144pc rise: the new home trend changing the way Queenslanders live
Experts within home improvement have said they have seen a vast uptick in people adopting this trend, with the majority spending a minimum of $20,000 on these rooms.
Sauna builder SDS Australia reported seeing a 144 per cent year-on-year rise in new inquiries, along with a 112 per cent increase in customers looking to build their own saunas.
Managing director Michael Doubinski said he had recently seen homes with whole floors full of wellness amenities, from saunas to cold plunges and gyms.
'It seems that people are discovering wellness and that it's not optional anymore,' he said. 'Eventually I think that every home will have a sauna, as it's one of the most proven and time tested health machines on this planet.'
TH7 Homelabs – a division of wellness company TH7 – began in 2024 in response to these rising trends. Co-director Danny McDonald said the combined total of 20 of their ongoing residential projects was 'easily more' than $500,000.
'I would say any new architectural build has a wellness space now,' he said. 'It's replacing the cinema or the wine cellar; why not put in an area that's actually going to give back to your health?'
Mr McDonald said every new home plan he saw across his desk came with a wellness room, and one of his ongoing apartment projects included a wellness space on every one of its seven floors.
For residential upgrades, saunas and ice baths – some of the most common additions – are typically valued between $20,000 and $40,000.
Meanwhile, higher-range items such as red light beds can total up to $120,000.
'Towards the end of Covid, people started being much more aware of their health,' Mr McDonald said. 'It's not just young people that are invested in this stuff – older people are definitely seeing the results in a good health protocol.'
'It will absolutely grow more. A wellness space in your house is worth more than any other room, because it'll give you the best return on your health.'
Savva Koulouris of Place Woolloongabba said in the past two years there had been a big focus on health and wellness amenities in the home.
'A lot of people are giving up drinking, focusing on working out and taking care of their bodies,' he said.
'Having (wellness spaces) in your home allows you to take it seriously.
'You'd be surprised how many buyers want a sauna or steam room … for lower priced points, that's a pre-built infra-red sauna, but in the luxury market we're seeing proper hardwood, built-in Swedish saunas in the house.
'I've also seen a few people putting in in-ground ice baths, because those two go hand-in-hand.'
Mr Koulouris said a number of factors were contributing to a move towards at-home wellness, including the Covid pandemic, generational shifts and a greater focus on wellness, not just fitness, within society.
'Through the pandemic we learned we could do a lot of things from home, like working and working out,' he said.
'As a result, people are now spending more on their homes because they are spending more time there.'
Mr Koulouris said buyers in the 30-45 age bracket tended to be the ones most interested in homes with home gyms, yoga studios, mediation spaces and steam rooms.
'[This demographic] is losing formal dining and living spaces to make way for practical, open plan living with health and fitness spaces,' he said.
'Most people are encouraging their kids to be more and more active, but yards are becoming smaller, so these spaces allow kids to be active in a different way.'
When parents of three, Manoli and Paras Antonarakis built their Carina Heights home through Gant Construction, they made sure to include a Finnish sauna, a magnesium swimming pool with spa and an oversized garage with space for a home gym.
'We're very active people, we play a lot of sports and have an active lifestyle,' Mr Antonarakis said.
'This gives us time for 'me time' and to focus on health and wellbeing.'
Mr Antonarakis said anyone with a young family would know fitting in workout and wellness time on top of work and children was nearly impossible.
'If you have to go to a gym or a pool, it takes you away from your family,' he said.
'The whole point of building houses like ours is that you don't have to go out to do those things, you're bringing it home.
'I can put the kids to bed, eat dinner then I'd go for a swim and sauna every night.'
Mr Antonarakis said he and his wife also opted for a magnesium pool, as it was better for their children.
'We used take our eldest daughter to swimming lessons and, because the pools are so highly chlorinated, she'd be unwell after every lesson,' Mr Antonarakis said.
'Once we had our magnesium pool, we could hire a swimming instructor to come to our house.'
The couple have listed their current home for sale, but are planning even more health and wellness inclusions in their next home, including a sauna and a basketball court.
Mr Antonarakis, who works in the development industry, said wellness inclusion in homes and apartment complexes were becoming expected, especially in properties priced in the high $3 millions and above.
'It's what the younger demographic wants,' he said.
'This demographic comes from era where health and wellbeing are imperative.
'We're already seeing unit complexes that have a plethora of all these spaces – steam rooms, sauna, yoga lawns and even cryotherapy pods.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Symerien Brooking's death at Perth Children's Hospital to be examined at coronial inquest
A coronial inquest into the death of a 10-year-old girl who died at WA's main paediatric hospital last August is set to take place after her mother shared her story, and her pleas for answers, with the ABC. WARNING: This story contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died. Sharyn Morris said she hoped the inquest would help her understand why her repeated requests for her daughter, Symerien Brooking, to have a brain scan were ignored, and what caused the fatal bleeding on her daughter's brain. "I need answers. I need to know," she said. "I need to know why my child's life was taken unnecessarily. "And to know that it's not going to happen to other people. "There has to be justification for what goes wrong." Symerien was taken off life support almost 48 hours after arriving at Perth Children's Hospital (PCH). Ms Morris had found her daughter unresponsive on the floor. Symmie, as she had come to be known, was born with an extremely rare and complex congenital disease and lived with numerous medical conditions. She was under the care of several specialists at PCH, including within the neurology department, and had presented twice in the months before her death with seizure activity. As soon as the ambulance arrived at the hospital, Ms Morris said she asked those treating her daughter to organise a CT scan of Symmie's brain. While Symmie did go on to have seizures — with one lasting 45 minutes — Ms Morris said she was not seizing upon presentation, so should have been able to have a scan. Despite what Ms Morris said were repeated requests for her daughter to have a brain scan, one was not done until seven hours later. By then it was too late. The scan found significant bleeding, and while surgery was done to insert drains in an attempt to remove the fluid, it did not work. Ms Morris — who was herself a grandmother when she took over caring for Symmie when the girl was just 10 days old — left the hospital without the person who had become her whole world. The ABC first told the story of Symmie's remarkable life and Ms Morris's relentless pursuit of her daughter's survival in 2019. When Symmie was born, doctors did not expect her to live for much more than a year. But Symmie defied all the odds. Ms Morris said her daughter's prognosis had never been more positive and her overall care plan had gone from being one focused on providing quality of life to including quantity. One of Symmie's doctors had even told her he expected her daughter would outlive her. Ms Morris wants the inquest to not only understand what happened in her daughter's case, but to try and bring about cultural change within the medical system, so parents and caregivers are listened to by doctors. "She [Symmie] was a very caring, loving young girl, and she gave everything to all who met her," Ms Morris said. "I know that she would want to make sure that the system was better … so other children didn't suffer and other parents don't suffer." As a community advocate, Suresh Rajan has supported other families in their quests for answers after a child they loved died in WA's health system, including the 2021 death of Aishwarya Aswath at PCH, and Sandipan Dhar who died in March last year at Joondalup Health Campus. "If you look at all of the cases that we've had in the last few years, all of them boil down to one thing — that the medical professional is not listening to either the caregiver or the patient as to what is required," he said. Mr Rajan said he hoped an inquest into Symmie's death, alongside those into the deaths of Aishwarya and Sandipan, would bring about actual change. "I hope that these cases become seminal events in changing the culture of our health system," he said. "The WA health system suffers from a culture of doctors not listening to the patient or the caregiver, they have the view that they're the only ones who know what's wrong with that person. That has to change." While a date for the inquest is yet to be announced, the WA Coroner has advised one will take place, according to a government spokesperson. "This information was shared by the Health Minister with Ms Morris during their meeting last month," the spokesperson said. "The death of any child or young person is a tragedy, which has a devastating impact on the families, friends and communities involved.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
What's TassieDoc? Labor's government-run GP clinic solution explained
If it is not the cost of doctors that is concerning Tasmanians, it is the availability. The wait to see a GP can be weeks long and the gap between the doctor's fee and what Medicare covers can be costly. For some, it means taking fewer trips to the doctor. Delaying GP visits also places more pressure on the state's already overburdened hospital system. Labor thinks it has the answer: TassieDoc. The idea is so promising, the Liberals have even vowed to match it. Tasmanian Labor is proposing to create five government-run GP clinics in health hubs across the state that bulk-bill. The idea is that the state government would provide the clinic and consulting rooms, as well as paying the nursing and admin staff. Instead of needing to own the practice, doctors would be contractors. Labor says each clinic would have four full-time-equivalent GPs. The hope is that by alleviating the cost burdens of staffing and the clinic itself, doctors would be able to charge patients the cost of the Medicare benefit. It's inspired by the federal and state governments' Urgent Care Clinics (UCC). Labor says it will result in 100,000 bulk-billed appointments per year. To put it in perspective, data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) shows GPs in Tasmania provided 6.7 million appointments between June 2024 and May 2025. The plan is also for the clinics to operate with extended hours, including evenings and weekends. Labor's Clark candidate and health spokesperson Ella Haddad said the clinics would be run out of existing state-run health clinics such as the Glenorchy Health Centre. "We'll provide the bricks and mortar, we'll provide the nursing and admin staff that will allow doctors to come in and do what they do best, which is provide care to their patients. "Not every doctor wants to be a business owner or have to worry about hiring staff." TassieDoc patients will be bulk-billed for visits, meaning there will be no out-of-pocket payment. As an election promise, Labor says it will spend $5 million to fit out the new clinics, then $4 million a year to keep them running, and $2 million towards incentives for GPs to work at them. It has yet to be costed by Treasury. A UCC is simply that, a clinic for urgent situations, not regular GP check-ups or emergencies. UCCs were created to try to deal with that middle ground so that only genuine emergencies end up presenting in emergency departments. The other difference is the way they are run and funded. UCCs are co-funded federal and state initiatives and are found across the country. While Tasmanian Labor has been talking up what state and federal Labor can do when their powers combine, TassieDoc is not a partnership. The "powered by Medicare" policy just takes advantage of the Albanese government's decision to triple the Medicare bulk-billing incentive for GPs. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not even utter the words "TassieDoc" while standing alongside Labor Leader Dean Winter at a press conference on Tuesday, instead spruiking his government's many UCCs. Within hours of Labor revealing their plan, the Liberals pledged to "open five new GP bulk-billing clinics", claiming they were already doing it and had just announced one the day before in Legana. But that was a UCC. The Liberals have suggested Labor is rebadging said clinics, but the models are different. At a press conference on Tuesday, Premier Jeremy Rockliff said he would match Labor's promise "and more". In a further statement, Liberal Franklin candidate and health spokesperson Jacquie Petrusma said the Liberals would "work with GPs on the best way of delivering additional GP services right around the state". "Including five clinics under the TassieDoc model and other innovative ways to support existing GPs like in Legana and Bicheno," Ms Petrusma said. That is where those $2 million in incentive payments come in. Labor is hoping they will be able to attract and retain 150 new GPs to Tasmania. There will be 100 payments worth $10,000 available for GPs working in urban areas, and 50 worth $20,000 for GPs in rural and regional communities. The Liberals have their own incentive payments that are already in place, offering up $100,000 to mainland doctors who want to move to the state. The Liberals have also been trying to boost the number of GPs through the single-employer training model, where the state government offers doctors a single contract for their entire traineeship. "We have 200 GPs in training right now, so [it's] fully subscribed," Mr Rockliff said. "One hundred and fifty GPs are being supervised in regional clinics, [with] 40 of those fully qualified by the end of the year." Standing with Labor at the first very TassieDoc press conference, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' (RACGP) Tim Jones described the policy as "future-focused". He also said he believed it would be "attractive" to new and interstate GPs. "We are training a record number of GPs here in Tasmania, but those are doctors who do not have business experience, who are not clinic owners," he said. "We think that working under this model is going to enable them to do what they do best, which is just focus on the care of their patients." Rural Doctors Association of Tasmania president Ben Dodds was more reserved, saying it was "an interesting line for the state to cross". "It's one that may lead to some perils in terms of the state learning how to own, operate and run general practices. It's an area that they don't have any experience in," he said. "There's evidence of other jurisdictions doing it in areas of market failure [and] in rural and remote areas. "In the context of TassieDocs, implementing this initiative where there might already be viable private General Practice does risk reorganising the doctors in the local community and not actually bringing any new services to Tasmania." Dr Dodds said with the cost of running a general practice having increased significantly, the TassieDoc model might appeal to those doctors who were less interested in the business side of things. "But the state government is going to be up for the cost of running the practice, which ultimately the taxpayer foots the bill for," he said. "When local government steps in to run general practices, for example, in the Huon Valley with Geeveston and Dover, they're often run at a loss. "Even though they're subsidised by the council, the overall practice loses money with higher bulk-billing rates, so it will be a very costly exercise for the state government."
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Restless Dance Theatre takes the arts to the end of a hospital bed with The Lensical
Inside a hospital room at the Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital, the lights are dimmed and voices gentle. A small, smiling figure is tucked in white sheets in a bed at the centre of the room, his parents in chairs by his side. In the low light, the boy's eyes are bright and open wide, watching intently as dancers in white boilersuits quietly enter the room. They bring with them a very curious structure. It's large and about a metre-and-a-half long. There's a face-sized hole at one end, extending out into an octagonal shape at the other — and it's designed to hover over the hospital bed. For the patient, the device blocks from sight the hospital setting, and headphones playing music replace the sound of whirring medical machines. And so the unconventional stage is set for a first-of-its-kind performance, especially designed for long-term patients in hospital. This performance, and the device, is called The Lensical. And it's been years in the making. "The work is about delivering a unique, special experience to people who may not otherwise be able to experience that at that time," choreographer Michelle Heaven says. The work aims to create "something magical" that can shift the space for a patient, "even if it is just for a short period". Bhodi Hudson, a dancer in the performance, describes the Lensical object as like "a road cone or a megaphone, but it's on its side ... and you're looking through it". "It is essentially a ginormous cone where the patient in a hospital bed gets to view it," he says. "It's like a personal viewing experience, like you're watching something on a screen but it's there in reality. It's oddly very surreal yet fascinating when you're seeing it first hand." For around four minutes, performers from Restless Dance Theatre, an acclaimed company made up of dancers with and without disabilities, move in and out of this frame, performing enchanting choreography. In response, the small boy becomes animated, doing wiggly, dancing movements as he sits up in his bed looking through the giant lens. The innovative Lensical concept was devised by Heaven in collaboration with her partner, theatre designer Ben Cobham. They've made a lot of theatre together over the years, and Cobham himself was a long-term patient in hospital when he was a kid. "We [wanted] to do something for kids that are like he was when he was little," Heaven says. "He spent close to a year in hospital and one of the things that brought him relief was to watch the fish in the fish tank, their organic movements. "This was also pre-screens and phones that are very prevalent now, which also provide a form of escape, but we [were] wanting to offer a human interaction and not always be so reliant on screens for distraction … to be immersed in something that's really directly shared between people." They arrived at the idea of a performance located at the end of a patient's bed that could "change the environment for them momentarily". Many stages of development and testing followed until the pair arrived at the uplifting and immersive Lensical project. Initial trials took place at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, where they learnt about hospital codes and infection control. They did additional trials at Adelaide's Flinders Medical Centre and Women's and Children's Hospital, refining the work to both evoke delight and meet strict hospital protocols. And the choreography came with specific constraints too: the piece needed to be able to be performed in the very narrow space at the end of a hospital bed. "There's not a lot of room and we need to be mindful of staff needing to get past to attend to other patients … so it's a very different environment to consider," Heaven says. "There's a lot of different needs here, and … we really try and gently navigate that and be very respectful of it." Hudson, who is autistic, is used to shows on a stage, and describes performing in the restricted space as "tricky". "You may be a little bit squeezed in … You have to make sure you're at the right tempo all the while making sure you're not smacking your partner in the face. You may also give way to other people who need to get [through]." But the contorting effort is worth it for Hudson, who says the work is "funky … not smelly, [but] fun funky". In the sequence he performs with fellow Restless dancer Sidney Debba, the pair hold cloths and perform choreography based around pretending to clean an invisible window at the end of the Lensical. "It's like a fantasy sequence in a film where someone just dances to music [doing] the most mundane thing, like someone dancing with a broom like it's a partner," Hudson says. Dancers perform two short works, Heaven explains. "One is quite light and fun and literally makes particularly the younger ones giggle … That's really magical. And the other work is quite transporting, you are immersed in something; it's quite special. "We might just bring the hands in for a moment, or something else might come into frame you might not expect … It's very non-threatening and brings your attention to detail and creates a human connection." Across four days at two different hospitals, the troupe moves quietly through different wards, the Lensical rolling into the rooms of patients who are keen to see the visiting spectacle. Heaven says seeing the work properly performed for the first time, as part of Adelaide's DreamBIG Children's Festival, has been a moving experience. At Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre, they performed the short dances to audiences of a wide range of ages, from children between two and 18 years old through to their families — and even staff. "It [was] a moment of relief, like a little reset, people have used that word … and then [they] go on to do what else they have to do that day." Heaven says the main response among patients has been a feeling of calm joy. She's seen some patients moved to tears, "but in a joyful release".
