@Karen Hodge, I hear you!! Sometimes I think the estate agent should carry quite a bit of the blame actually. If they do their job correctly like you see in the adds on TV, they should bring these discrepancies to the attention of the sellers, stand on their morals and say if you can't get it better than this, then you'll have to find someone else to sell your home!! I know you can't make everybody "house proud" but the saying "do unto others" springs to mind. I bet if these same people bought a house not up to scratch, "a current affair" would hear about it but they don't think it wrong to simply walk out on a house that isn't being left nicely for the next family!! I have some friends that recently sold a house in Essendon, Melb and whilst the buyers were back and forth selling their own home, my friends kept watering the plants and even did things like painted out the wardrobes because of the scuff marks made over time!! They cleaned the entire two storey house from top to bottom and finished by mopping the floors as they were exiting. The buyers were so taken by the entire home, they bought it with almost all the furniture that my friends had in it!!

As an architect, I have a list of words saved on my desktop that I am conscious can sound confusing to the client! One day I hope to write a little archi-dictionary to help clients work out what we mean when we use so many of the words that seem natural to us! 'Form', 'honest materials', 'warmth', 'documentation', 'draft', 'sketch plan', 'detail', 'mass', 'spine', 'circulation', 'water harvesting', 'floating', 'dynamic', 'heavy', 'celebrate'... etc.

Luckily, you have a great monochrome base to start with, so you can almost go wherever your imagination takes you! You could definitely try lightening up the space to contrast the darker lounges with a lighter or brighter statement colour, but be sure to avoid any colours that are too closely matched to the existing carpet. https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/designer-collaborations/akira-isogawa-hirameki/batik-ubud/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/designer-collaborations/hare-and-klein/etched/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/designer-collaborations/bernabeifreeman/folk/  https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/designer-collaborations/greg-natale-carpet/milano/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/designer-collaborations/dinosaur-designs-series-1/skipping-stones/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/designer-collaborations/catherine-martin/westchester/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/handknot-collections/contemporary-hand-knot/blair-ivory/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/handknot-collections/contemporary-hand-knot/genesis/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/handknot-collections/contemporary-hand-knot/glory-days/ https://www.designerrugs.com.au/rug-collections/handknot-collections/contemporary-hand-knot/orion-silver-grey/

That looks beautiful and so fitting in with the house. I also like the mixture of plants, well done on the job!