Tidying Up with Marie Kondo

-Ah! - She looks excited!

I'm so excited because I love mess.

It's a never ending battle to fight the clutter.

- -Oh!

I want things to be more simple. I don't know how to fix it.

With the baby coming, it's gonna be more chaos.

Oh, my God! We have too much stuff!

Hello, I'm Marie Kondo.

My mission is to spark joy in the world through cleaning.

Ching!

Best-selling author and world-renowned tidying expert

Marie Kondo is dedicated to inspiring the world to choose joy

with the KonMari Method.

A feature of the KonMari Method

is that you clean by item and not by location.

And we will always clean using the same categories.

First, is clothing.

- -

I can't reach.

Next, is books.

Giving them a little shake and wake them up.

Then, paper.

I can't do the papers.

The largest category is komono.

Komono is kitchen, bathroom,

and garage.

Everything miscellaneous.

Finally, sentimental items.

It's kinda hard to let it go, because I really like this one.

This is kinda hard.

I don't want to just, you know, dump it.

But I wanna be thoughtful about it.

From the moment she set foot in our house,

she had this presence to her.

She wants to see this place turned around.

Marie brought a whole bunch of joy upon our home.

This is amazing.

You're so cute! I love you!

You're so cute I love you, too.

These are, like, happy, happy tears.

Thank you for what you've brought to our home, really.

One, two, three. Jail!

- Goodbye. -

-One two, three, four, five six... -Did you just say my name in vain?

...eight, nine, ten, eleven.

No!

No!

-I'll cost you 3... 440. -Four-forty.

We are the Mersiers. Our nickname is The Fantastic Four.

Indeed.

And our son created that nickname because all of us are outgoing,

- Mm-hmm. -all of us are extremely silly...

...and we're artsy as a family. We-- We just go for it.

Whatever we're feeling, we just kinda do.

What do you guys think about making sure that we can hit the park...

-Yes. -...before it gets too dark?

Does everybody have clothes for the park?

-Do you know where they are? -No. You know where they all are.

You know what I did? I went into my dressers,

I took everything out to put it back in.

To find one pair of pants.

-I cannot find matching socks. - Okay.

Well, freeze the game, 'cause I don't want anybody getting extra money.

Do not mess up my board

'cause you know I'm about to come back and win after--

No, I'm the one who's about to win!

Moving from Michigan, we had to downsize

coming from a four-story, four-bedroom house,

now reduced down to a two-bedroom apartment.

Do you know where your pants are?

-Yeah, I just got some out. - But I need shorts.

-You only have one pair of shorts? -I have, like, three!

In L.A. I'm starting a new adventure with my entire family.

We wanna take advantage of the opportunities here.

Back in Michigan, it could be sometimes one note.

-If you're a hair stylist... -Mm-hmm.

...that work is limited in Michigan.

If you are someone in music,

-the jobs are limited. -Indeed.

-Did you find your black shorts? -Um...

We're gonna miss the sunlight if we can't find 'em.

- -Real talk.

Mom, do you know where my matching jacket is?

We've been living here for a year and a half now.

And I must say...

it hasn't felt like home.

I mean, we're doing the best we can because,

you know, it's a smaller space than what we're used to.

But we feel stressed at home because of the clutter.

It's an unnecessary pressure and stress for them

to live tight like this.

It's just this one big cycle of...

jumbled scatterbrain.

That's a big red flag.

I don't want to live like that.

So, I need help.

We need help.

When my family and I moved from Japan to the United States,

we only brought things that truly sparked joy for us.

For the Mersier family,

their new challenge is to downsize the things that they own,

so it will fit in their new home.

It's so cute!

Oh, wow!

The look of American apartments is so cute.

Maybe it's the color.

Hello.

-Hi! Hello! -Hi, come on in!

-Hi! - Nice to meet you!

-Nice to meet you. -I am Marie.

-Nice to meet you. Douglas. -Iida. Nice to meet you.

-Katrina. Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.

-Goodness, it's so good to see you. -Welcome.

Thank you!

I see a lot of musical instruments already.

-Do you play-- - I'm a musician.

- Oh. - I play upright, the guitar.

- I play my voice. -Oh, really?

She's a sing-- She's our singer.

-Wow. Great. -Yeah.

So your whole family is in one band or...?

We look like it, huh?

No, I'm not in a band. I'm the hairstylist and I dress them all.

- Wardrobe. -Wow.

-She makes sure we eat, you know? -Yeah.

-Let's start in… -Yeah. We can go around. All this is...

-...the living room. -Yeah.

-This is our multipurpose room. -Yeah yeah yeah.

Mm-hmm.

-This is where we eat... -Yeah yeah yeah.

...we also watch movies, and we have a huge DVD collection.

Oh. Is this for your music?

Yeah.

-So cool! -Yeah. It's cool.

So cool.

-This is our tight, tight kitchen. -Yeah.

It's my favorite room not to be in.

Ay-ay-ay.

-This is what frustrates me, is... - Yes.

...I will come to get a glass, and it's like all of the seasoning are in there.

And it just looks cluttered to me, and it just... I stay out.

- - And Dad doesn't cook at all.

Did you use to cook?

No. I had one accident trying to make oatmeal, and I was like...

- Not since then. -I order a mean carry out though.

Go into the bedroom.

The bedroom. So he takes this dresser

and I just try to put my life in these six.

-Your underwear... -Underwear, socks...

-and swimsuit stuff. -Yeah yeah yeah.

Are you aware of where everything is?

- Yes. -She's the only one

-that's aware of everything. -

We-- We ask her,

"Look for a special shirt,"

I'll say "Where is it?" and she'll tell us.

Ah.

I'm sure it's a lot when you get asked all the time, right?

Oh, my.

And they don't like my mood because sometimes I'm like...

Katrina bears a lot of the weight

of keeping the house organized,

and helping us to keep it organized, because we don't know where things are.

It's the real daily struggle. I'll be home alone,

and I'll just say, "Dang, where is this? I need this now."

And I say, "Mm, texting Mom. Gotta text Mom."

And it will be to a certain point

where I just spam her phone until she answers.

That's how much I depend on her.

Have you ever seen such a thing?

Every day.

-I love a mess. -Do you?

-Yes. -Yeah.

-Oh! -You know what?

-This is so exciting for me. - Is it?

-Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. -Yeah.

I'll let the kids show you their room.

- Oh... -So!

Okay, let's open these up

to show you how embarrassing our clothes are up there.

- Terrible. -Oh, not tall enough.

- -I got it.

Oh! Hey!

I'm here for that.

He's good!

It's Kayci's and it's Nolan's?

- Yeah. - .

The funny thing with this shelf,

so I bought it and I said, "You take two shelves,

he takes two shelves,

and this can be what you guys use during the day.

Keep it neat." But they can't find anything.

So they'll pull everything down, it'll be all over...

-Wow. - Yeah.

I think it would be best

if they have a dresser of their own, too, eventually.

Yes.

The other half of the room, it is also cluttered.

There's no space.