The House Whisperer

On another project Irving spent time with a man who owned a converted carriage house and was agonizing over whether to renovate it. "By the end of the discussion it was clear to me that this building could never be what he wanted it to be, so I gently [asked] … whether he'd ever thought of finding a better house," Irving says. "It was like the weight of the world came off his shoulders."

Dwight Schultheis and his wife Lauren have utilized Irving's services on two different homes. The first was a loft the couple was renting. They were thinking about buying and renovating it. Walking through the home, Irving rattled off a long list of ideas to make the renovations cost less than they had expected. "It was one of the best information downloads of my life," Schultheis says. Instead of buying the loft the couple purchased an 1846 brownstone in Boston's South End, on which they planned to do a $200,000 renovation. Irving pointed them toward an architect and an interior designer, and spent several hours making recommendations. Among other pieces of advice, he suggested they not expose a brick wall to preserve the home's history—which would also save thousands of dollars in labor. He advised against building a walk-in closet, showing them how Ikea cabinetry could serve the same purpose without disrupting the heating system. Total charges for this consultation: $900. "He probably cut $80,000 worth of work out of [the job], and opened our eyes to a lot of stuff that was totally unnecessary," Schultheis says. "I don't know where else I would have gotten that kind of help."

On the surface this might seem like a difficult time to launch a renovation-focused business. Thanks to the housing downturn, Americans' spending on home renovations will fall this year. But even as home prices have fallen, there are still plenty of longer-term homeowners sitting on large dollops of equity—and in Massachusetts, a state with very old homes, there are still plenty of people wanting to update their houses no matter which direction the housing market is headed. Irving says he hopes to turn his consulting practice into a full-time business that can support his family, but he's not there yet. To supplement his income as the business grows, he still takes on occasional television jobs and writes for shelter magazines.

Irving admits missing the camaraderie of the gang on "This Old House." But after 17 years he was ready for a change, and he's enjoying the new gig he's constructing. "I find myself giddy when I'm fully engaged in this kind of work," he says. "It's so satisfying when you see the fear melt out of homeowners' faces, the kind of relief that comes across them." For anyone who has experienced the stress and anxiety of living through a large-scale renovation, that's a compelling proposition.

Daniel McGinn is a national correspondent at NEWSWEEK and the author of "House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes," published this month by Currency/Doubleday. For more information, click here .

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