Design maven Debbie Travis followed her dreams all the way to Tuscany By: Wendy King Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2018 (2468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’ve ever done a fancy “treatment” finish on your walls, you almost certainly have Debbie Travis to thank for that.

You can also thank her if, when re-decorating later, you had to scrape it off.

Travis was one of the pioneers of do-it-yourself-decor TV, with a “be bold about it” ethos that helped intrepid homeowners overcome their fear of slapping a little paint on the wall.

Travis expanded her skill set to become an author, columnist, public speaker and the centre of a small business empire. She’s done many TV shows, the latest of which was a six-part documentary, La Dolce Debbie, detailing how she transformed a 13th-century Tuscan farmhouse into a hotel and retreat.

That brings us to her latest book: Design Your Next Chapter: How to Realize Your Dreams and Reinvent Your Life (Random House Canada, $32), and her upcoming visit to McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location tonight at 7 p.m.

Her Tuscan retreat has been up and running for a few years, focused on helping women in particular, discover a new chapter in their lives, whether they are seeking a need for change or because change has been thrust upon them. Travis has gathered some of their stories, analyzed her own, and produced — in her direct, plainspoken style — a practical handbook for anyone who wants to, or must, take those next steps.

Travis spoke with the Winnipeg Free Press from Toronto, where she was getting ready to head west to talk about her book.

Winnipeg Free Press: What was the dream you were you chasing and how did you come to define it?

Debbie Travis: I think everyone has a dream somewhere inside their head, a little seed of an idea that we keep private. I had a dream which was that one day I would buy a little place in Italy.

I was getting this sense of déjà vu at work, and then something happened to me. I was doing a speech in Vancouver and the interviewer at the end of the seminar asked me: What’s next for Debbie Travis?

I blurted out that I’m going to be taking people from across the country to stay at my villa in Tuscany where we’ll do yoga in the garden, walk through the vineyards and have lunch in the lavender fields. When I finished speaking you could hear a pin drop, and then suddenly there was this intake of breath that only women can do, and these arms shot up and people were like: Take me! Take me!

Well, I didn’t have a house in Italy at all, I just made it up! I did have a dream and so I went there and I rented a house. That was in 2009 and we did one retreat a year. In the meantime I found the dream property and spent five years renovating it and in 2015, we opened.

WFP: What things might be a signal for a life change?

DT: One signal is when you have this sense of déjà vu — that’s what happened to me. I’ve been in the television industry for 25 years and there was just this feeling when I sat in meetings that I’d heard it all before. It’s a feeling that nothing is new, nothing is exciting. Some empty-nesters find this dark hole inside them. Their purpose has just flown the nest and they need to fill that gap. Some just have a sense of boredom and they just want to do something different that makes them smile. Maybe you’ve recovered from an illness or a divorce. These are a few.

WFP: Your Tuscany guests come to the retreat wanting to change their lives. What is your favourite turnaround story?

DT: I have quite a few, and I love them all because they’re not all about starting something massive. One was this woman I heard on the radio. She was in London, so I went to see her. She was divorced at 60, on her own, and fed up with walking through department stores and being sold moisturizers by a 19-year-olds telling her that she was going to look like her. She started putting her make up on YouTube and starting with one other woman in the world watching her. By the end of the month she had 10,000 and then 30,000. She developed her own makeup line for women who are little bit older. She did it all herself. I asked her out for lunch and she said: ‘Well I’m going to Los Angeles because I’m putting the product into the gift bags for the Oscars!’

She taught herself how to build a website and do all the stuff that she needed to and planned to limit her investment to what she could afford to lose without risking becoming destitute.

WFP: How should readers approach the book to get the most out of it?

DT: A lot of people are really intimidated about writing in a book or bending over the corners of pages, so right at the very beginning I say, really use this book.

It’s divided into three sections: Dream It, which is how to find your passion; Do It, which is how to make that leap from the dream in to actually doing it and Living It, which is the consequences. In the centre part of the book there are loads of questions to answer, and graphics to tick off, and sections where you can write and scribble in, then put it away to see how you feel in a month.

WFP: Would you share your thoughts about the brightly coloured design of the book itself?

DT: I had to fight for the bright colours in the book because every colour costs more money. But I wanted the stories of other people to really stand out separately because they are the inspiration, so I put them in bright turquoise blocks. I had just got back from India — and I love India — where you’ve got these bright pinks and bright yellows, and every rule of colour breaks there — I just did it to make people smile and feel warm. It’s your book and you’ve invested in yourself so I wanted it to be friendly and there’s nothing friendlier than fluorescent pink.

WFP: Where are you at now? Are you more settled or still in flux?

DT: I’m settled in the way that I am loving my next chapter. Towards the end of the book is the Live It section where you really have to live with the consequences. And the worst consequence is that everything is a failure and you go back with your tail between your legs and you have a good cry. But I’ve never met anybody who said they never should have done it.

WFP: What can we expect at McNally?

DT: When people come, you can literally see the wheels turning, so it’s very important for me to do a Q&A, because I think everybody’s story helps somebody else. There will be people there saying: Well I did that. Can you talk to me after? I’ll tell you what it’s like. These are the lessons I learned when I gave up my day job.

I’m a big believer in conversation and it’s always great to watch because people stare at you with big eyes and it just takes one person to break it and then it’s a mosh pit of chat! And I love coming out there — people are so friendly and so warm.

Twitter: @WendyKinginWpg