Design Isn’t Just for Interiors – How I Used 6 Design Principles to Rebuild My Life
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 29
- 7 min read
Written by Annette Hutcheson, Speaker, Author
Annette Hutcheson is The E.P.I.C. Life Designer, a speaker, author, and transformation expert helping women design intentional lives of health, freedom, and purpose using science-backed tools and real-world experience.
Life, much like interior design, is a process of intentional creation. The same principles that bring harmony, light, and flow to a room can also be used to redesign a life. By applying design fundamentals, anyone can transform chaos into clarity and challenge into strength. This article explores six timeless design principles that move beyond interiors, showing how they can be applied to design a life of purpose, resilience, and beauty.
Redesigning more than rooms
It started out as a hobby before it became my profession. I was told I was natural at putting together rooms that were harmonious and comforting to be in. I tried to design my life the same way. Organized. Predictable. Harmonious. Until the day the walls crumbled and I lost everything. No home. A husband taken for 17 years. And 4 kids who needed me to be their emotional, physical, and spiritual strength. After becoming a prison wife, losing everything, and starting over, I realized I had to redesign something more important than a room. I had to redesign my life. Using the same principles I used in design became the foundation for my healing, health, and future success.
Design principle 1: Declutter with intention
In design, we remove what no longer serves a purpose.
For years after my husband went to prison, I hung on to what was lost. I missed him. I missed our home. But most of all, I missed the future that we would no longer have together. I allowed these feelings to consume me and clutter my mind, my heart, and our lives. I put on a good face for the people around me, but at night, I would lie awake and ruminate about our lost life. Until one day, in a moment of clarity, I knew it was time to remove the clutter from my life and start a full redesign. The first thing to go? Stop looking back.
The cost of looking back is a future designed just for you.
Design principle 2: Design your vision before you build
Beautiful lives begin with a clear vision.
After the clutter is removed from a space, you can begin to see the possibilities. This is the most fun and exciting part of the design process for me. I always asked clients to collect images of rooms they loved, and we’d create a vision board to define the feel, color, and function before selecting or purchasing a single item.
Before redesigning my life, I had to ask myself, “How do I want my life to function and what do I want it to look and feel like?”
I created a vision board not for a living room but for a life of strength, peace, financial freedom, hope, and health by using 4 basic areas of life: Spiritual, Physical, Social, and Intellectual. I framed and hung my board in a prominent area of my home where it could serve as a constant, visual reminder of the life I was redesigning.
If you don’t visualize the life you want, you’ll keep living one you don’t.
Design principle 3: Create flow that supports function
How people move through a space affects how they feel.
My days were chaotic for someone who loves an organized routine. I knew I needed to redesign my days to create a flow that supported peace, productivity, and healing.
By creating easy routines for morning, evening, and sleep, I was able to reclaim the peaceful flow that I wanted. I purchased a physical planner where I planned meals, organized my days, wrote my worries and burdens before I prayed each night, and wrote the things I was thankful for each morning upon awaking. I focused on hydrating myself with water, not soda. Hitting protein goals and moving my body every day. I soon found that taking charge of my Spiritual and Physical well-being gave me the foundation needed to move forward with my Social and Intellectual redesign.
Create a life of slow living and habit stacking for mental clarity and physical strength that nourishes body and soul.
Design principle 4: Light is everything
Light changes mood, space, and perception.
A room without light feels flat, cold, or confined, just like a life that’s stuck in shadow.
During my redesign season, I didn’t just need strategies; I needed light. I needed to find new sources of truth, clarity, and hope that would illuminate the way forward.
At first, I didn’t realize how much I was bracing for the next bad thing to hit. I was emotionally and socially shut down, spiritually guarded, and physically exhausted. Like a house with blackout curtains drawn tight, I had closed myself off from light because it felt safer in the dark.
But healing began when I cracked open those curtains and let the smallest rays of natural sunlight in. A hopeful podcast. A walk in the morning sun. A conversation with someone who didn’t want to fix me or feel sorry for me, they just loved me. Letting light in didn’t require perfect conditions. It just required willingness. I started allowing myself lunch with a friend, time to sit and be joyful, and most importantly, time to be grateful and provide service to others.
You don’t have to flood your life with light all at once.
You just have to start by letting it in.
Design principle 5: Choose materials that last
Good design uses curated, quality, and lasting materials.
My life vision had my husband home with me. I did not plan to live alone once my kids were grown and gone. After dozens and dozens of motions to the court were denied on my husband’s behalf, I decided it was time to find out what I didn’t know. So, I enrolled in law school at the age of 48 with no money and no time. I had to make the decision daily to move forward, even when life was grueling.
This decision not only fit into the intellectual area of my life redesign, but it also taught me what I needed to know to bring my husband home 7 years early.
The decision to return to college was one of the most lasting decisions I made. The return on investment has filled every area of my life redesign. This decision has allowed me to further my life design in ways I never thought possible and in ways that I had never considered while living in the shadows.
Longevity and sustainable wellness are built on the courage to make decisions that last.
Design principle 6: Design is messy before it is beautiful
This is the in-between. The mess before the masterpiece.
In every project I’ve ever worked on, whether a kitchen renovation or a complete life redesign, there’s a phase that feels chaotic, uncertain, and very overwhelming. It’s the moment after the clutter is removed, walls are stripped, tape and paper everywhere, but before anything has come together.
There was a season when my life felt like a construction zone. After I lost everything, I wasn’t standing in a blank space; I was standing in a mess of grief, shame, fear, and confusion.
But I’ve learned: mess is a sign that change is happening. It means something old is being cleared out so something new can take shape. I had to be willing to sit in that in-between space, trusting that beauty was coming even when I couldn’t see it yet.
Just like a designer doesn’t panic when the room looks “undone,” we must learn not to panic when our lives feel uncertain. The transformation process isn’t linear. There are moments of doubt, relapse, discomfort, and that’s all part of the design.
Healing is not tidy.
Growth is not symmetrical.
Redesigning your life doesn’t happen in perfect order.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not working.
If you’re in the messy middle right now, emotionally, physically, or financially, don’t mistake that for failure. It might be the most important phase of your transformation.
Before every masterpiece, there’s a mess. Give yourself permission to be in process.
Conclusion: You are the designer now
Great design does not happen overnight, nor does it have to stem from tragedy. Great design can be started at any time, even in a life that is good. As a designer, I always have my eye open for a special, curated piece that will enhance, not take away from, the vision for the space. I’m not afraid to remove something that is good for something that is better. It’s a living, ever-evolving process.
As the designer of your life, what vision are you creating?
Here are a few reflective questions to help you begin:
What do you truly love about your life right now?
What’s working and what isn’t?
Is your life flowing in harmony, or are certain areas out of alignment?
How can you intentionally curate each of the four key areas, Spiritual, Physical, Social, and Intellectual, to move closer to your vision?
Do you have the courage to redesign your life or parts of it into the life you were meant to live?
Life isn’t meant to be endured on autopilot; it’s meant to be designed with intention, lived with freedom, and filled with energy, purpose, influence, and courage. The choice is always yours: stay where you are, or step into the life you were meant for. If you’re ready to stop settling and start building, I invite you to join me for the 6-Week E.P.I.C. Life Challenge. Together, we’ll unlock the tools, strategies, and daily practices to help you defeat anything, triumph over everything, and emerge as an unstoppable force. Your E.P.I.C. future starts today. Are you ready?
Read more from Annette Hutcheson
Annette Hutcheson, Speaker, Author
Annette Hutcheson is The E.P.I.C. Life Designer, a speaker, author, and visionary guide helping women rebuild their lives with intention, strength, and science-backed strategies. Drawing from her own powerful journey of personal transformation, Annette empowers women to take control of their health, mindset, and income by blending nervous system regulation, goal-setting, and exogenous ketones. Through powerful content, events, and storytelling, she inspires women to stop settling and start designing lives they truly want to live.
