No wonder the rich are so miserable!” a friend sighed down the telephone.

“How do you mean?” I asked, intrigued. Had she identified some kind of hereditary jadedness gene? Had she discovered once and for all that luxury isn’t quite what people claim?

She was speaking to me from a very shaky mental region known as “Refurbishment Hell”, a land strewn with experiences that dismay and harrow, and where a permanent state of attrition is the norm. There are trip wires everywhere that bring on agonising spells of extended shame – and, though you shouldn’t care, the fact is you do. The looming adversary, of course, is expensive mistakes. They hover and entice above every skirting, every architrave. Once chosen they will ridicule you mercilessly for the rest of your days ...

“What happened?” I asked.

“I came home from a conference to a hall and sitting room that have been redone, and it just doesn’t feel like home any more. I’ve ruined my flat. It was wonky and charming before, a bit shabby, a bit down at heel. Like me! And now ... ”

“And now ... ”

“Well, I’ve got a flat that thinks it’s a hotel.”

“Is that so very bad?”

“Well, it’s the one thing I told the architect I didn’t want. I said, ‘Whatever happens, I don’t want this flat to look at all like a hotel.’”

“Do you think he just remembered the hotel bit of your instructions?”

“I don’t know. It sounds awful to say so, but I’ve got the kind of flat that looks like it’s never read a book in its life.”

“But surely your flat will still have all your books in it?”

“They look fake, somehow. Out of place. As if they’ve been borrowed, like a thick person wearing glasses to try to look brainy.”

“Wow.”

How to modernise, thoughtfully, without banishing the charm from your dwelling – that is the question. Perhaps the answer is not to do it at all.

In my house there are quarter-inch gaps under all the windows, and great gusts of wind permanently blowing through. They make very small ripples in your cup of tea, and if you don’t sport a woolly scarf for nine-tenths of the year, you get a sore throat. It is bracing. But I have a horror of new windows, so I live with the gusts. It’s not ideal. But I do have my nerves to think of. We’re moving soon and I have my own sad tales to tell, but it’s all a little close to the bone. More later ...

Another friend rings, utterly crestfallen about her new sofa cover.

“I am so shocked,” she says. “I just feel so shocked. I spent months choosing the most jaunty cherry red velvet, and it’s just nauseating, like a pneumatic steak house banquette throbbing at me in the corner. I’ve covered it with an old sheet for now but I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve lost my confidence completely.”

“Surely it will fade in the sun?”

“I put it out in the garden on Sunday and told the kids to jump on it as much as they like, but it’s going to take a long time. I wish I’d left it as before. It was very shabby but it never was an eyesore.”

Another friend who is moving calls round distraught. “I had a fight with the architect this morning.”

“Oh no!”

He said: ‘Why are you bending over backwards to preserve and replicate your original 1970s fake Victorian skirting boards?’”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Because I don’t want you guys taking all the charm out of my house!’”

“What did he say?”

“He just sighed. He said if it weren’t for the credit crunch, he would absolutely insist I went his way but times are hard and he has mouths to feed, and the customer just for now is always right.”

A friend who lives abroad wants to meet me. He is fairly down at heart also.

“Is it your house?” I ask, sympathetically. “Because my advice is, a nice bunch of flowers and cleaning the windows is always the safest bet. Anything else seems to be a bit of a threat to the old mental health, as far as I can tell, unless the ceiling has actually come down or something.”

“No, it’s my godmother.”

“Is she unwell?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s hard to say exactly, but she has been so kind to me all my life, you know, kind to everyone and she has this amazingly kind face full of love.”

“Mmm?”

“Well, she’s had quite a bit of work done recently, to her eyes and her jaw I think, and now all the kindness has gone right out of her face. She no longer has the face of the person she is; she still behaves very wonderfully but there is a hardness in her face, a sharpness that I just don’t like. It kind of spoils everything.”

“So she no longer looks like herself?”

“Exactly.”

“But how’s your house?”

“Fine.”

“Well, that’s not nothing, you know ... ”

susie.boyt@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/boyt