Are you decorating for yourself - or your home's next owner? asks Isobel McKenzie-Price

Posted: 18th September 2007 14:04

Who are you really decorating for?

Yesterday I did a revolutionary thing – I told the kids that they could stick posters up on the walls of their bedrooms. This is after 11 years of insisting that they didn't damage the expensive paintwork of the house we'd laboriously renovated.

It's all because we've suddenly seen the light, and started treating our house as a home, not an investment. We've broken the cardinal rule of estate agents, and started using rooms the way WE want to use them.

Who cares that the 'property police' insist that prospective buyers want to see rooms being used in the 'right' way? We've turned a bedroom into a chill-out lounge, a sitting room into a dining room, a dining room into a family room… and it all works so much better for the way we really live our lives.

If you asked me whose taste really matters when it comes to choosing the wallpaper for my dining room, I'd say it was mine – not that of the buyers who might own the house in the future. For the first time ever, I think that's actually true, and I'm seeing my home in a whole new way.

Do you see your house as a home – or a way of making money? And how does that influence the way YOU decorate and live?

Let us know on our forums now.

Isobel

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