We spoke to Colette who has recently bought a place that looked amazing at first sight. She explained: “We bought a 1900s Victorian terrace. One of the reasons we liked and bought our house was that everything was already done. There looked to be no work at all that needed doing and everything seemed to be tidily sorted. In fact, this turned into a complete nightmare.”

Colette and her partner hadn’t been in long when there was a leak in the living room. “We worked out that the leak was coming from the bathroom sink right above the settee, but to try and sort this easily was impossible as the pipes had been boarded in.”

When Colette and her partner started looking, they realised they needed to knock through the cover under the bathroom sink to get to the pipework. Within weeks of moving into their pristine pad, there was a massive stain on the lounge ceiling and a huge hole under the sink in the bathroom. Once the leak was fixed, the couple decided to fit in some cupboard doors to hide the unsightly hole, but to leave the pipework exposed for easy access.

A few weeks later, another situation arose from pipework under the bath. To get to the pipes and sort the leak, the couple had to remove the side of the bath. This again proved a challenge as the side of the bath and the shower had been glued together and had to be literally ripped apart to allow access.

When they went to get a replacement bath side, they were told that they only came in packs of 10 for the curved bath that they had. Colette explains, “We lived with an open side on the bath for ages until we could afford to do the whole lot again. It was really horrible to look at and took away the ‘new buy happy feeling’ for us, as friends were visiting to see our new pad and we already had stuff that we had to explain away.”

So, a couple of tips, if you are looking to buy, consider how easy it is to get to pipework as you are looking around. If it looks neat, ask when work was done on the house. You might even want to ask to take off panels so you can see whether there is a great piece of work behind, or whether they are literally just a cover up.

If you are doing the work, our top tip is to keep everything accessible. There are loads of ways of hiding pipework and other unsightly mess, including clever panels that can be removed easily. These are far cheaper to sort when planning than having to do another job to fix your first attempt to make everything neat. Also, when you are buying kit for your house, consider how easy it is to fix it and replace it. Particularly where water is concerned, if there is a leak, you will want to be able to get to it fast to limit the damage it can do.

If you are not doing the work yourself, spend some time talking to your builders and joiners to work out a solution that will work best for looks and access. Then, you’ll hopefully have the best of both worlds.

If you are thinking of improving your home, you may find some of these services useful: