– Do you dream of making the world in general and your life in particular more beautiful, one room at a time?

– Do you feel that if only you could get that desk organized, your career would soar; or that streamlining your closet would be the fastest way to streamline your waistline?

– Are you sighing with envy when you watch some home makeover show or thumb through “Elle Décoration”?

Then you probably adore looking at pictures of perfect homes, where nothing is random or makeshift and everything is elegant, organised, clutter-free and new! I did too! Actually, I was quite addicted to looking at picture-perfect homes!

With a frustrating regularity then came the moment, after a certain amount of this visual diet, when I decided that I couldn’t stand it any longer and that it was time for a Make-Over of my home: I decluttered, cleaned and organised, I painted walls, bought new sheets and occasionally I even moved houses. I was happy and proud, had an upsurge of energy, everything was sparkling and fresh and carried the promise of a new beginning. I felt like a rockstar. I could see, smell and feel how the state of my house influenced my clarity and well-being.

And then?

I’d be embarrassed to reveal how many times I fell for this promise of  “now you’re done and all is well and happily ever after”. This is what Hollywood and all too many self-help books and magazines suggest, whether it’s about our houses or any other issues, and boy, do we want to believe it, against all better knowledge.

The Number One Error of a House-Make over is to think about it as a one-time goal rather than a dynamic process.

The “Happily-ever-after” approach suggests that with the final kiss from hence on all will be going well just like that (because you deserve it, after all this hard work, don’t you?!). That is certainly how I felt.

But the catch is of course that if then you just continue in your old pre-makeover ways, that new energy and rockstar feeling will be gone quicker than a plate of cookies left in the kitchen  (a phenomenon which in our family is called “evaporation naturelle”).

If you created a home fit for the woman you truly want to be and you’ll don’t act up on it, your house will creep back into it’s old state. And if you do the inner work getting you closer to the woman you truly want to be, and your home doesn’t reflect that shift, you’ll have an uphill battle before you.

For years and years, I looked at a house makeover as a chore or at best a goal to be achieved just once, and thus set myself up for hard work and failure. Again and again. A hamster in a wheel had more variety than I did at that time!  Only when I understood my home to be a creative tool for my inner journey, I knew that from now on I would have fun for life.