EXCLUSIVE I hosted the UK's most brutal property makeover show - homeowners sobbed and ripped into me off camera with a stinging question I still remember a decade later

Daily Mail​

29-06-2025

The host of the UK's most brutal property makeover show has revealed her experience on the axed programme.
Your Home In Their Hands first hit screens back in 2014 and lasted just one series on BBC One.
The programme featured homeowners who gave amateur interior designers free reign to revamp their property.
TV star and businesswoman Celia Sawyer presented the show and told MailOnline all about how she dealt with the highs, as well as the disappointed lows when the renovations didn't quite go to plan.
From a flower wall in a hallway, to a cartoon style bedroom, Your Home In Their Hands saw a range of makeovers, but they weren't always well received by the homeowners.
Several episodes saw the participants visibly upset, and some were very open in sharing their disappointment on air.
However, Celia revealed to MailOnline that she received the brunt of the upset off camera, despite not being involved in the disastrous makeovers.
'I even had it myself where an owner would come back, where there was that interesting hallway, would come back and say to me, "do you like ruining people's homes?"' she said.
'And I thought, "well, I didn't." One, I didn't do it and and two, I would never have suggested somebody did.'
The celebrity interior designer revealed that she had no say in the makeovers and wouldn't see the finished product until it was complete.
She added: 'So when I walked in, I was as shocked as the homeowners, so unfortunately for me, I had to take it a bit from a couple of them who weren't very happy.
'But I think they forgot that actually I wasn't behind doing what they did, and I was given the brief by the clients, and then gave the brief to the amateur designers, and if they chose not to listen, because they'd already made up their minds, well, that's what they've done.'
Celia admitted she tried to be 'compassionate' and did 'feel sorry' at times but added, 'if you volunteer, unfortunately, you're going to have to take that chance'.
It wasn't just the homeowners who would get upset, some of the interior designers didn't handle the pressure well and Celia would end up comforting them too.
'I can't remember anyone's name now, but one lady was crying, and I said, 'You've got to pull yourself together, this isn't an easy job, you've come in, you've got to learn that it's tough, you know, and you've got to have some'.
'She was sort of going into the background, because the other designer was maybe a little bit stronger in personality and when they had to work together as a team, it was sort of dominated by somebody rather than both of them.
'So I did have to be quite stern about that, because the whole point was to bring in both parties together, not one to take over.'
The glamorous TV presenter also admitted the designers 'didn't have have a lot of time' to pull off the makeovers and were expected to finish in 'a few days'.
She recalled how they would 'work through quite late at night just to get everything done. It was almost like the minute I'd turned up, they'd just finished'.
However, when things turned out drastically wrong producers would sometimes step in to put things right afterwards, according to Celia.
Your Home In Their Hands did see some positive outcomes too, Celia recalled 'an older lady who loved her bedroom' but sadly passed away shortly afterwards.
'There were lovely stories throughout, I mean, sometimes it wasn't every room that they loved, but generally out of the two, three rooms, because they did a joint room, and obviously two separate rooms, the two designers, if you've got two out of three, then I think that was pretty good going,' she said.
All episodes of Your Home In Their Hands are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.