DEAR Jasminda,

We have recently put our house up for sale and the real estate agent has insisted we get a stylist (who they recommended).

When she visited the other day, she made suggestions that were not to our taste.

Frankly, her ideas were cheap and nasty.

Can’t we just keep our own furnishings?

Belinda P

Dear Belinda,

My mother made the astute observation recently that stylists seem to be ‘in cahoots’ with real estate agents and they all seem to read from the same playbook.

It can be disconcerting when a stylist wants you to fork out thousands so they can suggest that you replace the expensive artworks you inherited with assorted tacky prints from an online site.

Then, once they’ve explained everything that is wrong with your lounge room, they’ll head to your bedroom.

You can be confident that once they restyle it, it will take half an hour to remove the countless cushions and throw rugs so you can find your bed again.

Some stylists also seem to detest natural greenery, replacing it with cheap plastic plants that will never have a dead leaf or bug on them, but nor will they release oxygen or any feel good hormones, instead fulfilling their role as cheap adornments headed for landfill.

The kitchen can’t have any food in it, or any sense of homeliness. And definitely no odours, except for coffee beans.

Apparently a strategically placed recipe book is the taste-de-jour, but god help you if you think you can cook in the kitchen during the sales period.

Personally, the things I look for when buying a home are its condition, whether the fixtures work, how much storage space it has, whether it has been designed to make the most of the natural light, and whether there are barking dogs or other noise hazards close by.

No amount of plumped cushions or tropical tree wall canvases will make up for structure and functionality.

Those should be the real selling points. Good luck!

Carpe diem,
Jasminda.