Posts Tagged ‘house’

Eco Homes That Can Impress As Well

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

This week on the popular TV program, ‘Grand Designs’ a beautiful house in Kent was featured. This house is near Staplehurst and is owned and built by architect Richard Hawkes and his wife Sophie. The house itself does not rely on much. For example it doesn’t even need mains water or central heating. Instead the house is 100% eco friendly and does not use an ounce of un-necessary energy. The environmentally-friendly house aims to mix into its surroundings and be self-sustaining. It was featured on a double bill on the popular Channel 4 program, ‘Grand Designs’ hosted by none other than, Kevin McCloud.

The house itself in Kent features completely economical and eco friendly materials such as wood and even earth. The house boasts a truly stunning architures, has over four guest bedroom for friends and family to stay over, and even has its own pool and spa treatment room. The design originally resembles an Anderson Shelter, the building eventually reveals a huge, Gaudi-esque vaulted roof which is just magnificent to look at. The whole thing is literally topped off with tons of soil and then grassed over to look almost like an ancient house of some sort. It is truly marvellous to look at and at the same time it is extremely bizarre. The home is effectively a couple of timber-framed boxes resting under a huge, unsupported arch built from 26,000 handmade clay tiles. This is truly a magnificent acheivment for both the architects and constructor’s as there is nothing else like this around. They have built something special and very interesting. Although the house is meant to be quite old fashioned, it consists of modern fixtures and fittings, including wireless interconnected speaker systems and even ergonomic hand care door handles.

If you have never watched the program, Grand Design before I would highly recommend it. The program makes excellent viewing and you can see all sorts of bizarre houses that have sprouted up around the UK and abroad. There are some great projects on there and I would strongly recommend watching it one day.

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Recycling Household Items

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

We are constantly being told to recycle as much of our waste as we can. Tin cans and cardboard boxes are easy enough to recycle as there are usually recycling stations dotted around town and some counties even pick your recycling up for you. Larger items are another issue however, and we don’t really get told what to do with these. Units such as wardrobes and draws and other things like seating and doors too often end up being thrown on the tip and wasted for good. In these difficult times we should be looking to make use of as much waste as we can, so here are a few tips to household recycling.


Wood. People often throw out things like dining furniture, wardrobes and cupboards without really considering what they could be used for. You would be amazed how quickly you can make a quirky coffee table by screwing a couple of kitchen units together and taking the knobs off the doors. The best bit is that the coffee table will double up as storage space as you can just open the lid and pop stuff in. You can also use wood to make lots of little things such as door stops and chopping boards and even wine racks


Glassware. You might think that you need a kiln in order to recycle glass, but you’d be wrong.Glasses can be used to pot house plants, store knick-knacks in, and even create feature walls with if you’ve got the time to make it. If you put a little thought into it first, you need never have to throw another glass away.

Furniture. This is one of the hardest things to recycle and I’m not saying that you will be able to make tableware out of your old sofa, but sometimes there is scope to get a few more years out of items you thought were at the end of their life. The garden is a great place to find a home for old household items.As long as you protect the furniture from the outdoor conditions with good varnish, you can enjoy old tables and chairs in the fresh air for a long time. Also, things like carpet can be cut up and used to kneel on when gardening to save getting your clothes dirty.

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