Don't Look at the Clutter

The team are in south London to help single mum Almarie and her ten-year-old daughter Maria reclaim their semi-detached home. Since Al’s husband Marcus died of cancer three years ago, she has struggled to keep the house organised. Stacey challenges the family to let go of half their belongings, creating the space to honour old memories and create new ones.

With the help of Almarie’s childhood best friends Nat and Vanessa, who supported Al every day through the turbulent time after Marcus passed, the team begin by packing all their possessions into boxes and stripping every item from their home to reveal the hidden potential beneath the chaos. Throughout the process, we learn how buying this semi-detached home was a dream come true for the couple, but after dropping from two incomes to one overnight, Almarie needs to make room for a lodger to help pay the mortgage so that she and Maria can stay in the family home.

Once the house is packed, the family’s belongings are displayed in a vast warehouse – a striking art installation of their lives. Among the 400 boxes unpacked from the Saunders' home, the team find 156 framed photographs, 204 pairs of shoes and over 2,500 plastic toys. Emotional moments unfold as Almarie sorts through Marcus’s belongings for the first time since he died and reflects on the difficulties of the past three years while making decisions about what is kept for daughter Maria, not only to keep her father’s memory alive but for their life as mum and daughter together in the future.

Back at the house, carpenter Rob faces the challenge of converting a tight loft room into a bedroom for a lodger and creates two new bedrooms for mother and daughter, who have shared a bed since Marcus passed – complete with a stage for budding performer Maria.

Finally, with the most treasured and essential items carefully chosen, Stacey and the team pack everything back into the house, transforming it into a stylish and functional home. Iwan spring-cleans, and Dilly uses her organisational expertise to create practical storage solutions. It’s a race against the clock to complete the makeover before the family’s return. Will the team’s efforts to declutter, organise and upcycle bring about the new start Almarie and Maria have been dreaming of?