I’ve learned so many great lessons watching Hoarding Stuff with Mary Condo, the lifestyle show that’s taking Neat-Flicks by storm. You’ve got Mary Condo herself, who’s a true drill-sergeant – quite the nasty type – and she stomps into people’s homes and tells them to stop chucking things out because you never know, that painting could be valuable, and those computer leads have to be used for something. With Mary, it’s all about finding the value in what you have. She says to hold all your possessions in your hands, and only throwing them out if they spark intense, burning loathing.
She’s very pro-renovation, though, because that’s taking what you have and making it better. Last episode she told a young couple that they needed a kitchen replacement. Melbourne viewers, did you see it? She really got stuck into them. She kicked down the door, screamed at them for several minutes about how dire their kitchen is, and told them that their parents would be ashamed of them for saving for a big Europe holiday instead of renovating their kitchen, all of which I think is fair. It was a pretty terrible kitchen. Really inefficient, with corners that just did nothing but jab you while you were trying to unload the dishwasher, and the dishwasher…oh boy. The opening of the door blocked the cupboards that held the plates AND the glasses, because whoever designed the place must have been an intern on their very first day.
Mary did make a point of telling the young couple to save all the stuff that gets torn out during the extensive kitchen renovation and keeping it for…later. Just pile up those sinks and tiles in the back garden, she says. It might be useful later. I might’ve taken more inspiration to contact a really good Melbourne kitchen design expert, but I just don’t think I have the motivation without Mary Condo bursting in the door, having smashed the lock, and screeching at me until I ring the number. I’m a procrastinator about these things.
…it’d be pretty great if she did though. Right…now. Riiiiight………now.
-Velma