Your home is in a mood, and it’s time to design your way out of the funk
Summary:
If you’re redesigning your home, but you’re feeling creatively blocked, instead of beating yourself up, try figuring out the mood your home is stuck in so you can shake it out the right way. Everyone’s lifestyle and energy demands are different, so every home design strategy needs to adjust accordingly. You may feel like you’re “bad at decorating,” when really, you just need to find the decorating strategy that’s right for you, and then you can design the home you actually need — no matter your taste or style.
Last week, I talked about four specific creative blocks we all encounter in our homes. If you haven’t read that, it would be a great blog to skim before you start this one, because now we’re going to diagnose your home’s mood.
The mood of your home is the pervasive energy in the space, and if you’re blocked up creatively, you’re likely in one of the four following blocked moods:
A Rock Bottom/Total Reset
A Rut/Standstill
A Loop/Repeating Chaos
A Next Level/Creative Stretch
The four blocks discussed in the last blog post can help you get even more specific around how these moods are presenting for you creatively, but let’s dive into these and come up with some solutions to get you into the home you actually want to live in.
Get cozy and stay a while!
Creative Block #1: Rock Bottom/ Total Reset Mood
This block happens in our homes at specific points in life, and it’s usually after a major disruption, loss or some sort of awakening.
You need to rebuild from the ground up — your way this time.
Clients who are looking around their home realizing they don’t even recognize themselves here are often encountering or overcoming any of the following:
A loss
Divorce
Breakup
Empty nest
Retirement
Major milestone
A move
Waking up after years on auto-pilot
Religious/Family/Friend group deconstruction or separation
This list is not extensive, but you get the idea.
Life has changed. You have changed. Now you’re paying attention to things you never have before and you’re realizing that you want to be in charge of designing your life – maybe for the first time.
You likely don’t know what you like yet, or if you do, you have no idea how to make sense of it or create your style. This might feel nerve-wracking to try because you’ve spent so much time consumed by others’ demands or expectations of you, that you may not even know how to get in touch with yourself yet!
For students inside the Home Alchemy Method who are in this Rock Bottom/Reset mood, I always first recommend making sure you have outside support that you need like therapy, friends, family and/or a solid grounding practice.
Then, we work together to slowly peel back the layers you’ve built up over time to get to the core of who your home wants to be, and we rebuild it together slowly.
My first piece of advice is to practice saying no.
Before you can figure out what you actually do like, you need to figure out what you don’t like.
I call this type of home the Threshold, and it’s the doorway from the life you were living into the new one you’re creating.
If you feel like that resonates, you can take the Home Alchemy Archetype Quiz to see if this is what you need, or maybe something else.
Creative Block #2: Rut/Standstill Mood
There are a lot of reasons your home might be stuck in a rut, but the clearest one I typically see over and over again is a nervous system that’s too frazzled, drained or exhausted to follow through with a vision or idea.
Usually, homes stuck in a rut are lived in by people who do have creative ideas or feel like they used to have a sense of style, but they’ve lost it.
Likely, you’re in a total burnout and your life has demanded too much of you to leave any room for creativity, and especially for execution.
To speak plainly: you just can’t even right now.
You need a cocoon where you can be selfish, indulgent and luxuriously yourself — on easy mode.
What these students need the most is to eliminate the mental burden of planning every step, figuring out how things are going to go together and even getting started with one small thing.
What’s so important here is giving yourself permission to be selfish, self-centered and self-indulgent.
You need to pour your energy back in on yourself and recover your spark before you’re going to be able to take action, but ironically enough, the home you need is a Haven that cocoons you during this type of recovery.
That’s why the Home Alchemy Method follows a 7-step design framework that takes the planning, organizing and thinking out of the picture, so you can just do the fun part. Plus, the live design coaching component double-insulates you from taking on too much and fizzling out again.
If you think you’re stuck in a rut, take the Home Alchemy Archetype Quiz to see if you really need the Haven home or maybe something else to get you inspired again.
Creative Block #3: Loop/Repeating Chaos Mood
If your home never feels settled, and you don’t feel settled, you’re probably someone who keeps nit-picking, adding, changing and trying things only to somehow never get the look you want, or somehow make the room worse.
Generally, this type of client is one who is used to achieving and they live a go-go-go life. More often than not, they get to the Home Alchemy Method because they’ve reached a limit with themselves and they need serious direction so they can actually get the room right.
You likely need a space that feels settled, grounded and restorative without being fussy, because you need a retreat that’s waiting for you at home every day.
However, out of habit, you just keep moving instead of sitting still to figure out exactly what will give you that settled feeling in the first place.
It’s like you’re trying to design the room without reading your own instruction manual.
You’re an operator, and you need a home that can shut you down at the end of the day.
I find that these students tend to enjoy someone just telling them what to do. The way I approach this is by backing up to the mood you want to create in the space, and then building step by step from there.
Instead of impulsively buying “cute” things online or at Home Goods, we make a plan for the room so you know exactly what to buy, why to buy it and when to buy it.
In the Home Alchemy Method, we start with outlining a mood board tailored to what you want and need out of the room, and then we map out step by step how to get there. No more impulsive decisions, and the room unfolds one easy layer at a time.
I call this home the Anchor, so if this resonates, take the Home Alchemy Archetype Quiz and see if that’s the home you’re craving right now.
Creative Block #4: Next Level/Creative Stretch Mood
This blocked mood might be the subtlest of all, because it doesn’t feel dramatic. It likely feels like boredom or settling in your own home.
You’re likely someone who’s pretty good at decorating, and your home may already look really nice, but at this point in your life, everything you’re doing is becoming very intentional.
Trends don’t feel right for you anymore, and Pinterest searches feel basic and overdone.
You’re someone who wants to be bold, expressive and create a dope looking house that makes jaws drop when they walk in the room.
However, you’ve never done anything like that – at least not in your home, and you don’t really know how to break or bend rules yet.
You want to go all the way in, but you’re just dipping your toes.
Understandably, you still want your home to look and feel cohesive. You don’t want it to come unraveled and turn into a hot mess, but you also want it to be unexpected and one of one.
I find that students here tend to need permission to stretch themselves over their lines. We evaluate the room element by element and go deep into your feelings to see what frequencies are sharp, and what feel flat.
What I mean by that is, we get clear on what gets you buzzing with excitement and then we work to incorporate new styles and pieces into the room slowly, so you can adjust while simultaneously integrating your developing personal style.
The home you’re asking for is the Horizon, because the sky is really the limit for you and your personal style. It’s meant to grow and evolve with you, and this is where we begin to train your eye and your internal compass to point you to your True North.
If this sounds right, take the Home Alchemy Archetype Quiz to see if it’s in alignment or if you may need to start somewhere else to get you to the home you’re after.
Creating your own mood through home design
No matter your quiz results, the point is that we all need different things from our homes at different points in our lives.
For some of you, you might discover what you need, create it and then be happy as a clam forever.
For others, your results might just be the first steppingstone into a life of endless exploration and experimentation in your home.
Either way, the Home Alchemy Method 7-Step Room Redesign framework uses a DIT (do-it-together) approach to help you figure out what’s right for you and then make your personal style come alive in the home you have.
If I haven’t convinced you to take the quiz yet, do that now so you can see where your space may be blocked and what you can do today to start shifting it closer to home.
Also, be sure to subscribe to the Alchemy Archive newsletter, because we cover these themes on a weekly basis! I hate spammy newsletters, by the way, so when you join, I’ll send you a few welcome emails to start, then you’ll hear from me just twice a week.
Come back to the blog next week to dive into the shadows we all face in our homes and why we hide away the best parts of ourselves, even inside our own houses.
