A taste for country life

More space, more afford­able prices, prox­im­ity to nature. The Corona pan­dem­ic and cur­rent devel­op­ments in the real estate mar­ket have promp­ted many people to turn their backs on the city and move out to the urb­an hin­ter­land or even the coun­tryside prop­er, as recent stud­ies show. Since more and more people are now work­ing from home, the daily com­mute to work has become super­flu­ous. This trend is accom­pan­ied by the desire for a sus­tain­able life­style. Top of the wish list are nat­ur­al mater­i­als and low-emis­­sion products that ensure a healthy liv­ing envir­on­ment.

Rur­al liv­ing is linked with the pro­spect of hav­ing your own garden, offer­ing open space and the oppor­tun­ity to grow and har­vest your own fruit and veget­ables. Last but not least, city escapees also hope to bet­ter cope with the grow­ing num­ber of hot days in their new sur­round­ings. The gen­er­al goal is a more nat­ur­al and sus­tain­able way of life. Elec­tri­city and heat should be gen­er­ated as much as pos­sible from renew­able sources. Man­u­fac­tur­ers of heat pumps, sol­ar sys­tems, wood-burn­ing and pel­let stoves are there­fore exper­i­en­cing a ver­it­able boom.

When design­ing the interi­or of mod­ern homes, nat­ur­al mater­i­als such as wood, bam­boo and rat­tan are very much in demand. Earthy col­ors instead of white go well with this. “Nat­ur­al liv­ing” is the term used to describe this liv­ing trend. With tex­tiles, too, atten­tion is paid to qual­ity and sus­tain­able sources. Indoor plants have an air-clean­ing effect and can thus improve the qual­ity of indoor air. If you own or add a con­ser­vat­ory, you can cre­ate a seam­less trans­ition between indoor and out­door spaces.

When it comes to floor­ing, par­quet – either oiled or sealed – ranks very highly among homeown­ers’ favor­ites. Also tiles, for example those imit­at­ing the look of wood or clas­sic nat­ur­al stone slabs made of lime­stone, are very pop­u­lar. All the more so since all these cov­er­ings can be per­fectly com­bined with under­floor heat­ing. When fre­quently work­ing from home, tex­tile floor cov­er­ings are also an attract­ive choice. Unlike hard floor cov­er­ings, car­peted floors are able to sig­ni­fic­antly reduce impact sound and rever­ber­a­tion time. This makes con­cen­trated work at home much easi­er.