What's happened to making do, Kirstie?

Did anyone catch Kirstie Allsop's offering on Channel 4 last night? It's good to see a mainstream TV programme adopting some make it and mend it principles, but it really did feel like the poor little rich girl plays house.

Kirstie is decorating a dolls house that is bigger than most people dream of.....and last night paid £100 a roll for hand made wall paper....perrrrllleaase.....£50 for a door handle...I ask you! As one of our MIAMI contributors said "the empress is naked while wielding the wallpaper glue brush!"
Don't get me wrong. I like Kirstie as a presenter, but she is completely out of touch with reality. It's all well and good to use expensive items as inspiration, but the point should be 'how can I do this within my budget?'. Everything she did focussed on buying something, not making do with what you have and spending the minumum. It should be "Yes this £100 a roll of paper is fab, but how can I adapt it?" You could paint the wall a plain colour and then block print a design onto that (a bit like potato printing). Much cheaper, and just as dramatic.

Or "This door handle is great, but I can't afford it so what else can I do? If I can't change the handle how can I direct attention away from it?" As my mother used to say 'if they are noticing your shoes, there's something wrong with your conversation!'

The week before, Kirstie did some skip-diving to find a mirror and bought some cheap chairs and did them up. This is much more like it - although having seen her get an interior designer to make her cushions while she sewed a couple of buttons on them, I think she needs to get those sleeves rolled up and get doing it herself.

Anyway Kirstie, all is not lost we are going to do some pieces regularly on the website on taking high end design ideas and doing them the MIAMI way. Watch this space!