Make your home work harder - Telegraph

Make your home work harder - Telegraph

There is no end to human ingenuity. In the depths of a recession we regroup, rethink our lives, our houses and our spending. Take, for instance, Andrew Porter and Abigail Ashton, whose perfectly ordinary three-bedroom semi in north London has recently acquired a glamorous bespoke studio at the end of the garden, with a heated paddling pool, sandpit and fire-pit for their twin girls Mimi and Ella. They now work from home in the studio and the quality of their lives has improved immeasurably.

It wouldn’t have happened without the downturn in the economy. Andrew and Abigail were gifted architects with a practice in the West End which suddenly had to slim down. “We thought what we could do with five-years’ worth of rent on an office in central London,” says Andrew.