Speakers and Celebrities at the Ottawa Home and Garden Show

Emma Terrell The Urban Botanist

Emma Terrell is the creator and owner of The Urban Botanist. An international speaker featured in BBC news; Emma is an empowering citizen scientist who advocates for the natural world. She is the host of The Urban Botanist's Living Wilder series, and Lee Valley Tools YouTube channel.

Always bringing a fresh, inspired, and engaging perspective to the hobby of horticulture, Emma encourages people to grow their green thumbs through her eye opening and creative plant-based workshops. She has spent the last 6 years combining her education and passion with greenery to bring together The Urban Botanist! Designing and creating stunning interior feature walls using nothing but green, her designs will have you wanting to bring greenery into all of our indoor living spaces. Her mission is to encourage people to engage with nature through ecofriendly products, sustainability hacks, education, biophilic design, and more!

Lana Doss The Fine Gardener

Nancy McDonald Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton

Nancy grew up on a farm on PEI and learned the practical aspects of gardening from her parents. Her love of flowers came from spending time in her grandmother’s beautiful mixed garden.

After 42 years of a very fulfilling nursing career, Nancy’s thoughts turned to retirement and volunteer opportunities. She has been a member of the Master Gardeners of Ottawa Carleton for 13 years. Nancy is also a member of the Friends of the Farm and the Ottawa Horticultural Society.

Nancy enjoys her small suburban garden and the birds, bees and butterflies that visit. She also enjoys making flavourful recipes in her kitchen using herbs and edible flowers from her garden.

Sue Pitchforth Décor Therapy Plus

Sue Pitchforth of Decor Therapy Plus is an international award-winning designer, a TV personality and professional speaker.

Sue’s approach to design is refreshing, unique and inexpensive, yet yields luxurious results. Believing the home is an expression of your life and personality, Sue says most people usually have a lot of what they need, they just don’t know it. “You would be surprised, how every home has the best stories and items in their basements or closets”.

She is passionate about creating spaces where homeowners surround themselves with things they love and that reflect who they are.

Her workshops and seminars are extremely popular, inspiring thousands of homeowners around Ontario.

Sue is thrilled to be back on the Sleep Country Main Stage sharing her love of design with the audience.

Bonny Koabel Access Rebates

Bonny Koabel CPA, CGA is the Founder and CEO of Access Rebates. In 2003 Access Rebates was founded to assist homeowners with obtaining difficult to access Government funds including grants, subsidies, tax credits, refunds and rebates. Prior to starting Access Rebates Ms. Koabel spent 10 in industry where she learned first-hand how to obtain Government funding. Ms. Koabel took this knowledge with her to Access Rebates where she has successfully worked on grants as large as $1,000,000 for renovations. Ms. Koabel writes for a several magazines and her articles and podcasts can be found online.

Bonny will be presenting the current Housing Funding programs that are available to homeowners to help them save money on any new construction and renovation projects that they are planning.

Rebecca Last Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton

Rebecca Last has been gardening on and off since age 8 and has been a member of Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton since 2005. Her small suburban garden is certified by the Canadian Wildlife Federation as wildlife habitat. Rebecca grows a dozen or more varieties of heritage tomatoes every year. Her garden design includes elements of permaculture and she has been honoured to receive several awards from the Ontario horticulture community.

Aside from getting her hands dirty, Rebecca is also passionate about the science behind gardening. Not a scientist herself, a big part of her career was translating science into terms that would resonate with the public. Now retired, she uses these same skills to share what she learns about gardening and plant science via her blog Gardening at Last (https://gardeningatlast.ca/). She also shares her own research and writing on ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rebecca-Last), where her publications have garnered over 10,000 reads.

Rebecca’s gardening addiction is enabled by her loving husband Richard and a collection of very spoiled rescue cats.

Sascha Lafleur & Josée Sigouin West of Main

Sascha Lafleur
Co-Founder and Principal Designer, West of Main

Sascha has had a passion for design for as long as she can remember. She attributes her creative flare and abundance of artistic energy to the early influence of her artisan-rich family.

After studying and working in interior design in Montreal, she went on to found West of Main with the dream of creating intentional spaces that aligned with her "relaxed elegance" style. Over a decade later, West of Main has become an international award-winning design firm recognized for building, remodelling, and furnishing custom homes with timeless designs inspired by travel and global craftsmanship.

Josée Sigouin
Senior Designer & Design Manager, West of Main

From a young age, Josée has been creative and interested in interiors and home improvement. This early passion led her to complete her studies in interior design and has since worked in residential design on an international scale. She has fond memories of the numerous projects she led in South America!

Her appreciation for collected and globally influenced designs, impeccable attention to detail, and 10+ years of experience has made Josée an invaluable leader at West of Main over the past 5 years.

Paul Kealey EKOBUILT

Paul Kealey's passion for sustainable home building has guided a nearly two-decade long career that started after receiving a B.Sc. from St. FX, being a high school teacher, and founding 2 sustainable home companies. Driven to live in a healthy home led Paul initially to log home construction followed by furthering education at the sustainable building and passivehouse institutes.

From the start, Paul was building on his growing knowledge of healthy / sustainable home building techniques - the vision led him to create 2 sustainable home companies, both driven by the mission to make sustainable homes affordable and accessible to everyone. Paul is the co-founder of EkoBuilt, a sustainable homes company focused on passive house and net zero buildings. He is also the co-founder of KT Log Homes, that builds homes using natural and authentic log and timber-frame materials.

Lifelong learning is one of Paul's passions, leading him to continually add to his tremendous body of experienced-based knowledge on the building science of passive home and sustainable buildings. Paul's short, educational videos have become a hallmark for EkoBuilt in recent years, as he shares the principles and impact of passive house, and its real health, financial and environmental benefits. To learn more visit ekobuilt.com.

At the Ottawa Home Show, Paul delivers fascinating insight into how Sustainable Homes are affordable, healthier, and more financially sensible for everyone. As energy costs soar, climate change threatens our survival, natural disasters and illnesses increase - a better, healthier home is the best gift we can give to ourselves and our future generations.

Ryan Branton Branton Construction Group

Ryan Branton and the Branton Construction Group have successfully serviced the Ottawa area for over a decade. He has transformed hundreds of bathrooms, kitchens and basements with superb reviews and referrals. He works very closely with trusted trades to ensure projects are completed with an expert level of quality and efficiency. Ryan has won numerous awards for focusing his company on transparency and has appeared on Rogers Daytime TV multiple times to talk about the renovation process and how to avoid common roadblocks! Ryan is a contractor but also passionate about educating his clients, homeowners, and the public in the process. Do not miss an opportunity to hear Ryan speak. It will be informative, focused and fun. Renovations can seem like a daunting task, but Ryan has perfected both the art and science of combining a polished final design built on a solid foundation.