Principles of Divergent Design (third in a series)

3 insights to help you keep moving when you’re stuck in the middle of a long-term creative project

This post is brought to you by the current state of overwhelm in my life because of several DIY home renovation projects, lol! 

This post isn't exactly about the design of interior spaces for neurodivergent people (and yes, I did skip Part 2b in this Divergent Design series—about storage solutions—but one of the joys of being a neurodivergent person making content in a neurodivergent space is that I don't have to be so damn linear, lol! Never fear, Part 2b will be coming soon!)

Instead, in this post I want to look at some of the process issues that come up for neurodivergent folks (maybe for anyone?) when engaged in a large-scale, long-term creative process (not necessarily just interior design), and the insights I've been gaining as I go through them in real time.

I've been living through DIY home renovations pretty much my whole life—my father is a skilled craftsman and our houses were always fixer-uppers—and being my father's daughter, I bought a fixer-upper in my 20's and spent a quarter of a century renovating it. After my divorce, I bought another house—not in need of quite as much work, but still quite a project!

So, I was completely expecting the overwhelm that inevitably comes with renovation projects for me, and I was actively trying to design a process to minimize that.

I've had some success, but have also learned some hard lessons. Since I'm right in the thick of it, I thought I would share 3 specific insights I've had so far (and I'm nowhere near done, so there's probably lots more to come!)

1. Your project is going to take longer than you think

—even if you've factored in extra time because you know this already, it's still going to take longer than you think. It's going to take so long that it will become overwhelming and you will want to give up. That's just a given, right? The key is to plan ahead not just for the extra time, but also for the overwhelm.

Three things I have done that have helped:

• I made sure I had at least one calm and lovely space to which I could retreat—in my case, my bedroom which I renovated last year.

• I designated several spaces to serve as a "staging grounds" for the mess: a spare bedroom upstairs for my studio renovation, and the dining room downstairs for the kitchen reno. Having a space to move stuff prevents the mess from taking over the whole house, and when the staging grounds get messy, it's not so overwhelming to tidy up a smaller space.

• I have tried (with only moderate success) to make sure we are still able to cook and feed ourselves. When this becomes too much, we just count take-out as part of the cost of the renovation, no shame, no judgment.

Note, these three strategies seem pretty specific to interior home renovation projects, but actually for any project, you will do well to:

• Make sure you have somewhere calm and soothing to retreat to;

• Have a designated place (preferably behind closed doors) where you can contain mess; and

• Prioritize getting your basic nutritional needs met.

2. Do you have shame associated with this project? With long-term creative projects in general?

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

SHAME COMPOUNDS.

The shame we feel about previous abandoned projects infects and reinfects every new effort. If you are not working through your shame, you are almost certainly going to get trapped in this shame spiral.

One of the things I have been realizing about my own current renovation projects is that I feel shame not just generally, but also specifically about DIY projects. Often in the past, in my rush and anxiety, I would be sloppy and not very happy with the results, but then would try to live with them, instead of slowing down and getting it right.

If you are like me, you probably need to work through shame about abandoned projects in general, and about the specific type of project you are attempting. 

Either way, you gotta work through your shame.

3. I was expecting to have to work through shame about my renovation projects, but I wasn't expecting to experience GRIEF.

I'm not sure if this is actually applicable to other folks, or unique to me, but I thought I would throw it out there, because I was pretty blindsided by it.

It's the kitchen. It should be so exciting, because we finally have the money to buy a dishwasher (!!!), and a fridge big enough for me to actually see what's inside without getting totally overwhelmed, and a stove with an oven that works! But instead, I have been just felled by this renovation.

Finally I realized that I have so much grief about the home I left behind in my divorce (which was brutal), and especially the kitchen. I think I had avoided my grief both because I was so consumed with the trauma of the divorce, but also because our new kitchen was so unmanageable that I had given over all kitchen duties to my husband.

Don't get me wrong: by most standards, it was not a kitchen to crow about. I lived in a small Philadelphia row house, and the kitchen had old Ikea cabinets that I had painted a lovely shade of green. It was nothing special by anyone else's standards, but I loved it.

[photo of corner of kitchen with green cabinets and butcher block counters] This is just a snippet of my former kitchen, one of the few photos I have. Renovating my new kitchen has forced me to grieve my old one, and that has definitely slowed down my project a lot. But as with most things, acknowledging it has help me move through it.

[photo of two black boys around 7 or 8 years old smiling broadly as they operate a pasta roller in the green kitchen] My son (on the left) and his play cousin (on the right) making homemade pasta, probably about 10 years ago.

I'm thinking of offering a group program for folks struggling with establishing a consistent creative practice and/or who are stuck in the middle of a longer-term creative project.

This is still just a vague idea in my mind, but divergent design is such a passion of mine and I would just love to help other people along in their creative process!

If you would be interested in talking about what such a group might look like, DM me here on IG, or better yet email me: marta@martarose.com.