"I was actually 21, when I bought my first house," says Cherie Barber, one of the trio of presenters currently performing an overload reduction in family homes on the latest lifestyle program Space Invaders.

"When you buy your own property that young, there's no due diligence, I didn't even know what it meant."

Barber calls herself the accidental renovator. The house she bought was on a six-lane highway with "trucks screaming by" so she knew she couldn't stay there.

"I painted it and mowed the lawn, and made a profit when I sold it. I learnt through trial and error," she says.

The next home she bought took eight years to renovate but, by the time she turned 30, her third project was tackled more systematically.

After a stint in the USA filming 5 Day Flip for HGTV, Barber is back on Australian soil doing what she terms "cosmetic renos" for Nine's Space Invaders program.

She has just 20 hours for the mini make-overs.

"It's doable because once you know the steps and the changes you can make you get better at it."

Peter Walsh, who has worked with US talk show queens Oprah Winfrey and Rachel Ray as a decluttering guru, helps the home owner decide what they really need to keep and what can be redistributed.

Barber says up to 80 per cent of their items get sent to other families in need, are repurposed, or recycled.

While she gives the rooms a facelift, Lucas Callaghan, star of Aussie Pickers and Road to Riches, sifts through to find something of value which can be repurposed or sold.

Barber refers to much of the overload as "memory clutter" which families haven't had time to go through "because life has gotten in the way".

Space Invaders, Nine and 9Now, Saturday, 7.30pm.