Beginnings are always disguised as endings.
Why your home doesn’t feel like you, and how you can create one that does
Summary:
If your life has taken a turn, you’re in a total rock bottom, or you’re waking up after years on auto-pilot, redesigning your home to reflect who you are now is both exciting and daunting.
Even if you’re ready to redesign your space, you might not even know what you actually like or how to change the home you’re in.
The Home Alchemy Archetype Quiz helps you see where your home is disconnected and what you can do today to start designing your next life.
If you found this post, you’re likely going through it. Or maybe you just went through it:
A job loss
divorce or a breakup
a move
retirement or empty nesting,
loss & grief
Or perhaps you’re having an awakening after years of moving through life on auto-pilot
You’re looking around your life and you don’t recognize anything around you, let alone yourself anymore.
For whatever reason, you’ve changed, and now it’s important to you to rebuild, fully awake this time.
But here’s the problem: You don’t even know what that looks like.
You don’t know what you like yet and you don’t even know where to start. You feel confused about what to pick out for the room, and have no idea how you want it to turn out anyway.
You just know that you want something more… you.
DiscoverYour Interior Design Style
I would bet that looking around the room, you’re sort of ready to “burn it all to the ground” right now – literally or metaphorically. Standing in a room that fully died with the old you is suffocating. I get it.
[Me when I think I can have it both ways]
At the same time, there’s a lot of fear and hesitation gripping you because you don’t know who you’re going to be on the other side.
That scary middle between who you used to be and who you’re becoming is the magical void where you get to create the next version of you.
If you’re standing at the intersection of “burn it down” and “hold on for dear life,” this moment to decide who you want to be and what you want your home to say about it.
This is a threshold moment — a step into something new and a time to discover and create your new world.
To find yourself, you need to give yourself patience, grace and room to experiment. You don’t need to rush into new commitments yet.
In fact, before you start redecorating, don’t buy anything at all.
Say No Before Yes
When you don’t know what you do like, start with what you don’t like.
Inside the Home Alchemy Method, every student starts their room design by first saying “no.”
We actually get rid of things to clear out everything that doesn’t belong in the next version of home you’re designing.
Give yourself permission to start fresh and let go of anything you want to — just because you want to.
If you’ve made choices passively before now, or you just haven’t had time to invest in your home, the best thing you can do for yourself is set boundaries with the life that no longer exists.
It’s like giving yourself a blank canvas to work with instead of one that’s already covered in paint.
Design Your Home’s Next Chapter
When I meet students in these threshold moments, I often see them nervous, anxious and hesitant.
The prospect of all this newfound freedom is exciting, but it’s also extremely overwhelming and even daunting.
I know that you don’t need someone piling on mood boards, suggestions and ideas they think you’d like.
That’s why we move through designing your home just one simple step at a time, and we don’t make any new decisions until you’re happy and excited about how the first one looks and feels.
In other words, we’re not going to buy a whole new room. We’re going to pick one piece that you’re obsessed with, and then choose what to add to it next.
We slowly build your style, one yes and one no at a time until the room feels just right.
From DIY to DIT — The Do-It-Together Method
I made the Home Alchemy Method a Do-It-Together (DIT) approach because you shouldn’t have to try to figure all this out by yourself.
At the lowest point in my own life, I put myself back together piece by piece, and I took my home along for that ride.
My house became a way for me to figure out who I was after years of being completely lost, and now when I look around, I see an entire life that I created for myself one little “yes” at a time.
Your home is your foundation of your life, and at this moment, it can be place where you start designing the life you want to live now.
If you’ve made it this far, then this is probably hitting home for you — pun fully intented.
Take the Home Alchemy Quiz to find out of your home is the Threshold, the Haven, the Anchor or the Horizon
I created a quiz to help you figure out where you’re starting in your space and what you can do right now to start shifting the room a little closer to home.
It’s called the Home Alchemy Archetype Quiz, and you can take it right now.
If you’re standing in this threshold moment, ready to start your next chapter, just know that I’ve been there, and I’m so excited for you. If you want to keep exploring home through this lens, subscribe to the Alchemy Archive newsletter.
I’ll send you a few “welcome” emails and then you’ll hear from me twice a week. I’d love to see you there.
