Made over

The manufacturers of medium density fibrewood will be shedding a tear today. The BBC's Changing Rooms, the original property makeover show, is to come to an end. Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, the show's host, feels that Britons are now so skilled in interior design that there is nothing more he can teach us. Like a benevolent visitor from the galaxy of good taste, he has declared: "Beam us up, our work on your planet is done." The viewing figures seem to support him. In the end, people were changing channels, not rooms.

The manufacturers of medium density fibrewood will be shedding a tear today. The BBC's Changing Rooms, the original property makeover show, is to come to an end. Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, the show's host, feels that Britons are now so skilled in interior design that there is nothing more he can teach us. Like a benevolent visitor from the galaxy of good taste, he has declared: "Beam us up, our work on your planet is done." The viewing figures seem to support him. In the end, people were changing channels, not rooms.

What moments it has given us, though. There was the time when a jerry-built shelf destroyed a collection of antique teapots. On another occasion, two best friends fell out as a bedroom was redesigned with pink paint and framed underwear. The effect was likened, not inaccurately, to that of a "tart's boudoir".

Could there be a silver lining? Economists point out that the unsustainable property boom will be over when the number of DIY programmes on TV peaks. Now Changing Rooms has run its course, can we have reached that point? Let's hope so, because that's one makeover the country really needs.