28 August 2023 , 23:01
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Stacey Solomon and her husband Joe Swash still cannot believe how lucky they are.
Some evenings they spend cuddling up together, having put their five children to bed, and whisper about how they never thought they’d own their own home. Sitting in her sunny garden, TV presenter Stacey, 33, says: “When I was growing up, getting on the property ladder was not even in my foresight, it just would have been impossible. Me and Joe, sometimes when we’re in our house, we just can’t believe it’s actually real and we get to live and raise our kids here.”
It has taken plenty of hard work to get their dream off the ground. Pickle Cottage, as the pair have affectionately named their £1.2million 16th-century Tudor-style mansion in Essex, has had extensive renovations since they moved in two years ago.
Stacey Solomon with her husband Joe Swash (staceysolomon / Instagram)And they have since added to their brood. Daughter Belle arrived in February, joining sister Rose, one, and the couple’s son Rex, four. Stacey also has sons Zachary, 15, and Leighton, 11, while former EastEnders star Joe, 41, is dad to Harry, 15, from previous relationships. To say family life is full-on might just be the understatement of the year.
But despite their wedded bliss - the couple tied the knot in the 2.5-acre grounds of Pickle Cottage last July - Stacey is mindful of her roots. She became a single mum to Zachary aged 17, and relied on benefits to keep them fed. She struggles with impostor syndrome but reckons it is no bad thing. Stacey says: “It keeps me grounded. I think no, I’m not an impostor. I tell myself I’ve worked really hard for everything I’ve achieved, and I’ve given everything my all. But I also think it’s always good to stay with your feet on the ground because I’m no different to the girl that I was 20 years ago.”
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If the worst happened and her success and fortune was snatched away, Stacey knows she and the children would find their feet. She adds: “At any point, I could be back in a similar position to how I started. And I remind myself that it wasn’t bad. I was still really happy. We had what we needed. It’s like, well, what’s the worst-case scenario, we go back to zero, we start again? My best memories are growing up with my siblings with not much at all. So it keeps me a little bit more level-headed.”
It is her down-to-earth accessibility that makes Stacey such a compelling presenter. Having won I’m A Celebrity in 2010, she was given a panellist job on the chat show Loose Women, where viewers loved hearing her compassionate take on the topics of the day.
She has used her life experience to speak out about the cost of living crisis, arguing the Government’s £400 energy grant was nowhere near enough to help single parents. When picked to present BBC home makeover series Sort Your Life Out, Stacey was determined to advocate for the families in front of the camera. The series, now in its third season, has a simple premise… decluttering is the way to a happier life. But unlike similar TV offerings whose hosts preach the art of minimalism, Stacey is well aware of the emotional ties we have to possessions.
She adds with a grin: “If it were up to me, people wouldn’t let go of as much as they do. I fight the families’ battles because I can relate to what they want to hold on to.
“I hold on to loads of stuff, but I grew up in a family who didn’t know when they might be able to afford something again. My dad would keep the extra screws from a flatpack because you might not be able to afford new ones later. Sometimes I have words with myself and say, ‘Stacey, that scrap wood has been there for a year now and you haven’t used it,’ and I have to think about what I’m holding on to.”
It is her kids’ things that she has real trouble decluttering. Each child has their own memory box that she often goes through with them.
Stacey says: “They’re like, ‘Don’t even remember that, Mum, what is that?’ And I’m like, ‘That’s the ticket from that time we went to the cinema, don’t you remember?’ They say, ‘Nah, why’s that here?’ Kids are brutal. But when you get older, you start realising time is a thief. And it goes quickly and things change instantly. So you do hold on more as you get older, I think.”
Some of those keepsakes are a little more unusual than old ticket stubs. Stacey adds: “I’ve got their umbilical cords. I’ve got the boys’ foreskins somewhere.”
Not that everyone is quite so blasé about it, including Dilly Carter, her co-organiser on Sort Your Life Out. Stacey adds: “Dilly absolutely rips me to shreds over that.”
Even if those memory boxes contain her secret emotional clutter, Stacey’s Instagram is a curated pastel ode to getting life sorted. Her “tap to tidy” feature, in which users can watch a messy bedroom spring-cleaned or an old bathroom restored with some crafty DIY, led to a bestselling self-help book of the same name in 2022.
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And Joe knows if he stands still long enough, he might just end up being folded and stowed out of the way into one of her clever storage solutions.
Stacey says: “If I ever organise anything, he then won’t use that cupboard. He’s like, ‘I just don’t know how to put it back’. Moving in with someone is so different from being in a relationship with them. I know if I need to get up at a certain time, I need to achieve A, B and C, so before I start I need to have my toothbrush here.
“But Joe doesn’t function like that. He’s happy to have all his toiletries in a bag and just rummage through it.” It is clear from Stacey’s pride and her daily social media posts that Joe and their kids are the reason she gets up every morning. At 5am, to be exact.
She adds: “When you’ve had three kids in four years, you don’t sleep anyway. I get maybe five or six hours a night. But I feel like I’ve got the rest of my life to spend sleeping.
“Right now I’m in such a privileged position where I can make the most of achieving my goals and dreams. So I am just making the absolute best of every opportunity.”
And 14 years after her TV debut, as a shy, giggling 19-year-old amateur singer on The X Factor, that hard work has more than paid off. Stacey has been nominated for her first solo National Television Award for Sort Your Life Out in the Factual category. She says: “I’m over the moon. If we don’t get anywhere I still get to go.”
Sort Your Life Out series 3 starts on Thursday September 7 at 8pm on BBC2 and Player.