Our home is the centre of my life. For better or for worse. It’s noisy, chaotic and cluttered certain hours of the day and then calm and serene at others. Most importantly, it is simply a location where we gather for the biggest laugh over a roast chicken and endless After Eights. I was so curious to see how Simon Woodroffe (having reinvented Japanese sushi, Yo! Sushi, and reshuffled our idea of a hotel, YOTEL) was going to launch his latest venture Yo! Home at 100% Design.
Simon’s Yo! bed moving up to reveal the sitting room & home cinema
The answer is quite geniusly. He takes a space the size of a one-bedroom flat. And then he offers endless room combinations: 2 bedrooms, living spaces, a wall of hidden kitchen, office, party room, cinema… all hidden and revealed by sliding doors, hidden floor storage and ‘mechanical’ furniture. It’s nauseatingly brilliant. In a nutshell, it’s a room-to-go.
I tracked down the friendliest Dragons’ Den ever to appear on the BBC show to understand what his home means to him and then asked him to pose on the bed!
What makes a great home? Space – People – View
What is your earliest memory of home? Looking through the banisters at the parents partying in 1950s Army life in Singapore
What’s the first thing you do when you get in after work? Take my shoes off and look at the river
the pop up kitchen in this brilliant living space
Which is your favourite room in the house? My bedroom has an infinity window on to the Thames
Could you live alone and/or on a commune? I don’t like living alone and I do already live on a commune – 3 houseboats of my own with people always staying and 52 other great boat people next to me in Chelsea
Where would you love to live? Tikopia for a while anyway, where I am a minor Deity
Ideal dinner guest? She who I have not yet met …
Whose home would you like to visit? Dalai Lama
Are you obsessively tidy at home? Obsessives are the only people who are any good at anything – I am tidy
I asked Simon to recline after all his magic had been performed in Yo!Home
How do you relax at home? People
Which album are you currently listening to? The new Dylan
Which is the best advice you have been given? Find out what you like doing and then spend 90% of your time doing it
Who or what inspires you? Ideas and a piece of paper
Tell us a secret about your home. Every 6 hours it is either 20 feet higher or 20 feet lower than it was.
The homes for the future will surely look like this – Yo! Home
