In regards to taste...

So, there's something I've been curious about for a while now. Whenever I'm reading home improvement blogs written by couples/a married person/anyone who is living with their significant other, they always refer to "our taste". It's a consistent thing. I understand, to some degree, that whomever is writing the blog post says "our taste" instead of "my taste" so as to include their spouse or significant other, and to reflect that the house is a team effort. And I also understand that as you work on a house together, the house eventually ends up feeling like a blended effort of "you"-"you" being your essence as a couple. However, it usually seems as though both parts of every couple in all of these blogs has a relatively similar style preference. So, I guess my question is: how in the hell is this possible?



Jeff and I have totally opposite taste in EVERYTHING regarding interior design. I always knew that our styles weren't exactly the same...I tend to lean towards clean, breezy, feminine styles while he tends to like super modern decor...but during the process of actually buying a house and trying to put actual thought and purpose into our decor, we've realized that our taste isn't just not the same, it's almost literally opposite. He likes things that are either SUPER MODERN (to the point of looking stark and industrial-think of Ikea's most European looking stuff) or REALLY REALLY old, like to the point of falling apart and weighing 8 million pounds with scrolls and heavy wood coming out your eyeballs. I lean more towards contemporary or vintage. He HATES gold. I generally don't like silver. He hates white. I love a nice clean, crisp white...well, just about anything. He tends to choose things that are simple and even builder-grade type stuff. I like to add trendy elements into a room here and there. He thinks a lot of the more vintage-y looking stuff that I like is tacky.



I don't know if people just don't talk about disagreeing with their partners' design choices, or if the couples in the blogs I read (and real-life couples that we know) just happen to be really well-matched style-wise, but this has been a lot more difficult than I predicted. Jeff's been really easy-going about everything, decor-wise-he generally gives me final say in pretty much everything (unless he ABSOLUTELY HATES it, or there's something that he TOTALLY MUST HAVE), as he always says that he "doesn't care nearly as much as I do", but I don't want to steam-roll him into having a house with decor that he hates (I can be a tad bossy). And of course, I want the house to reflect BOTH of us. I want this to feel like OUR home. I don't want to be one of those Stepford wives who has her house decorated like the inside of a greenhouse. I keep getting Jeff's opinion on everything that's going in the house before I buy it, but he usually just says something to the effect of "yeah, it's okay".



I suppose that it's possible that a couple's collaborative style naturally develops over time. And of course, Jeff isn't as into design as I am, and he has basically no experience in decorating a house (nor do I), so I'm sure he'll develop more of a style/opinion as we go. I'm definitely lucky that he's being agreeable instead of arguing with me over everything. I'm also lucky that he's clearly actively trying to have an opinion instead of just saying "I don't care". We've agreed that the office is going to be his room, and he said that he's going to choose a few options out of everything he puts in it, and let me choose my favorites out of his options. I'm curious to see how the room progresses. One thing that we have agreed on is that we want to have a globe bar cart in our dining room...like this one:

So anyway, I'll definitely keep you updated on the progression of "our style". It should be an interesting ride.



Tomorrow, two-week progress report.