Has Your Dream Renovation Become a Nightmare? Maybe You Need a ‘House Therapist'

Wall Street Journal

3 days ago

A few years ago, I embarked on the renovation of a Brooklyn brownstone whose interior hadn't been touched since the Charleston was the rage. Acquaintances offered all sorts of advice. Interview at least six architects! Be on site before breakfast every day! And while you're at it, they joked, save up for couples counseling, too.
Miraculously, my marriage survived the project, despite pandemic delays, thousands of dollars of botched work and a bogus lien. My relationship with the house, however? That was a different story.
Two years after I evicted our contractor, clashing paint chips still freckled my newly plastered walls. Our mismatched furniture looked like the leftovers from a church basement rummage sale. I'd begun with Instagram-fueled design visions, but in the wake of the cursed renovation, they fizzled and I was left feeling stuck and sad. Maybe counseling wasn't a bad idea after all. These days you can hire financial therapists, family therapists, career therapists. But who do you hire when you need to get over your house hang-ups?
An in-the-know colleague suggested I look up Olga Naiman, a former stylist for Domino, Real Simple and Anthropologie who was raised by two psychiatrists and studied clinical psychology at college. The author of the new design manual, 'Spatial Alchemy,' Naiman has pioneered an unconventional approach to interiors that combines cognitive behavioral therapy, Kabbalistic mysticism and more. The premise: Beyond beautifying your home, intentional design can heal traumas (say, the pain of being bilked out of $25,000 by a contractor), disrupt destructive patterns and foster transformation in every aspect of your life.
Did it sound super woo-woo? You bet. But testimonials from those who'd tried Naiman's techniques swayed me. Take Catherine Burns, a consultant and former artistic director of the storytelling organization the Moth, who felt stalled by impostor syndrome after moving to a 'dream apartment' in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Naiman urged Burns to trek to North Carolina to retrieve an antique table from her grandfather's painting studio. A symbol of success and creativity, it's been Burns' dining table ever since. 'Installing it front and center was a way of telling the universe—but more importantly, myself—that I did belong there,' she said.
If 'house therapy' could make me stop cringing when I walked through my door, I supposed it was worth a shot.
Conversations with other battle-scarred remodelers only deepened my conviction that, although practitioners are now scarce, therapy-informed home design has serious growth potential. (Class of '25, take note!) As one of the biggest financial risks people can take, home improvements come with steep psychological stakes. According to Clever Real Estate's 2024 Home Renovation Survey, about 78% of homeowners went over budget on their last renovation and 74% of remodelers reported regrets. Social media may be chockablock with drool-worthy 'reveals'—but for most of us, real life looks nothing like that.
In 2020, Christine Chitnis and her husband bought a 1,600-square-foot lake house in northern Michigan. The plan: to complete a 'refresh' in eight months. Instead, three years later, the project still wasn't finished and, thanks to faulty construction and legal costs, the original budget of $150,000 had ballooned to over $500,000. 'For the first year after, I felt like [expletive] this place—I never want to see it again,' Chitnis said. While she has not gone in search of a 'house therapist,' she did recently come home to find her husband organizing a puja, or Hindu cleansing ceremony, in hopes of exorcising the bad vibes.
'When we invite someone to come in and alter our home we are also inviting them into our psychological life,' explained Joseph R. Lee, a Jungian analyst based in Virginia Beach, Va., and co-creator of the popular podcast 'This Jungian Life.' A veteran of his own construction nightmares, Lee likens the 'educative' process of renovation to falling in love. 'When that fantasy or honeymoon period falls away, you have to confront a new reality on the other side.' Even when people get changes they thought they wanted, the resulting grief can take them aback.
When I shared my predicament with Naiman, she wasn't surprised. 'Our relationships with our homes are intimate, and they can be wounded the way all intimate relationships can be,' she explained—adding that many of the techniques she now uses with clients were forged in her own traumatic Covid-era renovation. Her rates start at $450 an hour and range from Zoom strategy sessions to full-service designs; her book and online class, which launches soon, offer much of her wisdom for less of an investment. She agreed to come by and give me a primer.
Did her guidance erase all the stress that came before? Nope. But it did leave me with a buzzy energy I hadn't felt in years—and a spreadsheet that sketched out a forward vision for every room in my house. (For a breakdown of one room, read on.) If you need a kick-start too, consider these steps in a 'house therapy' approach.
Just as it's unwise to jump right into a new relationship post-breakup, taking a deliberate pause after a bad renovation can be an act of power. 'It's actually good to do nothing for a bit,' said Naiman. 'The nervous system needs time to rest and get a clearer picture of how you hope to live—and feel—in your space.' Emotionally, says Lee, it takes 6-9 months of living in a new place for the psyche to begin thinking of it as home.
Central to Naiman's work is the idea of tapping into an idealized 'Future Self,' who's survived challenges and emerged thriving. When it's time for clients to pick up the reins again, she encourages them to let that vision be their north star rather than getting lost in incoherent impulse purchases or decision fatigue. Your home is your laboratory: What styling choices make your Future Self feel supported? What colors turn your Future Self on? 'You can feel in your body when intentions become reality,' Naiman said. Pay attention to the choices that trigger that feeling and proceed accordingly.
One of the most painful aspects of renovations gone wrong can be a lingering sense of powerlessness, says Lee. When you're ready to shake that cycle, Naiman says, sometimes it takes an active decision to 'exit complaint mode.' Even hokey rituals can give closure. After a botched roof caused catastrophic flooding in an apartment Burns relied on for crucial income, Naiman smudged the space with sage and the two spent time lightheartedly imagining who her 'dream tenant' would be. 'It seemed a little silly,' said Burns. 'But all I know is the next week that tenant appeared.'
Unless you're on a reality TV show or are an actual billionaire, you can't redecorate a 3-bedroom house in a week. But you could arrange accessories on a mantel or plan a gallery wall in a powder room. Assign yourself short, focused 30- to 45-minute styling sessions a few times a week, advises Naiman. The feel-good boost of dopamine you'll get from completing them will help see you through thornier tasks.
When a renovation goes wrong, it can be hard to remember your original goal: to make your house a place of pleasure. As a simple step toward reclaiming that purpose, says Naiman, tap back into sensual joys—invest in plush carpet underfoot or upgrade everyday pieces like clocks and coffee mugs with versions that channel the 'future' energy you want to embrace. Chitnis has found that filling her home with blooms from the wildflower garden she and her children planted helps offset some of the 'burning rage' she still feels for her contractor. 'It's a way of bringing joy back to the house.'
After a painful renovation, I asked 'house therapist' Olga Naiman to help get my decor back on track. Here, how we healed a room in five targeted, budget-conscious moves.
1. Post-construction, I painted every wall in my house white, intending to add color 'later.' But three years on, later still hadn't come—and the blank surfaces just reminded me of everything I'd left unfinished. To dislodge my paint paralysis, Naiman suggested I find inspiration in one of the few things I had picked—a riotous turquoise-and-indigo wallpaper in the adjacent dining room. The watery shade I pulled out (Borrowed Light by Farrow & Ball) unified the spaces and added satisfying polish.
2. I aspire to the 'collected' look, but a combination of impulsive Facebook Marketplace purchases and tattered furniture from our old home merely looked incoherent. 'Clutter is just stagnant energy in physical form,' Naiman said. To purge the room's chaotic vibes and foster a sense of balance, she pressed me to sell my mismatched chairs and exchange them for a set of pared-back love seats. I got lucky and scored the vintage Mortensen-style sofas affordably at an auction.
3. Investing in sturdy 'anchor' pieces can help you feel settled in a place where you're still unmoored, says Naiman. But an investment doesn't have to be only financial or extravagant: Committing time and effort also matters. I took a day off work to drive a van alone for seven hours to pick up a pair of lacquered Dorothy Draper-style Espana chests I'd found out of state—for a 10th of what they'd typically cost. Bingo: instant gravitas.
4. Naiman points out that brands constantly use iconography to direct our attention and communicate meaning—and we can do the same with symbols at home. I kept that in mind when choosing a pair of prints from Block Shop in Los Angeles for a prominent wall. The 'sailor's knot' motif they depict represents strength and resilience.
5. One of the first things Naiman noted was the undignified way my family had crammed our beloved piano against a wall. To give the instrument proper pride of place—and pianists a more pleasant, expansive vista—she proposed floating it in the middle of the space like a sofa table. I was skeptical at first, but now the piano feels like the room's creative command center.