Retro Not Your Vibe?

Retro Life

Retro clothing, retro music and even retro artwork. It's quite a big thing at the moment and seems to add a touch of warm nostalgia to people's rather stressed lives.


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But it's not for everyone, particularly when it comes to houses and interior design. Retro has its own time limits and what's retro today is going to be old fashioned tomorrow. That's not a good idea for something as fundamental as your home, which is too valuable to need to be updated with every swing of the fashion pendulum.


There are still probably hundreds of thousands of houses built in the 70s and 80s which still reflect that period in their interior design. You know what I mean - ranch railing on the staircase, formica kitchen units, or just lots of B R O W N!


But this also means that it offers you a blank canvas for bringing your home right up to date and give it some design integrity, some quality elements which will carry y...

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See our Modular Staircase on Grand Designs!

Grand Designs Henley

A moving episode

Did you see the rather moving episode of Channel 4's Grand Designs Series 22 Episode 8, which featured Tony and Ara's healing house set in a wonderful woodland garden? This turned out to be quite a big project, starting with the demolition of Tony's childhood home nestled in an idyllic woodland setting.

Grand Designs Henley Garden

Their intention was to create a home of "healing" dedicated to health and wellbeing for themselves and guests, a project which they knew would be challenging and costly - but they had no idea just how challenging it would become.

Four Years of Hard Work

It took the couple an unexpected four years of tremendous personal effort and distressing health setbacks. For Tony, though, he faced an uphill struggle of his initial lack of the skills needed for a selfbuilder but he persevered and overcame that steep learning curve. The shock of Ara's health challenges were more difficult to come to terms with, but they hope that the house, that was created as a ho...

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