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Heated Massage Chairs: What to Check Before You Buy
Cold weather has a way of finding your lower back. Add a long day at a desk or on your feet, and by evening the stiffness has properly settled in. ...
Cats pick the spot before they pick the bed
There's a particular kind of disappointment that comes with buying a cat bed. You choose something soft, you put it somewhere sensible, and your ca...
Barrier Mats: A Buyer's Guide to Getting the Right One First Time
Nobody plans to buy a barrier mat. It happens after something else goes wrong. The hall carpet has gone grey in a two metre strip by the front door...
Planning an outdoor aviary: what to sort out before it arrives
An outdoor aviary is one of the few pet purchases that behaves more like a building project than a piece of furniture. A cage goes in the corner of...
The quiet month: why garden birds vanish in August, and what to do about it
Something happens to UK gardens in August. The feeder that was busy from dawn in May sits untouched for days. The blue tits that emptied a peanut f...
Curved and arc floor lamps: a style guide
A curved floor lamp is one of the few pieces of lighting that changes a room before it is even switched on. The sweep of the arm draws the eye upwa...
Why a two seater is often the right sofa for a UK living room
The same mistake turns up in living rooms across the country. A three seater sofa pushed hard against the longest wall, with barely forty centimetr...
Best executive office chairs for a UK home office: six compared
The phrase "executive chair" comes from an era of corner offices and secretaries. Nobody working from a spare bedroom is running a boardroom. But t...
Wardrobes for rented rooms and box rooms: what actually fits
The box room is a peculiarly UK problem. Third bedroom, roughly 2.1m by 2.4m if you're lucky, and whoever built the place assumed you'd put a child...
Cat litter trays: how to pick one your cat will actually use
Nobody buys a litter tray with much enthusiasm. It's a grudge purchase. You want the cheapest thing that stops the smell, and you want to think abo...
Floating or floor-standing? Choosing the right TV unit for your living room
The modern living room throws up a choice the old telly cabinet never did. Do you mount the TV on the wall and float a slim unit underneath for tha...
Drop leaf dining tables: a small-space fix that actually works
If your kitchen or flat is short on room, you've probably faced the same standoff: you want somewhere proper to eat, but a full-size table would sw...
