Period Feature

Today

In the process of house-hunting we are constantly finding ourselves seduced by yet another charming property. The bungalow with the 1 acre garden was a case in point. Immaculately, kept, probably unchanged since it was first built back in the '70s.

I look at the mirrored fitted wardrobes and the coloured suites and half-tiled splash backs in the bathrooms. "It's like stepping back in time", I whispered to Paul.

In My Day

How exciting it was to buy our very first home! The house in Rowan Avenue was a new build and we were told that we could choose our bathroom suite from a range. Goodbye, the chipped white enamel baths and austere tiles of our childhood. Goodbye horrible antiquated baths on little claw feet that collected the dirt underneath. We debated the merits of avocado, rose or aqua. Would maize yellow work? What cute little tiles with their matching swirly patterns on white! How sensible the matching plastic bath panel that would keep dirt at bay! In the end, there were only two suites left and our friends the Levetts who were buying next door bid hard for the aqua which left us with the rose pink.

Later, when we moved to Mead Close we became the proud owners of an avocado bathroom suite! This colour looks pretty great on an avocado but does little to enhance the look of any bathroom. However, we were pretty broke and even when we remodelled the bathroom for the first time had to keep it. I had great difficulty in finding a fitted porcelain sink in the colour, which had by now joined the ranks of the drearily outdated, and probably spent over the odds to get one.

As one might expect, the plain white Victorian bath (complete with claw feet) has made a comeback and today we all love our neutral coloured bathrooms.

I have a suspicion that, not long from now, the avocado bathroom suite will be described by estate agents as a "period feature".