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A Faux Fix
When an Interior Designer Becomes Your Therapist By Laura Paul
Some people buy new clothes or change the color of their hair when they want to discover a new side to their personality. Other people hike their happy quotient by painting their walls, tearing down walls and rearranging furniture. But is there a danger in using interior makeovers and remodels as a mood repair? And when does designing spaces in the home become a quick fix for a life in chaos?
Experts say obsessing on interior design projects may be one of the more positive ways for an individual to work though life transitions such as a divorce, loss of a child or relocation.
Liz LaFalce, owner of LaFalce Design, Inc., transformed Shoultz's home one room at a time, helping her to find her personality as well as her sanctuary. She gave the shutters in Shoultz's formal living room a distressed look and painted splashes of color in art niches.
Shoultz says her grown daughters, Alison and Lauren, used to call her "the white lady," because she always had white or off-white walls in her home with no color. "I have to admit I was terrified of color," Shoultz says. "It was the unknown to me." LaFalce painted clouds on the ceiling of a patio where Shoultz practices yoga with a personal trainer.
Shoultz's passion for interior design became more ardent until no room – not even the bedroom walk-in closet – was untouched by whimsical faux designs. "This is the first time the home is really me," Shoultz says. "I did not know what was me. When it was done, I said, 'This is it.' When I come home, I want to hug it, but my arms are way too short."
Jeanie Bein, a licensed psychologist in Denver, Colo., who is an expert in traditional and holistic psychotherapy, says parents can make positive interior design changes without avoiding reality. Bein believes interior design obsession is a safe form of "sublimation." "I think when it gets to be pathological is when they are going into debt," she says.
Bein says that the home is where a person should feel most safe and comfortable. "Decorating their house is a way of expressing what's going on," Bein says. "It does not get at the issue, but it might make the person feel a little better temporarily."
Some people, particularly those who have relocated numerous times, invest time and money into interior design makeovers because they want to settle down. Alyce Peek, of Lutz, Fla., had a nesting urge after she sold her New England Colonial home in Boston and moved to the sunshine state with her husband, Daniel, and their three young children, Spencer, Madeline and Hayden. They hired Diann Bogart, owner of Creative Wall Art in Tampa, Fla., to paint murals of castles in Spencer's bedroom or "sleeping chamber." She also painted spider webs, shackles and bars on the walls of the bathroom and a suit of armor in the hallway.
"We live here and I wanted to go all out," she says. "I decided to take it all the way. This is my way of saying, 'I'm staying in Florida.'"