I’ve spent years renovating homes in and around Burlington, Vermont; slow, creative, budget-conscious work where every decision matters because we live inside the consequences, both of the reality of the construction in progress, and how it works once it’s done. I’ve always done this work with my eye primarily to individual family members, and their guests, and how they experience doing the things they want and need to do in the home. The way a space is works and feels either supports you or quietly works against you. This is the work most people have known me for over the last decade.
You know when a room isn’t working. In this practice we turn to the stories symbolic systems (tarot and astrology) help us tell to help you feel more fulfilled in your relationship with your living environment. We use tarot and astrological chart work as a high level mapping of your needs, and I help you translate that into a specific functional, aesthetic, and sensory environment that can support you in a really load bearing way. This isn’t decluttering specifically, or energy work, or feng shui, it’s helping you hone in on what you need to feel supported by your home, and creating the steps to build toward it practically.
Tarot and astrology give me a jumping off point to see with fresh eyes the issues a space is having. I did a lot of renovating before it ever occurred to me to use these tools for this purpose, I only started really studying these symbolic systems in the last five years, and I’ve been actively renovating homes, both rented and owned, for over twenty. In adding them to the way I think about these issues, I’ve found they’re surprisingly good at stirring up unconventional, unexpressed, or previously unrealized ideas, priorities, longings, dreams, and issues between you and the space at hand, and giving a compelling story about the space that can provide enough validation of design intuition to make bold decisions feel like just following an available path to the best outcome.
The most exciting part to me about combining symbolic systems and how we relate to our spaces, is that this is what it looks like when both halves of my brain finally get to work in the same room.
Your home is a character in the story you’re telling every day about what kind of life you’re living. Many of us inherited the bones of that story from someone else’s furniture, someone else’s floor plan, someone else’s idea of what a room is for, and so the story nor the space fits the life we know is just a few good decisions away, if we could only figure out what exactly they were.
We are so willing to sign up to “subscribe and save” for a monthly delivery of supplements that promise to soothe our nervous systems and balance our hormones, but sometimes, spending half of what you’d spend over a couple months on unregulated supplements on getting the right kind of lighting in your bathroom could actually improve your self-concept and day to day experience drastically more. I invite you to explore what changes we could make happen for you along with your home.
Space Reading
A Space Reading uses a tarot spread designed to excavate the specific challenges you’re having with your space, as well as an investigation into your astrological chart as a source of inspiration for what kinds of personal needs and stories may be underlaying those issues. We might look at a single room that’s been bothering you, a recurring problem you can’t solve, or larger, more long term decisions about housing. The reading surfaces what you already sense but haven’t been able to articulate, and helps you write the story of who you are in your space, and how the real life space for you needs to look and function to meet that need. If we are looking at a shared space or home, the chart work will be for a maximum of two people, but issues of more inhabitants and their space sharing needs can be considered in the tarot spread.
Delivered as a beautifully designed PDF you can return to as you make decisions. No shopping list, just the diagnostic layer, and plenty to chew on as you move towards aligning your outer environment with the story of who you are and what you’re doing there. The offerings below always start with this one, and you can decide once you’ve had your space reading if you’d like any of the following additional support:
Rearrangement Consult
After the Space Reading, if you’re looking for a little more mentoring, we can work together to look at what you actually own; your furniture, your objects, the way your rooms are currently arranged, and find what’s possible without buying anything new. There is always so much more that can be achieved by rearranging and repurposing than people expect. A room that feels wrong frequently just needs its existing pieces considered with an eye to the narrative it falls into; in the sitcom of your life, how do the set pieces interact with the characters?
Consults are conducted remotely via photos and video call, or in person for local clients when that’s the right fit. We’ll talk through what to move, what to store, and what might be undermining your goals right under your nose.
Full Consult
Everything in the Rearrangement Consult, plus a short, specific list of recommended investments, two to three changes that would make a significant difference, within a budget of your definition, either as items to be purchased, or achievable DIY projects you could complete.
With each suggestion I will include a digital rendering to give you an idea of how it will work within your existing space, and an explanation of: why this piece, what it solves, what to look for, and where to find it at a range of price points. The goal is not to send you shopping to fill the space, it’s to identify the places where something new would do what rearranging can’t.
Best suited for spaces where you’ve already worked with what you have and hit a real ceiling, or where a specific functional gap has shown up in the reading.
DIY Coaching
You know something needs to change and you’re willing to do the work. What you need is someone to help you figure out what that work actually is, whether you’re the right person to do it, and how to do it without expensive mistakes.DIY Coaching is ongoing, practical support for people tackling real home projects. That might mean help gauging what’s genuinely within a motivated non-professional’s reach versus what needs a licensed hand. It might mean finding the right tutorial for your specific situation rather than a generic one, sourcing materials at the right price, or talking through a project in stages so you’re not guessing at what comes next.
This service also includes Astrological scheduling of DIY projects. This an area that I’ve had huge success in bringing in a symbolic system to part of a task we usually only interact with literally, even when it’s a part of our lives that many of us struggle to hold ourselves to the standards we’d like to. I have even used synastry (the art of looking at two charts at once and how they are impacted by particular moments of time) with the contractor who I work with for getting structural changes in place, looking at both our charts and upcoming transits to give us a larger narrative about why what work gets done when, which keeps us both on task. It also encourages us to see each project as part of the long arc of our lives, as opposed to a one off task.
Between my renovation experience and the practical application of these symbolic systems, we can work together to find you the resources you need to make the changes to your space in a way you love, without getting shoehorned by a renovations company into something builder grade or “good for resale value” that doesn’t end up telling that story you long to live inside, and also avoid the most common mistakes made by DIY’rs.
If you’re willing to move slowly and carefully, only tackling what makes sense for your skill level and experience as you learn, you can transform your home in a much more satisfying way than leaving for a week while a bunch of dudes you don’t know install a kitchen, or bathroom, or backyard you only like as much as you ever liked a pair of shoes from Payless Shoe Source. It might feel cute or new or shiny in the moment, but as you live in it the places where it doesn’t quite fit you right start to wear, both physically and psychically.
Renovation Projects are priced on a per-project basis, reach out below to start the conversation: