Welcome to the Repair Shop

Some people are expert artisans. I have superglue and duct tape.

One of my favorite television shows in recent memory is The Repair Shop, a British-made reality show that originally aired on the BBC and can be viewed in the United States on Netflix. The show has a simple but extremely pleasant premise: ordinary people bring treasured family heirlooms that have fallen into some state of disrepair to the titular shop, and a team of expert artisans and specialists work to restore them to their former glory.

Host Jay Blades is a furniture restoration expert, but there’s a whole Super Friends-like team, including a carpenter, metal worker, leather worker, ceramics specialist, silversmith, painting conservator, and—a word I only learned from watching the show—a horologist. (That’s a clock expert.) It’s somewhere between Antiques Roadshow and Extreme Makeover, as the experts reveal the forgotten history of some beloved object and then work to turn back decades or even centuries worth of damage as if by magic.