They crave the rush of remodeling

For many Americans, “home improvement” is a dreary phrase with the potential to gobble up precious weekends along with paychecks. If only they had the time, money and patience to deal with contractors and decorators and, oh, by the way, it sure would be nice to win the lottery to pay for the whole shebang.

Then there are the Kelly Macks, Kevin Kauffmans and Gaynor Haywoods of the world. For them, and others like them, home remodeling is a challenge, a joy, a hobby, a passion and, OK, let’s be honest: something of an obsession.

“I’m possessed by the devil,” admits Mack, known to many Angelenos as the composed and seemingly sane anchor of KNBC’s early morning news show “Today in L.A.” “It’s almost pathological. I cannot walk into a house without thinking, ‘What’s the potential?’

“If I see a million-dollar house that everyone thinks is perfect, I’ll find something I’d want to change,” says Mack, who lives in La Canada with her husband and two daughters. “It’s kind of a Pygmalion thing.”

In the right market, it can also be a sound financial thing. Mack and her husband have bought six homes in the last 10 years, and, as she says, “the pathology has been rather profitable.”

With Southern California real estate as the great enabler, it is easy to write off a chronic remodeler as a savvy businessperson who is in it for the inevitable profit. Yet that would ignore the emotional high these people experience when they find just the right molding for the dining room or the perfect knobs for the kitchen cabinets.

Kauffman, who gave up his career in business management when it got in the way of his fixation, is typical. While he’s bought and sold seven properties since 1999, he insists the Los Angeles home he is working on will be his permanent residence. But he has already bought another with, yes, an eye toward renovation.

“Thank God the market was going up, and I pretty much made a profit on all of them,” says the admitted perfectionist, who will start a project over if it’s an eighth of an inch off.

But really, it’s about much more than building their bank accounts one resurfaced kitchen counter at a time, Kauffman and others say.

“I just love the fact that I’m creating something. I have a vision, a thought, an idea, and I make it happen,” he says. “I like to look at what it was and then look at what it is now.”

It’s that pleasure, says Ronald Doctor, a professor of psychology at Cal State Northridge, that keeps most fervent remodelers from officially joining the obsessive you-people-are-really-out-of-your-minds category.

“Obsessions are irrational worried thoughts, and compulsions are efforts to undo those worries,” Doctor says. “This is more pleasurable and enjoyable, and creating and building and making something happen reinforces the pleasure.”

Doctor, who admits to his share of remodeling projects, adds, “We actually have pleasure centers in the brain that influence a lot of human behavior. There are people who get married and divorced just for the pleasure of being in an exciting relationship. Some people drink for pleasure. If it’s pleasurable, why give it up?”

For Dan Ho, author of the recently released “Rescue From House Gorgeous,” which takes aim at the Crate & Barrel/Pottery Barn prefab catalog approach to decorating, pleasure is not a motivating factor.

Repeat remodelers are indulging in a lifestyle rather than living life, says Ho, an anti-lifestyle guru of sorts who is proud to admit he’s been accused of being the “anti-Martha.” “Lifestyle has replaced our sense of belonging,” says Ho, who also publishes Rescue magazine, a publication that “emphasizes the person” and reminds readers of the days “when large families managed beautifully with one bathroom.”

“When my parents entertained, they rolled up the carpet and danced,” Ho says. “Now we talk about decorating. We invite people to our homes so they can take the house tour. We gather in the kitchen and watch someone cook pasta al dente. That’s work! The doing has replaced the enjoying.”

Still, there are plenty of those who really do enjoy the doing -- like Haywood, who admits she is easily bored by her surroundings. Even before moving in to their practically new Thousand Oaks house eight years ago, she and her husband redid the kitchen and installed an elaborate natural-looking pool that includes a water slide and a tiny grotto with a built-in table. Their plan was to sip martinis while sitting in the water.

“I think we sat at that table once,” Haywood admits.

Over the years, they’ve remodeled every room in their home -- a makeover that has included hand-painted murals on some walls, a tiny built-in fountain inset in the dining room wall, and the division of the living room into two smaller rooms to create a computer-music room, which is decorated with a father-son guitar collection.

This past summer, the Haywoods finally finished their last project: They hand-painted their patio concrete with different-colored rust paint to make the back deck look more rustic.

It really was their last because they have bought another home in Thousand Oaks for its view, Haywood says. Still, they began meeting with an architect months before taking possession earlier this month. There’s never any rest for those with an entirely new canvas to paint on.

But does Haywood consider herself a redecorator without an off button? No, possibly because the urge to redo seems to run in her family. She has a sister who “never stops” and who “drives everyone crazy.”

There is something about constantly creating a new environment, say these repetitive remodelers, that seems to get their creative juices flowing.

“I’ll take a walk in the neighborhood and if I see a house for sale, I’ll think, ‘Aha!’ and my mind starts racing,” Mack says. “But my husband is absolutely sick of moving. He hates it, and he’s tried to be good-natured about it. But he reached his wits’ end when I thought about [moving] two months ago, so he put his foot down.”

Still, putting the foot down on a compulsive remodeler will only go so far.

“What makes a house a home is that it’s constantly changing,” says Steven Johanknecht, a partner in a Hollywood-based design firm called Commune. “You’re always adding things, you have new interests. You work those into your home, and you take away other things.... That process can be very positive.”

Those uninitiated in the ways of chronic remodelers may wonder if there’s some deep-seated reason that they never seem to be satisfied with the way their home looks. Since there appears to be no official scientific study of this kind of behavior, it’s up to the subjects themselves.

“I grew up with it in my blood,” says Kauffman, who recalls his childhood in New Jersey, where his parents bought a Victorian home and “we had to fix it up from top to bottom.”

Haywood cops to a creative mother, who spent her days drawing designs for Wedgwood, and her own artistic ability, which led her to become an electrical draftswoman before she left to raise her son.

“I miss working, and I miss the company of working with other people,” Haywood admits. “And I spend a lot of time in my home, so I want it to be comfortable.”

Mack also points to her creative side. “Art was always my favorite thing growing up,” she says. “I was always very interested in visual things, and I think that’s where it comes from -- wanting to create an environment that is really pleasing to the eye. To me, it’s my home. I want it to be a place that I love.”

And maybe, after all, it’s just as simple as that.

Robin Greene Hagey is a Los Angeles area freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].