Filed under: Your Home, Projects, Design, etc, Furniture
Obsessive furniture shopping, constantly rearranging rooms, paint color indecision -- When you can't settle on a look for your home, decorating can descend into madness. And yes, Design ADD.I have a condition. You won't find it in any medical journal, but it's highly likely that you or someone you know battles with it everyday. I call it Design ADD, and define it as the urge to constantly redesign or redecorate one's home. When not treated, Design ADD can lead to sleepless nights, spending sprees and, for this writer, lots of missed deadlines.
The author threatening to toss some of the furniture she obsesses over. Photo: Mollie Hull
A few years later, I began to notice similar, though much more low-budget, symptoms in myself. And once I moved from Brooklyn, New York (where I transported everything either on the subway or in my bike basket) to Kansas City, Missouri (where a car is a necessity), it got worse. Quickly. It's amazing what will fit inside and on top of a 1990 Volvo sedan. I won't even start on the fact that my brother-in-law, who lives nearby, has a truck. And a trailer.
Like its cousins ADD (attention deficit disorder) and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), people with Design ADD can switch frequently from one activity to another and often battle with hyperactivity and impulsivity.
For example: Someone with Design ADD might decide at 10 p.m. on a Thursday that the kitchen cabinets need repainting and immediately take them down. She might buy a new shower curtain and bathmat, even though she only went to World Market to help a friend pick out a rug and promised herself she wouldn't buy anything for her own home. Perhaps you might be quietly enjoying a refreshing cocktail on your front porch and, all of a sudden, see someone across the street exhibiting symptoms of Design ADD as she throws an old piece of furniture off of the balcony on trash night and drags it to the curb (even though she doesn't have anything to put in its place).
Yes, I've done all of those things. More often than not, though, my Design ADD flares up when I'm thumbing through a magazine and see a fantastic turquoise trim in a bathroom or a colorful arrangement of books. Sometimes it's brought on by watching a design show (Hey, I can design on a dime, too, and I think I hear the dining room calling my name!). Or I might visit a simple home decor blog (which happens a lot, considering I write for ShelterPop) and seeing something I like. Some might call those moments of inspiration. But for me, they're triggers, and the biggest trigger of all, unfortunately, occurs when I'm working.
Patti McConville, Getty Images
You see, I work from home, for a handful of publishers. And for a person with Design ADD, I imagine working from home is a lot like a recovering alcoholic working in a liquor store -- except an alcoholic wouldn't do such a thing to herself. I, on the other hand, don't really have a choice. And I don't have a sponsor to stop me.
Sure, there are hours, even days, spent at the coffee shop. But there, I spend money I could be adding to my mid-century patio furniture fund (the furniture I threw off of the balcony happened to be from the balcony). And there are plenty of cool lamps in the five-dollar range at the thrift store, right? (I mean, come on, which would you rather have: a five-dollar latte or a five-dollar lamp?) Being at the coffee shop also puts me in the Thrift Store Red Zone, geographically speaking, of course. Anyway, why would I work at a coffee shop when my office (which has also been a guest room, a dressing room and a storage room in the year-and-a-half I've lived in that apartment) is in my home? In fact, I even rearranged it two weeks ago to make it more work-friendly.
Rearranging a room to make it more usable, in itself, should be considered a normal activity. But that sort of thing happens to me all the time. Or, more realistically, my Design ADD happens to my apartment (and my to-do list) all the time.
Case in point: I filed this story late, but last week I still managed to completely rearrange my vintage Pyrex collection -- and, in turn, my dining room and foyer.
I know I'm not alone in my struggle.
Gina Kaufmann, who also works as a freelance writer in Kansas City, Missouri (whose design budget I imagine must resemble mine: minimal to non-existent), finds that working from the library is a great way to combat her Design ADD.
"It's appealing to have a workplace where you aren't tempted to redecorate your bedroom when you hit a hard spot in your writing," she says. Still, even the stone structure is no match for Kaufmann's urge to load up on the supplies necessary for such a task.
"The Internet, with its deals on throw blankets and such, is a dangerous thing to have inside the machine that serves as the portal to your work," she says.
Getty Images
Okay, so maybe Gina and I are making this technically non-existent Design ADD thing sound more dramatic than it needs to. But just to be sure, I decided to consult a professional.
"If someone came to me with this problem, the first thing that would pique my curiosity would be her personality type," says Anne Wagner, a therapist (LPC, MS) in Kansas City, Missouri.
Referring to the popular Myers-Briggs test, which is often used as a meter for determining personality types, Wagner says she would test to see if that person were a P, which stands for "perceptive." Perceptive types, according to one of the test's creators, prefer to "keep decisions open," unlike the opposing Js -- judging types who like to "have matters settled."
"Ps love variety and change. They sort-of live for it," Wagner says. "Ps would like to be organized and steadfast like Js, but they just can't do it. Things that are routine and always neat and tidy are uncomfortable for a P."
Looking at my impossibly messy desk, I didn't need to take the test to know I was a P. I did an abridged version anyway, and sure enough, I'm a P... to a T.
"Unless it's interfering with relationships, or work, or you're spending thousands of dollars every two weeks and can't afford it, I wouldn't see it as a problem," says Wagner.
But for some, repainting a room is more than just repainting a room. Or, ahem, avoiding a daunting pile of work.
"What do you get out of constantly changing the bathroom or the living room? Sometimes it's used as a defense mechanism, a way to keep people away so they don't know what to expect," Wagner says. In that case, redecorating every two weeks is probably not the answer.
The bottom line, according to Wagner? "If it's not bothering anybody, and you can afford to do it, and you're not avoiding work or relationships or something else by doing it, I don't think it's a big deal. I think it's great. I think it's fun."
As far as my own Design ADD, I'm a firm believer in the fact that, for the most part, bad habits can be used for good. Sometimes people just need an outlet. Lucky for me, I have a lot of friends who are moving into new homes, so I'll be visiting them (not during work hours, of course) and helping them decorate their new spaces. It will be my reward for getting my work done. On time.