Your Bedroom Is Divine:
Merging Religion With Decor

Interior designer Sharon Hanby-Robie has been in the business for more than 20 years. But things really started taking off for her company last year when she began putting a bit more faith into her work.

Now the Lancaster, Pa., decorator, who charges about $85 an hour, creates prayer closets, small places built inside the home for daily contemplation, for some clients. For others, she uses fabrics in amber and crimson (colors cited in Chronicles and Jeremiah) for slipcovers and curtains. Clients "know I'm a Christian and that religion is a part of my life and my work," says Ms. Hanby-Robie, who says her client roster has grown by a third since making the switch.

Pennsylvania interior designer Denny Daikeler has her own meditative alcove.

When Natalie Kaye hired Denny Daikeler of North Wales, Pa., to update her home's look, "I didn't want to knock people over with religious stuff," says the event planner in nearby Newtown. Ms. Daikeler, an interfaith minister and interior designer, first asked her client to make a "life" and "happiness" list to help establish priorities and to help her select colors, shapes, textures and patterns that suited Ms. Kaye's spiritual personality.

After reviewing the answers, Mrs. Daikeler advised hanging a framed Biblical passage from Romans 8:39 ("Neither height nor depth nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God....") and painting the living-room walls pale blue to evoke the heavens. An angel statue went onto the dining room table, to make that area the "spiritual heart" of the two-story town house, Ms. Kaye says. "She's so much more than a decorator. She's a spiritual influence."

These designers say they're simply filling a niche -- helping Christians and others guided by religion who want to tap into their faith without turning their homes into chapels. Still, there's another reason interior decorators are striving to set themselves apart: The field has never been more crowded. The American Society of Interior Designers,a trade group, says its membership hit a record high of 35,000 this year. Meanwhile, annual income in the field has been flat, at about $40,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

God's Pattern

Many of these decorators get clients through referrals. Washington D.C., decorator Beth Post donates her skills at church functions, helping paint, reorganize furniture and arrange flowers for church events. Then, "people see my work and call me," she says, adding that her approach is less overtly religious than "striking a tone" for the home.

Other decorators have emphasized their shift toward religion by talking about it at religious retreats or writing about it. Last year, Ms. Hanby-Robie co-wrote "Beautiful Places, Spiritual Spaces" (Sample text: "Just as God's pattern can set the tone of our lives, color and pattern can set the mood of a room.") Though she appears on local TV and radio shows and attends decorating seminars, she says -- as do many religious-oriented decorators -- that she finds the bulk of her clients at her local church.

A Bible passage stenciled on a wall.

While religious decorators tend to rely on the same sources as the rest of the industry for furnishings and materials, they can also buy from some retailers that specialize in Christian items. Creative Faith Place in Appleton, Wis., for example, sells religious home-décor furnishings and is owned by a religious-oriented decorator, Jeanne Winters. The store stocks items like $33 vases accented with biblical passages and $18 hydrangea-colored picture frames with "Delight yourself in the Lord" etched across the bottom. "I'm simply filling a need in the marketplace for inspirational home décor and furnishings," says Ms. Winters, whose business has doubled yearly since it opened in 2003.

The religious-decorating market has won support from some pastors who see the decorators as keeping expressions of faith from being overly blatant. Instead of hanging crosses or building altars, people "want subtle references to their faith in their homes as simple reminders of what's important in their lives," says Ted Haggard, senior pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. and president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Subtle Symbolism

Of course, religious décor has existed for thousands of years, from Buddhist altars to Hindu prayer rooms to crucifixes posted above doorways. But while some designers accepted faith-oriented work, few openly marketed themselves for such contracts. In their latest incarnation, spiritual decorators, who charge about $85 to $125 an hour ($75 to $250 is the industry standard, according to the ASID), tend to use religious symbolism subtlely, so that visitors might not even pick up on it.

Still, some clients say the methods of some religious-oriented decorators take getting used to. Linda Berger says her husband, Jerry, found Ms. Hanby-Robie "a little peculiar" when the couple hired her to redecorate their two-story, six-bedroom home in Lancaster. Mrs. Berger says her husband was surprised when the decorator started asking questions such as, "What's the first thing you think about in the morning?" and "How would you describe your inner soul?"

But in the end she and her husband found that the questions were helpful and produced some thoughtful design ideas, including hanging framed spiritual paintings depicting lighthouses and angels in the family room. "She really cut to the core of what was important to us," says Mrs. Berger.

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