I can’t even watch one of these shows without becoming immediately discouraged. To get through even the edited version of renovation hell, I need more than Kevin’s architectural lyricism, or George’s goggle-eyed excitement, or Kirstie and Phil’s stiff upper lips. What I need, it turns out, is Stacey Solomon.
I know I’ve written about Stacey before, but she’s never off our screens these days. She’s become the queen of decluttering, dubious country crafts, homemaking and generally jolly modern housewifery. She even has her own range of homewares at Asda. But even if you were being generous, I don’t think you could say that she has any impressive practical skills, beyond making a passable pinecone wreath or a Christmas decoration out of coat hangers. In fact, I can easily imagine her having a full-on breakdown on day two of a home renovation and booking herself into the Travelodge.
The thing is, though, Stacey’s got something the renovation big boys haven’t – chutzpah. In Stacey Solomon’s Renovation Rescue she makes Kevin look like a wistful sixth form poet and George a teeth-sucking naysayer. She brings her have-a-go-attitude to a variety of depressing building projects gone wrong, and do you know what? She almost makes me believe that I could renovate my own house. Me, who once cried while trying to put in a rawl plug.
How does she do it? Well, she seems to have developed an impressive knowledge of waste pipes and chasing in cables since I last saw her on BBC One, but it’s mostly the fact that she wholeheartedly believes that people can do It themselves. Nothing phases her. There’s not a hole in the ceiling or a damp patch in the world she won’t attempt to tackle.
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She comes in wearing her fluffy lavender cardigan, rips up carpets and then leaves again, but somehow, she makes you feel like you can do anything. She’s the red wine and the drawing on the back of the envelope in human form – and when she comes along, all the walls come tumbling down, both literally and metaphorically.
In the first episode, she helped a woman who had never done any DIY before grout some kitchen tiles, and for some reason it felt like an important feminist triumph and also, dare I say it… easy? I’ve never experienced this feeling before in my life. “I can use an angle grinder! I found myself saying at the dents in the wall.” “I can grout tiles!” I mean, I can’t, and I won’t, but maybe I COULD. And let’s face it – how hard can it really be?
Stacey Solomon’s Renovation Rescue is on Wednesdays on Channel 4.
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