I was watching a popular lifestyle tv programme – one of many repeats currently filling the spare scheduling spaces. The main theme was about the changes in house design and how much easier it is to knock up an estate of 500 houses and get them on to the sales market. The need for vast estates was huge after the two world wars and ever since then families have got used to having their own space and as more money became available with steady long term employment, so did the desire to buy our own homes. The house being discussed on tv was a chapel conversion with lovely old beams and really attractive character features all over the place. The crook roof an fancy cornices were very high – it did make hard work for the design team showing us how to improve this feature and that! Boring as our houses are now, the maintenance of them is much simpler!