We all know fashions come and go, only to return. How often do we dismiss our parents’ tastes as old-fashioned then see them rehabilitated as retro cool in our children’s homes?

New residential development can be a fascinating barometer of our changing tastes, registering shifts in the way we want to live. Take the bathroom. I’m not talking about colour – I’ll take some convincing that there will be a sea change from white back to avocado any time soon – but rather about numbers. Some 20 years ago, a new three-bedroom detached house would probably only have had one bathroom. But since then the desirable ensuite bathroom has proliferated at such a rate that some buyers are now questioning just how many they want to clean. I suspect we will reach a happy medium that still manages to cut down the morning queue but saves on elbow grease, too.

The garage is another focus for change. Once buyers certainly expected either a single or double garage, but now, perhaps due to modern car alarms and better paint, fewer cars seem to be kept inside. So rather than building garages, developers are looking again at car ports – also useful for storing fuel if you have a wood-burning stove – and supplying lockable, all-purpose storage areas instead.

Indoors, the current trend in the kitchen is for fewer wall mounted units – but where do you put your groceries? Cue the return of the larder. But if the larder harks back to the past, the overall layout of new homes remains focused on modern living, with a continuing desire for spacious, open-plan accommodation. Even this has evolved, though. Whereas we used to see a separate kitchen with a lounge/diner, we now have kitchen/dining areas and a separate sitting room, reflecting the role of the kitchen as the hub of the house.

Who knows which trend of our own age will be swept away then reinterpreted as the new ‘must have’ by generations to come?

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