City Living Minimalist interiors are too cold for buyers, writes Edel Morgan
If you're selling your home and slavishly following the advice we've all been given for years to neutralise, minimise and depersonalise so as to present a blank canvas to the buyer . . . well stop right there. Apparently, that was then and this is now. The cream walls and pared-down-to-the-rug-and-floorboards-look dressed up with some chrome and frosted glass is so yesterday it has become a turn-off for many prospective buyers.
These days buyers are so swamped with choice that a decor they perceive as too sanitised, contrived or hackneyed can be a deal-breaker. It now helps if you can at least fake a bit of spontaneity.
Estate agent Felicity Fox says that you can actually feel the discomfort of people viewing a property where the vendor has tried too hard; where every room is firing on all cylinders with candles twinkling, coffee brewing, high brow art books strewn strategically on surfaces and a bottle of expensive wine in an icebucket that just happens to be sitting on the verandah.
"The Irish are way past being fooled by bread baking or brewing coffee. They will look at it cynically, like you're trying to pull the wool over their eyes. My advice is: keep it honest and don't be afraid to put a bit of personality into it. It's better if it's not too sanitised," says Fox.
She says the Irish are now "bolting ahead" with new interior trends and everything is going out of fashion very quickly. "I was in a house in Ranelagh recently which I thought was lovely but a viewer commented on the way out that the decor was 'so last season'. Trends on the way out include all-beige marble bathrooms, high gloss kitchens and uplighters built into steps that give the nightclub effect."
She says too many Irish homes look similar with what she refers to as "Habitat set design. At the end of day the ones that stand out do something a bit bold and have a bit of an edge." This can be done with something as simple as a strong colour scheme, instead of the ubiquitous white-washed or muted Farrow & Ball tones. "A house is so emotional. When you buy a house, you are buying it to live in it so a little artwork, some books and ornaments are a good idea. I'm against sterilising a house. If you leave a little personality, people can bond with it ."
One couple who bid on a house she handled told her they fell in love with the place when they saw the owner's scuba diving books and photos on the shelf . "They were into scuba diving as well and saw it was a sign." Another house was bought by a guy who saw a photo of the owners on Mount Kilimanjaro. He had been there two years previously.
"You often get people glancing at CDs, to see what music the owners are into and if they've decent taste. It gives people a feeling that they could live here."
One bugbear is incongruous extensions "that were seen to be fashionable at a particular time. I went into one of those glass box extensions, last week, which the owners told me was designed by a well known architect. I thought, 'Oh my God, you have this beautiful ornate Victorian house and then this glass box with dreadful ironmongery like an industrial building which screams at the main house'. It was cool when it was built four years ago but it looks odd now.
"The planners don't encourage faux extensions which are a mock of the original but it has to complement the house or it will date in five years. The Irish public are so sophisticated that if they're buying a Victorian house they want it to look Victorian inside."
A new book by Danielle Proud called House Proud which is billed by the publisher Bloomsbury as "hip craft for the modern homemaker" reckons we are all over the era of "beige sofas and anaemic pine tables" and are embarking on an age of individuality where we recycle what we already have. The book shows how to decoupage tables with vintage photographs, cover chests of drawers in designer wallpaper, re-upholster mismatching chairs and if you've got time on your hands - perhaps too much - apply batik to cocktail trolleys. When I ask Fox if too many batik cocktail trolleys and fabric lamps would scare the punters, she says it depends on the property. She recently showed "the most scrumptious cottage where you'd walk-in and swear it was in Connemara, and it wasn't contrived. It had a pine table and none of chairs matched. That look suits a cottage but it might not work in another property."
It seems that Proud has tapped into a zeitgeist where people are becoming tired of rampant consumerism and are looking to recycle the old. She is launching a Topshop Home range of craft kits for lampshades, cushion covers, and cross stitch samplers.
The bubbly presenter of Channel 4s Location Location Kirstie Allsopp is also jumping on the DIY bandwagon. She'll be in Brown Thomas today launching a range of tools that come neatly packaged in prettily designed books. The starter tool kit contains all the tools you need "to make a home safe, secure, and wobble free". There is also a picture hanging kit, and a sewing kit for ripped curtain emergencies and so on.
It appears that for many of us long cold winter nights of needlepoint and drilling holes in walls lie ahead.
- emorgan@irish-times.ie
