Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Hey Snappy, My partner and I are about to begin renovation on a house we just bought. We are going to get new floors, a new kitchen, a new bathroom, and new appliances. Although "new" in this situation is good, it means, by definition, that there is old. And a lot of it. We want as little of the......

If you thrill to the authenticity of a one-of-a-kind vintage find, but could do without the authentic experience of digging through a factory-sized, moldy basement-scented Value Village for hours on end, you’ve probably already discovered Upside Dive Inc. And if not, you’re about to have a moment. Bicycles and biker jackets, desk chairs and secretary dresses, sunburst clocks and butterfly shades... Upside Dive is a purveyor of all things preloved, a one-stop wonder emporium founded......

Since April is Earth Month, it seems like a good time to take a look at the world of second-hand shopping. After all, buying used consumer goods does help reduce, reuse, and recycle. We visited almost every Value Village, Goodwill, and Salvation Army in the GTA to find out which locations had the best merchandise. Here's what we discovered: Is thrift store shopping really green? While it's great that gently used clothing and housewares aren't......

The 1960s and 1970s saw family dining restaurant chains explode across North America. Chains such as Steak n' Burger took staples of diners and greasy spoons and used cleanliness, low prices and conformity to draw in hungry families. You have all the components of the old-school low-end steak dinner: a bowl of iceberg lettuce with no fresh-ground pepper or sun-dried tomato vinaigrette in sight, a baked potato with a huge pat of butter; a......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! This seemed an appropriate image for December 25th. Happy holidays from the Torontoist staff. It comes courtesty of Photojunkie (Rannie Turingan), a former member of our Torontoist family. He's recently gotten in the habit of picking up cool kitsch......

Value Village is one of the unsung heroes of Toronto's indie arts scene. Now that the Buy the Pound is located in the middle of nowhere, VV is easily one of the best places for penny-saving artists to find vintage clothing. Also, we're pretty sure that a good percentage of independent theatre in the city would be without props if it weren't for VV. So it was only a matter of time that someone decided......

Most people go thrift shopping for their latest fashions. However for any Photoist, we believe there is more to be had if you look in the right place. Some of our latest finds include a box of slides from a 50's UK vacation for a dollar at Goodwill and a set of close up filters at Value Village. These places are great for old kitch and photo accessories if you're willing to sift. We're......