TRADING PLACES: TV presenter Paul Martin and his family exchanged a high street home for a country smallholding and the lifestyle that went with it

Paul and his wife Charlotte moved to Seend in Wiltshire five years ago with a ten-year plan on how they would renovate the two-bedroom, two-storey, stone-built cottage. Built in the 1830s, the smallholding incorporates 30 acres of land and is surrounded by its own arboretum to which Paul and Charlotte have already added another 600 trees.

The couple share their home with their two children Dylan (3), Meredith (6 months) and their three dogs, Bluebell, Diesel and Woof, which is why the renovation is being done on a gradual basis.

“We’re living in it as we renovate so it does take longer,” says Paul. “The cottage was stuck in the 1940s and 1950s when we bought it. All the walls were yellow and the skirtings and architraves were gloss black. The pipe work and wiring was on the surface, and the windows were metal and incredibly draughty. There was also no heating and no insulation, but we really bought it for the outside space.”

The cottage came with plenty of land and for a couple who didn’t even have a garden in their previous home this meant a baptism of fire. “Our last house had a concrete back yard and I didn’t own a spade or fork,” says Paul. “The first thing we had to do was buy a lawnmower and a wheelbarrow. Neither of us knew how to garden but now we grow our own vegetables and fruit in a walled garden at the back of the house, and we get eggs from our chickens. We also keep ducks and we have three horses.

“This is really an outdoor home and it comes into its own in the summer. We’ve spent a lot of money having a barn built, stabling for five horses, an all-year round ménage, a car park, paddock and a new driveway. We’re pretty much outside all day until it gets dark.”

Despite the lure of the outdoors, the interior of the house has been given its fair share of attention too. The beautiful oak beams that were hidden beneath plywood and paint have been uncovered and sandblasted. The upstairs has been extended to incorporate three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a further extension is in progress to add a fourth room. A summer room has just been completed on the ground floor and very shortly the couple will be knocking through the kitchen and dining room to create a large kitchen/diner.

However, as the presenter of Flog It! and a true antique aficionado, where is Paul hiding his beloved furniture collection? “Our house is chaos and the antiques don’t really mix with the kids at this age so most of them are in the barn along with my drum kit and snooker table. They will make an appearance again as we are restoring the house sympathetically, doing all the windows, the beams, laying flagstone and limestone floors, and eventually it’ll be a contemporary cottage with a few antiques sprinkled around and it’ll look stunning.”

In the meantime, Paul will continue helping the nation to Flog It! and is also offering some hints and tips to would-be collectors on starting their own antique furniture collection with a new DVD, as he explains: “I hope Antique Secrets will inspire people to collect furniture, understand it a bit more, know where to buy it, what to look for and hopefully inspire them to become a serious collector, with the benefit of learning from my mistakes. One tip is that you should always trade up, always buy and sell. Don’t be afraid to sell because something better has come along as that’s the only way you get the really good stuff. You can’t afford to buy the good stuff to start with so you need to trade up.”

Trading up, of course, also applies to property, although Paul agrees that in this instance he might actually trade down in the land stakes: “This isn’t a forever house but we do love the life. It’s lovely coming off the road from filming where you’re seeing literally hundreds of people and I get back here and I can batten down the hatches. So I think our next move is probably something similar – but I think we need about six acres rather than 30!” k

Antique Secrets is available from www.antiquesecrets.co.uk, £13.99