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spousal decor wars

princesss|1308106868|2946240 said:
Circe|1308105377|2946216 said:
Selkie|1308100593|2946129 said:
"My idea of nice decor is if a dragon had a bordello."
Ha! Love it. I'm picturing lots of red and black drapey things and ornate furnishings.

Houzz.com is great! Tons of ideas and photos that you can filter by style.

Yep. And gilt. Lots of gilt. Gilt, everywhere. It's like my genetic code is aware that, as a Jew, I should have lots of the homophone, but suffers dyslexia.

When I was poor and in grad school, I went through a phase of buying the cheapest possible furniture at flea markets, dragging it home, and painting it gold. It looked surprisingly respectable that way, but friends were afraid I'd gild the cat.

(I maintain she would have liked it - like a little statuette of Bast!)

Even more surprisingly, my husband discourages me from this habit. Pourquoi?

Circe. I choked on my tea reading this post. I feel like I need to print it out and save it somewhere for the days when things are really bad, because between your dyslexic Jewish gilt, the dragon bordello, and the cat....oh, the cat....I honestly don't think I could stay in a bad mood.

Yeah, but the cat might have ....

... and, thank you! :mrgreen:
 
sillyberry|1308100569|2946128 said:
Circe|1308097520|2946090 said:
::snip:: My husband's idea of nice decor is Ikea.

My idea of nice decor is if a dragon had a bordello. ::snip::
SNORT. Maybe I don't have it so bad?

heraanderson, I just looked up some definitions, and think I'm transitional. (also - wow I don't know anything about design) My preferences are fairly neutral, although right now I'm obsessed with having upholstered chairs in colorful patterns to offset that. DH would like a very masculine decor, lots of dark heavy wood and leather. With maps and images of the compass rose inlaid into tables.

:rolleyes:

Mancave?

Heh, your husband and I (and my husband) would actually get along well, decor wise. We have nautical themed crap everywhere, and mission style oak furniture. I actually had a compass rose on my wedding invites (the wedding was on a boat).
 
We have a deal, I get the first two levels, he gets the basement - we do as we wish to each, we love it.
We both have contemporary taste, so it's not too hard to find a middle ground. I like to add a little classic MCM to the mix and a few select antique items so it's not sterile and impersonal.
I love some of the finds on 1stdibs...my favourite haunt along with VandM.
But he's still a guys guy and I cringe at what he picks up sometimes, so he's happy to keep it in the man cave below with all his tech gear and big screens.
Sometimes he doesn't like my choices either, I just had some paintings framed and he hates the frames, he likes the paintings though, just as well!
I also just found some great original late 1800's photographs of diamond mines, and old drawings of diamond cuts, they are really unique, I can't wait to get them and frame them :appl:
 
Selkie|1308114920|2946356 said:
sillyberry|1308100569|2946128 said:
Circe|1308097520|2946090 said:
::snip:: My husband's idea of nice decor is Ikea.

My idea of nice decor is if a dragon had a bordello. ::snip::
SNORT. Maybe I don't have it so bad?

heraanderson, I just looked up some definitions, and think I'm transitional. (also - wow I don't know anything about design) My preferences are fairly neutral, although right now I'm obsessed with having upholstered chairs in colorful patterns to offset that. DH would like a very masculine decor, lots of dark heavy wood and leather. With maps and images of the compass rose inlaid into tables.

:rolleyes:

Mancave?

Heh, your husband and I (and my husband) would actually get along well, decor wise. We have nautical themed crap everywhere, and mission style oak furniture. I actually had a compass rose on my wedding invites (the wedding was on a boat).
Do you want him? He's super cute, and pretty handy. Smart, too.

The thing that is strange is that DH IS NOT NAUTICAL. He does not sail. He does not boat. Everytime I mention that I want to go sailing I get shot down! He does not do anything related to the sea nor have any background that would make his desire for this stuff logical. But I'm saying, it could make a very nicely decorated mancave. Just not in our living room. :lol:

(ps - I'm sure you make it all work in your house beautifully!)
 
You girls are funny! Got a good laugh reading all your experience & wisdom.

Oh, leather! DH, as a young bachelor, bought a gigantic tufted leather wing chair. This critter is brownish-yellow & too uncomfortable to sit in. Even 30 yrs later he's proud as punch of it, I have no idea why. Luckily I've always been able to find a far corner for it. But I want to move to a smaller house -- tired of not-cleaning this barn. I think he'd rather part with me than that chair, not sure how we'll work that out.

Haven, your husband is right about good furniture. When we were 1st married & lived in Amsterdam, we went often to England & bought antiques. My mother constantly moaned that we should not spend money on furniture, should put it in savings for our future. I said, "Why? So we can live with crap till we're old & still not be able to afford antiques because the prices have gone up so much?" We really didn't buy anything outrageously expensive anyhow -- and have had stuff we love. Years later she admitted we were right. If you decide to change decor, you can sell good quality things for more.

Anybody want a huge yellow leather chair????
 
Ah, the old spousal decorating wars. It's like coming home...

DH is an architect. He went to art school. Design is his passion and interior design a particular interest. This doesn't mean he's awesome at it, it just means he can tell me when I've got it wrong. He doesn't like many things, and neither do I. We're on the obsessive side of picky. I look at 99.9% of decor items/ websites / magazines and think "bleurgh." He does that too, but only very rarely is the one in a million thing we like a thing that's liked in common. He doesn't do compromise terribly well (something he probably learned from me...)

My solution is if it's something I really love and can't live without, I buy it at the dead of night and sneak it in (you haven't lived until you've tried to sneak a roll-top bath, antique washbasin and WC into a house using a team of 6 workmen). Usually though, we can find something we both like - that often means it isn't the item either of us absolutely love, but we do both think it's great.

One final thing - I do listen to him, because he knows what he's talking about. Sometimes I'm drawn to something he hates, and if I can get him to articulate why he hates it, I'll see that too (and I may have spotted it in my own time anyway, when it was too late).
 
Sillyberry, I like the idea of an upholstered sofa with a leather club or wing chair. That way, your DH gets his leather, but in small doses. I actually saw a couple of beautiful leather chairs at the Restoration Hardware outlet store recently (still $$$$$ though). Personally, I'm a sucker for deep, comfy leather club chairs and have informed DH I will have one someday. He is fine with that, as long as he gets his fancy Japanese toilet that does everything from open when it "sees" you walk into the room to blow-drying your nether regions. He had one in his hotel when he was traveling in Japan a couple years ago, and hasn't stopped talking about that toilet since.

Otherwise, we haven't really done any furnishing together yet, we are still making do with the stuff we had before we met. I think we'll be okay when we do, as DH doesn't have particularly strong opinions. He usually likes clean lines, but will sometimes fall in love with bizarrely fussy pieces that seem completely out of character for him. Usually that means they also cost a month's salary. But for the most part, I know what he can live with and choose things I like that fit those parameters. He then expresses how much he likes them in a semi-surprised tone (see, e.g., china pattern). It will be interesting to see what happens when we start to replace our old stuff, though!
 
I know someone already recommended Young House Love (http://www.younghouselove.com). When you go there, do a search for "house crashing" and you'll find pages of posts about other people's homes. GREAT inspiration to be found there!
 
This thread has had me LOLing several times now. I love it.

For the most part, D and I agree about style. I like all things old, rustic and lived in. I also hate neutral tones, which is weird. Oddly, he's the same.

But D loves all things "comical". Is comical a style?

A few years ago I came home and D had nailed a sign above the toilet that said "Welcome aboard!" He loved this sign with a passion that made me envious and wouldn't allow me to take it down. He buys cookie jars that talk. Just a couple of weeks ago, he bought a bunch of movie posters from REALLY AWFUL '70's movies and FRAMED THEM because he thought they were funny. And he hung them up in our FORMAL living room! WTF???
 
Oh I feel your pain. DH and I have totally different taste in how to decorate our home. I love bright colours, he loves white. The only thing that we seem to have common ground about is furniture that costs a fortune but we can't afford a huge amount of it. What we've done is that we did all the walls in the house a cream colour but he's given in on some of the furniture and I have some lovely bright furniture. In one way I wish he wasn't fussy at all about this stuff but he's an architect and into design so he's more fussy than me.
 
Decorating...
Yuck.

The hours and hours spent looking at, sitting in, looking at, sitting on, talking about, measuring, rubbing, touching, running feet under, sitting in......

We both have very strong opinions that as we replace or buy stuff (started with this miserable mix of hand-me-down and cheapest you could buy) that we want it to be something we like and will want to keep for years. "Like" depends on which of us you ask :rolleyes:

Shopping is done together. Research before shopping is generally done on computers and we e-mail each other links of our favorite stuff. After the research, we go out looking. Looking involves going to every store we can manage between Auburn and Lynwood and everywhere in between. At each store we do B's quick walk through which consists of running through the store past every.last.piece they have (including stuff we aren't actually looking for) as fast as we can possibly manage (okay... so we're technically walking but can cover a 2-story furniture store in under 10 minutes :knockout: ) and then we go back through again slower past every.last.piece they have of whatever we are looking for (like "couch"). ANY piece that either of us likes is usually hated by the other but we still stop and look carefully. After doing this with any possible option, we move on to the next store. Repeat until sick of the process and we're both tempted to just sit on the floor.
Usually at this point we call it a day then go home and research more. After we've recovered and finished the additional research comes the compare & close inspection. Any piece that either of us really liked and the other can even tollerate is re-visited in person for proper consideration.

ONLY when we BOTH agree that we BOTH really like the piece and that is THE ______ for us do we buy the item.


Our tastes:

He likes firm and supportive.
I like fluffy and cozy.
He likes clean lines.
I like curvy stuff (think almost Victorian).
He likes leather.
I hate leather.
He likes black modern furniture.
I hate black modern furniture.
I like lighter colors.
He hates lighter colors.
I like dark wood.
He prefers light wood or metal.
I like glass.
He reminds me of the cats.


Yeah... it is a PITA to do it this way, but with every thing we've bought (or paint color used, etc) this way we both absolutely LOVE it. These are the things that we're still enjoying several years later and neither of us have any regrets.

Do we sometimes just get tired and give in to something that is "okay" that the other loves? YES!
But those are the purchases (and paint colors!) that we regret. Even the one or other of us whol loved it initially usually comes to not like it as well because it just doesn't quite fit with the rest.
 
NewEnglandLady|1308154960|2946637 said:
This thread has had me LOLing several times now. I love it.

For the most part, D and I agree about style. I like all things old, rustic and lived in. I also hate neutral tones, which is weird. Oddly, he's the same.

But D loves all things "comical". Is comical a style?

A few years ago I came home and D had nailed a sign above the toilet that said "Welcome aboard!" He loved this sign with a passion that made me envious and wouldn't allow me to take it down. He buys cookie jars that talk. Just a couple of weeks ago, he bought a bunch of movie posters from REALLY AWFUL '70's movies and FRAMED THEM because he thought they were funny. And he hung them up in our FORMAL living room! WTF???

Yeah, because nothing says 'antique house' better than '70s movie posters! :rolleyes: :bigsmile:
 
Luckily my husband and I aren't too far apart in our tastes, although I am a bit more modern than he is when it comes to furniture. He likes to tell me that everything we own would be made out of glass and metal if I had my way. :cheeky: I actually like a mix of materials and textures (wood, glass, metal, marble) in a room and hate matchy matchy stuff.

We have the same taste in art, which is important because he was an art major and already had a ton of great art (framed originals and prints, sculptures, etc.) and I like the vast majority of it. He is a bit of an art hoarder, though, and seems to think every piece he owns should go on the wall, so we do have to duke it out about that occasionally.

When we need something I usually obsess about what I want, show it to him, and he agrees. It's very rare that he hates something I pick, but if he does, I'll usually accept his veto.
 
Haven|1308182818|2947043 said:
Haven|1308154186|2946621 said:
I know someone already recommended Young House Love (http://www.younghouselove.com). When you go there, do a search for "house crashing" and you'll find pages of posts about other people's homes. GREAT inspiration to be found there!
They have a whole page dedicated to their house crashing adventures, no searching necessary!
http://www.younghouselove.com/photo-gallery-2/lets-go-house-crashing/
I know how I'm entertaining myself this evening...

Thank you NovemberBride and Haven!!!
 
My husband and I have pretty similar tastes and like the same styles, so we usually agree on most things. Although over the years, there have been a few issues! We'd been spending a lot of time looking for furniture for a home office and just couldn't seem to find anything we liked. He went out one day and bought some furniture out of desperation, and I won't lie, that stuff is ugly! :nono: But I've gotten used to it. Nobody really goes in there anyway, thank goodness.

In general, we're usually on the same page. One of us will give in if the other really loves something.
 
We struggled at first, mainly because he took it so personally that I wanted to get rid of "everything" that he brought into the marriage. Can you tell by the quotations that I didn't actually want to get rid of everything? Only the things that were hand-me-downs from his grandparents or bought in college and made of particle board! And just to be clear, I'm not talking about fine furniture that's been in the family for many generations. I'm talking about a coffee table bought in the eighties and given to him in college because his grandparents bought new furniture and this one had been sitting in the garage. Things that he had actually picked out and bought as an adult were quite lovely - the bar he brought back from Japan, the TV stand... okay, the couches are not my favorite, but some new pillows and a rug helped that situation!

All the new furniture that we've bought together has been mutually agreed upon. It's kind of funny because at first we thought it would be hopeless - our shopping experiences consisted of ugly faces and "you're kidding, right?" for the most part. But then there would be one item that we both said, "I like that!" and then, "Really? You do too?" and relief! That's how we picked our bedroom furniture and our dining room table. After that, my husband started trusting me and has left everything else up to me. I picked out the china cabinet and all the accessories and lighting, etc.

There's a few things that you can get away with using the "middle of the night" method: I rearranged our bedroom while he was away for a weekend, and even though he insisted his way had been better, he let me keep it my way (which was definitely better).
 
12 years we've been together and we still bicker over furniture and decorating.

Here's our 'compromise'... if the item is one that you sit on or lay on (etc.) he gets a say and I have to make sure the item is one he considers 'comfortable.' So our couches, our chairs, recliners, bed. And I have agreed to stay away from anything too feminine.

He gets veto on colors as well. Though I do wear him down with "trust me, you'll love it" when it comes to colors. My bedroom is currently teal, grey, white and black. He HATED the idea of teal, vetoed it every time I suggested it. I started with a throw pillow and a couple of small decorative vases Neatfreak had given me. I put all the other colors in the room (gray black and white), and just accented with the ONE pillow and the three vases. He saw that it looked nice... and now we have a teal wall he painted behind the bed.

He's currently against purple in the living room, and I'm biding me time till I can get a couple of 'innocuous' and inexpensive purple items.

Sometimes I do 'surprise him' with things. But it's usually end tables, decorative items (wall hangings, mirrors, pillows, vases, candelabra). And if he hates it, I do take it back usually.

I also get his opinion (just for veto) if it's a big ticket item.

Trust me, our house would look NOTHING like it does it I left decorating up to his tastes. But he recognizes that the actual decor (colors, accents) mean a lot to me, and I recognize that comfort is important to him. And it's important to him that the spaces look like a man lives there. So we rub along with some occasional bickering. There are other preferences we each have, and we both try to keep those in mind... for example he prefers real wood furniture and hates IKEA stuff and I don't care for anything slip covered.


My advice is this... find out what is important to each of you and try to respect each others opinions. If there is no overlap (he doesn't complain about the style, and I don't complain about the comfort) then do what you can to make sure that each of you can live whatever it is you chose.
 
In general my husband and I are not as far apart as some of you (ahem Circe).
I'm more towards minimal, he is more towards clutter/wabi sabi.
For a long time we didn't really have to deal with this problem because we didn't decorate pe se, we kind of lived like college students, using hand me down or cheap or found objects, also decorated somewhat whimsically with "found" objects (statuary or odd toys, signs, funny thrift store paintings). I think my husband in a way would be content to stay in this fashion, while I have been incrementally trying to have a more "grown up" house (get rid of the board and cinderblock bookshelves, maybe not have every single one of his grandmother's naive paintings on the wall, just his favorite 6, replace wooden box with actual end table, etc). Ironically while he is quite happy with using whatever is at hand at furniture, he is extremely picky buying anything new. He wanted to not buy anything with particle board or prefab, though the children's room truly does not need lifetime-level furniture in it.

Basically he is willing to give up user-friendly if it has some esthetic dimension to it he appreciates, while I'm more about, who is going to clean this, is this maintenance friendly? For example when we were remodeling for the bathroom I wanted a solid surface, while he was up for constructing his own countertop, such as out of bamboo, reclaimed wood, or even poured concrete with inset pebbles.

But overall we can live together. A lot of time I like the things he brings home, just feel it needs a little editing.
 
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