The penny has finally dropped with housebuilders. When it comes to showhouses, viewers are no longer impressed with cheap-as-chips Shaker-style kitchens and faux fur throws on the beds.

With plenty of supply in the new homes market, buyers are becoming choosier. They want to see decent design, plenty of storage for their belongings and outdoor space they can call their own.

Weaned on glossy interiors magazines and prime time makeover programmes, they've gotten a taste for smart design and developers who don't deliver may be left with unsold houses on their hands.

Which is why, with over over 2,500 units to sell at Belmayne off the Malahide Road in Dublin 13, developers the Stanley brothers have hired Diarmuid Gavin and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to design a showhouse and a series of gardens like no other.

Meanwhile at Browns Barn Wood in Dublin 22, the Durkans went to Milan to source ideas for a development of townhouses aimed at buyers trading up from nearby Clondalkin.

Their innovations include zebra wood kitchens and a corner designed for playing poker.