KIRSTIE and Phil’s Love it or List it viewers slammed a couple who complained they didn’t have enough space in their family home.
In the latest episode of the Channel 4 show, hosts Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer revisited some of their favourite couples to see how they were feeling about their homes after the property supremos had worked their magic.
“I think the builds that have been most inspiring working on the programme are the ones where the house hasn’t been made bigger, but it’s been made better,” Phil told Kirstie at the beginning of the program.
The headed back to Somersham, Cambridgeshire to chat to Emily and Kris who have been living in their semi-detached home for 12 years.
Despite adding a £35,000 downstairs extension they were still running out of space for them and their twin daughters, 11, and son, six.
Emily wanted to sell the property to move to somewhere with better transport links for the girls and could have their own bedrooms, while Kris wanted to do a first-floor extension to make a fourth bedroom.
They have a £50,000 budget for the extension, but both Kirstie and Phil think it won’t be necessary – but for different reasons.
The hosts stumbled onto another room filled with the family’s things, which Phil described as “a room with no discernible purpose other than for storage”.
“This is one of the key rooms of the house”, he said to Kirstie.
She added: “It’s a perfectly good and serviceable bedroom.”
Emily told them they hoped to turned it into a study for when the girls get older.
Kirstie and Phil then went head to head to convince the couple of their point of view, with her saying she could clean the room to make a fourth bedroom.
But Phil started looking for four bedroom houses in the area that the couple could buy.
Kirstie managed to create an extra 10square metres in that bedroom by de-cluttering not only that room, but also the rest of the house.
“Clearing out huge swathes of clutter can be daunting, but by allocating even a bit of time each week can make a big difference,” Kirstie said in the voiceover.
The couple managed to go through half a tonne of their items that they would either ‘keep, recycle or sell/donate’.
Five months later the house was completely transformed without the couple needing to spend any money and they had even started building a small cabin in the yard.
They then had money to build a new front porch, render on the front and renovation of the fourth bedroom, all which cost them about £17,000.
“It’s bigger than even I thought it’d be,” Kris admitted.
The couple then decided to ‘love’ their home rather than ‘list it’ thanks to the changes which Emily said “makes it feel like a different house”.
Phil described the experience as, “of all the projects that has to be one of the greatest results with the least amount of work.”
But fans watching at home raged over the couple complaining about their lack of space and accused them of simply being untidy.
“So this couple want Phil and Kirsty to tidy their house basically,” complained one fan on Twitter.
Another added: “Couple find they have a 4th bedroom by tidying up. It’s a miracle!”
And a third added: “I can’t believe they needed to go on TV to find out they just needed to clean their house!!!!”
While a fourth commented: “These are the two, who are lazy and have no taste.”
Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or Lose It airs on Channel 4 and is available on All4.
