Interior Designer Reveals The Renovations That Add Value (And The Ones That Just Cost You Money)
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What is the overall purpose of the episode and who is the interior‑design expert?
Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy podcast by Opus Partners. I'm your host, Stepak Knight.
And I'm Andrew
Nicholl. 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 Callie Gammy from Rare Birds Interiors. She's spent 25 years designing up the interiors of houses. She's got a fine arts degree. You 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. 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 homebuyers pay top dollar for a property, it's going to be how that homebuyer feels when they walk into that property for the first time and can imagine themselves living there. And Kelly 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?
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 center 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.
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 Pihar in Auckland.
Papamoa Beach or something
like that. Okay, we're going to Papamoa Beach in Tauranga. How would you adapt the design for that property compared to something that was in Owakune near the mountains in Ruapehu?
I guess when a color palette would be one thing, if you're by the beach, the color palette's going to be softer and, you know, influenced by the sand and the ocean. So that will influence your color palette and your materiality. So you might go for more softer timbers. your your tiles and the stones and things you use there might be a softer color and a softer pattern if you're in the mountains you can go bolder because obviously the mountains are a bold landscape and your color palette could be deeper there you know you can go in into darker colors you can go into richer colors you can go into materiality that's a lot stronger let's say and not as soft Okay. So I wouldn't be putting dark stone on the outside of a house on Papamoa Beach, but I would in the mountains.
And you used the term on trend before. 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?
Absolutely.
How should a property’s location and architecture influence its colour palette and material choices?
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. It was trendy and it doesn't connect with anything culturally or of our landscape.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the overall purpose of the episode and who is the interior‑design expert?
0:08–4:00
2
How should a property’s location and architecture influence its colour palette and material choices?
4:00–7:32
3
Why can trendy finishes like faux stone tiles or all‑black bathroom fixtures end up costing investors money?
7:32–10:36
4
What are the benefits of mixing metals and using towel‑pole hardware instead of traditional towel rails?
10:36–13:45
5
Which renovations actually add resale value and which ones are just unnecessary expenses?
13:45–18:13
6
What are the three biggest interior‑design mistakes investors make (feature walls, acrylic showers, tile trim)?
18:13–21:30
7
What low‑cost, high‑return upgrades give the biggest bang‑for‑buck on a tight budget?
21:30–23:57
8
How much should you budget to hire an interior designer and what ROI can you expect?
23:57–26:32