AFTER more than two decades of marriage, Jon Lind and his wife had not just one home to split up upon their divorce, but two. She happily took the house in New England. He gladly took the three-bedroom Hancock Park ranch on the double lot. That was the easy decision.
What wasn't so easy for Lind was the decision to sell the house and move on, or to stay put in a place loaded with furnishings that his ex-wife selected, kitchen tiles that she hand-painted and memories lingering in every other room. In the end, the songwriter and A&R executive decided to move on by not moving, a riddle solved with the assistance of an interior designer who is creating an environment that's "more about the future than the past," Lind says.
It's a conclusion other divorced couples are reaching as well: that the benefits of new paint and furniture, of reconsidered color schemes and curtains, can be as effective as a new home in fashioning a fresh start. Redecorating, experts say, can be better than moving.
Familiar belongings keep you connected to the past and provide comfort as you make room for the new things, including hope, says Noel O'Malley, a Los Angeles psychotherapist. "Furniture, remodeling, asserting your will upon the things around you is central to healing," he says. "Redecorating can be the psyche's way of rehearsing for emotional change."
For Southern Californians, however, staying in the same house is as much a financial decision as a sentimental one. That new coat of Dunn-Edwards can buy not only a second beginning but also an escape route from the current realities of real estate.
"This kind of market makes it harder to keep the house and buy a spouse out because the market is so crazy in L.A. and prices are so high," says divorce attorney Annie Wishingrad. "But that same crazy housing market also makes some people do whatever they can to buy the spouse out and stay with what they know. I'm seeing people who give up retirement and other assets to stay in the same house. It's an emotional decision."
It's a market no less daunting for renters. For Heather King, keeping her one-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment in Koreatown after her divorce in 2001 meant that she could avoid paying double the amount elsewhere. So the essayist and NPR commentator stayed in the 1930s courtyard complex where she had lived with her husband for 10 years.
