Old home, new you

How decor therapy can soothe us when we’re faced with life’s ups and downs

WHEN an emotional life event happens — whether it is a sad (a divorce, a bereavement) or a happy one (the arrival of a new baby, a wedding) — one of the practicalities we often have to consider is how to reconfigure our homes.

The latest U.S. celebrity trend is to employ ‘interior therapists’, who give rooms a deep spiritual cleanse and ‘emotionally redesign’ the spaces. Friends star Jennifer Aniston is reported to have done this after her split from ex-husband Justin Theroux.

It’s starting to catch on in the UK, too. Vicky Silverthorn is an interior therapist and designer based in London who has worked with celebrities, including pop star Lily Allen ( youneedavicky.com).

Meanwhile, Victoria Nickolls, founder of Interior Therapy, ( interiortherapy.co.uk), based in Buckinghamshire, says: ‘Any work with interior design is a kind of therapy. What starts as a conversation about a chest of drawers always ends up being about something else much deeper. Interiors are emotional because they are reflections of ourselves.’

FRESH START AFTER DIVORCE

BOTH Silverthorn and Nickolls frequently work with women who are divorced.

Silverthorn says she’s got a client who spent three years building her dream home with her ex, only for them to split up.

‘Every single corner reminds her of him,’ she says. ‘It’s been incredibly emotional.’ She encourages her clients who have been through a break up to allow themselves first to mourn and grieve. But then I often see they get to a point of realisation that their house and the items in it are haunting them. What I do is help them create memory boxes that they can put a lid on and tuck away.’

Both say work mostly with women, although Nickolls adds that she has a male client who wants to transform his flat into a family home for when his sons come to stay.

COPING WITH GRIEF

ONE of the most powerful cases of interior therapy that Silverthorn has worked on was for a woman whose daughter had been murdered.

‘She called me in four years after her daughter had died and I was asked to change the daughter’s bedroom into a new bedroom for her youngest girl,’ says Silverthorn.

‘The daughter who had died was an artist in the making and had drawn amazing murals on the walls, but the youngest needed the room to feel like her own.

‘So I got a professional photographer to come in to document the art work to keep that safe for ever.’

CREATE A DREAM NURSERY

MANY mums-to-be prioritise getting the nursery ship- shape (even though their new baby is unlikely to sleep there for the first six months of its life).

‘Mums think, “Oh my God, I’m having a baby, I’m not ready,”’ Silverthorn says. ‘And what I do is help them with the mental preparation for that. We design a space that’s ready for the new baby and help the mum-to-be indulge in what is often an extreme nesting process.’

REVAMP SPARE ROOMS

FOR those whose children have flown the nest, children’s bedrooms can become spare rooms, studies or home gyms.

‘ It’s not filling the gap, it’s about enhancing client’s lives in some way,’ says Nickolls. ‘One lady I worked with recently turned her son’s former room into an office because she had taken up writing.’

Recently, Nickolls advised a client whose children had moved out to put up family pictures in her living room. She says: ‘It was really funny, she said she was past that point in her life now; she’d prefer pictures of the dogs. She also just painted the front door pink. Now she can do what she wants. It is very empowering.’

LIVING WITH A NEW LOVE

ANOTHER emotionally fraught life event can be moving in with a new partner — particularly if this is not your first shot at co-habiting, like TV star Denise Van Outen and her boyfriend Eddie Boxshall, who have bought their first home together.

‘ People moving in together and combining two worlds — it’s a great thing and positive, but it can be quite overwhelming,’ says Silverthorn.