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| Nigel and Adrienne’s meditation room is separated from the master bedroom by a 18th-century Asian door bearing the symbol for wealth and prosperity. At the far end of the room, a floor-to-ceiling door leads out to what eventually will be a meditation garden with a fountain. |
MOOD ROOM
“No more Starbucks.”
That’s how Nigel Chalkley puts it when he describes his rejection of the high-adrenaline, caffeine-fueled, stress-addicted Dallas life. “The idea of fueling up just to make it through the day is madness,” Nigel says. “If I had the time, I’d create the tea-room version of Starbucks, a place where people would gather to slow down.” In the meantime, he and his wife Adrienne Faulkner created their own private rooms for decompression when they remodeled their North Dallas bungalow last year, a remodel that was as much about their souls as it was about furniture placement and design.
Between them, the newly married couple runs four different businesses—in addition to parenting a combined family of three young sons. To literally make room for their spiritual lives, they created a 10-by-6-foot meditation room off the master bedroom, a space filled with cushions and talismans and natural light. They practice what might be called disorganized religion. Adrienne uses the room for power yoga. The two play with medicine cards, runes, and musical instruments. Buddha is there. So is Christ. “This space offers us a place to stop the world,” Adrienne says. “You can feel a change of energy when you enter the room. There is a calmness.”
Their bath is also a decompression zone. Adrienne, who is as high-adrenaline as Nigel is relaxed, says, “My counselor used to say, ‘Adrienne, have you taken a bath this week?’ Now we hang out in the bath, and if we have the luxury of a few hours, we light candles and play music.” The master bath has a wall of windows so they can be in touch with their spacious backyard and monitor the owl who has made a home near the pool. Flowing from the bath is a back porch situated to take full advantage of beautiful sunsets.
Nigel, a life planner and certified clinical hypnotherapist, works with people who are overcome by their fears and obsessions and who look everywhere for cures and answers. “It always amazes me that most people don’t even give themselves 15 minutes of quiet time a day,” he says. “When they do, they tap into an inner strength that’s always been there, quietly waiting.”
The back porch has shades to block the sun and fans to cool the space. Adrienne, Nigel, and baby Noah try to spend time here at the end of each day “to reflect, let go, forgive, and relax.”
