Gabrielle Fagan talks to Kirstie Allsopp about her dream Devon cottage, learning new crafts and dealing with her harshest critics

A fter some recent scathing reviews of her new show, Kirstie Allsopp needs to have a sense of humour. And to prove it, the property guru points to a picture frame displayed in her London home.

It contains a newspaper cutting of a review written at the start of her television career which states: "Kirstie fails to achieve two qualities needed for a TV presenter – being able to walk and talk at the same time."

Kirstie roars with laughter as she shows it to me, obviously content that over the years she has proved the writer wrong.

But you sense that the popular co-presenter of Location Location Location and Relocation Relocation also fervently hopes that she will once again defy the critics who've lambasted her latest Channel Four programme, Kirstie's Homemade Home.

In it, Kirstie renovates her Devon holiday cottage, near the village of Welcombe, scouring second-hand shops and reclamation yards for bargains and taking up 15 craft skills, including making her own wallpaper and stained glass.

Various critics described the series as "patronising", called her posh and "bossy", and pointed out that it was all very well for her to tell people how to save money and economise in a recession when she is the worry-free partner of a multi-millionaire property developer.

Kirsty admits: "I've been gobsmacked at the really harsh stuff that's been said. People who regard themselves as the clever, chattering classes have been damning about the programme and had a real go."

Warned about some hostile press, she prudently gathered her two sisters together and they sat on either side of her as she digested the good and the bad.

"We laughed at the terrible ones and figured that critics aren't paid to be nice.

"I have been slightly knocked back by it, but I'm not upset because I have a buffer – like a bullet-proof vest – of the amazing public reaction to the show. It's been so positive you wouldn't believe! I am hoping for a second series."

She also points out that the viewing figures were "staggering", and web comments have been "95 per cent positive, which is unheard of".

Her longtime co-presenter Phil Spencer has been hugely supportive, she says.

"He always makes this gesture of waving his hand over his head and saying, 'Let it all go over your head'," Kirstie says. "He urged me not to take negatives to heart as you can't please all the people all of the time."

None of the barbs have dulled her delight in the transformation of her tumbledown five-bedroom house on the North Devon coast, which she masterminded during a break from TV after the birth of her second son, Oscar, now eight months, and brother to Bay, two.

The property was bought by her partner Ben Andersen at auction for £300,000 a year ago, and the couple spent about £100,000, mainly on structural work.

"We have a lovely house in Devon already but Ben knew I'd always wanted a beach house," Kirstie says.

"But what a task to do it up! It hadn't been lived in for 37 years and it was damp, rotting and so overgrown you could hardly see it. It needed rewiring, replumbing a new roof, replastering, windows replacing."

Renovation was so costly that she was left with only £15,000 for decorating, furnishing and adding touches to turn it into a holiday home.

This wasn't a problem because Kirstie fervently believes in a "make do and mend" approach to life, and never having something new where something old will suffice.

It is, she points out, part of her heritage. She's the daughter of Charles Allsopp, a former chairman of auctioneer Christie's, and she inherited her interiors "eye" from her mother Fiona McGowan, an interior designer. "I really have a passion for antiques, refurbishing, renovating, and love finding things in skips or reclamation yards and giving them new life," Kirstie says.

"I think that's why I felt a bit sensitive about the criticism for the show, because I was showing what I do in my personal life and talking about things which I am genuinely enthusiastic about."

And Ben, whose parents run an antique shop, has the same belief, she says, despite his wealth.

"Ben is very successful but he left school at 16 and set up his own business. He's an extraordinary person," she says.

"Both he and I are very, very conscious that you don't buy new. We don't buy new furniture and he even sometimes buys second-hand toys for the kids."

She cites the occasion on one of their many trips to the house from London that he spotted a second-hand cabin bed advertised for sale on the roadside. He bought it and loaded it on the car roof, despite the fact its heavy load slowed down their journey.

"It was a real bargain, £20 instead of £500-plus – he's always on the lookout for things like that."

Kirstie believes her bargain-hunting tips could be hugely useful in our cash- strapped times.

"You can brighten up your house for not a lot. Of course, I know not everyone has the time to take up crafts and make things themselves," she says.

"I'm just pointing out that if you can, it gives you a huge degree of satisfaction and gives a home character. But you can also save a shed-load of money like I did by not being too proud to lug things out of skips or jazz up things that you find on the side of the road, mend broken furniture, go to auctions and generally find a new use for everything."

She describes the home's style as British, rustic and family friendly, with an inevitable Aga in the kitchen. It's in a secluded setting tucked into the side of a hill, by a rocky cove, and is now available as a holiday rental.

Kirstie says: "I love the kitchen so much I'm going to replicate it in our London home.

"The wooden floor's made of timber reclaimed from a school gym, and I also managed to raid the science lab and used the wooden counters from there as worktops.

"I love the glossy white units by Magnet, and the table was a workbench at my brother's art gallery. We sawed a bit off it and put some legs on it."

The 35-year-old learned knitting, spinning, quilt-making, sewing, pottery, candle-making, upholstery, how to make lampshades and even glass-blowing, mainly from West Country craftspeople.

There was, though, one makeover mistake: "I painted a mirror from a skip a fabulous pink, but when I hung it I discovered it made everyone look short and fat! I will definitely recycle that."

And the property guru, who has campaigned for politicians to waive stamp duty for first-time buyers and urged a reduction in moving costs to help combat the property slump, hints that there's a few MPs she wouldn't mind seeing recycled following the allowances scandal.

She snorts derisively as she says: "Don't talk to me about MPs' allowances. I have to be held down on that one!

"Now I discover the reason no-one thought what I was saying about the burden of stamp duty and the charges on moving was important was because politicians either weren't paying those charges or could reclaim them. Feel a betrayal? Just a tad."

But it's a small shadow in her life.

"I never grumble about things being unfair, like the criticism of me, because I am blessed beyond all expectation," she says, beaming.

"I have two lovely children, a fantastic boyfriend, and a wonderful job."

Kirstie's Devon house, Meadowgate is available for holiday lets from www.helpfulholidays.com

Kirstie believes a recovery of the property market will happen in different ways in different areas, saying: "There's no such thing as a national market.

"In areas where there's an oversupply of the wrong type of property or specific unemployment problems, recovery might be a long way off, but in others a recovery is around the corner, if not already happening."

She urges a "root and branch review" of house building programmes as she believes there's been an overdevelopment of flats, and calls for a reduction in taxes and costs involved in moving.

■ Check out courses on crafts such as www.craftscouncil.org.uk, www.craftlinks.co.uk or www.artcourses.co.uk

■ Try to get to know your local second-hand market, so stall-holders may look out for objects that will interest you.

■ Check out skips, especially in expensive areas, but get the permission of the skip owner before taking anything.

■ Get a sewing machine, and remember everything can be re-used. Picture frames can be painted and fitted with mirrored glass, or cups can make plant pots.