Test Your Remodeling Personality Type

Test Your Remodeling Personality Type

Your personality style will shape how you deal with your remodeling project. This quiz will help you determine your type -- and how to cope till the job is done.

By Lois B. Morris

The stresses and pitfalls -- and terrible temptations -- involved in remodeling are all too predictable. But how you cope depends on your personality style. There are 14 of them altogether. Here are four of the more common ones and how they're likely to shape your experience. Which style are you? To find out, see if any of these scenarios sound like you:
Finally, the guy arrives to strip the old, stained, ripped bathroom wallpaper. So why do you have the irresistible urge to fling yourself in front of him and scream, "Over my dead body!"?

You say, "Sweetheart, now that we're redoing the dining room, why don't we change these windows into French doors, which could open onto a new deck, overlooking -- wouldn't it be wonderful! -- a swimming pool?" Your partner shoves the checkbook in your face, sputtering that you'll drive the family into bankruptcy. "Relax, sweetheart," you say. "These things have a way of working out."

The roof guy has ripped out half the shingles and now hasn't shown up in two days -- you kick yourself for giving him a deposit. You're certain he's three states away, laughing at how easy it was to con you.

After three years of saving and careful financing, you're finally constructing your new home office. You've spent six months poring through catalogs, determined to choose the absolutely perfect, state-of-the art fixtures and equipment. Now the painter wants to know what color you want the walls. Oh no -- you can't decide between antique, ecru, and eggshell! There must be a right answer! The project stalls.

The Sensitive Type
Did you see yourself in the first scenario? If so, you may be a nester, a homebody, somebody who's most comfortable in your own space. No matter how outdated your place has become, and how carefully you've planned to redo it, be prepared to find any change to your nest upsetting.

Coping tip: This may be a good time to visit Mother. Have someone else supervise the job. And be prepared to initially despise the new look. Trust that you'll love it when it grows familiar.

The Dramatic Type
Ah yes, the old while-we're-at-it phenomenon (Scenario 2). People with the Dramatic personality style are particularly subject to its excesses. Dramatic types are creative, imaginative, spontaneous and impulsive. In always looking at the bright side, they become overly optimistic about financial realities, the niggling details of which they don't like to deal with anyway. Fortunately, they typically pair up with Conscientious types (see Scenario 4), whose preference for order in all things keeps them grounded in reality... although the Dramatic type might fight it. (And fight they will.)

Coping tip: When you feel the urge to depart from the plan, wait at least a week before taking action.

The Vigilant Type
So you think your roofer (contractor, decorator, real estate agent, landscape architect, etc.) is out to get you? You may have a powerful streak of the Vigilant personality style. Vigilant types make good choices in the people they work with, in part because they have sharp ear for mixed messages, untruths, and subtle evasions. But they have to feel firmly in control. When work doesn't go according to plan, or when people leave them hanging, they take it as a personal betrayal and jump to the worst possible conclusions.

Coping tip: While you're waiting for the roofer to show up again (he will -- remember how carefully you checked him out), make a list of motives (other than his wish to humiliate you) that could explain his actions. (A new baby,
A hangover, etc.)

The Conscientious Type
Control is also an issue for Conscientious types, but in a different way. These are perfectionists -- everything has to be done RIGHT. That's the problem. Conscientious people spend so much time struggling with insignificant details that they get bogged down.

Coping tip: Save the agonizing for what's important: the size of the windows rather than the particular shade of off-white. Your Dramatic spouse -- if you're lucky enough to have one -- will have a great feel for color: "Ecru, sweetheart!"