DO you have the urge to give your very ordinary home a wanky name? Here are some tried-and-tested examples for inspiration.
Primrose Cottage
Or anything incredibly twee. Names like ‘Primrose Cottage’ are particularly inappropriate for identikit houses on suburban estates. And even worse if you live in a grim high-crime area where you know the local drug dealers by name. Also consider ‘Dunroamin’, just for the lack of originality.
Avalon
A name steeped in Arthurian legend and shrouded in mystery. The main mystery being, why is it the name of a tiny bungalow just outside Crewe? When the postman sees ‘Avalon’ on a letter he expects an imposing country pile. What he actually gets is instant proof you’re deeply pretentious.
Meadow View, Fairview, and similar
Except it isn’t, is it? Using a rustic house name is fine if you live in the countryside or in an episode of Midsomer Murders. But Meadow View is pushing it. Especially when you throw open your curtains each morning to reveal you live opposite a tarmac plant, a bus station or an abattoir.
The Old Post Office
Ingratiate yourself with any isolated village by buying their Post Office, closing it down and renovating it into a luxury four-bedroom home. Locals will hate you for taking over their vital link to the outside world so they don’t have to drive 11 miles for a morning paper, but it’s a small price to pay for a lovely, slate house sign hung near your front door.
Xanadu
Well done you! You’ve read a poem or half-watched Citizen Kane. And your house isn’t a lavish palace, it’s a semi, so all your neighbours now have you down as an ostentatious ballbag. You might think you’re not getting many Christmas cards because it’s hard to spell. It’s not. All your friends have disowned you.
