Does Toronto need tighter garage sale laws?” Garage sales shopping tips  is a topic we know something about. I expect Martin to have lots to say.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

The city of Toronto’s city inspectors are hyper vigilant in enforcing city bylaws with respect to A-frame signs and garbage removal. These laws unfairly target small mom and pop merchants. 

A recent article in the Toronto Star highlights problems for mom and pop merchants in The Junction area of Toronto. 

This article hit home for us as we and other merchants on north Avenue Road have felt the heavy hand of city inspectors. My letter to the editor on this topic appeared in today’s paper.

I could go on at length about the lack of services that is disproportionate  to the taxes we pay and the fact that Martin spends time each day sweeping leaves in spring and fall, shovelling snow in the winter to generally keeping the walkways decent and passable.

Martin’s out there so much cleaning the front area of our block that one day a security guard from the CIBC , a few doors down from us, mistook him for a city worker and demanded that Martin clean the walkway in front of the bank!

Can’t recall the last time we saw a city worker cleaning up Avenue Road, yet we see the city inspectors regularly.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

Take-a-boo goes green. We’ve signed up for Earth Hour. You can sign up too. At 8pm. on March 29th, we’ll be dimming our lights at the shop and at home.

I think we’ve always been green at heart. We’ve switched out all our light bulbs, use light timers and got all new LED Christmas lights this year. I had no idea what an energy drain Christmas lights are.

At home, the biggest change was replacing our energy sucking ancient refrigerator for an energy efficient model. We saw our hydro bill sliced by one third with that one change.

Sign up for Earth Hour. 

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year. Here’s our festive elf greeting to you.

Martin and Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

One of our fave new websites is OurFaves Toronto where you can list your favourite places in the city. If you post enough faves you can become a featured faver like us. 

It’s fun to let people in our your favourite restaurants, shops, hair salons and neighbourhoods. Plus, we like it because it gives us an opportunity to promote our favourite neighbourhood North Toronto.

I’ve entered a contest they are running right now. I’d be thrilled to win it and be able to take some friends to our favourite restaurant Celestin.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com

Martin appeared on the first episode of the relaunched Rogers Television’s Daytime with hosts Carla Bosacki and Riaz Meghji. A few years ago Martin was a semi-regular guests on the show. The program was pulled from the air, retool and relaunched today.

Martin chatted about antique lighting and hopes to return to the show for future segments.

He’s the only person I know who is more comfortable doing live television rather than tape. He’s a one-shot kinda guy who feels stilted and unnatural if he has to do a second take. Strange but true.

Andrea Swinton
www.takeaboo.com