How Times have Changed – or Have They?

I have this totally brilliant book in my library (I use the term as a collective noun for my books, rather than an actual room of books) called ‘The English Home.’ It was written by Banister Flight Fletcher and Herbert Phillips Fletcher (fabulous names) architects, barristers and brothers, in 1910. And it contains floor plans, sections and in depth discussions about the way the English House has been built since the 11th century and Saxon times. We think of our approach to updating our homes as being thoroughly modern and ‘of our times’, but these men were advocating the same planning and checklists for work done one hundred years ago. So how is it that we’ve lost the common sense approach when considering the health of the building as having equal importance to the aesthetics?

Is it that the DIY revolution has introduced a level of enthusiastic but uninformed renovators…