Kirstie's shopping again for her 'Homemade' home

[expatinscotland]

and it's so fun to watch someone so detached from reality having such a swell time.

I watched last night and I'm sorry to say I think its total crap...I actually quite like Kirstie, but the house is too crappy for my personal taste (think shitty rathger than shabby)....and to think she's proposing to rent it out for £2,000 a week is mystifying...I do get what she was trying to achieve and I'm sure somone will pay it, but I'd be rather disappointed if I had paid that sort of money and got that rather grungy, flea market cottage look for my holiday!!!

I do like the idea that she is trying to get the message accross of

'fill your house with the crap things you like and not just what your neighbour has or even the local shopping centre rubbish.'

She is right that most house are pretty much the same -and I know this as I live on a brand new housing estate where all the dining rooms have light wooden tables and dark brown leather highbacked chairs, probabaly from next. In the windows each one has crappy artificial flowers or wooden scultpures with the same vases just in varying colours...

Our neighbours actually gasped when we said we were having wooden worktops, they really couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want the uniform black granite that everyone has.

Go for your life if granite really maske you happy but don't just have it because Mrs so and so has it or the magazines/shops tell you it's the thing to have.

(btw our dining room has a computer and 2 dog bowls and is otherwise pretty much empty waiting for us to save and buy a table and chairs!)

I thought it was rather sweet that she was so moved by the blacksmithing thing. It's quite a scary thing to do, I'd imagine.

But I am getting very annoyed by the recaps at the beginning of every single segment. Must take loads of some poor scriptwriter's time just to come up with a different form of words for saying exactly the same thing 5 times an episode (not that I'm blaming that on Kirstie - presumably not her fault).

muppetgirl -you are so right when you describe the "identikit" houses with their chocolate brown leather sofas/chairs, identical soft furnishings etc.

I've recently been to a few houses on a similar estate to pick up the DC from friends/parties etc and the living rooms are difficult to tell apart.

There seems to be a complete lack of the personal touch or personal style.

Although saying that, the owners of these houses probably come to ours and think its a hotch potch of colours, styles etc and that nothing matches whereas I like to think of it being eclectic/boho/shabby chic/individual (eg. we tend to go for old furniture from junk shops, reclamation yards etc rather than reach for the Next catalogue).

I know it's the premise of a programme to decorate a room totally for the finished look, but I think in real life one has to live in a space for a bit then decide what might look good and what won't.

Random bunging of dust- collecting bric a brac on mantles simply won't cut the mustard.

Was she really crying when she'd made her poker or did she get some molten metal in her eye?! Even more self-congratulatory this week..its getting a bit tedious now for my liking although still strangely compelling!

Agree muppetgirl.Before we bought this house viewed about 30 and most had identi kit interiors.Gloss white kitchen with granite top.A weird cream and brown living room dining room set up with the leather sofas light oak table and leather chairs.beige everywhere.Ikea 'art'?and dreadful twigs in vases on laminate floors.Although ridiculous kirsty is encouraging individuality which is a good thing.

I thought it was a shame to rip out the fireplace with the lovely blue tiles...nice original feature

Couldn't agree more muppetgirl and noddy...why on earth some people want to wholesale buy the complete 'Next'living room look is beyond me...its rather naff...
Unfortunately we have had to buy our own furniture don't you know (no family heirlooms or treasures!) - we love eclectic too...but I still venture that Kirsties was all a bit crapola...!
I think an evolved look with a mixture of old and modern is much more inviting.

Sazzerbear - me too! I loved those dark blue tiles. I keep on thinking about them, and hoping she was gentle with them and that someone else gave them a loving home...

Can I stick my neck out and say I'm really enjoying this, in a sort of reading-Country-Living-in-the-loo way? I'm a big fan of crafts and having a go at things you thought you couldn't do - what's wrong with that? Yes, she is behaving a little as if she were the first person to make something - with her own hands! - for her home, but I'm finding it rather heartwarming. And she went to see Kaffe Fassett! I heart that man.

The recaps every 10 mins are bloody annoying, though.

MamaH - I was soooo disappointed to see Kirstie doing this with the fire - think it would have been much better for her to say what she did with the old fireplace (ie instead of people just chucking period features in a skip, educating them on where to sell them/realising their worth therefore saving them for people who appreciate them!) rant over...

I liked the fireplace too don't know why she didn't restore it.I can't see her re finishing that grate she bought either!I am growing to like the show though as it is the way I approach a renovation usually.The house I am in now is being done that way with a mixture of the odd new thing thrown in.I usually buy new aplliances and window blinds and everything else I hunt down.will def be watching next week

Is noone watching this week?? I want to go and rob raid that woman's quilt stash.

I'm not sure if I hate her, love her, loathe her, admire or even envy her.

Never realised how posh she really was.

And how out of touch with reality her lifestyle, way of living/thinking seems to be!

I know!!
Her own flock of sheep indeed

"I've tried to spend as little money as possible and not buy anything new"

that master bedroom.... so comforting, grown up, pretencious,

How much do you think the whole place will go for?

Tbh never saw it coming that Kirstie would turn into an as interior decorator type once the property market went downhill

It was pretty ridiculous to start with, but really! now she's taking the mickey, surely? Every week we see her spending 5 minutes doing some new craft not very well, then bursting into tears of joy before departing in a cloud of self-congratulation. Come the end of the show, her acolytes make a pilgrimage to the house bearing the finished products which they have completed. Did she really say it would take the lovely quilt-woman 100 HOURS to finish that quilt? And then there was the chair, the rug, and last week the knitting, then the firedog, the glasses, the mugs, the cushions....and then to top it all, she delivers a sermon about how SHE has tried not to spend much money, has recycled things and made them herself...NO YOU HAVEN'T!!

OK it's only telly and of course telly is a big cheat, but come off it, Kirstie. Stop patronising us. And stop blubbing. It's making me quite cross now

its 2.5k a week to rent

Like the quilting bit - but then I like doing quilting.

I think Kirstie has a much bigger budget than us mere mortals.

Yes what would that quilt have cost at 100 hours work? What's the going rate per hour for bespoke quilting?

Probably does make that two-hundred plus quilt from ye antique shoppe look quite bargainous...

Yup and the herd of sheep just completes the whole Marie Antoinette vibe really.

Ha - well said heuchera!

Really irritated by the Allsoppy this week for exactly this reason. She farts about fashioning some crafty thing - for 5 minutes, then buggers off to leave the expert to actually make it for her... and hoik it all the way down to Devon when they've finished!

And then she trills and twirls about her boudoirs saying things like 'you see, you don't have to spend a fortune to furnish' and I think

Oi!

All Soppy!

What about the cost of the quilt that took that poor woman 100 hours to make after you chose a few fabrics and then buggered off? Or the regency chair so expertly stuffed by that - well, Regency chair expert? Were they free then? Would they do the same for us???

(and when quilt woman brings said 100 hour quilt round, Kirstie immediately starts pointing out the stitches she did, in faux self-depreciating way. 'Look, here are mine. Aren't they terrible? Tee hee'. As if she made the blardy thing! Gah!!!

But PMSL that the only thing Kirstie has appeared to fashion totally herself was that skip mirror that she stripped and painted and eventually decided was too unflattering! Well, Allsoppy, the mirror never lies (or something)

Gah.

(Not even your prettiness redeemed you this week).

The whole thing is absolutely ludicrous. It may make good telly but it has nothing to do with saving money. One can only 'save money' in those circumstances if one has enough money in the first place to buy the bloody house etc etc.

However, not wishing to be too horrid, it is quite nice and not a bad effort, but I shan't be renting it for my summer hols. Don't really want to be lining her pockets.

margot - we booked it and then read the small print

the thought of paying for the Right Honourables name out us off and we unbooked!

Howsa bout if a crack team of really mean mumsnetters (self included natch) clubbed together, rented cottage and re-wrote this thread in the visitor's book? 5 bedrooms, twins in each and some good sized baths lined with bespoke quilts and I reckon we can split that 2.5K fifteen ways easy.

Totally agree with her stance against the page 169 of Ikea catalogue living rooms sweeping the nation. Every sitting room I've been in recently has a leather sofa, plasma screen, dead birch and twirls in a plastic vase and horrible screen printed canvases. Usually in brown with either duck egg blue, cream or red as an accent. Always with relief squirly flowers on wallpaper or cushions. Does nobody own books anymore? Or have some crap furniture that will have to do for now? Or home-made (also crap) cushions? Just me?