LAURENCE Llewelyn-Bowen is trying to sell his £1.6m mansion in the Cotswolds. But he’s had to ditch his opulent soft furnishings and dramatic drapes in favour of all things magnolia in order to attract a buyer.

It must have broken his heart. It would mine, having to turn an extravagantly stylish home into a shrine to boring beige.

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When it comes to selling houses, safe decor is best, because for everyone who loves a life-size tapestry of the Venus de Milo, there are 10 who are itching to rip it down and paint the wall behind it white.

Curiously this rule doesn’t work when it comes to buying new houses. I know this because my partner and I viewed a couple of showhomes on a new estate at the weekend.

Now I’m not a fan of new houses, having always bought Victorian. For me the character of an old home far surpasses anything built post 2010.

New equals bland. Regular-shaped rooms, low ceilings, smart uniformity – they’re just not me. Neither am I an estate sort of woman. You won’t catch me washing my car on a Sunday and getting my shopping delivered from Waitrose.

But when I walked into the show home of a four-bedroom detached on Saturday all those long-held prejudices suddenly disappeared. As I skipped from room to room stroking silver velour sofas, opening glossy wardrobe doors and bathing in the fragments of light given off by a vast crystal chandelier in the kitchen, I told myself that I could live here. My partner was the same, “oohing and ah-ing” at every room.

“Do the kitchen, fireplace and wardrobes come with it?” I asked the receptionist. “Erm, no, they’re upgrades,” she said looking a little sheepish. And that’s when an image came to mind of our battered leather sofa replacing the vintage-inspired tweed number, our shabbily un-chic pine wardrobes in place of the cappuccino glossy set and pawprints on the cream velvet carpet.

Of course this home was beautiful, it had probably had a protégé of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen designing the interior. And if I’d sat down with a calculator, the extras would have amounted to around £30,000. We’d be buying a shell and putting our mismatched furniture in it. My face suddenly resembled a slapped backside.

Which is when my other half piped up, “So when will the show home be going on sale, then?” Style over substance – sometimes you just can’t resist.