Clients Who Changed Their Homes and It Changed Their Lives

Below are two brief case studies of beloved clients I have worked with via Sacred Home Design and how the process not only potently shifted their homes but also shifted their lives.

“If you build it, they will become.”

Home as a Catalyst for Latent Dreams: I worked with Claude and her beloved family in New Jersey when they needed some help in the midst of their house being renovated. They were worried that their renovation was not fully reflecting who they were as a family and their desires for their experience of their home. Through our Sacred Home Design process, we co-created a home over time that truly rose up to greet the them while also zeroing in on Claude’s dormant love of color and pattern.

This process eventually led to the inspiration to also renovate their underutilized detached garage/shed and transform it into a yoga studio for Claude. Through the Intuitive Life Coaching part of this process, there was a whisper of a desire that was unearthed around Claude wanting a space one day to create art.

Our Sacred Home Design process of her family’s home had kindled her love for and confidence in using color and pattern. But with her kids still at home, she found it difficult to be inspired and to focus on creating art in their house and wasn’t even sure what kind of art she would create. Synchronicities abounded and within a tight budget, we created her yoga studio with an eye beyond yoga and toward kindling my client’s brewing artistic desire.

For a few years, the yoga studio provided much soul sustenance to Claude as she locally became quite in demand for yoga classes and private sessions. But over time, her passion for teaching yoga waned and, as we envisioned years before (and built into the “scaffolding” of the design), she was able to easily shift the yoga studio into an art studio. For the last few years, Claude has been truly following her bliss as a painter and her work quickly attracted collectors and galleries.

To further claim her independence as an artist, I also assisted Claude remotely this past winter to shift the art studio temporarily into an art gallery so that she could show her new work to current and potential collectors.

Design Notes: We made the decision early on that the studio would be bathed in white and that color would be brought in via the yoga accessories (mats, blankets, yoga blocks, etc.). So we painted everything a snowy white, installed whitewashed wood floors that were durable and hung a large floating pendant light to gently ground the middle of the cathedral ceiling-ed studio. We installed insulation, electricity and heating/air-conditioning so that it could be a year round space. To bring some warmth to the space we had the contractor use reclaimed wood, recycled from another project of his, to frame the main window and in horizontal strips to install yoga bands on the wall for classes (this wood feature would later be used as ledges to display Claude’s art). We also installed skylights, a window and a sliding door to bring nature in, to provide fresh air and ample sunlight to create a light-infused yoga space and to provide enough natural light for later support Claude’s creation of art in the space. We kept the exterior of the studio in the same color palette as it was before to match the house exterior and to stay on budget, but we added a bright yellow light outside as a “piece of jewelry” and as a playful wink and invitation to the colorful energy within the studio.

Living Room: First Neutral Design >>> Bolder Color Redesign

Detached Garage >>> Yoga Studio >>> Artist Studio + Gallery

Home As A Love Story: Serendipitously, after being inspired by the novel “Trance of Insignificance”, Karen contacted the author who, in turn, referred Karen to work with me.

Initially we worked together via Intuitive Counseling sessions, but through these sessions we began focusing more on her challenging divorce and how she was feeling both stalled in her romantic life and that her new home wasn’t reflecting the life she was longing to create for herself. So we shifted our work together toward the Sacred Home Design of her one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of New York City.

Through a deep dive into the redesign process, with a particular focus on her bedroom, we embarked on a journey that integrated interior design shifts, my spiritual inventory process, clearing out the “emotional cobwebs” within her space (akin to, but different from Kondo-ing) and Intuitive Life Coaching. This Sacred Home Design process helped her to let go, make peace, take responsibility, focus on new dreams and experience hope rising.

Shortly after this reimagining of her home, Karen met the man who she is now married to and credits our work together as being a key component of the practical magic that profoundly changed her life (and her home).

Recently, Karen contacted me about re-engaging in working together via Intuitive Counseling Sessions. The impetus for this continued work, is that Karen is experiencing some different challenges and I am now assisting her to come home to herself in service of her thriving.

Design Notes: Karen’s small bedroom was completely consumed by a massive country-styled honey-colored wood bed that left little room for anything else in the bedroom. Her walls had no art on it and were a very stark white. Through the Intuitive Counseling process it became clear that her bedroom was reflecting this weight she felt about her past relationships (both romantic and otherwise), it reflected a desire to spend more time in the country which further deepened her tendency to not be present where she was and to appreciate where she was, the items that were in her bedroom drawers also reflected conflict and guilt from different friendships and her past marriage.

What her bedroom didn’t reflect was her love of beauty, her innate stylishness, and her desire for love. So we decided on a mix of feminine and masculine. We softened the space and brought in comfort by bringing in an upholstered bed with a curved headboard, we placed two mirrored nightstands to literally make room for her future beloved and bring in a touch of glamour, we painted the walls a grey/blue to deepen the space and reflect her love of lakes and water while still grounding her in her present space. We brought in a fluffy flokati rug to further soften the sharp energy that was once pervading this space and her wounding around relationships. We brought in luxurious duvet by Frette to give her the luxurious feeling she was longing for and to feel like her bedroom was now her haven.

From Full House To Empty Nest: Over the last fifteen years or so, I have worked with Merel on the design evolution of her apartment rental in NYC. When I first met her, her two sons were living at home and Merel was in the smaller bedroom and the boys shared the large bedroom that Merel had once shared with her husband before his untimely death years before I met her. We began the process with a deep dive into the honoring her past with her husband and sorting through items related to their life together and to his celebrated career. Through this process we realized it was time for Merel to reclaim space in the apartment for her own career and her own dreams.

So we turned the formal dining room into an office space and merged the dining room into an underused corner of the living room. We kept a portrait of her husband in the office and had it face a painting made by their son that we had professionally framed and hung in the living room. This worked well not only design wise but also energetically as father and son were once again connected in the tapestry of the home and the artistry of the son was no being brought into a place of visibility in the home. Merel cooked a lot for her family but hated the kitchen, but as we needed to budget for other items in the home, we opted to lean into the strange magenta color of the rentals cabinetry and went all-in with a deep fuschia paint on the walls and vibrant art from an artist we discovered on Etsy.

Eventually both her son’s both moved out of the apartment to begin lives of their own and it became time to reclaim the master bedroom that she had once shared with her husband. We began with a deep reimagining of how she wanted to feel in her home. She wanted to feel peaceful, sensual and connected to her travels throughout her life in her bedroom haven. We layered the bed in handblocked bedding by John Robshaw and layered an orange floral Indian throw at the foot of the bed. This was a nod to her cherished time with her husband in India. We took an awkward corner and place a wood fretwork screen to soften the harsh edges and to create a corner vignette with a swan side table to symbolize grace (which my client has in abundance). We brought a faded floral dresser from Anthropologie to bring some femininity to a once deeply male space. We hung a floral chandelier to evoke a sense of an enchanted garden at midnight. We painted to walls a deep grey-blue to lean into