Interior Designer Reveals The Renovations That Add Value (And The Ones That Just Cost You Money)

We talk about prices, yields, and interest rates constantly. But what someone pays often depends on how a place feels when they walk in. So, what design mistakes are quietly costing investors money? In this episode, Ed and Andrew are joined by interior designer Kelly Gammie. You'll learn: The 3 biggest interior design mistakes … and what each one costs The renovations that add value and the ones that just cost you money How bold and brave should investors be when choosing what to paint the wallsThe numbers matter... but so does the feeling. Get the design right, and it shows up in the price. Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a voice message on the Property Academy Hotline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.speakpipe.com/PropertyAcademy For more from Opes Partners: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for the weekly Private Property newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/newsletter-sign-up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/opes_partners/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@opespartners

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy Podcast by Opes Partners. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  And I'm Andrew Nichol.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  And this is the show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment properties. So you can be financially free and stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're going to learn the three biggest interior design mistakes and what each one costs. The renovations that add value and the ones that just cost you money. And how bold and brave should investors be when choosing what colour to paint the walls? And to walk us through it, we are joined by Kelly Gammie from Rear Birds Interiors. She's spent 25 years designing up the interiors of houses. She's got a fine arts degree. I can tell because she's got these fabulous blue glasses on. You guys obviously can't see those, but she's going to walk us through it. And I think this matters because most of this show is spreadsheets.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  We talk about prices and yields and interest rates. But Andrew and I do not have creative bones in our bodies. I mean, Andrew will tell you later on about some of his interior design mistakes. But if we think about what makes home buyers pay top dollar for a property, it's going to be how that home buyer feels when they walk into that property for the first time and can imagine themselves living there. And Kelly's spent 25 years creating that feeling. She's going to spill the beans on how to create that today. So I've seen, Kelly, that you've talked publicly about some of the details that age a property. What are some of those features that really date a property today?

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Well, I think if you're talking about an investment property or you're talking about a property that you're selling as opposed to something that you're going to live in forever, it's following whatever's on trend at the time, rather than looking at, I always say to people, it's really important to be authentic. So you need to be authentic to the architecture of the house and where the house is sitting, if it's just an investment property. So where that house is located, whether it's in the centre of Auckland, if it's on a mountain in Queenstown, or if it's on a beach up north, that determines how the house should look. And if it doesn't look like that, then it doesn't look authentic and it looks wrong right from the beginning.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Okay, so what would be like an example of that? Just so I can get my mind around it. So let's say that it was a property that's on or near a beach, let's say.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Papua Moa Beach or something like that.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Okay, we're going to Papua Moa Beach in Toononga. How would you adapt the design for that property compared to something that was in Oa Kune, near the mountains in Ruapahu?

• 2:50Speaker 02

  I guess when it colour palette would be one thing. If you're by the beach, the colour palette's going to be softer and, you know, influenced by the sand and the ocean. So that will influence your colour palette and your materiality. So you might go for more softer timbers, your tiles and the stones and things you use, there might be a softer colour and a softer pattern. If you're in the mountains, you can go bolder because obviously the mountains are a bold landscape and your colour palette could be deeper there. You know, you can go into darker colours, you can go into richer colours, you can go into materiality that's a lot stronger, let's say, and not as soft.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  So I wouldn't be putting dark stone on the outside of a house on Papua Moa Beach.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  But I would in the mountains.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  And you used the term on trend before.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  I'm curious, do you see people use some things that seem to be trendy at the moment, but maybe aren't the right fit for their particular property? You think you'll regret that in a few years' time?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely. One thing that comes to mind, and it's been kind of on trend in brackets for a while, is faux look stone tiles in bathrooms. And in particular for me, Carrara look tiles, shiny Carrara look tiles. For me, that needs to stay somewhere else outside of New Zealand. You know, it just, it was trendy and if you, it doesn't connect with anything culturally or of our landscape. It looks great in Italy, but if you bring it here, it just doesn't suit. So that already is starting to date because it was very popular. So anything that's really, really popular, like, you know, Carrara, will be unpopular

• 4:44Speaker 02

  if it doesn't relate to you culturally.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Okay. The other thing that I always think about are black mats.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Here we go. I do know that was exactly what I was thinking.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Black mat taps. What are your thoughts about this? Because I always think the black taps are going to date in 10 years.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  They've been around for about 10 years already. And my kind of take on most things, and that might, you know, almost contradict what I just said, but if you love something and you can do it well, then it's not ever going to be out of date. If you go into a bathroom and all the tapware's black or your accessories are black, your shower frames are black, and that might date. But if you've combined some black taps with some other metal, and that's something that we do a lot, not just we, but interior designers, is mixed metals now.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  When you say mixed metals, how do you mean?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  So you could mix like a brushed nickel on your tapware and then do a black frame on your shower and black towel poles. We had to use towel poles, which you might know anything about, instead of towel rails.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  What's the reason you go with that over the traditional towel rail?

• 5:57Speaker 02

  For me, it's aesthetic. I think they look better, especially when they've got a towel hanging on it because it's just like a robe and other is functionality and ease. Like you don't have to fold all the towels up and make them look perfect. You just hang it over the top. So they always look better and they function better as well. I mean, I'm a designer, but for me, design is really centred around functionality. So if a space, whether it's the bathroom or the kitchen or any room, if it's not functioning well, then it's not designed well.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  And what renovations add value and which ones just cost money?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  I think renovations just for the sake of renovating costs money. If you're renovating because you need it to happen, you need the extra space because of your family situation or things are literally falling apart, they're a good reason and a good investment of renovating. If you're just renovating because you want a bigger house for no reason, then yeah, I think that costs money that may not need to be spent.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  On that front, have you got any stories about times that even if it's you or someone else that you've worked with, that they've spent money and you think, oh, actually that maybe was a bit excessive?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  No, us designers love to spend money.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  No, I'm just joking. No, I think probably where I see it is when we're working on new builds and we do spatial reviews because that's part of an interior design studio's job is. And is building huge, huge places, but not building them well, not spending it. It's better to make a smaller place of a higher quality than a larger place of lower quality.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Can I ask you as well, if I had to get you to rank the top interior design mistakes you see people make, you know, and we counted it down from three, two, one, what would be those top three mistakes you see people continue to make?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  I think the feature wall for me would be number three. And especially when the feature wall has an external corner. And by that I mean where it got a corner on the outside, not the inside, and it changes from paint or paper to another colour or another surface. That for me is one of the major mistakes because it always just looks like slapped on or planted on. It doesn't actually look solid and permanent.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Andrew, tell her about your feature walls.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, no, the, the first renovation I ever did, this is twenty something years ago. And we decided, because they, they were on trend back then, to zhuzh this up. Each of the rooms, we would do a feature wall in there, just, just, you know, like behind the headboard. And we decided, actually, let's not, I think actually the reason we did that, now that I think about it, the reason we did this is to save money. So we did each feature wall a different colour. Cause I think we did sample pots.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Oh, you just got the test pots.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  I think maybe not test pots, but I think like we got, well, we got some sort of deal. So we did one room and it had this, you know, burgundy colour, another one was green, another one was blue, one was brown. It was atrocious. You would have.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  And I imagine, you know, linking back to what things date, something, I'm sure that's dated that property.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I had to sell that one. Okay, I got, yeah, a couple of years on, I, I think maybe even a year on, we thought, actually, that was a huge mistake. Let's just sell that property and pretend we never did it.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Okay, so number three is the feature wall. What do you put, what's the second biggest mistake?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Have you two ganged up on me? These are just gonna be the three leading to my, my faux pas.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, they seem to be kind of directed in, towards you, don't they?

• 9:40Speaker 00

  So what's number two?

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Number two is acrylic showers.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Okay, what's an acrylic shower?

• 9:47Speaker 02

  So it's kind of that plastic wipeable wall that you, it comes in like a box, you know, it's, it's its own little entity and it's installed. Usually it's installed by the builder, which is another big mistake. But if you get proper shower installers, they do go in better. But for me, that's a big mistake, both aesthetically and functionally, because they're, yeah. Especially if it's an investment property, they never last, they always look manky. So yeah, that would be another mistake for me. And they always look cheap, they always look cheap.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  That's an interesting one, because I, I do know lots of rental properties will have their standard acrylic shower, because they're affordable and they slap them in. And personally, from an investor standpoint, if I'm buying a property and it's got something, and I agree, they look, you know, they look a bit maff. In twenty years' time, I'll probably actually renovate that and, and turn it into a bit more of a, a nicer space. So that when it hits the market, it really appeals to someone. As opposed to for the next twenty years, I just need it to do its job. So it's an interesting consideration. Would you recommend in your profession that, that people actually just do that straight off the bat? They spend their little extra.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Okay, interesting.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Because I don't think an acrylic shower, especially some of the ones that I see that are in, that have only been there for five years, they look like they need to be replaced after five years.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  So I kind of see it as a short term investment. And in the end, it's not a smart one, because by the time you replace it again, you've, you could have put a tiled shower in. And for maintenance wise, if you're actually tenoting a property, a tiled shower, if you're using large format tiles, where you don't have many grout lines, and also you put a, a keram epoxy, which is resin based grout in, not a porous grout. And it's so much easier to clean and it'll last you for, you know, longer than twenty years if they're cleaned properly.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Okay, interesting. And what would you say then is the, the number one biggest interior design mistake that you see?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  And again, that comes into bathrooms is tile trim. I can't stand it. It drives me crazy when I see tile trim in, in a bathroom.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  So what's tile trim, just for the, the uninitiated like myself?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's that metal edge you see on all the corners in a bathroom. So generally around a tile, around a tiled shower, and horribly sometimes at the top of tiles. If people crazily think that they're gonna stop the tiles halfway up the wall, and they put a line of metal trim along the top.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  You know, you see halfway up a wall, they'll have like a break.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  So what's the alternative? Do you have to tile the whole?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  All the way, Ed.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  If you're stopping it, put a nice dado line, a nice trim, timber trim, if it suits the style of the house, all the way, as you said. And if you're doing corners, you mitre it. Any good tile will mitre something. If you go to Europe or North America, you'll see them mitring things. It's just a big thing in New Zealand for some reason, having this metal trim. It's cheaper, it's cheaper to install for sure.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And when you think about when you've travelled overseas and been really inspired by some people's design features, where are the places in the world that you've been really wowed by things?

• 13:07Speaker 02

  I mean, I would have to say Italy bows you on a whole lot of different levels, because traditionally they, they do things beautifully. What I love about interiors in places like Italy and France is that they embrace different eras of life. You know, they'll have their grandmother's pieces of furniture in with really, really modern Italian furniture. And that whole eclectic telling your story is really important for them, not just clearing it all out, doing something completely new. It, there's this evolution of, of their lives in it.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  And I know your philosophy is be bold, be brave and be practical. Investors that we work with, we often say, just go neutral, don't offend anybody, just, just get a tenant in, make the numbers work. How do you balance these two things?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's changing in interiors, because everybody sat in their homes a few years back and looked at them. So they didn't like sitting in a white house, sent them a bit crazy. So I think that kind of spurred it on, but it's really prominent now to, as I kind of mentioned before, is telling your story. If that's relating to an investment property, it needs to, I always say, and we've helped a lot of people do up their houses to sell, not to rent, but to sell. And we've found that the houses that we've injected a little bit of personality in there, whether it's a little bit of colour, and I'm not saying like paint it bright pink, but some beautiful warmer colours.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  It gets them much higher prices because they stand out from everything else painted white. And I would imagine that would be the same as renting it. If somebody's got three places to look at, and there's two white boxes and one that's got some warmth and character, and they feel more at home in there, then they're gonna choose the one that's got a bit more character.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, but even if you're not going to, to do a big interior design before you, before you rent it out. Cause I always get a little bit worried about like, oh, the tenant's gonna respect my lovely, my lovely interior. I always think in my mind, well, even if I've bought something that might be a bit boring right now, you can always renovate it before you sell. And it's interesting, like in my mind, this is my own like, like little biases here that I'll admit to you, Kelly. You know, I was like, oh, you know, maybe you guys just work with really rich people to give them lovely homes that they wanna live in. But talk to us a little bit more about people deciding specifically to renovate before they sell.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Again, it's, it's about infusing some difference, a point of difference to everything else on the market. And obviously that depends on what your budget is to put into doing it before you sell. My advice is always that the colour should be inviting. And if you have a bigger budget, then make sure your paint throughout the house is up to scratch. If you have a smaller budget, then make sure the, the main rooms, like the, the living room and the master or the main bedroom, look really fresh and nice. Window coverings make a huge difference to, to spaces and how my home feels when you walk into it. So nice drapes on your windows make a, a massive, massive difference to what a place feels like.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Okay, that's really interesting. So if I'm thinking about those really affordable ones, if I'm on a pretty limited budget and I really wanna get as much bang for buck, and I've just got a traditional house that I bought twenty years ago, and I wanna just give it a bit more spunk before it hits the market, what would be your three things that you reckon that, that would be the, the low hanging fruit as far as cost versus return?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, so definitely the main living space needs to look great. And whether that, as I said before, needs a coat of paint, whether it needs some new drapes. And, you know, you can do affordable drapes, and especially in New Zealand, I'm not against using polyester, which is a entry level kind of cost, because it lasts in our sun here, and at the end it can be recycled, so I don't mind using it. So definitely put nice drapes in the main bedroom and the living area where people are gonna see them. If they're coming in to view a house, they're gonna see that instantaneously. And where they're gonna sleep themselves, because they wanna go, oh, how am I gonna feel in this room? And then if you've got a little bit of money for your kitchen, if you were talking about twenty years ago,

• 17:30Speaker 02

  then you've probably got a white kitchen in your investment property, because white kitchens were the thing twenty years ago. Then you might look at the splashback in your kitchen and see if you can update that with something nice, a nice textural tile that just gives it a bit of personality and updates it a little bit.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Can I ask you as well? So if somebody's, if somebody wants to use an interior designer, I know that the sky's gonna be the limit in terms of how much you can spend. But where does the kind of floor start? Like if you're gonna do a renovation, whether your own home or an investment property, how much do you kind of need to have as a budget for it to be worth hiring an interior designer? Cause you've gotta have money to pay them, and you also have to have money for the renovation.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true. And this, I think it's a kind of a, a question that's very prominent in New Zealand is that, because people mightn't understand the value that an interior designer adds to it. And a lot of interior designers will help you save money with their trade discounts that you wouldn't get yourself. They certainly help you save money with time and making major mistakes that have to be redone. So they say to that. But if you're talking about dollar, dollar value, you could probably say you could engage a designer for around a thousand dollars to give you an overview, like the basic starting point, to give you a review of, of what you're doing,

• 18:54Speaker 02

  and maybe a few suggestions. And then it could go up to, you know, depending on the, the involvement, because if they're requiring drawings for your cabinetry and drawings for your tradespeople to follow. And often that's the job of the designer, not the architect, especially on the interiors. So it, I mean, like you said, the sky's the limit, but on an average kind of, you know, three to four bedroom house in Central Auckland, you're probably looking between thirty and sixty for an interior designer to help you all the way through.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. And that's what you'd spend and then your renovations on top of that. The $1,000 like at the, at the low end is like way more affordable than what I was expecting you to say.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, that would just be a designer coming in and either looking at your plans and giving you some suggestions or coming in for a day and then giving you a review and giving you a quick kind of shortlist of what they suggest. And I think that's a really good investment to do that.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  If, if nothing more, it saves you a divorce if you and your, your partner are disagreeing on the style of the house.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Well, I think you need to pay more than a thousand for that. Like that's, that's more of the service. That's the couple counselling aspect of the interior design service.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I have been there. And tell me actually with your own personal stuff. So when you buy a property and you're looking, thinking, ah, I'm going to do some things to this house, are you constantly living in renovations yourself?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  More or less.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  More or less.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  And Kelly, if I jump on your website, it all looks absolutely stunning as you'd expect of, of an interior designer. But one question that I, I, that I was just thinking is how long would an interior tend to last before somebody re-does it? Like if they wanted to, because I'm sure the materials will last, but I'm more think about if you've done a renovation because it's your own home and you really care about it and you want it to look absolutely stunning. You know, maybe after, I'm, I'm going to make it up here and then you're going to correct me, you know, after 10 or 15 years, maybe it doesn't look so modern anymore. And so you redo it. But like, how often do you find people refreshing their homes like that? If it's their, their own home and assuming they've got the money to do it. Like, how long does a fit out last?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  I mean, that was, that's a, a good question because it's kind of relevant for me at the moment. I've just had some clients come back to me that I worked with. We worked out it's 15 years ago. They're an Auckland client in Mount Albert and we did a full renovation there. They added a story to their house. And I've gone back in only to do some new furnishings that existed before their innovation. So not the ones that we did. So those sofas have clagged out. Repainted some panels in the kitchen because they had kids at the time and dogs and whatever, and they got pretty beat up. So after 15 years, we're respraying and making a few more panels.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  And I was really amazed at how current that house looked. So it still was really relevant to the, the, the architecture of the house. You know, it's a, it's a classic Mount Albert villa to their personalities. It really, really suited them still. And it, it didn't look dated one little bit. It looked like it could have been done yesterday. So it all comes down to not following what's on trend, following what, like I said, right at the beginning, following what the architecture of the house is and where the house sits. Because then it's not likely to date.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Well, it's quite interesting, right? Because if you think about a standard investor renovation, I mean, what's going to be on our list, Andrew? We're going to get some subway tiles for the kitchen.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  I'm looking at some of them now.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  We're gonna, we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna get some. I'm just talking about the standards here, Kelly. We're going to get a shower box. We need that acrylic shower. We need a, we need a.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Easy to clean, easy to clean.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  You know, we're gonna get.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Do a feature wall.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  It's not easy to clean. It's not easy to clean.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  We're gonna get a, yeah, we're gonna put a feature wall in. We're gonna paint the rest of it white. And maybe we'll put, put some Roman, not Roman blinds. Nobody uses Roman blinds these days. We're gonna put some blinds in, you know, but what we're talking about here is quite a different process from what a lot of investors would do, which is come on darling, we're off down to the.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  We're gonna go to Razzain. We're gonna get some paint pots and then we're gonna put some strips on the wall and choose a colour.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. And this is quite a different process. When you look at, at some of the things on Kelly's website.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Some of them are amazing. I've just been looking at some of them now.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. If you were to, if you were to go to Rare Birds Interiors, there are a number of things that I think, oh, I, I wouldn't have thought to do that. And actually I can see how making it higher end, even some of the, I think there are some townhouses you had examples of. You go, I can see how people would pay for that because it looks like it comes out of a magazine. And if I did it myself, it would probably look like it came out of.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It'd be the magazine clippings of a serial killer making a ransom note.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think that's why it's worth thinking about using an interior designer because we do it every day, all day, every day. And people like me have been doing it for a long time every day. And you know how to make something because some of those projects on that website might look like incredible high end, but they're not. They weren't. But we kind of know the tricks of what makes it and where to spend the money, where not to spend the money. How to make it look the best it can for your budget as opposed to not.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  I'm looking at a bathroom here that you've got and there seems to be like a wooden partition coming down. There's some plants above the bath.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Really nice design. I'm thinking this could be very, very high end, um, luxury, um, pieces of equipment here, hardware. But it might, but it might also actually, you might be able to recreate this relatively limited budget as well, I'm guessing.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, you could. Yeah. And for example, that, that bathroom was done nine years ago.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Wow. That's really, really cool. And actually, I mean, to be fair, I've been, I've been flirting with the idea of renovating my office at home. And then we're going to start on our bathrooms. And so when.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Give me a call.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. When I get, when I do that.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Another $400,000.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Edward Christian. And then what we might do is I might actually, um, use you on the bath, uh, sorry, on the office project. And we might talk about it on the podcast.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  That'd be a fun thing to do. You could go through the process of how you're coping with it. And yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  And Kelly, if you, one last question, because we've got to wrap this up. But Kelly, if you were to renovate Andrew Nichol's office, are you going to make him get rid of all of his taxidermy?

• 25:33Speaker 02

  No, I like taxidermy. Used in the right way, it can be really cool.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  I'll be in touch, Kelly, because I like, I love some of the stuff on your website and I like that you said I can keep my taxidermy.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  You'll be able to come down and see Andrew's petting zoo.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  You'll be able to, you'll be able to convince me to convince Lauren that she's off her head and I know what I'm doing.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  And if you want to check out Kelly's website, you're going to go to.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  rarebirdsinteriors.com

• 25:57Speaker 00

  rarebirdsinteriors.com. And over the last 20 minutes, you've learned the three biggest interior design mistakes. The renovations that add value are the ones that just cost you money. And how bold and brave investors should be when choosing what colour to paint the walls. Right? Let's wrap it up there. But please don't forget to write a review and subscribe to the podcast. It really does help us get the message out to more people.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Property Academy Podcast. I'm your host, Cedric Knight.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  And I'm Andrew Nichol.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  We're going to be back here tomorrow with even more daily strategies, tactics, insights to help you get the most out of the new selling property market. Until next time.