The one thing I’ve always been envious of Americans for - and I mean apart from their devil-may-care attitudes to modesty, obesity and global geography - is their porches. Having a porch means that come rain or shine, the average American can sit out in front of their house, breath in the fresh air and watch the world go by. Drive through any town or city in America and you’ll be hard pressed to see many houses missing these ubiquitous havens.
But in the UK we are less blessed. Most of our buildings don’t have porches at all, and find any that do and you’ll usually discover the British porch is a dingy stone arc a few feet deep that leads to the front door. Couple this with our famously poor weather and the result is that we Brits don’t interact with the fresh air and vistas of the outdoors half as much as we should do.
Of course one solution to this problem is to tack a porch onto the front of your house, but once you’ve been through the drawn out process of gaining planning permission, appeasing the neighbours and designing something in keeping with the look of the building and its surrounds, you may find yourself enjoying evenings out on your new feature rather less relaxing than you’d envisaged.
A far more simple solution is to work with what you already have, and this is where Custom Bifold Doors come in. As well as providing improved heat retention and ventilation, the installation of a set of bi-folding doors to an exterior wall of your property can totally transform your living space. They flood a room with far more light than French doors and, far better, they allow you to enjoy the outdoors whatever the weather.
While French doors leave you with the sense that there is still very much a barrier between you and the outdoors, bi-folding doors simply and neatly slide back upon themselves, stacking away to take up almost no space at all, and leaving you with the sense that you’ve literally removed one of the walls of your house and let the outside in. If you have a view from your property, bi-folding doors will help you make the most of it, and if you don’t you can still enjoy the fresh air even when it’s raining cats and dogs.
But it’s not only on exterior walls where bi-folding doors can be a godsend; they can also be used within a property as an alternative to partition walls. They make it easy to create private areas within rooms and can then be easily folded back to create an open plan environment, meaning that you can enjoy a flexible living space that performs whatever function you’re seeking. And it’s not just in living spaces where bi-folding doors are becoming increasingly popular – many businesses are using them as they allow the partition of areas without lessening the sensation of space or interaction. Indeed, the availability of an enormous range of different designs and construction materials means that bi-folding doors can be created to fit in seamlessly with almost any existing space, be it a home, office, shop or restaurant.
So if you’re tired of feeling hemmed in by your surroundings or peering through little panes of glass at the world beyond, I’d urge you to have a look at what a set of custom bifold doors might offer. After all, isn’t it more fun when you’re the one people are jealous of?
Jez Gee is a freelance writer and publishing consultant. Based in London, he writes regularly for print and the internet and has a particular interest in the UK property market.
