New Homes

In 2006 Caring Homes embarked on designing and building its own purpose built homes, specifically designed around enhancing the lives of residents who use our service.

It’s all in the design

Our own development director has earned quite a reputation in the care sector for innovative design solutions that can truly impact on the quality of life of residents. In 2008 he will be speaking at the National Dementia Congress about “designing for dementia” an area that he is passionate about. He has benefited from developing close links with the Dementia Services Centre at Stirling University and has worked closely with them in designing and creating environments that limit and reduce the debilitations caused as a result of dementia. Many of these principles are also applied to designing care homes for people with general health needs.

Dr Mary Marshall of Stirling University summarise the international consensus on design principles in 1998 by saying that design should….

• Compensate for impairments
• Maximise independence
• Enhance self esteem and confidence
• Demonstrate care for staff
• Be orientating and understandable
• Welcome relatives and the local community
• Allow the control of stimuli

It is these principles that he has applied to all of his work to ensure that we create a positive and stimulating environment in which we compensate for impairments including memory, reasoning, ability to learn, increased sensitivity to the overall environment and the high levels of stress that these impairments can cause in much the same way as we can design buildings to help people in wheelchairs to remain independent.

Our development director works in conjunction with Helena Jeffery who provides an interior design service to our homes, Helena has earned great respect and admiration for her design skills and approaches which are evident when you visit a Caring Home.

Helena’s interior design skills combine homely comforts with luxury fixtures and fittings.

Regular features of Helena’s design approach include:

• Traditional fabrics including damasks, stripes and pin dots
• Goblet pleat curtains
• Swags and tails
• Club chairs
• Knoll chairs
• Sofas
• Coffee tables
• Quality wallpapers
• Pin dot traditional navy carpets
• Chandeliers
• Plaster cornices and ceiling roses
• Traditional architraves
• Pictures reminiscent of a bygone era
• Local photography

When combined Helena’s flair for interior design could easily be mistaken for a hotel or prestigious private family home.