Is your home making you miserable? Is it full of clutter and mess? Have the endless lockdowns meant you’ve collated a bizzare collection of crap that just needs to go?
A new Kiwi telly show wants to help! Discovery’s new show Sort Your Life Out is on a mission to find New Zealanders whose homes have run away from them (RELATABLE) and who need a little bit of a helping hand getting their castles back to a royal standard.
Capsule spoke to producer Anna Lynch about the new show, and we ask – why do Kiwis have so much stuff?!
So basically, New Zealand homes have a lot of stuff! Are we holding onto more things than we need to, and why?
There are as many answers to this question as there are homes in Aotearoa!
There are emotional reasons for holding onto things, sentiment, nostalgia… or guilt! Fear of being wasteful means we hang onto things we don’t need anymore… or if something has been passed down to us – it might feel disrespectful not to keep it?
Another huge factor is how busy modern households are. So many people are time impoverished… and if you thought periods of lockdown would help… you’d be wrong!!! Most people, especially after what 2021 dished up, simply don’t have the bandwidth to deal with mounting clutter on top of home schooling and working from home.
How do you know if you need to go through and literally sort your life out?
You’ll know because you won’t be getting the pleasure from your home that you deserve.
You’ll know because you’ll be repurposing rooms to make way for clutter… is that spare room really a spare room where guests can comfortably stay? Or is it a collection point for hard-to-place items? Can you get the whole family round the kitchen table? Or is it teas-on-knees every night because the task of clearing the table is too daunting.
You’ll know because the very thought of starting the process of decluttering your home is completely overwhelming.
New Zealanders hate waste, and love sustainability – how do you sort your life out while also managing to not waste perfectly good items.
98% of material removed from people’s homes in the process of decluttering is recycled, upcycled, donated or sold, meaning only broken, unusable or unsafe items are discarded.
Tell us a little about the show and who you’re looking for to take part?
We’re looking for anyone in the Greater Auckland area who’s struggling to seek order in their home. Blended families joining two crowded households, bereaved families groaning under the weight of inherited belongings, empty nesters looking to downsize, growing families making room for new additions, be they babies or elderly relatives…
In each episode, a crack team including a carpenter and a professional organiser will visit the home and make their observations about why there’s so much stuff, and what can be done about it. We’ll meet the family behind the clutter and find out why it’s making them miserable. The expert team will then have a week to solve the problem.
They’ll start by stripping the clutter and lay it out in a huge warehouse like an art installation representing the family’s entire life, before challenging the family to try and let go of half their items.
The items that the family do decide to let go of, will be put into piles to recycle, donate, or sell.
What will happen to the participant’s home during the process?
While the family are in the warehouse, the experts are back at the house getting it ready for the items that come back. They’ll reorganise the trouble spots and create ingenious storage solutions. New furniture may be built from old pieces, or beautifully painted shelving added to accommodate prized possessions. The aim is for the experts to put systems in place so that the family can maintain order, with every precious item now in its rightful place.
There are many useful tips along the way and plenty of ideas that viewers can try for themselves.
Once the family have finished the warehouse declutter, the team perfectly re-organises the kept items back into the home. It’s a race against the clock to get the house ready before a beautifully sorted home is revealed to the family.
If you’re keen to apply, click here!