Homes &Gardens
Some people are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to
individualise their home. Active8’s Kat Withers explains
Property passions Y
OU may have marvelled at the three ducks displayed on the side of a house at Meersbrook, but there are some people who give a whole new meaning to the words ‘home improvement.’
When the Royal Institute of British Architects released a list of the most unusual requests, secret passages to other rooms, hidden bedroom wings and underground tunnels to other buildings all featured in the top ten.
On the completely opposite end of the scale, some people have opted to make their homes less, rather than more, private by installing floor-to- ceiling windows in place of walls. One such home in the Netherlands is on a lake, with the bedroom and bathroom hidden beneath the surface of the water.
humble mattress.
Although people who can sleep anywhere are now few and far between, once upon a time all of mankind made do with sleeping on the cold, hard ground, before progressing to animal furs and skins once they had weapons to kill larger animals. Well ahead of their time, it was the Persians that started the trend for luxury beds by inventing goat skin waterbeds thousands of years before they became popular again in the 1960s.
As the agricultural industry started to develop and people no longer had to hunt for their food, they started to think more about comfort and had time to gather materials that would provide it.
Bored of your standard bathroom suites? A hotel in Pennsylvania has a 7ft champagne glass in place of a bath, while other designers offer to incorporate an aquarium into your shower wall.
Moving into the bedroom, a good quality mattress can make the difference between a great night’s sleep and one spent tossing and turning, before waking with a sore back.
While it’s important to try before you buy by testing out the options in store, we often forget the history of the
Those Meersbrook Mallards
The palm bough mattress was a particular favourite, alongside other ‘mattress-stuffers’, such as hay, feather and straw, that were becoming more easily available.
Once people began to make their own fabrics, it was only a matter of time before mattresses started to resemble what we lie on today, although filthy rags were widely used to save money.
In 1865, the first coil spring bedding was patented, with foam rubber appearing in the 1950s, airbeds 30 years later and the emphasis on space starting in the US in the 1990s.
One of the quickest and easiest ways of transforming your home is to introduce plants and floral
displays. Not only does their colour make them eye-catching, their scent can give
new life to the most ordinary of rooms. Springtime is the best time to bring the outdoors indoors because you are
spoiled for choice at this time of year. Give
new life to an old vase or piece of pottery by bedecking it with fresh
flowers. Look for bright tulips and unusual types of daffodil and narcissus.
Picture: Flowers & Plants Association
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