London - Was there ever a time when people were enamoured of avocado bathroom suites?
There must have been, because you still see them dotted around the country.
They’re like those velvet bell-bottoms at the back of middle-aged hipsters’ wardrobes, which have passed into history, unloved and unmourned.
But if you are shown into an avocado bathroom while house-hunting, don’t panic. It’s your lucky day. Buy the house, strip out the avocado confection and your property will be worth £5 000 (about R90 000) more before you’ve made up your mind what to do next.
What you should do is go the whole hog and install a stylish contemporary bathroom, with his-and-hers basins and the latest power shower, and that £5 000 could become £20 000.
One person’s rundown property, with outdated decor is another person’s opportunity.
I recently visited my late mother’s former home in Wimbledon, South-West London, which was sold earlier this year.
It looked like a bomb site. Beefy builders from Bucharest were ripping up the old carpets, stripping out the Eighties bathroom tiles, opening up the blocked-off fireplaces in the bedrooms. And, sentiment aside, why not?
When the property has been refurbished in a contemporary style, it will be worth a lot more.
And the more clapped out the original decor, the greater the potential for adding value with a judicious makeover. The uglier the better, in fact. It sounds crazy, but it’s obvious when you stop to think about it.
“Outdated fashions are often exactly the sort of things to look for,” says Edward Stevenson, of property developers Quanta Group, which has made a study of the subject.
“If you spend £5 000 replacing Seventies and Eighties fixtures, you can potentially increase the value of a property by £15 000 to £20 000 - trebling or quadrupling your money.”
Here are some other once popular decorative features that now look so hideous that it is child’s play to replace them with something easier on the eye:
Mirrored walls
Time was when, if you could not look at yourself from four different angles in every room in the house, you were considered a bit of a prude.
Floor-to-ceiling mirrors were all the rage in the Nineties and Noughties. But no longer.
Replace all of those unforgiving mirrors with plain white or neutral walls and you will create rooms in which people feel able to be themselves, not frustrated fashion models.
Wooden panelling
If you live in an Elizabethan manor house, a wood-panelled library will be your pride and joy.
But if the panelling dates back to the Seventies, is made of cheap processed wood from Scandinavia and has been installed by a cowboy builder, it can kill a room.
Strip it all out and replace it with plain wallpaper. You will be amazed by the transformation.
Floral wallpaper
Another here today, gone tomorrow fashion which was fun while it lasted, but ultimately rather suffocating.
In the Seventies, you couldn’t be ushered into a spare bedroom in Gloucestershire without having your retina assailed with tasteful images of roses and camellias.
It’s time to lose the flowers and opt for neutral colours.
Artex ceilings
Ridiculously popular in the Seventies with their distinctive stippled look, Artex ceilings have failed the test of time so miserably that they need to be torn down at the earliest opportunity if you want to increase the value of your property.
The same goes for woodchip or flock wallpapers. Smooth surfaces on walls and ceilings are inherently more attractive.
Crazy paving
Many once half-decent garden lawns have been ruined by crazy paving. It was a naff fashion when it took off in the Seventies, and it has simply got naffer with each year that passes.
Lose the crazy paving, lay a new lawn and buy a lawn-mower. The effort won’t kill you and the aesthetic improvement will be extraordinary. If maintenance isn’t your thing, you could even opt for fake grass.
Wall-to-wall carpet
Like a haircut, it looks good for a day or two, but then looks progressively less good. You can be the Olympic champion of vacuum cleaning, but still struggle to keep that old-fashioned wall-to-wall carpeting in mint condition.
Carpeted rooms can quickly look tired, while stripped wooden floorboards can help create a fresh, contemporary feel.
Built-in drinks bars
You don’t have to be a teetotaller to wince at the sight of a suburban living room masquerading as the saloon bar at the Dog & Duck - or, worse still, a cocktail bar in Soho.
They belong to a different, brasher age, when showing off was the name of the game. They also take up a ridiculous amount of space - space which can be put to far better use.
So why not just call time on the bar and keep your booze in the kitchen, like everybody else?
Daily Mail