THEY’RE BOOSTING OUR ECONOMY SAY HOUSING UNITS.

They may seem to be wall-to-wall on TV, but the overwhelming current crop of home design and lifestyle shows are doing massive favours for the UK furnishings and interiors industry. Nick Fox, director of north Manchester-based furnishings store Housing Units, says that regardless of how tacky, tear-jerking or turgid the home design programmes are, they are inspiring homeowners into spending on changes or improvements. “Customers will come in to the store sometimes completely undecided about what they want, but will simply refer to a TV home design or lifestyle show and say they want something the same or just like what they saw,” said Nick. “This is where we have an advantage in that we have in-house designers who overdose on these programmes so know exactly what most customers are talking about.

“The trend is to buy complete makeovers for entire rooms – and customers are specifying not just UK-style design, but design and furnishings they have seen on travel programmes, or home-search shows abroad. “It is genuinely creating a new niche of demand, and there is a very definite drive towards Italian-inspired interior design.”